Teenager may be first human ever to beat Nintendo’s Tetris

Gamers have previously ‘beat’ Tetris but only by hacking into game’s software

A thirteen-year-old boy from Oklahoma could be the first ever human to beat Nintendo’s Tetris, reaching the classic video game’s “kill screen” – a feat that was previously only achieved by artificial intelligence.

Willis Gibson passed so many levels of Tetris that the game’s code couldn’t keep up and it crashed, with his score finally reading “999999”.

The boy, who goes by the handle “Blue Scuti” on YouTube, uploaded a video on Tuesday of his triumphant game played on 21 December.

“Oh my god!” the 13-year-old repeated in a high pitch as the game’s screen froze.

He then slumped over his chair exclaiming “I’m going to pass out....I can’t feel my fingers. I can’t feel my hand”.

Willis is the first person to complete so many levels of the Nintendo puzzle game’s original version that the game froze – a feat previously credited only to AI.

“When I started playing this game I never expected to ever crash the game, or beat it,” he said.

“My biggest struggle was when the nerves started kicking in after 30 minutes of play,” the teenager told a Twitch streamer, who goes by the handle ITZsharky1.

The celebrated video game, invented by engineer Alexey Pajitnov and released on Nintendo in 1989, features an array of bricks of different shapes floating down on the player’s screen.

The objective is to prevent the bricks from piling up and occupying the whole screen, requiring players to rotate and position the blocks to form solid lines.

With each passing level the bricks’ speeds keep increasing, making it more difficult for players to rotate and position them to will.

While theoretically the game could go on forever, for years its “max-out” limit was thought to be Level 29 – a stage when the blocks fall so quickly that it seemed impossible for human players to keep up.

Before Willis’s achievement, reaching level 157 of Tetris, only AI could reach the true “kill screen” when the game froze as its software programme couldn’t keep up.

Nintendo of America said it had “nothing to announce on this topic”, according to NBC.

One record-breaking AI bot reached level 237 about two years ago.

Gamers have previously “beat” Tetris, but have done so by hacking into game’s software.

One such method commonly used by gamers to hack the system was the “rolling technique”, involving quick tapping using several fingers.

But Willis is thought to be the first to beat the game on the original hardware.

“It’s never been done by a human before,” Vince Clemente, president of the Classic Tetris World Championship, told the New York Times.

“It’s basically something that everyone thought was impossible until a couple of years ago,” he added.