Teen says he's the first person to beat popular 80s game in memory of his father

03 January 2024 , 21:42

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Teen says he's the first person to beat popular 80s game in memory of his father

As a tribute to his late father, a 13-year-old content creator claims to be the first person to beat the original Tetris in a video on YouTube, meaning he's dethroned world champions and the only other entity that has crashed the game—an AI bot.

Willis Gibson, calling himself Blue Scuti on social media, uploaded a video this week in which he appears to spend about 38 minutes staring intensely at his screen while he quickly sorts the descending blocks. Willis barely says a word throughout the video, but lets out several gasps when he reaches the "kill screen" at level 157, saying "I think I'm going to pass out."

The accomplishment came after Willis' father, Adam Gibson, died in December, which the gamer says is what galvanised him to sit through more than 100 levels until he completed his goal.

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Willis is a world-class Tetris prodigy who's garnered thousands from competitions (Blue Scuti /Youtube)

The gamer spends the last few minutes sitting in awe at his accomplishment. He fidgets and continues to hyperventilate as the screen bears his progress: a high score of 9,999,99 which is greater than 2022 Classic Tetris World Champion Eric Tolt's score of 6 million. Willis also crushed world records in levels achieved and total number of lines.

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Willis uses a novel method of gripping and maneuvering the NES controller known as "rolling," which gained popularity in 2021. The fastest and most effective technique to play Tetris is to roll instead of "hyper tap," which calls for players to touch the D-pad of the controller 12 times per second. By rolling their fingers down the bottom of the NES controller, players apply pressure, which forces the controller into their other hand and pushes the D-pad to move the blocks.

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A controller technique known as "rolling" was used during Willis' play through (Blue Scuti /Youtube)

The D-pad can be pushed at least 20 times per second when rolling, which is fast enough to allow players to play the game until it breaks. Over the past few years, the method has totally transformed competitive Tetris. “With rolling players could theoretically play forever or as long as the game can handle it,” the Classic Tetris YouTube channel explained in a video of Willis reaching the kill screen.

It took Willis Gibson, 13, 157 levels to crash the game (Blue Scuti /Youtube)

In October, Willis placed third overall in the Classic Tetris World Championship, which he hopes to win after having already won several regional competitions. The end of the month will see Willis's next competition in Waco, Texas. He has earned roughly $3,000(£2,368) by competing in Tetris competitions thus far.

Officials of the competitive Tetris world, including Vince Clemente, the president of the Classic Tetris World Championship, are shocked that Willis was able to do it, saying it has only ever been done by AI. “It’s never been done by a human before,” he said. “It’s basically something that everyone thought was impossible until a couple of years ago.”

Mataeo Smith