34-Year-Old Tetris Game Finally Conquered by Kid

How does one “beat” Tetris? Until now everyone assumed you don’t. The game has no end; it just keeps increasing in speed until it becomes impossible to keep up with. It’s true that a lot of older arcade games, which were designed to have no end, have one because the game will bug out if you play it long enough. But…Tetris? Naw, there’s no such thing as a “kill screen” for Tetris or we would’ve heard about it by now, right?

Turns out you CAN beat Tetris, or at least one version. The semifinals for the 2023 Tetris World Championship were held yesterday and the game used was the NES version (the one by Nintendo, not Tengen). It was believed that the game would crash if you could reach Level 155, but no human has ever made it that far. No human, that is, until the one who calls himself Blue Scuti. He got the kill screen during the tournament, and he’s only 13.

Don’t count on replicating this yourself. Entering inputs fast enough to keep pace at a level like 155 requires some weird tactics like “rolling,” or tapping the bottom of the NES controller to move faster than the buttons will allow. Being good enough to compete in the CTWC requires mastery of tricks like this.

You can watch the full game below, or just skip to minute 38 to see the magic moment, and Scuti wheezing for air afterward. Let me add it’s nice to see a 34-year-old game, on an even older console, still being appreciated by the youngest generation.