Tetris meets its match in Oklahoma teen

The video stream shows a grainy old video game screen with the score oddly stuck at 999,999. On the video’s split screen, 13-year-old Willis Gibson, who recorded himself playing Nintendo’s 1989 version of Tetris, exclaims “Oh my God! Oh my God!” while rocking in his chair in disbelief. “I can’t feel my fingers!”

The video stream that Gibson, of Stillwater, Oklahoma, posted online January 2 captures his December 21 defeat of Tetris, a game played by millions worldwide. The frozen score indicates he reached the “kill screen” and crashed the game, the Associated Press reports.

No one had defeated Tetris since Nintendo introduced its widely popular version of the puzzle game 35 years ago. That such a feat was possible had been proven only recently by artificial intelligence.

Willis Gibson posted a video that showed the 13-year-old appearing to defeat Tetris after about 38 minutes of playtime.

On Thursday, he met its creator. https://t.co/YQtfOdkSUb

— NBC News (@NBCNews) January 7, 2024

Gibson’s mother, a high school math teacher, bought the old-style gaming system at his request, and he began competitive gaming in 2021, according to the New York Times. He competes under the name “Blue Scuti” and has triumphed over much older competition, while still finding time to keep up with household chores, the Times reports.

Gibson’s victory has drawn international acclaim, most notably from the game’s producers. Henk Rogers, who helped bring Tetris to international audiences, told NBC News “what it took for him to get there was incredible determination.”

“Congrats,” Alexey Pajitnov, the game’s designer, told Gibson on a call arranged by NBC News. “To beat the program, which kind of existed for many years and played by hundred millions of people, that’s quite a, quite a achievement, I would say.”