A 13-year-old boy became the first person to beat the classic game Tetris

On December 21, 2023, 13-year-old Willis Gibson crossed his arms over his head and leaned back in his chair while in his room in Stillwater, Oklahoma (USA), and could not believe what he had just accomplished. wall.

The screen in front of him stood still, as the Tetris score displayed the number '999999'.

'Oh my God!' Willis repeated it over and over again in the video he posted to YouTube on January 2. 'I can't feel anything on my fingertips anymore ,' he said.

Willis has just become the first person to beat the Nintendo version of Tetris , a record previously held only by artificial intelligence.

13-year-old boy Willis Gibson became famous after breaking the Tetris record. (Photo: NYT).

Designed by software engineer Alexey Pajitnov and first introduced to the Nintendo entertainment system in 1989, Tetris is a game of matching different shapes. The goal of this game is not to let the rows of squares overlap the entire screen. Players can rotate the blocks and arrange them quickly enough to create straight rows. This is one of the longest running games.

In theory, this game could last forever if the player is good enough. But for many years, the maximum limit was Level 29, when the blocks fell so fast that normal people didn't have enough time to manage them. However, over the past decade, a new generation of players wants to push that limit.

Willis can play up to Level 157, reaching a 'kill screen' , which is when the game becomes unplayable due to coding limitations.

Willis has been playing Tetris since 2021 under the nickname Blue Scuti. He said he liked this game because of its 'simplicity'.

'It's very easy to start but very difficult to play well ,' he said in an interview with the New York Times.

Over the past few decades, some gamers have 'beat' Tetris by hacking the game's software. But Willis is believed to be the first to actually do it on native hardware.

'Humans have never done that before. This was believed to be impossible until a few years ago ,' said Vince Clemente, president of the World Classic Tetris Championship.