Over level 255:

16-year-old plays “Tetris” all the way through

"Tetris" is a classic on the Game Boy games console - but you have to play with a modified version for the upper levels.

(Bild: stock.adobe.com/Fernando)

A US teenager has - in an adapted version - become the first person to complete the video game "Tetris" and return to the beginning. The 16-year-old, who is active under the pseudonym "dogplayingtetris", took a good 80 minutes in a Twitch livestream to get past level 255 in the classic NES version. 

The counter then jumped to level 0. In the second run, he made it to level 91 again.

An important limitation compared to many previous record attempts: He was playing with a modified version that prevents the crashes that Tetris is notorious for at higher levels.

Simple principle, great fun to play
"Tetris, with its blocks falling from above in various shapes, appeared on the Nintendo NES console in the 1980s. The aim is to push the blocks to the left or right so that there are no gaps. Full rows build up, incomplete rows stop and eventually block the screen: Game Over.

Here you can see the teenager as he cracks level 255:

New techniques for higher levels
For decades, it was considered almost impossible to get past level 29, where the blocks fall so quickly that ordinary button movements are no longer fast enough. In recent years, however, players have developed techniques with names such as "hypertapping" and "rolling", in which you press the buttons on the controller extremely quickly or roll your fingers on them.

This made it possible to get well past level 29 - but then it turned out that even bigger problems lurked later on. For example, in the levels after 138, where the blocks sometimes have unusual color patterns that make them difficult to recognize. From level 155, the likelihood of the game crashing when complete rows are dismantled increases. This has stopped previous record runs, such as that of the 13-year-old player with the pseudonym "BlueScuti", who crashed "Tetris" at level 157 in January.

In the case of the 16-year-old "dogplayingtetris", the software code of "Tetris" had now been adapted so that he did not have to worry about this risk of crashing. Nevertheless, the game still presented him with challenges: On level 235, for example, you have to complete a whole 810 rows to progress. And the dark green blocks are more difficult to recognize than in other levels.