At just 13 years of age, young Blue Scuti has just broken the world record for the video game Tetris, achieving a score so high that the game crashed. Previously, only an artificial intelligence had achieved this feat! Humanity has not said its last word!
Created in 1984 by Soviet software engineer Alexey PajitnovTetris is undoubtedly one of the best-known video games of all time.
Simple and timeless, this brick-breaker hasn’t aged a day and it’s always fun to play. In fact, a study by neuroscientist Richard Haier published in 2014 proves that this game can improve memory and cognitive skills.
Over the years many people have broken the score record and managed to reach the end of the game. On the NES console, for example, various iconic Nintendo characters appear on screen to celebrate victory.
He plays Tetris so well that the game crashed
However, for the first time, a player has not not only finished the game, but destroyed it altogether. His score was so high that the game crashed. This is a phenomenon known as “kill screen”..
And the most impressive thing is that this person is far from being a veteran who has spent his whole life trying to outdo himself on Tetris. This is a 13-year-old American teenager called Blue Scuti.
However, it’s not his first try. After entering the competitive scene in December 2021, he arrived in first place in several tournaments throughout 2023.
This is the January 2, 2024 that this young prodigy posted a video immortalizing his feat on his YouTube channel. Despite the increasing acceleration of the falling bricks and numerous errors, Scuti succeeded in provoking the game to crash after 38 minutes.
We can see the screen freeze, while the music freezes on the same note. The player himself was shocked and exclaimed: ” Oh my God! “on several occasions. He then explains that he can no longer feel his fingers.
A feat achieved thanks to a new technique
To achieve this feat, the young man used the “rolling” technique. It involves holding the NES controller in a certain way, and has been widely adopted by professional Tetris players since 2021.
The idea is to let your fingers slide along the bottom of the joystick, and use the momentum to roll the controller in your other hand by pressing the D-Pad during transfer.
Previously, players preferred the “hyper tapping” technique which consists of pressing the controller’s D-Pad as quickly as possible. This new method makes it possible to 20 presses per second instead of 12.
It is clear that this approach has revolutionized the Tetris e-sport scenescene, and it was this approach that enabled Scuti to beat the world record for overall score, level reachedand total number of lines.
His greatest difficulty, in his own words, was to keep his cool after about 30 minutes of play. This is particularly hard on the most challenging levels and color schemes.
A victory for humans over artificial intelligence
So, what’s the point of going to all this trouble ? In an interview with the Classic Tetris World Championships YouTube channel, streamer ITZsharky1 put the question to Blue Scuti.
He explains that his aim is to stay at the top of the competition and inspire other players. He has dedicated his world record to his late father last December.
So far, only artificial intelligence had succeeded to block the game and freeze the screen. This young boy managed to match the AI ! Eleven days later, another person managed to crash the game using the same technique.
At a time when artificial intelligence is threatening to replace human labor, and when an AI has just beaten a human physically and mentally for the first time, this feat achieved by a teenager rekindles hope that humans will evolve and stand up to machines…