Genius Teen Gamer Becomes the First to "Beat" Tetris Without Crashing

"I never want to play this game again."

Fin-NES

Someone just "beat" the iconic video game "Tetris," and for the first time ever in its nearly 35-year history, got so far into the game that it reset the level counter back to zero.

The feat was pulled off by 16-year-old competitive gamer Michael "dogplayingtetris" Artiaga, who livestreamed his historic streak on Twitch last week.

As Ars Technica reports, it took Artiaga just over 80 minutes to get to and complete level 255, clearing a whopping 3,300 lines along the way.

In so doing, Artiaga was the first to achieve a legendary "rebirth," when the game — apparently pushed past its limits — restarted by going all the way back to the super-slow first level. In addition to bearing out a long-held piece of "Tetris" Lore, that gave Artiaga enough time to flip out about the fact that he just made history (while the game kept rolling).

"Oh my goodness. There's no way. There's actually no way," Artiaga said during the stream. For several minutes, he paced around his room, flopped on and off his bed, and laughed in disbelief.

"Oh my god, dude," he said. "I actually can't keep it together."

Crash-Outs

After the "rebirth," Artiaga rallied for a second go and made it to level 91.

Artiaga technically isn't the first to "beat" Tetris, but as far as anyone knows, he is the first to beat it in this absurdly impressive — and just as historic — manner.

The original honor goes to another teenager, Willis "Blue Scuti" Gibson, who beat "Tetris" earlier this year, but could 'only' get to level 157 because the game crashed.

That crash, however, was expected. The 1989 game's old code was never designed to sustain it past level 29, per Ars. Once you get to level 138 and beyond, you start to run into serious memory overflow errors. When Gibson reached level 157, mounting glitches forced the game to end on a "kill screen" — which for all intents and purposes, effectively meant beating it.

Born Again

For his run, Artiaga circumvented this by using a modified version of "NES Tetris" designed to not outright crash (and importantly, deemed OK in the competitive scene).

But it wasn't all smooth sailing. Some of the code was fundamentally still loopy, leading to a total nightmare of a round on level 235 that lasted for an astonishing 810 lines, according to Ars, which on its own took nearly twenty minutes to beat.

It was all worth it in the end. By achieving a "rebirth," it's fair to say that Artiaga will be immortalized in the annals of "Tetris" tryhards.

Yet, he's also opened the door for even more absurd records to be made in the future. Who will be the first to achieve a double rebirth, and beyond?

Well, it may not be Artiaga.

"I'm so glad that game is over, bro," he said during the stream. "I never want to play this game again."

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