Teen Makes Tetris History By Looping Back To Beginning, Setting Record Score
History in the making.
By Syazwan Bahri — 09 Oct 2024, 04:32 PM
Michael "dogplayingtetris" Artiaga, a 16-year-old Tetris world champion, achieved a remarkable feat by becoming the first person to activate endless play in the NES version of Tetris without the aid of a machine
He accomplished this by completing level 255, causing the game to restart at level 0. This groundbreaking achievement significantly pushes the boundaries of theoretical high scores.
Artiaga's successful run lasted approximately 1 hour and 40 minutes, during which he cleared an impressive 3,300 lines. After celebrating his accomplishment, he continued playing for another 40 minutes, setting a new record score of 29.4 million points before his run ended at level 91.
Artiaga's accomplishment highlights years of research and innovation by Tetris enthusiasts
For over two decades, it was widely believed that clearing level 29 in the NES version of Tetris was impossible due to the limitations of the controller's directional pad. However, innovative button-pressing techniques eventually allowed players to surpass level 100, exposing flaws in the game's code that were not designed to handle gameplay beyond level 29.
Beyond level 138, visual glitches made it challenging to distinguish between blocks, and the game became increasingly prone to crashes after level 155. With the aid of AI tools, Willis "Blue Scuti" Gibson achieved a "killscreen" crash in January, becoming the first human to "beat" the game.
While Artiaga's run was impressive, it's worth noting that he used a modified version of the game that addressed crash issues
Even so, the NES Tetris codebase still presented challenges, as the levels progressively became longer and more difficult.
The NES version of Tetris becomes increasingly challenging as the levels progress. After level 219, the game's tracking system becomes inaccurate, leading to longer levels. This was evident in level 235, where Artiaga spent approximately 20 minutes clearing over 800 nearly invisible blocks.
