13-year-old Willis Gibson has made video game history: The US-American was the first known person to succeed in forcing the classic game Tetris to freeze – a so-called “kill screen”.
The Tetris triumph lasted just over 38 minutes and is currently attracting a lot of media attention around the world. In level 157, 13-year-old Willis Gibson achieved what no one has ever done before: the graphics froze and the game reached its technical limit – a so-called “kill screen”. The teenager from Stillwater in the US state of Oklahoma has beaten Tetris.
He recorded his unique achievement for eternity via livestream. “Oh my God” is the only thing he is able to say in the first few moments after the end of the game. He seems to be gasping for air and can hardly believe it himself. He had already predicted it about 15 seconds earlier: “Please crash,” he says to Tetris. The video game actually does him this favor just a little later.
“When I started playing this game, I never expected to crash it,” Gibson writes under the YouTube video. According to his own statements, he has also set world records for overall scoring, levels and lines. Tetris has been considered unbeatable for almost 40 years since its first release in 1984, as the game itself has no defined end. Until 2011, level 29 was considered insurmountable.
From this level onwards, the bricks fall too quickly for the Nintendo controller to keep up. However, this can be achieved using the “rolling” technique – or drum method. The fingers of one hand are placed on the buttons while the fingers of the second hand drum on the gamepad from below. This presses the buttons against the resting fingers and generates inputs
Tetris CEO congratulated on “monumental achievement “
This is also how Gibson, known in the scene as “Blue Scuti”, overcame level 29 – and many more. From level 155, Tetris can be crashed under certain conditions. The 13-year-old missed this first “trigger point”. Two levels later, he caused the historic crash. So far, only the AI has been able to conquer the classic puzzle title in documented fashion.
In addition to countless media reports, Tetris CEO Maya Rogers has also commented on this unprecedented achievement. She congratulated Willis in an official statement and spoke of a “monumental achievement”. For Willis, this was accompanied by enormous mental and physical exertion. “I can’t feel my fingers anymore,” the teenager reported shortly after reaching the “kill screen”.