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Started by Sol Herrera (@speedrun_sol) ·

people finally 'beat' NES Tetris by crashing it

For decades level 29 was treated as the end, because pieces fall too fast to move across the board with normal tapping. Then came hypertapping, then 'rolling' (drumming your fingers against the back of the controller), and suddenly players were reaching levels the game was never tested for. At the end of 2023 a 13-year-old became the first person to make it crash.

5 sources · 49 min down the hole

How I got here

Started with
“nes tetris crash level 157”
Ended at
“nes tetris rolling technique explained”

The Trail

  1. “nes tetris crash level 157” (google.com)
  2. Tetris (NES video game) (en.wikipedia.org)
  3. Classic Tetris World Championship (en.wikipedia.org)
  4. Ecstasy of Order: The Tetris Masters (en.wikipedia.org)

    the 2011 doc, from back when level 29 was the wall

  5. “nes tetris rolling technique explained” (youtube.com)

What I came away with

As I understand it, at very high levels some of the game's routines take too long, an interrupt lands at the wrong moment, and the game jumps into garbage and freezes. People mapped out where that can happen, and the crash became the new finish line.

Keep going