Image credit: The Grays/Getty Images (Revised)
“Classic Tetris” usually refers to the NES port of the game. It is considered the gold standard original and is the version played in CTWC tournaments. This means the original NES console, the controller and the big old CRT TVs. “A lot of people make fun of us in the comments. They’re like, can’t you buy new TVs?” Cornelius told Engadget.
Not only does this ensure authenticity, but it also provides an equal opportunity. Other contests like the classic Tetris Monthly are more relaxed about what hardware/emulation you can play with, but CTWC and Any World Record will usually be played on the original Nintendo console. A slight concession is allowed for a particular version of the game that has been modified to allow for higher scores (often done with Game Genie) and you will understand why later.
Sally’s victory at the 2018 CTWC Finals may have surprised everyone, but it didn’t happen in a vacuum. Interest in the game continued to grow since the tournament’s opening ceremony in 2010, which was also the subject of a documentary: Order of Ecstasy: The Tetris Masters (directed by Cornelius), The film followed a rag tag group of high-ranking players towards the climax of the first CTWC event. the winner? Jonas Neubauer.
CTWC soon found a home at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo and grew in size every year. In 2016, another newcomer found his way to the final against Neubauer, competing for his 6th title. That player, Jeff Moore, was running the race of his life, much to the surprise of commentators by repeatedly scoring Tetris. “Boom, Tetris for Jeff” he shouted every time he slid a long bar on the right hand side of the screen.
Commenters got so excited about this new Dark Horse candidate, Jeff, that they said, ‘Boom, Tetris for Jeff’ maybe a little too much. And people just stumbled across the video [on YouTube]Cornelius said. Cutdowns were made and T-shirts printed. “Tetris for Boom, Jeff” The right kind of venue to pique young eye interest and kickstart a growing appetite for competitive classic Tetris videos ( youtube) was the right kind of silly.
“There’s a lot more young players getting involved in the sport, especially since Joseph Sally won the world championships, because he blew up the scene in terms of teenagers and stuff.” Christopher “Cheese” Martinez told Engadget.
Chase, as it is known in the Tetris community, is one of those teens. He found the game through Sally’s world championship win video and then made another recommendation about it. tetris effect, At 16, he is searching for a sport that was already twice his age. Like many other new, teenage players, his progress has been remarkably rapid.
Grays/Getty Images (Revised)
Before competitions such as the CTWC took place, there were two white whales for elite Classic Tetris players. The main one was “Maxout”. The NES version of the game only has a six-digit scoreboard meaning 999,999 is the highest score achievable, but it was difficult to reach, not least because of another elusive goal: Level 29 (aka “Kill Screen”).
As anyone who has played any version of Tetris will know, one of the main dynamics is that you clear lines to advance to the next level, as you move blocks faster than in the first level. fall. In NES Tetris, level 29 is when the game reaches its maximum speed and was widely considered impossible to beat when DAS was the only game style. This, in turn, meant that if you were playing for Maxout you had to get there before level 29.
maxout was officially The first was achieved by Harry Hong in 2009, but it is widely accepted that another old school player, Thor Eckerlund, achieved it earlier, but long before video phones, YouTube, and social media. Ackerlund also claimed to have reached level 30 (albeit briefly) but the myth about the achievement meant that it would be many years before the kill screen was actually considered beaten.
After Hong’s maxout in 2009, the players’ slow pace started hitting targets every year. By the time you get to 2019, that number grows exponentially. “It took me a year, I actually progressed much more slowly than a lot of players now. People are doing it in four or five months at most. It’s kind of ridiculous.” Chase said. He got his first maxout in 2019 and was the 65th player to do so. Nearly 400 people have reached the magic million point today..
29 “Kill Screen” to pass the level. This was, at one point, considered nearly impossible. A hard wall that could not be crossed due to the design of the game. DAS simply cannot move pieces fast enough on either edge, meaning that once the “stack” is above a certain height the math is over and failure is guaranteed. Despite that glimpse of Level 30 by Ackerlund, Kill Screen’s reign of terror really came to an end when Sally reached a verified level 33, just months after winning her first world championship.
Still, these achievements seem almost outlandish by today’s standards, despite the two main goals of the high-end Tetris no longer being out of reach. As DAS took the path of hypertapping, the once impossible soon became a rite of passage for elite players. But now that the kill screen limit has been removed, the theoretical score limit has also been done away with. while level 29 maybe Was Intended to be the final level (once you hit 30 the level counter breaks down and the speed no longer matters what level you reach) the hypertapping probably still wasn’t fast enough to allow players to advance. be allowed.
Cheez had other ideas.
Grays/Getty Images (Revised)
While he had made a name for himself as a player with hypertapping, Chase eventually found video of someone using a technique that doubled the input for a single press. “They’ll put their thumb down, and they’ll hit in their other thumb down and up, and you get two inputs with the same speed. So I took inspiration from that, like, at the end of 2020. And rolling became a thing. “
“Rolling” is a strange technique of viewing. Most players place the controller on their thigh or knee, many wear single gloves and then “strum” the controller from below with one thumb on the D-pad. As you get there, though, you can move pieces left and right more quickly than you can hypertapping. It’s such a skillful technique, Cornelius says, that some fans consider it a hoax. It’s perfectly legal in the eyes of CTWCs because it’s done with unmodified NES hardware and nothing but your hands.
Rolling is so effective, it allows players to eliminate existing limitations of the game. Remember how Sally got the first level 33 in 2019? Well when I interviewed Cheese for this story the new record for the highest level was 63 – kill screen and then some. By the time I clicked publish, that record had been broken again, with an eye-watering level of 95 now aiming to beat.
This rapid progress isn’t just about new world records, it’s fundamentally changing how the game is played, strategically. And physically. Competitive Classic Tetris is all about the score. The number of lines or how many Tetris you make matters only who gets the most points in the best of three games.
In the Old World, the hard limit of the kill screen forced players to focus on skillful play, scoring as many Tetris as possible before level 29. In the era of rolling, training is done by professionals Beginning at level 29. This is where Game Genie comes in as the basic version of the game just can’t count above 999,999 which you will definitely need once you get to this level. If you hone your skills to the fastest possible level, it becomes the new normal and you can theoretically play indefinitely. That’s how we can go from the impossible kill screen to level 95. But it also presents some challenges to growing exports, which Cornelius knows about.
“I predict maybe it’s this year, maybe it’s in five years, but sometimes very soon, everybody’s always going to max out at level 28. And they’re always going to get to level 50. .And deal on another million mark. And it’s really going to be just that…
This is already happening, at least on record-setting circuits. Shortly before I interviewed Chase he had recently set a world record for the highest score: 2.3 million which incidentally included a level 61 and a total of 551 lines – both also new world records at the time. All of these have since been beaten, and by a considerable margin. The game is now at a stage where players are looking to break more specific or specific goals and records – such as the highest score achieved with the start of level 29 – as these are areas of the game that have not yet been widely broken. has gone.
Something unexpected rocked the Tetris community in early 2021. On January 5, at the age of 39, Neubauer collapsed and died of a sudden cardiac arrhythmia of undetermined cause. The game’s most iconic character was gone, and with him was the eventual champion DAS player. “Jonas’ passing is a big part of the story and he was a friend of mine,” Cornelius said. “Obviously, nothing compares to the damage in general. But for the Tetris scene, it was really cool to have one guy from the old guard who could actually hang out with all the kids.
Despite the renewed interest in the sport from a much younger generation, Tetris is still somewhat of a fringe esports. You’ll find games featured on ESPN and it’s clearly growing in popularity, but the prize pools remain modest compared to more popular games like counter attack either League of Legends.
“The highest paying tournament right now is CTWC. And the first place prize is $3,000. so it’s not fortnite But it’s a good amount anyway.” Chase said. When I asked him if he would consider doing it full-time, he was diplomatic. “Honestly, it’s hard to predict the future of the scene, but if The money turns out to be good, so I might try to make it a job at some point, but I don’t know how stable it will be.”
Cornelius is a little more optimistic about where the future might lead. “You know, when you watch an Olympic Games, you don’t see someone beat everyone else by double, you see people winning by these tiny, tiny, tiny margins that are almost imperceptible. ,” They said. “I think this is where Tetris is headed, where all the players are going to converge to a point where they all play exactly the same. And there’s an ideal way to play and we’re seeing that they Let’s just try to add, just push it a little bit more every year.”
Chase, for his part, made it to the semi-finals for April’s Classic Tetris Monthly event and will no doubt be looking to beat his 2020 top seven at CTWC after finishing 21st at last year’s event. One thing is certain, whoever wins will probably be a roller which means that the mark of the thing on the tournament and the game in general is indelible.
Due to the pandemic, CTWC was forced to move the competition online. Plans for this year haven’t been confirmed yet, but hope to return to an individual event if possible. Current world champion Michael “Dog” Ertiga is set to return to defend his title. After Sally’s 2018 win, she won again in 2019. The Dogs won the title over the next two years and there are many players ready to take the crown. Doug is widely regarded as a beater, especially after recording a high score of 2.2 million at level 29. Because today’s Tetris starts where the old game left off.
Source
