Oklahoma 13-year-old believed to be first person ever to beat Tetris

Previously only bots and AI had got game to its ‘kill screen’ but Willis Gibson managed to get game to freeze with score 999999

A 13-year-old in Oklahoma is believed to be the first person ever to beat Tetris since the game’s release more than three decades ago.

Previously, only bots powered by artificial intelligence had forced the game, popularised by the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and Game Boy consoles, to the end of its “kill screen”, where its signature blocks are falling so fast that the game itself can’t continue.

In a video documenting his feat and posted on Tuesday, the Oklahoma teenager, known as Blue Scuti online and by his legal name, Willis Gibson, plays for roughly 38 minutes and reaches level 157 before saying, “Oh, I missed it,” believing that a misplaced block scuttled his attempt.

But he recovers, and as blocks zip downward, he says, “Please crash,” and completes another line of blocks, the mechanism for scoring points in Tetris. The game freezes, the de facto victory, and he says: “Oh my God! Yes! I’m going to pass out. I can’t feel my hands.” His score read “999999”.

Vince Clemente, the president of the Classic Tetris World Championship, told the New York Times: “It’s never been done by a human before. It’s basically something that everyone thought was impossible until a couple of years ago.” The game was first released in 1985. Willis plays on a cathode-ray tube television, practicing roughly 20 hours a week, according to the Times.

Willis dedicated his win to his late father, Adam, who died last month. According to 404 Media, Willis had become one of the country’s top competitive Tetris players since he started playing just two years ago, employing a newly popular technique of manipulating the NES controller known as “rolling”. He first saw the game on YouTube, where he posted the video of his triumph, he told the Times.