By Souji Godson Miyake ’27
The digital game Tetris was built on infinite possibilities with no true ending. Released in 1984, no one has ever been able to conquer the saturated, fast-moving blocks. That was until January 2nd, 2024, when a 13-year-old player Willis Gibson, who goes by the name of “Blue Scuti,” finally did.
The battle of Man versus Machine has existed for ages; legendary tales like John Henry against the Steam Machine have been immortalized in history books. But most of these feats have never been filmed, and therefore never truly received the recognition they deserved. In our modern world ruled by high-speed technology, a game crashing before a human tires is virtually unheard of. Blue Scuti was the first to fully champion this idea.
There have also been similar cases, where competitive Pacman player Billy Mitchell had finally beat the iconic game at the high score of 3,333,360 points. Although impressive, Billy Mitchell’s fame was rather short-lived. Mitchell had been crowned the “Video Game Player of the Century” by the Godfather of Videogames, Masaya Nakamura, but his fame declined soon after due to him gaining large sums of money, and some controversy regarding the legitimacy of his record.
The competitive Tetris community has been active for over ten years. Players have gone as far as taping their wrists to their controller to prevent permanent wrist injuries from repeatedly pressing buttons over long periods of time. Many top players have boasted and attempted such a challenge – beating a game with infinite possibilities and levels, but to no avail.
Gibson had been a member of the competitive Tetris community but was shunned by others due to more notable competitive players in the community. However, on January 2, he had successfully activated a “True Killscreen” glitch on his livestream, where the game system shut down and turned black and white.
Gibson’s reaction after realizing his success
Media worldwide was quick to react after seeing Gibson’s stream. No one had thought that a 13-year-old boy could beat a decades-old machine. Reportedly, the screen had frozen, and the level number and score had changed to exactly 999999. The game’s AI had come up with over thousands of scenarios and finally could not keep up with Gibson, resulting in the “Killscreen.”
The thought of man beating machine sounds like a daunting feat, but examples like Blue Scuti prove that we human beings are not left at the mercy to computers. It may seem that machines are flawless, but their limits are merely less visible than the other challenges in our daily lives. The desire for fame, and recognition, or even a tough challenge is what fuels the competitive community of any game. If Blue Scuti can beat an infinite game at such an early age of 13-years-old, the future for man finally conquering the challenge of beating machine is undeniably bright.
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