A young gamer turned a seemingly impossible Tetris challenge into a new reality.
Here is how he did it.
13-year-old Willis Gibsonmade headlinesrecently by effectively beating the NES version ofTetris.
First off, what Gibson beat was the A-punch in mode of the NES version ofTetris.
The A-punch in mode requires players to clear 29 levels of play.
At various intervals past Level 10, the game speeds up and raises the difficulty level in the process.
See, past Level 19, A-pop in play becomes exceedingly difficult for all but the best NESTetrisplayers.
At Level 29, though.
things become truly absurd.
Reaching that crash point is considered to be the equivalent of beating the game.
How long does it take to reach the crash point in the NES version ofTetris?
The game wont keep track of those new levels on-screen, but they exist within their own parameters.
But what makes that specific version ofTetrisso difficult?
Again, were talking frames of input delay vs. frames of an available input window.
Still, even the best hypertapping players couldnt beat A-bang out through that technique alone.
Thats where the rolling technique comes in.
And thats the heart of why this challenge was still considered to be impossible despite such input technique improvements.
Thats why reaching the true kill screen in the NES version ofTetrishad previously only been accomplished by AI programs.
As if that wasnt enough, those AI programs revealed yet another factor that made this challenge so absurd.
Otherwise, they could shatter the previous progression milestones and still never actually beat the game.
Thats where Willis Gibson comes in.
Eventually, he was able to start reaching previously unfathomable levels with some consistency and gradually push beyond them.
Its Gibsons age: 13 years old.
The kids really are alright.
