Transcript for:
History of NES Tetris World Records

[Music] Tetris we all know it and we all love it few games have had the lasting Legacy of Tetris there have been versions released on nearly every console and smartphone ever made and to this day these new versions remained popular among fans and casual gamers alike but perhaps the most well-known version of Tetris is the version released on the Nintendo Entertainment System back in 1989 Gamers never sto playing it ever since its initial release and in recent years it's absolutely exploded in popularity there are huge in-person tournaments monthly competitions online and most importantly a crazy Chase for the highscore world record this record has had 35 years of History featuring some of the best players to ever pick up in anys controller and it has one of the most insane stories from start to finish that I've ever seen scene this is the history of NES Tetris world [Music] [Music] records and now a word from this video sponsor Opera GX look we all know that Opera GX is the best web browser for gamers it's easy to switch to uses GX control to limit your use of resources and is super customizable but today we're introducing its newest feature a summoning salt GX mod it has an awesome retro gaming wallpaper as well as custom sound effects featuring yours truly so here it is thanks it's super easy to add just go to the GX store type in summoning salt and hit install but there's also thousands of other mods to pick from and that's not all Opera GX does there's also GX corner where you can stay up to date with the latest in gaming news deals and even get free games all in one place there's also new features with AI saving you Time by summarizing articles or talking with chat GPT on the sidebar if you want the best web browser out there download Opera GX using my dedicated tracking link just click the link in the description or pin the comment thanks again to Opera GX for sponsoring during this video there are two main Concepts to understand in NES Tetris the scoring and the level system we'll start with the scoring like with most versions of the game you accumulate points in N Tetris by clearing lines you get a different amount of points depending on how many you clear at once but by far the most valuable scorer is getting a Tetris the only way to score one of these is by using the long piece ver vertically to clear four lines so ideally players try to score as many tetrises as possible by leaving a column open on the right side to drop a Long Bar when it comes then there's the level system the higher the level the more points you get per line cleared so ideally you want to start on the highest level possible which is level 19 however on level 18 blocks descend a row every three frames while starting on level 19 they descend a row every two frames which is significantly harder so top players would generally start on level 18 where they could play for a while at a more reasonable speed at barely any score cost after 130 lines cleared at level 18 the game transitions to level 19 and then moves up a level for every additional 10 lines luckily levels 19 through 28 all have the same descent speed although you keep earning more points as the level increases this is an extremely brutal speed to play on but if you manage to make it all the way through level 28 then you reach level 29 also known as Tetris kill screen a kill screen is a level deep into a game that's usually impossible to beat because of a glitch Pac-Man has the most famous One The Game's 256 board has a glitched right side and doesn't spawn all the dots needed to beat it Donkey Kong has another example where you run out of time just seconds into the game's 117th screen tetrises kill screen on the other hand has nothing to do with a glitch it's the intended end to the game because starting on level 29 pieces Begin to Fall so fast that it becomes unplayable this is tetris'd [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] even if you begin holding a direction before the piece spawns it's physically impossible to move the piece to the side in time pieces descend a row every single frame twice the speed of level 28 now it's actually possible to process what's happening at this speed and know where you want the pieces to go but the fact is is you just can't get them there it's a game Hardware limitation rather than a human Hardware limitation if you're very lucky you might not need to move your piece as far and you can clear a line or two but just like Pac-Man or Donkey Kong your game is bound to end within seconds after reaching tetris'd possible and it just so happens that the point display in the upper right corner only has six digits meaning the highest score it can display is 999,999 points so naturally the question arose was it possible to max out the score before the kill screen kicked in well in order to get a max out you have to make the most of your 230 lines that means getting as many tetrises as possible while avoiding other clears that eat into your 230 lines otherwise known as a burn it's extremely risky to play this way you might need to build your stack up very high while waiting for a Long Bar and there's not a moment of rest you can't break your focus for even a second but as brutal as the difficulty is it's technically just possible to max out the score before the kill screen kicks in and there are actually reports of people doing it all the way back in the 9s it's difficult to determine how to treat these claims standards were different back then and none of these claims have a full video to go along with them however some have more proof than others Thor akand winner of the 1990 Nintendo World Championships is reported to have maxed out the game in the early '90s he didn't record his game but being the literal winner of the Nintendo World Championships he was one of the best Tetris players in the world at the time judging by his skills and the testimony of people who watched him play it's very likely that his claim was legitimate another max out claim appeared in a 1992 edition of Nintendo Power Magazine from a player named Scott Anderson very little is known about Anderson today but in order to get your score in Nintendo Power you did need to have photo proof so there's a decent chance his score was legit too and another player JW Tetris claimed a max out back in 1996 that seemed to have no proof but 25 years later he managed to uncover a VHS tape of the end screen that sure enough showed all nines while it still lacks concrete video proof this is probably the claim with the most evidence and is very likely legit then by the 2000s all sorts of max out claims appeared on internet forums none of them had video proof and honestly they're really hard to judge some seem more suspicious than others but just like with the claims from the 9s it's really impossible to say which of these internet claims were legit some provided their names While others used pseudonyms or usernames and in 2001 a max out claim popped up on pluto.com from from someone named Jonas just like all the other claims Jonas didn't have any proof to back up his score so his claim was lumped in with all the rest however in 2005 a man named Trey Harrison was trying to accumulate videos of Tetris performances to put up on his website tetris.com he was looking for a recorded max out and sure enough in the replies up Pops Jonas again saying he just recorded one on tape Jonas dropped the video off at Trey's house Trey uploaded it onto his website and it was then that the world was first able to see on video a max out score of NES Tetris a score showing all nines by Future Tetris Legend Jonas [Music] newow what you're watching is a massive piece of game ging history these scores have been rumored for over a decade but finally one was captured on video and the footage is very impressive Jonas started on level 18 and to make the level transition he first had to clear 130 lines he ended up getting 92 of those lines via tetrises for maximum points while just 38 were from burns from there Jonas was playing at the brutal speed of level 19 but he still had to keep Landing tetrises his score was inching up as the levels climbed higher he needed the max out before hitting level 29 on level 28 he was still 60,000 points away with only 10 lines to work with but he managed to get one Tetris and then with just a single line to go before the transition he got one final Tetris the kill screen kicked in and the score read all nines over the course of 8 and 1/2 minutes Jonas had hit a max out on NES Tetris and finally it was documented for anyone to see the feedback online was all positive everyone was thrilled to be able to watch an official Tetris max out however this video did have one problem there was no game audio included that meant Jonas couldn't submit it as a world record anywhere but that didn't take away from the legitimacy of the performance Jonas newow had a established a name for himself as a Tetris Master only question was now that someone had maxed out the game what was there left to do over the following few years while competitive Retro Gaming was still in its infancy more people gravitated toward playing NES Tetris even though Jonas had maxed out the score it remained a popular game and others tried to replicate his achievement between 2008 and 2014 more than a dozen other people were able to achieve Max outs in NES Tetris and even though their scores were officially tied there were still ways to compare Max outs to each other ultimately two different methods of competing became popular method number one going for the earliest possible max out in Jonas's game from 2005 he hit the max s out right as the level transition to 29 in other words at the last possible moment but the more tetrises you hit the earlier you can max out and the more impressive the achievement in April 2009 Harry Hong produced a first recorded max out with game audio and he was able to get the max out slightly earlier than Jonas late in level 28 rather than on the transition into level 29 Harry is one of several people who claimed to max out on internet forums years prior but now he had recorded proof too in early 2012 a player named Matt Buco recorded a game where he maxed out in midlevel 26 much quicker than previous Max outs he landed Tetris after Tetris starting in level 19 which was where he pulled away from previous players and then there were a couple claimed early Max outs Harry Hong claimed an early level 26 max out on tape but he didn't upload the score only claiming it on a Tetris for him and in August 2014 a player named Terry purcel reportedly maxed out in late level 25 this score used to have video but it's since been deleted from YouTube most of these players only goal was to get an early max out as soon as that happened they stopped playing and let the game end even if it was several levels before the kill screen how however not everyone did this and that's why there was a second method of competing playing the game all the way to the kill screen and then manually calculating the score later in other words trying for the highest score possible even though the score doesn't display higher than all nines you can still add up all the points achieved after this to determine your true score for instance in Jonas's first everever max out he got a Tetris while his score read this that meant he added 36,000 points and his score actually finished at 1, 18,160 points and so this became another method of determining whose max out was best in 2008 Jonas achieved another kill screen that finished slightly higher than his 2005 max out 1, 23,88608 since he used a camera from the 1800s this was never verified as an official world record in 2011 while recording himself for a documentary Thor akand achieved a score of 1, 143,000 points in a couple years later a player named Ben Mullen took the score even higher 171,000 points before the kill screen took over to end his game however if the player going for the earliest Max out had finished out their games it's possible they would have achieved higher scores than these Terry Purcell's level 25 max out is reported to have finished all the way at 1.1 195 million but without video proof this can't be verified and although Matt bu's score of level 26 cuts off right here he claims to have kept playing this game all the way to the kill screen and in the comments he says he'd upload the rest when he got home well it's 12 12 years later and apparently Matt still hasn't returned home so the community was split between these two methods some wanted to go for the earliest max out while others wanted to go for the highest score the big problem was the score display since it only had six digits it wasn't intuitive to keep playing after it maxed out it led to two different sides of competitive play and these sides wouldn't converge until one key event in 2015 [Music] this is a game gen code discovered by Max out player Josh tols it changes the leading digit of the score into hexad deal meaning that after 9 the score keeps counting up a represents 1 million B represents 1.1 million and so on this meant that the max out no longer applied and the score was no longer capped at a million So It ultimately garnered the nickname the uncap code Josh posted his code on the tetris forums and it was treated as a fun novelty but some saw potential for more with it and in April 2015 Harry Hong began attempts to set a new high score with the uncap code on April 23rd he played a game that maxed out in level 28 then took it to the kill screen and finished with 1, 101,000 points this was the first verifiable game to score over 1.1 million and a few days later he got one even better a max out in level 26 that ultimately finished at 1,50,000 points but after these records from Harry the competition for the high score record died down Harry Hong was one of few players who both cared about the high score record and was potentially good enough to improve it so when he stopped trying for it there was no competition to take it from him instead in 2016 he came up with a goal of achieving as many Max outs as he could in a year rather than improving the UNCA record 268 Max outs later the high score remained at 1.15 million but in 2017 Harry came up with a new goal for his stream he was going to go back to playing with the uncap code and try for a 1.2 million point game this would surpass the highest claims from over the years and be an Undisputed world record Harry played for weeks building up his skills but Falling short of the 1.2 he'd need an early max out in level 25 or better and then still need to land several more tetrises before the kill screen a score like this demanded near Perfection but after months of attempts on April 14th 2017 Harry got a good score going a max out in midlevel 25 Harry was on Pace for it from this point he needed at least five tetrises before hitting the kill screen on level 29 Harry got his tetrises but was still a few points short with his stack building high he desperately used a Long Bar to get a triple but this activated the kill screen he still needed 3,000 points Harry had to find a way to clear two more lines while playing at kill screen speed [Music] yes yes history was made the congratulations poured in as Harry had taken Tetris to new heights after all the max outs that came before him from the internet claims to the ones with concrete proof this one was the best of all except it's never quite that easy with NES Tetris there are reports that around the time of Harry's 1.2 a player named B Steel achieved a 1.2 million game of his own nobody remembers what his exact score was or what the level of proof was but Bo is a verified max out player so his score claim isn't unreasonable still Harry Hong gets the most credit for being the first to achieve 1.2 million and he was one of the best players in the world one of the few who was capable of a score this High however as good as Harry was there was still another player who had potential to go even higher see every year since 2010 the biggest Tetris tournament was the classic Tetris World Championship where the best NES Tetris players in the world competed of the seven annual tournaments by this point one had been won by Harry Hong as for the rest all six were won by the same player Jonas newow and you're winner of the 2016 classic Tetris World Championships six time world champion Jonas newow in the 12 years since his first recorded max out Jonas had turned into a monster every year he went head-to-head against tetris'd better than the rest his stacking was brilliant and he was able to get out of trouble when others couldn't Jonas newow was simply considered the best NES Tetris player on earth yet through all this he never really cared about the score world record he was more focused on tournaments but in 2017 he started streaming on Twitch and on July 24th he booted up a casual game of Tetris [Music] that was 17 straight tetrises to open the game unbelievable he slowed down a bit after that but still managed to max out in mid-level 26 and then he landed six more tetrises before the kill screen Jonas's score read all nin since he wasn't using the uncap code but in reality his score was 1,21,000 points on a random game where he didn't even bother to use the uncap code Jonas had just set a new world record after this Jonas went back to focusing on tournaments not caring to improve the high score record anymore and while other players continued to put up new scores some of which were over a million very few were able to approach a score of 1.2 million this type of game was reserved for only the best of the best Tetris players and even even they couldn't consistently put up scores like this it took a lot of luck to get long bars when you need them so Jonas instead prepared for the 2017 classic Tetris world championship and that November he officially made it seven World Championship victories there it is Jonas is your Champion 2017 Champion there was nobody else on his level and in June 2018 a year after his 1.21 million game Jonas set out to improve the score world record trying to take it to a level where nobody else could even touch it this time Jonas wasn't messing around he was using the uncap code so he could know right away what his score was on June 13th he got a really good game going a max out in level 25 after landing five more tetrises his score was just short of 1.2 million with only four lines until the kill screen Jonas built a center well waiting for the Long Bar that would push him over the top and then he got it let's go woo new world record 1.23 million but Jonas wasn't satisfied yet a week later he managed another level 25 max out he then got six more tetrises pushing his score past 1.2 million one more Tetris and he'd have another record but then his stack started building High Jonas wasn't getting a Long Bar and he was quickly running out of room yet he didn't panic and finally The Long Bar came oh let's go get out of my face a 15,000 Point Improvement to the world record this was the state of NES Tetris in mid 2018 there were many good players some of whom could score over a million points but when all else was held equal Jonas usually came out on top he always won the World Championship he had the score record and it was intimidating to compete against him it seemed like as long as he wanted to hold the high score world record he'd be able to do so that is unless coron had something to say about it in 2016 a player named coron posted a video of his first NES Tetris max out by this point several players had achieved the max out so the achievement alone wasn't too notable however when he posted a video with a hand cam coron was shown to be doing something very differently he was mashing the d-pad to move the pieces laterally rather than simply holding it down in Tetris there's a concept known as the delayed auto shift or Das when you hold down the d-pad in any Tetris your piece will auto shift to the side every six frames or 10 times per second this is quite fast and leaves you with enough time to navigate even on the Breakneck speed of level 19 however coron is from Japan and NES Tetris was never actually released in Japan so his background was from playing various other versions of Tetris including the Game Boy Edition in Game Boy Tetris when you hold down the d-pad the piece hesitates momentarily and then moves roughly seven times per second this process is too slow when playing at higher levels so Game Boy Tetris players have to repeatedly repress the d-pad to move their pieces quickly enough and since coron was used to playing this and various arcade games it was only natural to match the d-pad and NES Tetris as well but this actually gave coron an advantage he was able to accurately Mash faster than d normally move the pieces he can move blocks just a little bit quicker than normal and it meant that once he reached the kill screen on level 29 he actually stood a chance to clear a few lines he couldn't play for long but it wasn't necessarily an instant game over in June 2017 he managed to clear 10 lines on level 29 and reached level 30 oh a I got it only a couple other players had ever done that before and not surprisingly they had to use a form of hypertapping to pull it off ultimately though this just let coron get a few more points before topping out if he wanted to beat the score world record he needed to focus on getting more tetrises before the kill screen he spent months improving his skills and by August 2017 he became the third player to pass 1.2 million but as Jonas kept improving the record coron found himself falling behind and by June 2018 the score to beat was 1.24 five million but coron didn't want to give up even though he was a bit behind Jonas the potential with hypertapping was just too strong that summer coron began a push for the world record and on June 24th he had a strong game going Landing Tetris after Tetris coron's score climbed past 600,000 then the game transitioned to level 19 this is where hypertapping would really come into play right away he managed to get a Long Bar over in a spot that would have been risky with Das and he kept on going precisely navigating pieces while frantically mashing on the d-pad he ended up maxing out the score during level 25 just about tied with Jonas's world record the tetrises continued and eventually coron found himself at 1.22 million with only one line until the kill screen he just needed one more Tetris coron was praying that it would come in [Music] time well freeze please come on Yes W yes 1.25 woo this was the first ever game passed 1.25 million and finally seven time world champion Jonas had been dethroned this game helped prove the use of hypertapping while coron wasn't guaranteed to have topped out with Das there were definitely situations where hypertapping helped the problem is coron was one of few players who could reliably hypertap you not only had to mash quickly but also do it in a controlled manner to always move your piece the exact right amount coron focused on other categories for the next few months but in early 2019 he came back looking to take the record closer to 1.3 million and on March 5th he'd get a good chance his start was very smooth and the only sketchy moment came at 800,000 when he MISD dropped and then narrowly brought a Long Bar over to the right in time that's where hypertapping can help you he ended up maxing out the score in late level 25 with 30 lines until the kill screen coron had just enough room to get eight more tetrises and finish off one more Improvement to the world record [Music] yes yes IED my beat record yes this was a really great game yet still remained 27,000 points short of 1.3 million that score still seem seemed like a pipe dream the only way to do it would be to get an earlier max out and then match coron's eight tetrises afterwards and with coron being one of the few hyper tappers with the skill to do that 1.3 million was just a bit Out Of [Music] Reach a few months after coron's 1.27 game one of the strangest events in Tetris history took place one day in June 2019 a man named Tyler Peach popped up in the Discord server Tyler said he was from Germany and that back in the mid90s he scored 1.33 million in a game of NES Tetris this was a bold claim for one thing it was 60,000 points ahead of the current highest known score and for another the uncap code didn't exist in the 9s so how did he know what his exact score was Tyler tried to convince people he was legit but he came across as some random dude just making outrageous claims so to show his skills Tyler said he would attempt to qualify for the July monthly tournament and then Tyler proceeded to post the highest qualifying score ever for for a tournament only a handful of players had ever achieved the 1.2 and Tyler just did it on command to show his skills he immediately began doing live streaming attempts to break the score world record and just days later he achieved a score of 1.29 million smashing the world record by 25,000 points he maxed out in level 24 one level sooner than coron did and proceeded to match his eight tetrises afterwards and while Tyler didn't use a webcam it seemed that he too was hypertapping he was able to get his pieces to fly across the board who on Earth was this guy were his scores faked somehow nobody knew for sure and the top players had a variety of opinions but there was nothing in Tyler's gameplay that screamed it was fake the circumstances were just so weird a legend from the '90s who nobody had heard of before coming back and crushing the competition the story sounded too insane to be real well months down the road the truth came out Tyler's scores were 100% legitimate but he wasn't a real person Tyler was actually the alt account of one of the best Tetris players in the world he was the teenage Prodigy Joseph saley Joseph came on to the tetris scene in 2017 and spent hours watching The Game's two best players Jonas and coron he learned a lot from them and Joseph's skills rapidly improved by March 2018 he achieved his first max out by September his score was up to 1.15 million in less than a year he had become a world class player however there were still a handful of players who had a better score PB but a few months later came the 2018 classic Tetris World Championship Joseph entered the tournament and played beautifully defeating opponent after opponent and making it all the way to the finals and what a surprise the other finalist was Jonas newbower the seven time world champion Jonas was heavily favored to defeat Joseph and take home his eighth title but in a shocking twist Joseph swept Jonas through three to nothing tet for and and we have a new Tetris world champion Joseph s was now a world champion but despite that he didn't have the score world record that still belonged to coron so in early 2019 he made an effort to take it first passing 1.2 million then 1.25 million but he still remained a bit short of the record and that's where he decided deed to have some fun Joseph started streaming attempts to an ALT account and built up the Tyler Peach Persona and even though he didn't do many attempts there one of them ended up breaking the world record so he decided to roll with it before eventually revealing that he was behind it all so now Joseph had them both the championship title and the score record but even beyond that Joseph had one specific skill that no other Tetris player had he could actually play on the kill screen Joseph was a hyper Tapper and a very good one at that he moves pieces quicker than anyone else the kill screen kicks in on level 29 and in September 2018 Joseph became the first person to make it to level 31 on video a month later he became the first to make it to level 32 it was amazing kill screens are not meant to be playable but Joseph was doing it he couldn't go for long but he was legitimately clearing lines and even full levels he was even outsmarting the developers upon reaching level 30 the game's level counter appears bugged tetris'd did not expect anyone to make it here Joseph was doing what was thought to be impossible but as impressive as this was it wasn't enough to get the score record Joseph would still have to maximize his tetrises earlier to really rack up the score and not only that but he wasn't the only one gunning for the world record Harry Hong and coron two previous record holders in the category were interested in trying as well and so it became a three-way race between Harry coron and Joseph for the first 1.3 million score in NES Tetris Harry was the first to strike in August 2019 he got a new high score of 1.27 5 million this was short of the 1. 298 world record but those who thought Tyler P was cheating considered this score the official world record still it didn't reach 1.3 million Harry would have needed one more Tetris before the kill screen to push him over the top instead maybe coron could get the 1.3 he was the more recent record holder and his personal best remained at 1 1. 273 million perhaps his hypertapping skills would be enough to get him there in November coron had a great game going he got a max out in level 25 then landed seven tetrises pushing his score past 1.2 million after getting another Tetris coron was in position to crush his PB and maybe get 1.3 million if he could just get one final Tetris [Music] coron got a massive Long Bar drought and couldn't get the last Tetris he needed but of the three players the one with the best chance at 1.3 million was Joseph he'd already gotten 1. 298 million on the Tyler account he only needed a tiny Improvement to get him there well that December Joseph found himself in nearly the exact same position as coron a max out in level 25 and needing one more Tetris for 1.3 million this could be it but the Long Bar had to come in [Music] time yes oh my God [Music] oh my god oh Jesus Christ Joseph already had 1.3 million but then he landed a Tetris on the kill screen this move was only possible with good hypertapping not D this gave him another 36,000 points and pushed him past 1.35 million it was the first time anyone had ever gotten substantial points on the kill screen in a record and it raised all sorts of questions was this move realistic to replicate how many Kill screen points could you get and since he was past 1.35 million could Joseph get the score record to 1.4 million this score would have nearly sounded impossible just weeks earlier but now there was a blueprint we'd already seen Joseph get 1.3 million points going into the kill screen if he could land a few tetrises and get 100 ,000 points on the kill screen that would be enough for 1.4 million Joseph was the only player who could realistically do this and a few months later when the pandemic hit he decided to fully commit and make a push for the 1.4 this was going to be an intense grind Joseph had to maximize points everywhere both before and during the kill screen for one thing he decided to start on level 19 rather than 18 that meant that pieces fell faster but it also allowed him to rack up more points potentially 30 to 40,000 more than starting on level 18 and Joseph needed every point he could get he couldn't afford to burn lines he had to nearly exclusively go for tetrises to maximize points yet as tough as all this was it was actually the easy part of the grind the hard part was then scoring 100,000 more points on the kill screen Joseph could score 1.3 million by level 29 but getting the last 100,000 at this speed was brutal as fast of a hyper Tapper as he was the kill screen was still the kill screen you're not intended to play at this level and Joseph had run after run die after making it this far clearly 1.4 million would require the Stars to align well that June Joseph would get a chance he got a max out in level 25 and arrived at the kill screen just shy of 1.3 million points he'd been here before now he had to make it to 1.4 [Music] oops hey this world record though nice a new record but Joseph seemed to barely care it was still 25,000 short of 1.4 million this game really illustrates The Dilemma when playing on the kill screen do you try and keep your stack low to survive as long as possible or try to rack up points quickly by going for tetrises eventually Joseph found a solution why not just get get to the kill screen with a crazy score so you don't need that many [Music] points you got it you got it oh my god dude shut up [Music] no it's not it's not good it is not F oh my God world record though dude this pace was insane even scoring just one Tetris on the kill screen would have been enough for 1.4 but Joseph couldn't survive long enough to get a Tetris he topped out just 10,000 points short still though clearly he was closing in on 1.4 million it seemed like it could be just days away well on June 14th 2020 Joseph started a game on level 18 rather than 19 and set a score of 1384 million this was the highest ever score from a level 18 start a notable achievement so Joseph stopped recording on OBS and uploaded the video to YouTube but then he forgot to hit record again and continued playing for the record Joseph was oblivious to the fact that his gaml wasn't being saved and hours later he allegedly achieved a score of 1.43 n million obviously this game can't be viewed today he was streaming it to a Discord call though and one of his friends was recording the audio of said call where you can hear people freaking out at what Joseph was doing oh my oh my God oh my God oh my God are you kidding me are you kidding me are you kidding me 1 Point for oh my God but there's no video to go along with this according to testimony from those who watched it live this was a crazy game in the kill screen it allowed him to blow past the 1.4 million barrier but only a select few were able to see it and even though there's no recording Joseph knew what he had done and had accomplished his goal to this day he's still never gotten a 1.4 on video The Following months in 2020 were a strange time in Tetris history everyone knew the record was 1.4 million but it technically wasn't official it would still be a big deal the first time someone achieved 1.4 on video that July a player named Scot o Bozo tried using RNG manipulation to crush the world record he was able to use a task to predict which pieces would come and plan ahead accordingly however his score of 1.5 million was quickly deemed to be a different category so the focus was back on trying to break 1.4 and while there were many new players getting into the game one stood Above the Rest his name was dog playing Tetris in June 2020 he became the second person ever to achieve a score of 1.3 million he was trying to get 1.4 million alongside Joseph and while Joseph stopped playing after his unrecorded 1.4 d dog continued trying he was perceived as the most likely person to pull it off dog was a hyper Tapper like Joseph so he had the ability to play for a while on the kill screen and by that fall his score was up past 1.35 million he was closing in and his next PB could be the one in October he managed to get a max out early in level 24 this was definitely on Pace for 1.4 million but the tetrises kept coming and by the time he hit the kill screen his score was already at 1367 million he only needed 33,000 points on the kill screen dog playing Tetris had to hold it together [Applause] [Music] he missed it by 14,000 this was still a new high score but not enough to break 1.4 even months later the world had yet to see a score over 1.4 million on video the combination of getting to level 29 on a good pace and then getting enough points on the kill screen was just too much to ask it almost mirrored the max out claims from decades prior even though a 1.4 million score had very likely happened there was still no video of one for the world to see it remained a nearly impossible score that existed only as a legend now you might think this is all a buildup to someone finally breaking through but that's not what happened no something much bigger was brewing in the background while much of the community was focused on trying for 1.4 million little did any of them know that Tetris was about to go through a revolution everything was about to change for years there had been two ways to play NES Tetris Das and hypertapping Das was certainly easier but hypertapping had higher potential that's how players were able to get points on the kill screen well by 202 20 the game's demographic at the top level had shifted younger and virtually all of these new top players were hyper tappers in fact during that Year's classic Tetris World Championship all of the players in the top eight were hyper tappers it had taken over at the top level but as dominant as this technique was it was quite difficult not many people could Mash that fast while still retaining good control it limited the number of record contenders and those who could hypertap sometimes developed arm and hand issues hypertapping was powerful but it was still far from an ideal technique so in 2020 The Game's new generation began looking for alternative techniques to mash the d-pad the leading theory was to try using multiple fingers instead of just one gaming Legend fly heck had a method for using eight fingers on an arcade button letting it mash up to 30 times per second he also had a modified method for the smaller buttons of an NES controller however Tetris players had to match the dpad and they struggled to adapt either of these methods the d-pad seemed to simply be too small to use multiple fingers on they needed a bigger button that's where a player named cheese found something brilliant he watched flyex videos and a mashing video from Silver boxer then combined them into his own technique if the NES d-pad was too small of a button why not use the entire back of the controller as a button by resting a finger on the d-pad you can roll your fingers along the back to push the controller into it repeatedly this allows you to rapidly press the d-pad up to four times or five times with a thumb at the end that's just enough to move any piece to the far left or right and you can reach speeds upwards of 20 presses per second twice as fast as hypertapping it's also much easier on the hand and arm and allowed for much more precision as soon as cheese found this technique he knew it had the chance to break NES Tetris he had just discovered tetris'd play style rolling while rolling clearly had the most potential of all three techniques it was also quite tricky to learn even though Cheesa discovered rolling he struggled to use it for the first few months but he still had a head start over other players and eventually he started to get good with it by early 2021 he was using it whenever he reached the kill screen and it quickly became clear that he was able to do things that nobody else could cheese wasn't just playing on the kill screen he was thriving the best hyper tappers could last a few levels on the kill screen but with rolling cheese found himself making it all the way to level 40 and remember the kill screen kicks in way back at level 29 simply put the kill screen had lost its meaning it no longer marked the automatic end of your game at least if you were able to roll like cheese could by mid 2021 cheese had the potential to take the score record and thanks to Rolling his strategy was much different than those who came before him his emphasis was less on maximizing points before the kill screen but rather going as deep as possible on the kill screen while Landing tetrises this meant he wouldn't need such a crazy score going into level 29 if he could then last long enough on the kill screen he could beat the score record anyway that June chees played games to qualify for the July monthly tournament on June 30th he got a game that reached 1 million points by level 26 this was roughly 200k behind the world record but cheese knew he could make up those points on the kill screen he reached level 29 and immediately Mis dropped a j piece this could be a death sentence for a hyper Tapper but for a roller it was an easy recovery and from there the game play just got crazier [Music] 1.4 61 million cheese had just smashed the world record he had just cleared 80 lines on the kill screen and gotten five tetrises in the process these were worth about 40,000 Points each and were only realistic with rolling for any top player who is still hypertapping this game eliminated all doubt rolling was the future of NES Tetris so throughout 2021 the game's best players all improved that rolling previously 1.4 million was about the limit for the score record but now there was no telling how high it could go chees had made it to level 37 but if someone could last even longer on the kill screen or get more points before the kill screen then they could beat the world record the big question was who would be the next person to do it well dog playing Tetris was the winner of the most recent World Championships while players pixel Andy and huff upag us came in second and third place meanwhile cheese was still an active player and he was the best at rolling all four of these players were top contenders and they each had a good chance at raising the score record however in a surprise to most of the community a player named hydrant dude moved into second place right behind cheese hydrant dude was more known for his contributions other than his gameplay he'd made numerous ROM hacks of Tetris and later published videos explaining the game's code and inner workings beyond that he was also a good player but not usually considered one of the absolute best in the world but that changed when he posted a score of 1. 1445 million because hydron dude had developed one particularly important skill he was really good good at rolling and that meant he could last a long time on the kill screen now just 16,000 points behind the record hydrant dude pushed onward and in September he had a game that entered the kill screen at just over 1.1 million points this pace was nothing too special and he'd need more than 300,000 more points to break the record but hydron D decided to take a different approach now instead of going for tetrises he was going to try to last as long as possible he would have to survive for probably 15 or so levels if he wanted to accumulate 300,000 points but like I said hydrant dude was really good at rolling [Music] oh there you go there's 19 people did that is that world record did I actually just two years ago hydrant dude believed 1.4 million would never happen now he had just broken the world record with 1. 1464 million points and he had survived all the way to level 44 at this point it was seeming increasingly likely that 1.5 million was on the horizon although hydrant dude had survived so long on the kill screen his Pace entering it wasn't anything special if he could score a few more points beforehand 1.5 million could be a reality well hydron dude kept playing and just a few days later he got the pace he was looking for 1.35 million entering the kill screen this was nearly a quarter million ahead of the world record after landing three tetrises on the kill screen and making it to level 41 hydrant dude finally topped out but his score wasn't 1.5 million it was 1.6 million he had skipped straight over an F score and rolled the hex aimal digit back to zero this was the first ever rollover in NES Tetris history and it was also a one 160,000 Point increase over the world record hydrant dude had proven that he was no fluke his Tetris skills were legit but he also had some heavy competition as more time passed the top players got better and better at rolling and by late 2021 Huff hopus was making a run at the record Huff was already a worldclass hyper Tapper finishing second place in the 2020 World Championships but once rolling be became dominant he made the switch in technique and was able to nearly reach 1.4 million Huff was notably a very conservative player on the kill screen he played even safer than hydrant dude rarely going for tetrises and just trying to survive in November 2021 Huff had a game that reached the kill screen at 1.15 million this was nearly 2,000 behind the record and didn't seem to have much of a chance but then he put his survival mode in into full effect and the level counter climbed higher and higher level 35 then 40 and then 45 Huff had only landed two tetrises but he was somehow closing in on the record a couple minutes later Huff reached level 50 this was the highest level anyone had ever reached in NES Tetris finally on level 52 Huff topped out his score 1.67 6 million a new world record for score level and points on the kill screen his survival play style had worked to Perfection and it was unbelievable to watch he lasted through 23 levels on the kill screen rolling had forever changed NES Tetris gone were the days of needing to squeeze out every point before the kill screen ended your game now players could just survive longer to make up those points how high could this score [Music] go by late 2021 the tetris Community was thriving this was the most active it had ever been and there was lots of competition for the score record rolling had given players who couldn't hypertap a second chance they too now had a chance to snag the world record and even though the top score was 1.67 Million it was climbing so fast that it seemed like a 2 million point game wasn't far away however over the next few months it became very hard to track what the game's true world record was all because of a practice known as vaulting see chees had a habit of playing games sometimes even getting a world record score and then only telling certain friends about it sometimes he did eventually upload his scores and other times he didn't she she gave various reasons for doing this to better space out YouTube uploads to make memes with his friends and sometimes just because he could so we don't have a perfectly accurate record timeline but we do know bits and pieces of it in late 2021 chees allegedly achieved a new record of 1.7 million and didn't upload the video however it's unclear if this was before or after Huff's 1.67 6 million game and we don't know what Cheese's exact score was that being said cheese didn't Vault all of his scores he was an amazing player and sometimes he had to play live like when he had to qualify for a tournament since this was a qualifier cheese was just going for a decent score not anything crazy well 9 minutes later he entered the kill screen at just 1.07 million a good qualifying score sure but this was the lowest score at this point compared to any world record in the last 10 years so if he wanted a record here this game would have to go deep cheese needed to pull off a miracle on the kill screen for the next 13 levels it wasn't looking like a miracle but cheese was surviving he wasn't Landing any tesses so he didn't get many points but he also wasn't topping out then suddenly he Mis Dropped In level 43 and things got ugly fast his stack piled high and it looked like this was the end Cheese's score was at 1.3 million a fantastic qualifying score he hadn't hit any tetrises on the kill screen and he was way short of the world record nobody would blame cheese for just topping out here and being satisfied but instead he did this [Music] [Music] 1.8 1.9 let's go oh my God 2 million this is insanity honestly I never expected to get this high of a score H GG that's a good game best game I'll ever play cheese went from zero tetrises and 1.3 million points to 11 tetrises and 2.3 million points this was the biggest world record increase in the game's history and also the first time anyone had ever reached level 60 just a Legendary game the community was shaken this score was so far ahead of anyone else it was hard to imagine playing for so long while also Landing Tetris after Tetris the inventor of rolling had just mastered his craft and over the next several months Cheese's 2 million score stood alone while others tried and did improve their scores none were able to crack 2 million the world record remained a major outlier yet despite this cheese was able to improve it once again in January 2022 he set a new high score of 2.7 million but unfortunately this was another vaated score video of the game has never been made public and what little info we do have comes from the description of Cheese's 2.3 million game then a few months later she's got a score of 2.34 million points on video while qualifying for the April tournament this Eed out his highest recorded game but was well short of his 2.7 million vaulted score but no matter which of these three games you look at cheese was the premier player of NES Tetris nobody else could roll as long and as consistently as he could and that's why he was the only player getting scores like this but still while they lagged behind cheese other players were improving their rolling skills and with tournaments happening every month there was active competition for the score record one such competitor was Eric icx Eric was a good player and he'd set some Community Milestones over the years as a hyper Tapper he was the first person to reach levels 37 and 38 and while he was a good roller to he lagged behind most other top players his high score was just short of 1.5 million and in 13th Place overall well on April 1st 2022 Eric got a great game going he entered the kill screen at 1. 1282 million points a fantastic Pace minutes later he passed 1.5 million and broke his personal best and then Eric went on what can only be described as a miracle run he landed a Tetris on level 46 then another on level 58 in level 64 he'd been playing for so long that his camera shut off and moments later he broke Cheese's recorded world record of 2.34 million this was Unreal Eric was great but he was not expected to be a world record Contender he hadn't even gotten 1.5 million before now his score was passing 2.4 million with no signs of stopping anytime soon by this point another concept had come into play scaling as mentioned earlier when you get a Tetris the amount of points it's worth is determined by this formula basically the higher the level the more points you get when Eric first entered the kill screen on level 29 his tetrises were worth 36,000 points but now entering level 70 any Tetris would be worth 84,000 points and as the level climbed higher these tetrises became even more valuable that's what scaling is it's a essentially the opposite of diminishing returns the longer you play the quicker your score Rises and that's exactly what happened to Eric by the time he hit level 73 he had passed she's vaulted score of 2.73 million this game was now the Undisputed world record and it was still going Eric passed level 80 and then level 90 in level 92 he managed to hit a Tetris worth over 112,000 points finally in level 95 Eric topped out his final score was 3.77 2 million Eric had just broken the world record by over a million points he had more than doubled his own personal best and he had achieved the game's first everever double rollover the heximal digit rolls over for a second time at 3.2 million when he posted a score to Discord many dismissed it as an April Fool's joke but they quickly realized this was legit the world record had been shattered and Eric was the new Champion so what did this mean for the tetris Community was the world record now unbeatable well look getting a game to level 95 like Eric did would be close to Impossible this game was such an outlier that even tetris'd near that deep but Eric's score was a different story scaling made it so that tetrises were worth 100 Grand by the end of the game so if someone could reach level 70 or 80 again and land a few more tetrises than Eric their score could shoot up past 3.7 million without having to make it as deep as level 95 it wasn't likely but there was a path to beating his world record and over the next few months some of the game's top players tried they worked on surviving on the kill screen for as long as possible even if they didn't need to make it to level 95 they still had to last a long time but ultimately nobody could do it and Eric's legendary 3.7 million scores stayed on top but of course the NES Tetris Community is much bigger than this one world record tournaments have always been a big part of Tetris and each month there was a master's tournament featuring most of the game's top players the majority of these tournaments aren't important for this video but there's one match in the August 2022 Edition that we need to take a look at it was a battle between two Titans Huff the former world record holder and Eric the current record holder and they were going to compete head-to-head in a best of five Eric's 3.7 million score still stood as the world record but Huff was the only play player who would come close to him his personal Best of 3 million points was in second place these were quite possibly the two best Tetris players in the world trying to score as high as they could against each other game one began and it was clear both of these guys came to play they both made it to the kill screen before Huff finally topped out in level 41 game one went to Eric game two began and it looked like a repeat of game one both players were locked in and made it to the kill screen but this time Huff had a slight lead over Eric 1.1 million to 950k they both survived to level 40 with Huff retaining his point lead a few minutes later both players arrived at level 50 and at this point the game was entering rare territory in the entire history of Tetris monthly tournaments only four games had ever survived to level 50 the fact that this one had both players still alive was astounding but huff and Eric weren't done yet a few levels later they both rolled over the score Huff still had a 100,000 point lead But Eric wasn't backing down as they both hit level 60 the game entered legendary status this had become much more important than just a tournament match Eric and huff were so locked in that there was no telling how high they'd go they kept cruising through the 60s but suddenly on level 66 Huff needed to get a Long Bar all the way to the left he started his role too late and it was all over Huff topped out after an incredible performance all the way to level 66 Eric now needed just 100,000 more points to win the game but he was already in rare territory this chart shows all games that had made it to the kill screen in the last year of monthly tournaments making it past level 40 was very rare while making it past level 50 was almost unheard of the best Tournament game ever made it to level 67 Huff had made it to level 66 just one level short and yet Huff ended up losing this game to Eric here's why this is how far Eric ended up making it [Music] according to Eric once he broke the score record in level 105 his nerves went away at that point he was playing with the House's money and that's what ultimately allowed him to play another 40 levels with without topping out meanwhile all Huff could do was watch he simply looked on in astonishment as Eric completely destroyed the game in front of him and at the end he applauded Eric said cheers and sat back in his chair people had known NES Tetris would eventually get to this point but Eric had rapidly accelerated that timeline the goal was simple last as long as possible on the kill screen and while the best players have been able to survive for 10 even 15 minutes before Eric had just survived for 28 minutes double anyone else's best performance in case there was any doubt this game had made it crystal clear the days of needing to maximize your score early with tetrises were now over now Tetris was a game of survival and endurance and nobody else could keep up with Eric [Music] Eric had made it to level 146 however the game's developers never intended anyone to make it past level 29 since the kill screen speed kicks in and from level 30 onwards they never check that all their codes still operated correctly now most things still work fine but gradually as you get deeper into deeper Beyond level 29 Tetris begins to break more and more the first sign of this is the level counter appearing bugged starting on level 30 the game plays exactly the same except with this one graphical glitch but upon reaching level 138 the game starts to deteriorate a bit more Tetris normally has 10 color palletes one for each of the levels 0 through 9 that then Loop every 10 levels this system works great for dozens of levels even well beyond level 29 but by level 138 the game suffers from an integer overflow bug and believes you're on a negative level so it pulls a color palette from an incorrect place and the result is these bizarr looking colors starting from level 138 and looping every 54 levels here on out each level has a glitched color palette some are Ranger looking than others but for the most part it doesn't impact the game playay it's just an aesthetic glitch much like the bug level counter except some color palettes are so dark that you can barely see them on a normal TV the first one of these is on level 146 a mixture of dark blue dark green and black programmer Greg Canon went through all the glitched colors and assigned nicknames to them level 146 got the nickname Dusk and sure enough dusk was the level that took Eric out he couldn't see the pieces anymore he probably could have gone a lot longer had it not been for this level but it marked the end of his 6.4 million point game if someone wanted to beat Eric scorer they'd most likely not only need to make it back to the glitched colors but also find a way to make it past Dusk and right now nobody was close to doing either of those things in all honesty the rest of the community was just trying to play catchup with Eric but as the months passed in 2022 players tried to close the enormous Gap in scores in September 2022 Alex fch became the second player to break 4 million points and a few months later dog playing Tetris passed 5 million points yet both players remained well short of Eric's score and neither of them reached the glitched colors after these scores there was nearly no activity at the top level for close to a year new players managed to reached 3 and 4 million points but the very top remained unchanged Eric's 6.4 million score towered Above the Rest too daunting to try an even approach the community needed some form of motivation and right around then in November 2023 they got that motivation in the form of a tournament No Cap [Music] November see tournament games used to be no more than 10 minutes each you'd rack up as many points as you could then hit the kill screen on level 29 and top out but then rolling came along allowing players to last much longer on the kill screen and tournament games turn into marathons of endurance rather than going for points so organizers began forcing players to stop at level 39 restoring the original purpose of the kill screen but just for fun in November 2023 the community decided to do one tournament under the old rules players would be allowed to play indefinitely at the level 29 speed with no cap at level 39 so to prepare for the tournament Players began practicing level 29 more than ever before they tried to build up stamina to outlast everyone else and it turns out this practice is exactly what the community needed because in the buildup to the No Cap tournament for the first time in over a year new players reached the glitched colors a player named Gerald Freeman reportedly got a score of 6.32 one million points in true Tetris fashion it was unrecorded but also short of the world record instead the score we're going to look at is one performed by pixel Andy on November 17th 2023 Andy had been a top tier player for years now constantly in the top 10 but never holding the record but during tournament practice he'd gotten even better and now he was able to take a run at the top spot Andy hit the kill screen and then began clearing level after level 40 then 60 then 80 and then 100 pixel Andy was starting to approach the glitched colors the world record was getting closer but he'd likely still have to beat dusk passing level 120 Andy was still rolling but then just eight levels away from glitched colors he Mis dropped thankfully his stack was still low and it was a quick recovery but it was a sudden reminder of how quickly things can get out of hand on level 138 Andy entered the glitched colors eight levels to go before reaching dusk he played through the bizarre looking colors and then was moments away from Level 146 it was time for Dusk and yet when he got there I don't think he was ready for it e00 lines what is this wait I actually can't see oh no wait I genuinely can't see what the what are these who made these colors bro why would you choose okay there we go that's he did it and was immediately treated with a much brighter level 147 this was it pixel Andy was locked in he' survived dusk's color palette and now there was no telling how long he could play for until he made it to the very next level what what is going on whereit the colors I can't see it no I could I couldn't see it I couldn't see it on my screen it's just it just went dark yeah dusk isn't the only hard color palette just two levels later on level 148 you encounter charcoal it features a mix of white dark gray and black and it's even harder than dusk after playing 147 levels beautifully Andy was not ready for charcoal he'd made it over 6.4 million points but he topped out just 57,000 shy of Eric's world record a heartbreaking finish now this was a new record for the highest level reached two levels higher than Eric but the glitched colors were a problem Dusk and charcoal had taken out both players who'd made it this far but to significantly raise the score record you'd need to make it past both these levels the community was at an impass someone had to find a solution maybe that someone could be fractal fractal broke onto the scene in 2019 achieving his first max out and since then all he'd done was improve he' taken his score to 5.7 million points and that November he won the 2023 classic Tetris World Championship Champion FR has done it now despite being fourth on the score leaderboard fractal was considered to be tetris'd overall player and he was also the most likely candidate to break Eric's record fractal had some history with the glitched colors back in 2022 he technically became the first player to ever reach them but he did so on the pal version of the game which runs 177% slower this made the kill screen speed easier and helped fractal survive when Eric reached the glitch colors on ntsc he got the credit and attention deservedly so since doing it at a faster speed was much harder now in 2023 fractal tried to prepare himself for Dusk and charal he practiced these levels extensively making sure he wouldn't be caught off guard by their dark color pallets but still for fractal reaching the glitched colors kind of felt like B there done that he was the world champion and was probably the best player in the community so fractal didn't just want the world record instead he set his sights even higher he wanted to reach NES tetrises true kill screen the game crash as mentioned earlier the deeper you play in Tetris the more it breaks initially these are purely aesthetic glitches but eventually the game deteriorates even more on level 30 the level counter breaks on level 138 the colors glitch and on level 155 the game can become completely unplayable NES Tetris is an old game its code works very well during normal gam play but these players were taking the game further than the original programmers ever dreamed and as the level climbs higher the game's code gets very inefficient with updating the score eventually it takes so long to update the score that the game has to draw the graphics when it's not supposed to and as a result it tries to read Ram as code depending on what it reads if a stop command is generated then the game will simply crash on the spot now this crash doesn't just automatically happen at a certain level various conditions have to be met taking into account what level you're on what piece you have how many lines you clear and more hydrant dude created a spreadsheet showing all the spots where the game can crash on an unmodified Tetris cartridge and it turns out the first place the game Crash can occur is by clearing a single line on the transition into level 155 this crashes the game every time however by this point no top player was using an original Tetris card instead they were all playing on Tetris gym a modified ROM that completely changed the scoring mechanism and as a result the game Crash doesn't occur on Tetris gym so if you wanted to go for a game Crash you had to use an original cartridge with no uncap code that meant your score would have to be manually calculated afterwards a major pain but fractal knew that it would be worth it for years level 29 had been called [Music] tetris'd speed for a long time but this game Crash was the true kill screen of Tetris there was no way to play onward once the game crashed for 34 years every game of NES Tetris ever played had ended in the player topping out now fractal had the chance to change that he could be the first person to beat Tetris and he wasn't that far away the world record had already made it to level 14 48 if fractal could just make it seven more levels then land a single into level 155 he would crash the game it was within his reach but standing in his way was charcoal the level that nobody had beaten before if fractal couldn't find a way to beat it then he'd have no hope of crashing the game over the next few weeks fractal practiced extensively he came up with strategies of staying alert on the dim levels he built his consistency with rolling and eventually he felt he had a good chance to make it past charcoal finally it was time fractal's years of playing Tetris had all led up to this he was ready to start streaming attempts to crash the game fractal went live and started playing but just an hour into his first night of attempts someone else shocked the world [Music] [Music] this is blue scooty and he had just made it past chal in a live game blue scooty was an elite player but not considered to be quite on fractal's level just weeks ago he'd finished third place in the tetris World Championship that fractal won but with his personal best at 5.2 million the world record was technically Within Reach and now he just become the first ever player to make it past charcoal scooty was able to hold it together for a few more levels but ended up topping out in level3 his final score 6.6 million a new world record all of a sudden fractal had serious competition in getting the first game Crash scooty was just too level short now he was playing on Tetris gym so even if he' made it to 155 the game wouldn't have crashed but now scooty realized how close he was to making history and he too switched to playing on the original cartridge it was now a two-way race for the first game Crash the world champion fractal against the newcomer blue scoote the pressure was on for fractal and he was more determined than ever after seeing scooty's new record he continued with his attempts and within hours he had another chance he made it to level 130 just 25 levels away from the game Crash but on level 133 it started to get dicey he Mis dropped a couple pieces and his stack piled high fractal decided to go for a risky maneuver to save his game he dropped the T piece here and at the last moment rotate to fit in this Gap it was a precise move but it was his best chance to keep the game alive I went for the Tas and just like that it was over 22 levels from the crash all he could do is keep trying the very next day he got another one going he played beautifully for half an hour and eventually made it right back to level 130 but just like yesterday it started to unravel a long barge route combined with mist drops caused his stack to rise fractal hadn't come all this way just the top out in level 130 again he had to find a way to dig out of this I regret nothing [Music] just incredible work the game was alive 20 levels till the game Crash are you ready I'm might not leave oh oh okay ah came over on level 137 just 18 levels short of the crash any of these games could have been the one fractal couldn't stop now he kept his stream going and within hours he found himself on another promising game he once again passed level 100 then made it to level 130 where all his previous games had fallen apart but this time things were different he kept his stack low and ended up reaching the glitched colors 17 levels to go until the game Crash fractal powered through the different color paletts and he knew what was coming next Dusk and charcoal he mentally prepared himself for them and felt there was a good chance he'd make it through moments later fractal entered level 146 it was time for dusk oh my God no I got completely blight man even though he knew what was coming fractal was still caught off guard he instantly missed dropped and couldn't recover this game was enough to beat blue scooty back for the score world record but it remained just N9 level short of the crash finally fractal had to stop for the day that that was three close calls in just 24 hours no one could say he wasn't trying but today it wasn't happening he stopped his stream went to sleep and the next day he started up attempts again but just a short while into this stream his chat let him know that blue scoote was on an amazing run wait what is scooty what is scooty at right now oh my God he had made it all the way to the glitched colors level 1 38 17 levels from the crash he was quickly approaching Dusk and charcoal but scooty had had success beating those levels before now with the pressure of a game crash on the line he'd have to do it again blue scooty made it to level 146 stayed calm and began playing dusk [Music] beautiful one down one to go charcoal was next the level that nobody else had beaten before scooty knew that if he could beat charcoal right now he had a really good chance of getting the crash this was happening blue scooty was now on level 149 six levels from the crash fractal couldn't believe what he was watching and he was cheering him on on kill it kill it kill it blue scooty had adrenaline coursing through him but he knew what he had to do hold it together for just a few more levels he kept playing rolling the pieces into place with no margin for error the level climbed higher and finally he arrived at level 154 just one more step for the game Crash transition into level 155 on a single line clear the strategy here was to keep the stack as low as possible to make single Line clears easy for four lines all went according to plan but then he Mis dropped an S piece his stack started the p up but scooty stayed calm in the face of danger he continued getting single Line clears until he was just one line away from the transition he now needed one more single line clear but then the game gave him a long bar and scooty perhaps out of habit took the bait I missed it scooty had made it to the glitched C he'd beaten Dusk and charcoal he'd held it together the entire way and at the last possible moment he'd still missed the crash he was flustered but he knew it might not be over there were still other places the game could crash scooty didn't know exactly where but he hoped that if he kept going maybe the game would crash at some point just please crash scooty played through the next couple levels he did beautifully given the weight of what had just happened but the game didn't crash but in level 157 it was too much he started M dropping and it was clear that he wasn't going to be able to recover this the game would be over in a matter of seconds out of desperation scooty threw a j piece to the left hoping that a line clear would somehow crash the game oh my god oh oh my God he did it he did it wait he got it oh my god let's go Blue scooty had defeated Tetris this is The Game's true kill screen it's where Tetris gives up and says you win had scooty missed this one line clear it's unlikely he would have been able to get another one before topping out and he also had a bit of luck on his side according to Hydra dude spreadsheet this line clear only had a 73% chance of crashing the game but it all lined up it all worked out and blue scooty crashed the game but even crazier than the achievement itself was what happened over the next few days a game Scout published a video talking about scooty's accomplishment and it went viral 10 million views in a matter of days soon media Outlets were picking up up on the story articles were written news segments were broadcast blue scooty was interviewed on morning news shows and then he got to meet the creator of Tetris Alexi pnov it was a media phenomenon one of the biggest stories of the week and in the background of it all was fractal this was supposed to be his achievement he'd spent years looking into the crash helping discover what conditions were needed and what caused it and after years of buildup somebody else had swooped in and beaten him to it now credit to scooty he'd done an amazing job closing out his games but fractal had come so close to getting it first now he could only watch as scooty's accomplishment made headlines around the world fractal had to face the facts he could no longer be the first person to get the game Crash and he wasn't going to get the wave of a attention that scooty got but he could still finish what he started so fractal continued trying to get his own game Crash it took a couple weeks but on January 3rd 2024 he cleared a single line on the transition into level 155 6 7 8 [Music] 9 this wasn't the first game crash but it was the world record for the earliest game Crash level 155 versus scooty's level 157 and while there weren't news stories or Good Morning America interviews for fractal the tetris Community knew what he had accomplished and now hopefully all of you do [Applause] too think thanks to the game Crash the tetris Community had a spotlight on it new players were getting into the scene and Veterans were playing more than ever before but now that the game Crash was out of the way people turned their attention back to the score record it had become a bit lost in all of this but the highest score of all of these games was blue scoot's first game Crash 6.85 million points and it was beatable scooty was playing as safely as he could to make it to the crash so he only got three tetrises after hitting level 29 leaving lots of points on the table if someone had the guts to go for a Tetris after reaching the glitched colors it would be worth over 166,000 points land a few of those and you could crush the score record several players ended up going for the record here but the player who ultimately broke it was Pixel Andy on January 11th he started a game that made it to level 29 and for a while he wasn't going for any tetrises but then they started to pour in good choice nice nice yes dude Yes Man by level 130 Andy had already broken the score record before even reaching the glitched colors but he didn't stop there he continued Landing them scoring over 170,000 Points each time this hyper aggressive play style was working his game could end at any moment but in the meantime he was racking up the points finally in level 148 Andy topped out his final score was 8.9 million points more than a 2 million point Improvement to the world record That's The Power of Landing Tetris as leate scaling comes into play and your score adds up fast now the community had a dilemma Andy's score record landed so many late tetrises that beating it by scoring more points wasn't too likely instead players would have to beat his record by playing further than he did and with the game Crash just a few levels away there didn't seem to be much room there so they had two options for how to proceed option number one crash dodging starting on level 155 many levels have some trigger that can cause a game Crash initially it's how many lines you clear and in later levels it's what pieces you drop however these conditions had all been mapped out so in theory someone could memorize what to avoid on each level then Dodge crashes to keep playing indefinitely however the combination of playing at this speed in the first place with memorizing conditions on every level and then executing it at the same time it would be a lot even for these amazing players but there was also an easier option players could simply go back to playing on Tetris gym which patched the crash and not have to worry about Crash dodging at all now some might argue that this isn't exactly Fair because if you play Tetris on the original cartridge the crashes would all be present why are you allowed to just patch them out like that there's a wide range of opinions on this topic and you can come to your own conclusion about what's fair but there's no denying that removing crashes does simplify things quite a bit and ultimately players had been using the gym romm for years the race for the game Crash was a fun one-off challenge but now most agreed it was back to playing on Tetris gym and with the crash patched and players breaking new boundaries these guys had a new race in front of them the race for 10 million points the classic Tetris YouTube channel began hosting weekly race to 10 million events where blue scooty fractal pixel Andy and a few others all played to break the score record on top of that there was a community funded Bounty of $2600 for the first 10 million point game there was a lot of anticipation and with so many top players trying expect ations were just as high however weeks passed and Not only was there no 10 million point game but nobody even improved their high score playing long enough to score 10 million points required immense concentration and when factoring in the pressure to be the first AC cross a barrier and the cash Bounty at stake each good game was like a mental battle fractal blue scooty pixel Andy dog Gerald Freeman these guys were all good enough enough to reach 10 million yet week after week they came up empty but then on the night of March 11th 2024 someone started messaging players in the classic Tetris monthly Discord server these were from another top player Alex thatch and this is what he [Music] sent this was a new world record and just short of the 10 million point barrier but it was also unrecorded now Alex was definitely a good player holding a few various records over the years he used to be one of the fastest hyper tappers and was good at rolling too but had never officially held the score record before he was claiming to have crushed his recorded PB offline and without video proof Alex said he was practicing late at night while listening to moist critical and out of nowhere he got this crazy game the general consensus was that the score was likely legit but without a video it couldn't be considered official so the very next day Alex thatch began streaming attempts to prove himself now expecting to match or beat yesterday's score was unreasonable but if he could put up some decent scores on command that would help substantiate his 9.9 million claim Alex sat down and started playing some Tetris but little did he or anybody watching know that this was going to be the greatest game of Tetris ever performed it started off like any other he reached level 29 and decided to play conservatively in hopes of getting a deep game slow and steady like wins the race you know he kept climbing through levels and for the most part his stack stayed very low and eventually he passed level 100 yes level 100 sh the three digits the game was starting to get serious but Alex stayed very calm on level 138 he answered the glitched colors and he was cruising as he reached the dark pallets he echoed the words fractal used to lock himself in Eyes Wide Open Eyes Wide Open Eyes Wide Open it worked Alex played through the 150s and at this moment if he was playing on an original cartridge the game would have likely crashed but since he was on Tetris gym he was able to keep going and all the while Alex just kept talking yes Redemption this is redemption oh my God and we're going to keep fighting for this 10 mil we need to win that Bounty you got nothing on me I'm going keep going I'm going for the 10 million and I'm going to get it this was actually a brilliant strategy the main thing stopping players on these games was themselves nerves caught up to them and they just couldn't hold it together so to counter that Alex distracted himself he hyped himself up and as a result his nerves melted away give it bring it on come on on level 185 Alex crossed 10 million points this was now the official world record and he'd earned the $2,600 Bounty and then then he crossed level 190 and then level 200 all the while he wouldn't be quiet bro these colors got nothing on me I can know I like literally on level 216 Alex landed a Tetris it was worth over 260,000 points how is this game happening could it go on forever does Tetris have an end well it sort of does you can play all the way to level 255 and then the level counter rolls over to zero and the game essentially restarts this is known as the rebirth for years it was known to exist but wasn't considered at all viable but Alex might have a shot at it right now however there was still one thing standing between Alex and the rebirth level 235 in NES Tetris levels last 10 lons however due to a bug level two 235 is a bit different it lasts for 810 lines it's an absolute Marathon to make it through especially with the dark green color palette it has on Tetris gym so when Alex entered level 235 moments later he knew he had a tough task ahead of him oh wait what wait this is the 800 Lin level oh my God he' cleared 10 lines so far only 800 more to go for the first time all game Alex stopped talking he struggled to see the pieces and needed to use all his Focus for 70 more lines all went well but eventually he began to M drop oh that might be it oh my God what [Music] has oh oh oh my God this is redemption day one of 10 million look what we [Music] got this just completely blew every other game ever played out of the water to put it in perspective prior to this game few people had ever cleared more than 1,400 lines in a game Alex had just cleared 2,374 lines and his game lasted a full hour he had figured out the secret formula to surviving in Tetris just distract yourself and don't care a few weeks later Alex raised the score slightly to 16.7 million and to this day nobody else has beaten his score but there's no doubt that the rebirth is coming Alex blue scooty pixel Andy and others have all been trying to make it there they're certainly all capable of doing it and sure it's going to be a SLO to make it through the 810 lines of level 235 but if there's one thing we can be sure of Tetris players are constantly redefining what's possible and before long one of the these guys will achieve the rebirth the only question is who's going to do it first thanks for watching for a behind the-scenes look at how I made this video and story lines that I couldn't include join my patreon page I only charge when I upload a video thanks [Music] w