Comment on A 13-year-old is the first human to beat Tetris | Numerous theoretical milestones remain

phoneymouse@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

• frezik@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  A lot of old games were intended to be played in an endless cycle–arcade games especially–but in practice there was always some kind of limit due to the hardware at the time. Pac-man, for example, hits a level where half the screen is the normal maze and the other half is a random assortment of other sprites. Donkey Kong ends when Mario always dies at a certain level.

  The NES Tetris limit hit here is a point where there are certain “random” chances of the game crashing depending on certain states. In his run, Blue Scuti actually missed getting the first possibility of hitting a crash and had to survive a few more levels to get the next one.

  This isn’t the full ending, though. TAS runs show that it is possible to get up to level 255 and then loop back to level 0. Getting there requires missing every single possibility of a crash, though, and the probabilities of that mount up as you go.

  Full breakdown: www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuJ5UuknsHU

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• psud@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  This person did it by playing it until it crashed. There are several points where particular actions will crash the game.

  I would argue though that to beat Tetris you would need to beat level 255, at which point the level counter wraps to level 0

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  • Kbobabob@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    There was a 73% chance at the level it crashed that any single line clear would have caused it and the percentage only goes up from there. That is why there are theoretically more that could be accomplished since there is still a chance it won’t crash but is very unlikely.

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    • psud@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I reckon completing level 255 isn’t going to happen for human players on the NES. They are pushing the input hardware beyond it’s design to play the levels they’re at now, and also crashes become more common at higher levels making a clean run to 255 even harder

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      • Daft_ish@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        Don’t underestimate the gaming community. Once people get more comfortable with reaching higher levels someone will develope a strategy.

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      • Dogsnot@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        If you look into it, the only limiting factor are the colour pallets glitching out, after level 29 it does t become any faster, but at a certain point the palates were causing hard points as one level named charcoal was barely visible.

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      • prunerye@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        I disagree. I think it’s inevitable. They already have the final hundred levels mapped out, and there are long stretches that are completely safe. The challenge will be levels where you can’t take singles and also the levels where you have to push down on every piece, but compared to what’s already been accomplished, it’s only a matter of time.

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• Blum0108@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  You play it until it breaks

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  • phoneymouse@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Seems like it would be a bug in the original game then. It can be fixed.

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    • just_another_person@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Many old arcade games have this, and they are called “kill screens”. There is no programmed “end” to the game, you just keep playing until it runs out of memory, and then just goes all wonky. Some examples: gamerant.com/most-infamous-kill-screens-in-video-…

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      • KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        Game rant went ahead and fully blocked access if you’re using an adblocker? Guess I don’t care enough about their articles to unblock, but still annoying.

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    • Blum0108@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      But then it wouldn’t be the original game anymore

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