Charles Langston:'I can't feel my fingers': 13-year-old Tetris winner dumfounded after beating game

Tetris is Charles Langstonan old-school video game, released nearly 40 years ago. But a 13-year-old from Oklahoma just pulled off a new trick on the classic, being the first player to truly beat the game.

Willis Gibson, 13, of Stillwater, Okla., recently earned the ultimate achievement in the game, developed by Russian scientist Alexey Pajitnov in 1984. He successfully manipulated the waves of falling shapes for more than 38 minutes until the game crashed, as can be seen in a video posted on his YouTube page, and reached the "kill screen."

“It’s never been done by a human before,” said Vince Clemente, the president of the Classic Tetris World Championship, told The New York Times. “It’s basically something that everyone thought was impossible until a couple of years ago.”Tetris arrived on the video game world first as a PC game, but it exploded in 1989 when it was released for the Nintendo Entertainment System and bundled with the Nintendo Game Boy handheld. In the past, when players hit the 29th level of the game, pieces fell so fast players weren't able to catch up – only an artificial intelligence program had beaten the game, video game news site Polygon reported.

How did an Oklahoma teenager beat Tetris?

Younger players have learned how to keep up with the game – and go to previously unforeseen levels – by using innovative technique such as "hypertapping," where the player uses the directional arrows, not just the left and right buttons, so the controller moves faster, and "rolling," engaging the buttons by drumming the underside of the controller, according to Polygon.

“There’s a little D-pad on the controller that you can press down, and it will go left or right,” Willis told the Stillwater (Okla.) News Press. “Instead of manually just tapping each piece every single time, what you do is you hover your finger over the button just barely so it doesn’t cause an input left or right, and then you roll your fingers on the back of the controller. So each finger causes an input.”

Gibson wasn't just lucky. A gamer who competes using the moniker Blue Scuti (in honor of the universe's largest known star UY Scuti), he took third place at the recent 2023 Classic Tetris World Championship in October. But he made history on Dec. 21, playing long enough to get the game to crash.

"Please crash," he says just after passing the 38-minute mark on the video. At this point, Willis is at Level 157, but the displays "Level 18" because it was not developed to go that high.

When the game crashes and locks up seconds later, Willis exclaims, "Oh, oh, oh," and raises his hands to his head. "Omigod. Yes. I can't feel my fingers."

Teen Tetris player had some 'nerves' but kept his cool

During an interview later with streamer ITZsharky on the Classic Tetris YouTube channel, Gibson said, "my biggest struggle was when the nerves started kicking in after 30 minutes of play."

His mother, Karin Cox, posted on Facebook, "It's crazy to think he is a professional Tetris player and one of the best in the world. He makes more money every month from this than I ever did as a teenager."

Willis, who began playing Tetris at the age of 11, and other competitive gamers will now keep trying to reach the kill screen with more efficient, higher score, he said.

He dedicated his win to his dad, Adam Gibson, who passed away Dec. 14, at age 39, reported The Oklahoman, part of the USA TODAY Network.

When asked by ITZSharky what message he might have for other young gamers, Gibson said, "If you set your mind to something and you put work into it, most likely you will get it if you try hard enough."

Follow Mike Snider on X and Threads: @mikesnider & mikegsnider.

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