Some kid just beat Tetris on NES

[phart010 | 1,807]

 

[Jfreakofkorn | 341]

that s cool 

and glad to see the creator is still kicking around too . . . 

[Dr. Morbis | 2,125]

I just saw this and I remember when level 29 (I think) was considered "impossible" just a few years ago; now these kids are getting to level 150+.

Moving forward, I think the trick will be avoiding the kill screen for as long as possible to get the highest scores/lines possible...

[fox | 1,841]

"Some kid" talk about disrespect

[DarkTone | 1,039]

Congrats. 

[GPX | 1,439]

Honestly felt like a sample clip of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. When Charlie discovered the Golden ticket, and then freaked out. 

Pretty awesome achievement though. This lad is one dedicated gamer and likely to be a brainiac too!

 

[NostalgicMachine | 383]

Achievement unlocked!

I'm also flabbergasted to realize 13 years ago now = 2011 WTF.

Which also means I'll be 36 two weeks from today.

Edited January 7, 2024 by NostalgicMachine

[RH | 5,414]

I watched a different video about this a few days ago.  Apparently the game can lock up when certain conditions are met that are different per stage.

Another player dissected the code to create a “map” of when and what would lock the game.  This kids missed the first lock, so he thought he wouldn’t achieve that goal, but kept playing and 1 or 2 stages later he pulled off a move that locked the game.

The next community goal is to try to get to stage 255.  Apparently if you beat stage 255, TAS runs have proven that the game simply resets its state and you start back at stage 1 with a score of 0. If/when anyone gets to that point, I imagine the community _might_ encourage “endurance” runs but that’s just a guess.  The scores already start to glitch in the 100s levels so I think scores have to be manually counted. Anyway, it was fascinating and I’m not heavily into these series retro gamers but I watch videos by Summoning Salts.  Most of these serious players appear to be in their late-20s to late-30s.  I thought it was awesome to see a kid that looked 12, playing a NES game and being a global champion.  And not just him but all of the other top players look like teenagers. Kids like them will keep the NES alive in perpetuity.

[mbd39 | 2,147]

22 minutes ago, RH said:

I watched a different video about this a few days ago.  Apparently the game can lock up when certain conditions are met that are different per stage.

Another player dissected the code to create a “map” of when and what would lock the game.  This kids missed the first lock, so he thought he wouldn’t achieve that goal, but kept playing and 1 or 2 stages later he pulled off a move that locked the game.

The next community goal is to try to get to stage 255.  Apparently if you beat stage 255, TAS runs have proven that the game simply resets its state and you start back at stage 1 with a score of 0. If/when anyone gets to that point, I imagine the community _might_ encourage “endurance” runs but that’s just a guess.  The scores already start to glitch in the 100s levels so I think scores have to be manually counted. Anyway, it was fascinating and I’m not heavily into these series retro gamers but I watch videos by Summoning Salts.  Most of these serious players appear to be in their late-20s to late-30s.  I thought it was awesome to see a kid that looked 12, playing a NES game and being a global champion.  And not just him but all of the other top players look like teenagers. Kids like them will keep the NES alive in perpetuity.

Yeah it's now mostly kids who dominate NES Tetris.

Before teen Joseph Saelee popularized hyper tapping the best players were generally older, like 30+. Jonas Neubauer and Koryan for example.

 

[Gloves | 12,577]

It's their tiny, nimble little fingies.

[JamesRobot | 6,256]

Yeah, the kid's amazing.  I just learned about that rolling technique a week or two before this happened.

Can we get @Blue Scuti on the forum please? 

[GPX | 1,439]

19 hours ago, RH said:

I watched a different video about this a few days ago.  Apparently the game can lock up when certain conditions are met that are different per stage.

Another player dissected the code to create a “map” of when and what would lock the game.  This kids missed the first lock, so he thought he wouldn’t achieve that goal, but kept playing and 1 or 2 stages later he pulled off a move that locked the game.

The next community goal is to try to get to stage 255.  Apparently if you beat stage 255, TAS runs have proven that the game simply resets its state and you start back at stage 1 with a score of 0. If/when anyone gets to that point, I imagine the community _might_ encourage “endurance” runs but that’s just a guess.  The scores already start to glitch in the 100s levels so I think scores have to be manually counted. Anyway, it was fascinating and I’m not heavily into these series retro gamers but I watch videos by Summoning Salts.  Most of these serious players appear to be in their late-20s to late-30s.  I thought it was awesome to see a kid that looked 12, playing a NES game and being a global champion.  And not just him but all of the other top players look like teenagers. Kids like them will keep the NES alive in perpetuity.

So are you saying someone’s already made it to stage 255? The mind boggles to think how much reflexes, mental focus and stamina would be needed!

I can imagine it would be akin to playing a vertical shooter with constant bullets coming at you for hours without a stage break!

[RH | 5,414]

31 minutes ago, GPX said:

So are you saying someone’s already made it to stage 255? The mind boggles to think how much reflexes, mental focus and stamina would be needed!

I can imagine it would be akin to playing a vertical shooter with constant bullets coming at you for hours without a stage break!

Through a TAS run, yes.  

[Hammerfestus | 4,201]

What’s a TAS?

[RH | 5,414]

21 minutes ago, Hammerfestus said:

What’s a TAS?

I can't remember the "S" but it's basically tool-assisted runs where people can program in inputs per-frame.  Speed runners and high-score runner communities will often use them to figure out what theoretical "perfect" runs are by building perfect runs.

RNG (Random Number Generators) also breaks a lot of games, like Tetris, but with a TAS tool and frame-level controller inputs, you can usually break the RNG by basically 100% controlling the state of the internal RAM by the perfect-level of game play that scripting can offer.

Anyway, from the video I watched, there was a guy in the community who I think used TAS tools and might have torn apart the Assembly code of the game as it was running and he did a large map of what actions would crash the game at what levels.  However, there was found a path that would take a player the way to level 255 and once that was completed, they gameplay would 100% reset.  Even though that was impressive, again, he accomplished this by basically advancing the game one frame at a time and making whatever proper entries he needed to make in order to build a "perfect" run, and that was the end discovery of his work.

[Gloves | 12,577]

Tool Assisted Speedrun. 

[T-Pac | 8,443]

This is a great video that explains the whole thing, including the level 255 reset point.

I know it's 17 minutes long, but I promise it's worth watching if you're interested in NES Tetris.

(Also worth noting - Fractal got the "optimized crash" at level 155 shortly after this video was posted).

[T-Pac]

 

[RH | 5,414]

@T-Pac Thanks for doing my work.  I've been lazy and didn't take the time to find the video I've been referencing.  I'm not a Tetris nut.  All of the details I've shared came from that video, I think.

[TDIRunner | 2,998]

23 hours ago, RH said:

The next community goal is to try to get to stage 255.  Apparently if you beat stage 255, TAS runs have proven that the game simply resets its state and you start back at stage 1 with a score of 0. If/when anyone gets to that point, I imagine the community _might_ encourage “endurance” runs but that’s just a guess.  

Once that happens, it will be a question of how many times and someone roll it back to level zero in a single playthrough.  

[DarkTone | 1,039]

I thought someone already did this. Not from experience but.... its tetris on Nes. 

[the_wizard_666 | 1,363]

From what I understand, you have to manually drop every piece on level 255 or it locks.  Looping it may be borderline impossible when that is factored in.  And that's assuming there isn't some other nigh impossible task to prevent locking on an earlier level.

[T-Pac | 8,443]

Another update to this - P1xelAndy is now the 3rd person to crash the game (if I'm not mistaken).

Seems to be a case of that psychological barrier effect where a single person overcomes a previously "unattainable" achievement, then the floodgates open and a swath of others manage to replicate it. Seriously cool stuff.

[T-Pac]

[CMR | 549]

I was somehow lucky enough to catch blue scuti's stream and fractal161's stream when they beat it.  I don't know how it happened.  Both their lives just popped up in my youtube stream.  They were both pretty epic.  Congrats to both of them.

[DarkTone | 1,039]

So 3 people in less than a month. Theres something odd about this...

[the_wizard_666 | 1,363]

26 minutes ago, DarkTone said:

So 3 people in less than a month. Theres something odd about this...

How so?  Once it was discovered, several top players immediately started gunning for it.  I'm not surprised that several did it in relatively quick succession.  It would be different if nobody was playing for it and suddenly three people did it, but they were all gunning for it.