In the world’s first event of its kind, a 13-year-old ‘beats’ Tetris ‘I can’t feel my fingers’. Tetris, one of the most popular and recognizable games of all time, has finally been “defeated.” The one who did it over 30 years after the game was released? Willis Gibson, a 13-year-old kid from Oklahoma.
Gibson uploaded a video of his accomplishment to YouTube, and it’s a sight to behold. He is visibly excited and surprised. “Oh my God,” he shouts, before saying: “I can’t feel my fingers.”
As you can see in the video, Willis reaches level 157 (the video calls it level 18, though). At this point, the game freezes. Willis reaches the “kill screen,” the point where Tetris can’t be played anymore because it wasn’t designed to reach that level. Technically, Tetris cannot be defeated because it can theoretically go on forever. But Willis is believed to have set a world record.
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No human has ever gotten this far in Tetris before, Tetris expert Vince Clemente told the New York Times. Clemente said Willis did what he thought was impossible. People have used artificial intelligence to test the limits of Tetris and have gone further, but Willis stands alone in his achievement as a Tetris human.
- His mother bought him a RetroN and a CRT TV, and Willis plays about 20 hours of Tetris a week.
- Willis is also a professional Tetris competitor and is one of the most accomplished players in the United States. He finished third in the Tetris Classic World Championship in October 2023, and is gearing up for another event in Waco, Texas later this month. Willis has earned about $3,000 competing in Tetris tournaments so far.
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Tetris was created by Alexei Pajitnov in 1985. Henk Rogers worked with Pajitnov to help promote and spread the game to a wider audience, and they succeeded tremendously. Tetris is the best-selling video game of all time and has been ported to almost every platform under the sun.
A movie called Tetris will be released in 2023 starring Taron Egerton-Krugers and Nikita Yefremov Kapajitnov.
