Teen achieves first NES Tetris "rebirth," proves endless play is possible(arstechnica.com)
arstechnica.com
Teen achieves first NES Tetris "rebirth," proves endless play is possible
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/10/nes-tetris-first-ever-rebirth-loops-past-level-255-and-back-to-zero/
21 comments
-- modified version of the game.
Well that really makes this less interesting tbh.
Well that really makes this less interesting tbh.
Only slightly. It's not as if the patch changes the core game play mechanics, it's only to make it past the "kill screen". When you keep in within context with the fact that making it to this "kill screen" was unheard of less than a year ago, it's still pretty damn impressive.
I'd argue that in the context of overflowing the level counter, dodging the crashes (the most difficult part) is in fact the core mechanic. This doesn't take away from the skill required for playing at this level on the hacked version, but it does make the title misleading. It's not a "NES Tetris rebirth", it's a "Tetris Gym rebirth".
Fair, but it's still an impressive feat in its own right.
Crash dodging comes with its own challenges, explained more here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3f4T0WaDVM
There are some player actions that can avoid or reduce the risk of crash, including:
Crash probabilities are summarized here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zAQIo_mnkk0c9e4-hpeD...
Crash dodging comes with its own challenges, explained more here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3f4T0WaDVM
There are some player actions that can avoid or reduce the risk of crash, including:
- Pushing down <7 points
- Pushing down 7+ points (note: very difficult at lvl 29+ speeds)
- Turning off the next box while a line is being cleared
- Avoiding specific line clear types on specific levels
Crash probabilities are summarized here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zAQIo_mnkk0c9e4-hpeD...
Only very lightly modified to prevent crashes, which seems legit to me.
> Artiaga's record does come with a small asterisk since he used a version of the game that was modified to avoid the crashes that stopped Blue Scuti's historic run.
This is an important caveat - they patched the glitchy behavior and that made this impossible. In the unpatched game, this is not possible and the previous record likely will stand.
This is an important caveat - they patched the glitchy behavior and that made this impossible. In the unpatched game, this is not possible and the previous record likely will stand.
That's not even really true. The rom that most people use competitively was created because it makes things like score tracking above the ordinary limit easier. It just happened to also patch out the crashes (which were discovered later). It isn't like Dog said "I'll use this rom to avoid crashes". The community has mostly used this rom for years as their base choice already.
It's true when you advertise the accomplishment as being played on "NES Tetris". The vast majority of readers will assume this means it was played on the original NES Tetris. This kind of misreporting is especially bad because it will subtract from any level overflow achieved on the original game. Despite being a much more difficult task, if somebody does manage it, it will get less attention because the reporters made it seem like it already happened.
Most records set in NES Tetris up to this point, including those that have been reported on, have been set on this mod.
All of these communities set up norms and it is weird how every time any news breaks out of them it is stuff like "wtf he is playing smb1 with a keyboard that doesn't count" while all the people actually involved in the community are just shrugging their shoulders.
All of these communities set up norms and it is weird how every time any news breaks out of them it is stuff like "wtf he is playing smb1 with a keyboard that doesn't count" while all the people actually involved in the community are just shrugging their shoulders.
Previously reported NES Tetris accomplishments did not involve modifying the game to bypass an extremely difficult part of that accomplishment. Fixing a score display bug makes almost no difference to how the game is played. Similarly, playing SMB1 on a keyboard makes very little difference to how the game is played. All the challenges of the original game are still there.
Wrapping the level counter on Tetris Gym is difficult and impressive. It is not however the same thing as wrapping the level counter on the original NES Tetris, which is what every reasonable reader who's not involved in the Tetris community will interpret "NES Tetris" as. Tetris Gym was accepted as standard before people could reach the crash levels. The fact that it previously made no real difference does not excuse continuing to call it "NES Tetris" now that it does make a major difference.
Wrapping the level counter on Tetris Gym is difficult and impressive. It is not however the same thing as wrapping the level counter on the original NES Tetris, which is what every reasonable reader who's not involved in the Tetris community will interpret "NES Tetris" as. Tetris Gym was accepted as standard before people could reach the crash levels. The fact that it previously made no real difference does not excuse continuing to call it "NES Tetris" now that it does make a major difference.
I guess I personally care much more about what the tetris community counts as NES Tetris than what other people think.
So much mindshare across games like Tetris and Mario 1
I always wonder how many other more interesting glitches and analysis are hidden amongst the hundreds of thousands of other games
I always wonder how many other more interesting glitches and analysis are hidden amongst the hundreds of thousands of other games
I think a lot about how Super Mario 64 is one of, if not the most studied program out there. So many people have ripped that game apart down to assembly and studied every facet of it looking for glitches and speed running strategies. It's honestly super impressive
Displaced Gamers goes in depth on a lot of other titles: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWoSKWs8h6lFdiEDAjuIfpA
Imagine being one of the original Tetris devs knowing that decades later people have made it their livelihood to work around your bugs.
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Total of 3300 lines cleared before the level overflowed to 0.
Looks like Dog continued playing on for a while, ultimately reaching level 91 again before ending the run with an additional 916 lines cleared after rebirth, due to not being able to recover from an i-piece misdrop.
To clarify, this was on a modified version of the game that prevents game crashes. The original unmodified version of the game actually starts experiencing possible crashes after reaching level 155 (Bluescuti being the first to reach this point is what made headlines some months ago).