GamesPuzzleTetrisA 13-year-old just finished the 34-year quest to beat Tetris, but now the community is working to reach the other endingsWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
GamesPuzzleTetrisA 13-year-old just finished the 34-year quest to beat Tetris, but now the community is working to reach the other endingsWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Atari)

34 years after the official release of Tetris on NES, a 13-year-old prodigy known as Blue Scuti is the first person to beat the game. Now the community is starting to look to new horizons - including a whole host of other potential endings.
The official, Nintendo-published NES edition was not the first (and certainly not the last) version of Tetris to be published, but it’s become arguably the most important Tetris release for the competitive community, since it serves as the basis for the Classic Tetris World Championship series. Unlike some other versions of Tetris, this release doesn’t have an official ending sequence or final goal to achieve. You’re supposed to just keep playing until you eventually can’t keep up with the speed of the falling blocks anymore.
But there’s a key difference between the Pac-Man kill screen and the Tetris kill screen - it’s not inevitable. Since the Tetris kill screen only activates under certain conditions, you can theoretically keep playing indefinitely as long as you avoid those conditions. The video above from aGameScout is essential viewing if you want to know how it all works, but suffice to say that the community is already looking toward achieving other potential endings.
There are faster ways to achieve the kill screen, for example - you could trigger it a few levels earlier on 155. That’s the goal of Fractal161, whose grind for the kill screen inspired Scuti’s own efforts. And Scuti seemingly intends to go for the fast kill screen, too. He said inan interviewthat “If [Fractal] is going to go for an efficient game crash then I might as well, too.”
Maybe it’s my time to become a world record holder with theTetris McNugget?
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1Nemesis review: “A magical sense of tension”
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