The moment a 13-year-old teen completes Tetris for the first time in history

In the world of video games, Tetris is one of those titles that transcends the world of gaming and is known to most of the world. This puzzle game created by Alekséi Pázhitnov is the stuff of legends and became one of the most popular video games in history. And now, 34 years after its release on the Game Boy and NES, it is back in the news.

Willis “Blue Scuti” Gibson, a thirteen-year-old from Oklahoma, has become the first person to “beat” the NES version of Tetris, achieving the unlikely feat of reaching level 157, known to fans as the “final killscreen.” This came after Gibson played nonstop for more than 35 minutes, according to his YouTube video. Part of beating this challenging part of the game is thanks to a technique introduced in 2021 known as “rolling,” which according to IGN, “is accomplished by using the bottom of the controller,” and has led the Tetris community to set all-new world records. You can watch Gibson’s record below:

How is level 157 Tetris final Kilscreen?

One way to explain what happened is that when a player reaches a level where the game crashes, there is a kill screen where the game stops completely and no more pieces appear. Something that happens as the game progresses is that the colors become corrupted, getting darker and darker, nicknamed by the community as “Charcoal” and “Dusk.” At one point, players had determined that the game could crash at level 155, but Gibson was able to get past that initial point and continue for a few more minutes.

“When I started playing this game I never expected to ever crash the game, or beat it. This run was also the Overall Score, Level, Lines, and 19 Score world record,” wrote Gibson on his YouTube channel.