Teen Sets a Mind-Melting NES Tetris Record, Achieves ‘Rebirth’

Over the weekend, 16-year-old American competitory gamer Michael Artiaga became the archetypal quality NES Tetris subordinate to execute “rebirth” by beating level 255 and rolling the antagonistic backmost to zero.

Artiaga streamed his record-setting, two-hour tally on Twitch, and the feat concluded with a 2nd walk astatine Level 91 aft he’d cleared a full 4,216 lines for 29.4 cardinal points, Ars Technica reports. Afterward, Artiaga remarked: “Oh my god, I’m truthful gladsome that crippled is over, bro. I ne'er privation to play this crippled again.”

The accomplishment lone took astir 35 years; classical Tetris debuted connected the Nintendo Entertainment System successful 1989, and the crippled was agelong considered unbeatable arsenic play hits mind-melting speeds successful the precocious levels, pushing the limits of quality performance. Yet, the improvement of caller techniques, rolling and hyper tapping, cleared the mode for caller milestones.

Known arsenic “dogplayingtetris” oregon simply “dog,” Artiaga besides became the youngest winner of the Classic Tetris World Championships successful 2020. He’s 1 of 2 teens to onshore successful the spotlight implicit the past twelvemonth for eviscerating earlier classical Tetris records.

In December 2023, a 13-year-old streamer known arsenic Blue Scuti effectively bushed the game by reaching its termination screen, crashing the bundle aft clearing 1,511 lines. Artiaga was capable to debar the termination surface by utilizing a mentation of the crippled that was updated to mitigate crashes. The live-streamed saga inactive featured respective nail-biters, including a antagonistic bug astatine level 235 and a color-palette glitch that made the rapidly falling blocks adjacent harder to see.