There's something elegantly beautiful in being "reborn" back into the simplicity of level 0 after surviving the mental and physical gauntlet of getting there.
It's like how at the end of a game, after beating the final boss in some hell dimension you get sent back to your home where it all began, able to just reflect how far you've come.
its not an oversight, its because of hardware limitations, the developers were probably aware but it didnt matter to them anyway because they didnt think anyone would get there@@dandanthedandan7558
Amazing video, this is gonna be the go-to whenever we start attempting this madness. *However*, there was a somewhat obscure development around a year ago that actually makes the last 60 levels (the stupid hard ones) impossible to crash on. You have to use player3/player4 controllers in a specific way (along with a particular adapter to make them playable), which magically fixes the corrupted jump that causes the crash in the first place. Right now, most players don't have the hardware to take advantage of this but it's by far the best option for reaching rebirth.
if the rebirth screen is ever reached using extra controllers; i wonder if some crazy people would then take up doing it without them as the next big challenge; actually avoiding the crashes and whatnot it sounds inhuman but i wouldnt put that sort of crazy grind past the nes tetris community judging by what has already been done
Fractal, I just watched your crash video and I found it very compelling. I have only become interested in this world since last week. I’m not a gamer or anything, but I love your sincere attitude, and I’m in awe of your brain’s data processing ability. Great job!
@@gingermlgwhen it comes to digital video games I'd say tetris is pretty much ancient. Definition from Cambridge Dictionary: "Something that is ancient is very old: This computer is ancient - I’ve got to get a new one."
The fact it requires a unique technique from level 29, slowly introduces crashing possibilities that peak then die off, has a possible pause mechanic just after, then a big endurance test with the 810 level, then makes the very basic function of placing pieces dangerous towards the end of the game, it feels like a well paced fun difficulty curve but its all glitches from the hyper trimmed down code hahaha
It's as though there's a secret antagonist throwing in new rules just to dissuade the player from continuing, but the player just has determination. :P
@sinteleon - yes, I love that description! Some dark god is like “I’ll make the pieces impossible to see, that’ll deter them forever! Okay wtf, how are they still going, here’s a 810-line long level”
NES Tetris players have my utmost respect. I only got into watching videos like these last week but WOW it's so cool to see everyone trying so hard to reach and beat these seemingly impossible goals. Plus the NES Tetris community seems like such a kind, dedicated, wholesome group of people! Cannot wait to see what records and how the game will be broken this year. Also, these videos are highly entertaining!!
10 years from now: After chadussy's most recent run, where he cycled the rebirth screen 100 times with the use of an IV, the next human limit is playing the game long enough to burn out the tube in a CRT
“What happens next?” Is both such a rewarding and daunting question for any gaming community, speedrunning or otherwise. Congrats to the Tetris community, you should all be proud! I can’t wait to see what the next milestone is.
Seeing the mechanics break down at these late levels is as if scientists had figured out what's inside black holes, and all of their physics. And the rebirth screen is like coming out on the other side of a black hole into a new dimension.
It's crazy how much of a minefield the later levels become. It would be insane if anyone was able to to put some of those crash avoidance tricks into practice. I have a couple of questions though - when you "flash" the next screen, is it strictly necessary to turn it back on or could you conceivably just leave it off? Also, is there any possibility of RNG manipulation in Tetris such that you know exactly what pieces to expect are coming up?
Awesome video! Dr. Mario also has this same confetti glitch, including that moving shaking number! If i remember correctly, it can happen if you do a big enough combo/cascade. The score freaks out, the game can temporarily freeze, with or without confetti, or crash. Confetti is also affected by controller inputs, the funniest one being Select, where the game screen squishes itself so much you can see the level twice!
that's really cool! as someone who's played dr mario like twice ever (watched a few events here and there though), I knew there was a crash but I've never seen it in action
I like how the infinite confetti is basically the game telling you "You look like you need some rest, here's a break and some confetti to congratulate you on making it this far!"
I always thought Super Mario Bros 1 speed running was next to impossible (any%) and Super Mario 64’s glitches amusing (0 Star), but NES Tetris is on a whole other level of insanity.
good stuff! One comment: The second loop should be an identical experience to the first except the 810 line level. The 810 line level will occur 46 levels earlier in the second loop, so for example if it was level 219 in the first, it will occur on level 173 on the second. Sometimes though, there can be two 810 line levels in one loop! For example, levels 45 and 255 at one point. (Source: fghsgh's video where they clear 26487 lines using the AI from the meatfighter website.)
I got into classic tetris about 3 months ago and wow did I start paying attention at an exciting time. Keep these videos coming! They help people like me understand the excitement in the community and I'm grateful for them!
found this channel from your prev video, and then i watched most of the videos on your channel and i gotta say that they are amazing! you are doing this job lol
This video is very well made, explanations are clear and concise and the timings with the music gave me chills multiple times. I hope to see someone achieve this some day that would be awesome
There's something poetic about the journey becoming more difficult the farther you go, but always appearing just barely possible. I wonder if practice roms will be a thing.
Very interesting stuff, as an oldie I played this when it originally came out, I find it fascinating that the youngsters are still playing it and pushing it to the limits, I hope to see the 255 barrier reached someday, I wonder what the original coders think of this, if they are still with us, cool video, thanks 👍🏻
@@jakerussell135no they didn't. the Tetris company guys did (including Pajitnov) but they didn't work on NES Tetris, since the game was made by Nintendo, they only licensed it
Just hit my pb of 91k starting on level 7 today, so i cant wait to use all of this information to not crash the game in a couple of weeks! Nah, but for real, great video, Eric. You've gotten really good at making stuff clear and easy to follow (compared to watching your beginners video yesteday from 4 years ago)
Keep up the great work eric, i only recently discovered this world and watching your videos has been very insightful and also interesting, you really are pushing the community forward.
This is such an amazing video. You are so gifted, Eric, as to hear this narration from someone who is both such a talented player and video editor is the best of every possible world.
3:55 An interesting thing here is if you include levels 128-137, this is exactly 128 levels, and it's a sequence of 64 that repeats twice. It's like there's a 6 bit number to choose the colour palette based on the level number, but they only programmed 10 palettes into it, and then added code to make it only use the first 10, but that code stops working after the level number gets past 7 bits (127). I only noticed this because you said the glitched colours repeat "about halfway through", but it turns out it's _exactly_ halfway through, except the glitched colours actually start at 128, not 138. We just don't notice it because the normal colours are the same as the first 10. tl;dr 192-255 is an exact copy of 128-191. 192-201 aren't a break in the glitched colour pattern; that's where it restarts (they're a repeat of 128-137).
someone who knows more can correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure it's more apt to say 202-255 plus 0-9 are an exact copy of 138-201? because I believe the way the code internally works is it subtracts 10 from the level and checks if it's negative, and if not it sets the level 10 lower and tries the same thing again - but for levels above 138, it thinks the first result is already negative because of integer overflow. so 10-137 are the levels where the game's code has to "copy" a previous color scheme instead of assigning its own in the table (never mind that the first 118 palettes of the table weren't meant to exist in the first place), and 138-255 plus 0-9 make up the table itself, in that order... if the way I said that makes any sense, which knowing me it probably doesn't
For a moment I thought I travelled back in time and saw the exact same video which I watched 10 days ago. Glad I was wrong and realized this is the part 2.
yo hey back in 2019-2020 when all of this glitchiness was unknown I made a TAS that went for three hours and went past level 600 (and yes, it made a second 256 loop) now what I remember being told back then was that my emulator (fceux) wasn’t accurate and that the game would crash, though now with this video I see that all the crashes I avoided worked exactly like how you described them here one day when I have time I’ll return to this with new knowledge and document everything as I go even further beyond (though this will have to be like,, 2026 after I finish high school)
I'm 90% sure that an unmodified copy of the game doesn't track score past a maxout whatsoever, it just sets it back to 999999 whenever it gets above it
you're thinking of the signed INT variable, which uses up 64 bits (4 bytes) of memory... the nintendo entertainment system is an 8-bit console, so it can only move around 8 bits of data at once (anything larger needs multiple reads/writes), also games rarely need to store values that large, and when they do need large numbers (for example the player's score), they split it up into multiple smaller chunks and store/display them all next to eachother at the same time I looked into it, and specifically for the player score in tetris, they split it up like this: each of the 6 digits is stored as a hexadecimal (4 bits, holds 16 values) which is usually represented with 0-9 and then the first 6 letters of the alphabet (0123456789ABCDEF) and that's literally it - it ignores anything from "A" onwards and loops from 9 back to 0 - then, once the leftmost digit exceeds 9 (so over a million), it just sets everything back to 999999 you can uncap that leftmost digit and then it'll go through the letters A to F and then it'll loop back to 0, then 1, 2, 3, and so on and so forth - there's even a game genie code for this "ENEOOGEZ" which a lot of players use it will loop forever and never break if for some reason you wanted to uncap all the digits you are also able to do that, but then it'll be in base 16 instead of base 10 (aka normal readable human counting), again it will loop forever (just the loop will take longer) and never break
I know NES Tetris is niche, but I like your presentation style and can totally see you going further into the media field if you wanted. Keep doing you man, you're making great stuff
16:58 I’m really curious to know what the three aforementioned “game crashers” (or other top players) believe about the human viability of reaching the rebirth screen. I actually asked fractal161 if it was humanly possible in the livestream where he crashed the game, and he responded with one word: “Possibly.” I would be interested in a more elaborate answer to that question.
there really isn't a better answer that I can give at the moment. Like I said at the end, we don't know for sure if crash avoidance techniques are human viable yet.
I don't know if they are possible by a single person alone, but I could see a development where a player is accompanied by a "navigator" similar to a rally where the navigator looks at a map of the terrain and keeps track of all turns and how difficult they are. In Tetris, the navigator would keep track of all crash possibilities for each level and quickly inform the player (i.e., driver) on what not to do on a particular level.
@@SecondWindd Exactly what I had in mind. The combination of concentration, memorization, and muscle memory necessary to avoid crashes without a navigator would be annoying to attain, perhaps so annoying that people don't bother.
Very neat. The way NES Tetris play has evolved over the last decade or so makes me feel like it won't be all that long before we hear about someone making it back to level 0.
So level 255 (blood red pallet, A8 level counter) is the 256th level since we start at level 00, but it displays as level 254 (dark purple pallet, A5 level counter) because of the level repeating
Crazy to think that less than a year after this video. Some one has accomplished rebirth! While it took over 30 years from the games launch to get to the true kill screen!
i find this so interesting, i watched the summoning salt video last night and i keep wanting to learn about tetris! the dedication and skill in the tetris community, especially the teens, amazes me a lot. i’m a college freshman like you eric, keep doing what you’re doing 🙏🙏❤️.
maaaate. Congratz for the work. I never imagined I would become fascinated with tetris. All this new stuff seems great for the community. Will follow up for new discovers
Very good and clear pronunciations. You are an excellent narrator. The video had good progression, and the music was only minimally intrusive. Very well done. I don't understand why people put music in their videos. It doesn't do anything.
This is very interesting! Since it looks like the line counter doesn't reset when you get past level 255, I wonder how many loops it would take to break the lines counter in some way...
I'm betting 25600 lines would make it loop back to "000". Or, maybe it'll horribly break at 12800 lines, if the hundreds digit is represented by a signed 8-bit integer.
Even if your play-time in the light has set, it is an absolute pleasure to see your research of the game, and I'm sure is beneficial to many in the present and future.. On a side note, nice mullet.
14:37 isn't it poetic that the only non-crashing pieces in the Levels From Hell are the T and the J, the very same pieces that grant their shapes to the CTWC trophies?
only started noticing abt the tetris scene after blue scuti's achievement went viral and now im here cheering for all of yall! excited to see how far yall go
The rebirth run seems like the ultimate endpoint for the game. Something about it seems so romantic, you dodge pieces of the game’s code crumbling around you as you push the game beyond human and inhuman limits until you finally come out the other side.
I know De Martian's TAS used a script to cap score updates, which means that none of this (desyncs, confetti, crashes) happened in his run. Beyond that, I don't know, but I would assume something similar.
@hydrantdude3642 actually has! it's a modified version of the tetrisgym training rom that also replicates basically every known feature of the game crash (and confetti), which is a *huge* technical achievement imo. well, specifically, analyzing the game crash well enough to know the exact probabilities of crashing and in which ways under a whole bunch of conditions, which he's been pretty central to doing
Wow, really interesting stuff. After game crash I assumed that the only achievement left was 'just' rebirth but actually there are several milestones to hit before that point. Lots of opportunities for someone to be 'first' at something 😅
with the end of the level 255 the level actually restart from 0, but it keep the lines... SO when arrive at level 0 with LINES-X?? so what if we continue playing reaching LINES-X99? maybe LINES-Y00 and next to LINES-Y99 maybe LINES-Z00. The real question is: what if we beat the level with the LINES-Z99? (maybe it become lines-000 restarting).
After Z99 lines, the Z digit changes into something else. Here’s a good list of reference: Z -00 (Minus) ,00 (Comma) ‘00 (Apostrophe) ➡️00 (Arrow) !00 (Exclamation Point) 🤍00 (Heart) Then no digits appears for 600 lines afterwards until it starts taking pieces of the sprite sheet. The lines only loop back to 000 lines after a total of 25600 lines!
Love the video!! There was something really hearthwarming in witnessing the rebirth level after all the stress from the previous levels of hell. I think the question is not if anybody will ever get to the rebirth screen, but actually *when* will someone reach it
Great video! 💯 so which level is actually the red level if it’s not 255 like other people have shown? And is level 255 actually 255 (or 256) and displayed correctly? And with the 810 line level, does that make a total of 3340, 3350, or 3360 to reach rebirth?
specifically, the red palette is the palette that the code would select for level 255, but in a normal game that palette is never updated before the level transitions back to 0, and the color scheme displayed is the one for 254. if you use a cheat code to _start_ on level 255, the red palette will display properly.
There is a later video by Adrien Wu, published two weeks after this video, playing all the way to level 255 by an AL, avoiding all those crashes. According to him (in the first comment), after rebirth the game, quote: “would be almost the same, except that the 810-line level will be at a different level since the line count is different”.
Oh this video just inspired me to do a challenge mode for my game. As you play, the game would have random rules and challenges or it's game over and it changes at each level of a continuous game. I would not have thought of that without videos like these.
crazy how even though the game ahas been beaten for the first time in 34 years, we have still hardly scratched the surface. the next months and years are gonna be incredible. I bet by the end of the year, we will have significant progress towards the rebirth
I’m really getting into this stuff ever since I discovered bluescuti’s feat a couple days ago. Not that I will take up playing. But it’s fascinating to watch you guys and your journey. Hope someone can keep forging ahead and eventually reach the re-birth. Godspeed to you all, pioneers! Fun fact : I’m 57 and played the original Pong 🤣😎
@@LilHana On the PAL version of Tetris the crash happens on later levels than on NTSC because the frame is longer. (I tested the standonle ROM, I did not test the combo cartige ROM. I modded the game so I never goes past level 18 speed and I can start on high levels) The first crash I was able to trigger was a single into level 180, but this seems to have low odds of happening. In general singles only have a low probability to crash. Singles on level 181 and 182 have a low chance to crash. A single into level 183 seems to have the highest chance of crashing but not 100%. Singles on 183 and 184 are risky bust still way less risk than single on level 157 NTSC. Singles on level 185 trigger corruption glitches but no crash. There is no "infinite confetti" on PAL inestead the screen flashes. The PAL version can not crash by just placing a piece with out a lineclear, because the calculations without a lineclear always happen before the end of the frame. At about level 194 other lineclears start to become dangerous. I need to test that behavoir more, I don't know which is the first crash with other lineclears. Levels 196 to 199 are dagerous for linclears other than singles but by far not as bad as level 169 (or 170) on NTSC.
There's something elegantly beautiful in being "reborn" back into the simplicity of level 0 after surviving the mental and physical gauntlet of getting there.
Ikr. I get this weird feeling when thinking about how the game gets progressively more broken as time goes on.
It's amazing how an oversight on the developers' part over 30 years ago can accidentally create something so beautiful
It's like how at the end of a game, after beating the final boss in some hell dimension you get sent back to your home where it all began, able to just reflect how far you've come.
Tetris devs: okay, there's no way you'll get past level 29
Tetris community: *beats the game*
its not an oversight, its because of hardware limitations, the developers were probably aware but it didnt matter to them anyway because they didnt think anyone would get there@@dandanthedandan7558
Who would had known that Tetris has so many secret bosses to beat to get the true ending.
It even felt a bit like backrooms
Best comment
@@BigBerry31EXACTLY THATS WHAT I WAS THINKING
it's like spooky behaviors of elements beyond the periodic table we may or may not encounter.
It's like a shin megami tensei game, the law ending would be the original 'ending', chaos would be crashing, and neutral would be the rebirth.
If crash skip (rebirth?) ever happens it would be the greatest achievement for Tetris ever imo.
If that happens if will be a bigger deal than just winning a game. It will be a rebirth of the human race.
The double suika equivalence for Tetris
Obviously.
Imagine going into rebirth scene with tetris and perfect clear. That would be the ultimate tetris moment
It won’t be the greatest in just Tetris but probably the greatest moment in history
Amazing video, this is gonna be the go-to whenever we start attempting this madness.
*However*, there was a somewhat obscure development around a year ago that actually makes the last 60 levels (the stupid hard ones) impossible to crash on. You have to use player3/player4 controllers in a specific way (along with a particular adapter to make them playable), which magically fixes the corrupted jump that causes the crash in the first place. Right now, most players don't have the hardware to take advantage of this but it's by far the best option for reaching rebirth.
just get 4 controllers gg
okay how did anyone actually figure that out
@maxdragonsoul5553 fractal is 200iq, that's how
if the rebirth screen is ever reached using extra controllers; i wonder if some crazy people would then take up doing it without them as the next big challenge; actually avoiding the crashes and whatnot
it sounds inhuman but i wouldnt put that sort of crazy grind past the nes tetris community judging by what has already been done
Fractal, I just watched your crash video and I found it very compelling. I have only become interested in this world since last week. I’m not a gamer or anything, but I love your sincere attitude, and I’m in awe of your brain’s data processing ability. Great job!
This feels like the largest rabbit hole and endurance test ever
Right, even the crash runs are at least 40 minutes. Now we're doubling the line count on top of that?
It's incredibly incredible how many amazing secrets and things are hidden in this ancient game
Imagine calling something less than 100 years old "ancient"
@@gingermlgwhen it comes to digital video games I'd say tetris is pretty much ancient.
Definition from Cambridge Dictionary:
"Something that is ancient is very old:
This computer is ancient - I’ve got to get a new one."
ancient he meant is the most first oldest game, do you think there is a video game on prehistoric "ancient" age ? @@gingermlg
@@gingermlg Haha indeed. All of us who are older than NES tetris are dinos.
The fact it requires a unique technique from level 29, slowly introduces crashing possibilities that peak then die off, has a possible pause mechanic just after, then a big endurance test with the 810 level, then makes the very basic function of placing pieces dangerous towards the end of the game, it feels like a well paced fun difficulty curve but its all glitches from the hyper trimmed down code hahaha
It's as though there's a secret antagonist throwing in new rules just to dissuade the player from continuing, but the player just has determination. :P
@sinteleon - yes, I love that description! Some dark god is like “I’ll make the pieces impossible to see, that’ll deter them forever! Okay wtf, how are they still going, here’s a 810-line long level”
Its a whole game in itself. It always amazes me how bugs can become great features.
@@sinteleon Dusk & Charcoal: *You are gonna have a bad time.*
Its funny how this isn’t even intended by the devs
Not only are you one of the best NES-tetris players ever, but u also make such high quality youtube videos! Congrats on this one!
NES Tetris players have my utmost respect. I only got into watching videos like these last week but WOW it's so cool to see everyone trying so hard to reach and beat these seemingly impossible goals. Plus the NES Tetris community seems like such a kind, dedicated, wholesome group of people! Cannot wait to see what records and how the game will be broken this year. Also, these videos are highly entertaining!!
can confirm, I love this community so much gosh
Only started watching these types of videos cuz of the 157 killscreen achieved by BlueScuti
Same I haven’t watched a Tetris game video since I was… in elementary I think! It’s crazy!
@@nutoutpizzadthehutit’s 157 bro
@@K-MasterGirlyour still in elementary 😂
Disclaimer:this is a joke
It's gonna be wild to see confetti when it happens eventually.
Thanks for pushing Tetris and the community forwards! ❤❤
Imagine being in that livestream!
@@user-mk4or5yu9rlimited confetti is easier to get relative to crash(as scuti crashed at 157, and confetti begins to appear at 160)
Phenomenal video. Super helpful breakdown, and love your music choices and art style, it creates such a nice vibe.
First :)
Yeah, Tetris is more of a mental journey at this rate.
GameScout! Hi!
It is genius that the game really get progressively hard till lvl255 although the original developer never intended it will get pass lvl29
It’s also interesting just how much old retro shit breaks at that magical number. Math is fun
@@athenaraines 29 or 255?
@@athenaraines it's because of them operating at 8-bit. that's why they have the infamous 8-bit soundtracks/sounds and such
@@archlifts947 255
@@archlifts947 255
10 years from now:
After chadussy's most recent run, where he cycled the rebirth screen 100 times with the use of an IV, the next human limit is playing the game long enough to burn out the tube in a CRT
What's an "IV"?
International... Venezuela?
Interplanetary vehicle
@@АртёмЗайчик-д3в IV fluids, so that the player does not need to eat or drink for a long period of time
Chadussy may have also used the player3/player4 anti-crash.
“What happens next?” Is both such a rewarding and daunting question for any gaming community, speedrunning or otherwise. Congrats to the Tetris community, you should all be proud! I can’t wait to see what the next milestone is.
Seeing the mechanics break down at these late levels is as if scientists had figured out what's inside black holes, and all of their physics. And the rebirth screen is like coming out on the other side of a black hole into a new dimension.
It's crazy how much of a minefield the later levels become. It would be insane if anyone was able to to put some of those crash avoidance tricks into practice. I have a couple of questions though - when you "flash" the next screen, is it strictly necessary to turn it back on or could you conceivably just leave it off? Also, is there any possibility of RNG manipulation in Tetris such that you know exactly what pieces to expect are coming up?
It's impossible for humans to play on 29 without the next box. Even 18 is barely playable with no next box, so you would have to turn it back on
Awesome video!
Dr. Mario also has this same confetti glitch, including that moving shaking number! If i remember correctly, it can happen if you do a big enough combo/cascade. The score freaks out, the game can temporarily freeze, with or without confetti, or crash.
Confetti is also affected by controller inputs, the funniest one being Select, where the game screen squishes itself so much you can see the level twice!
that's really cool! as someone who's played dr mario like twice ever (watched a few events here and there though), I knew there was a crash but I've never seen it in action
The way your "Levels from hell" chapter is named and introduced perfectly. It gives me a weird tingle in my stomach.
Great video! I have no doubt we'll get to 255. I love this scene and have massive respect for you and all of its record breakers.
I dont have massive respect becuase the game video is for the most part stolen
@@Shiny_Spheal ok Mrpogtato
@@Shiny_SphealI farted in your coffee
@@the10ofdiamondscard And the bubbles were all methane and water vapour
I’m saying the guy who got 16 million twice
In other words: NES Tetris unintentionally ended up being the first game to have NG+.
I like how the infinite confetti is basically the game telling you "You look like you need some rest, here's a break and some confetti to congratulate you on making it this far!"
Woah, this is easily the highest quality video you've made. And nicely laid out
The "levels from hell" section actually makes me emotional, very nice video!
13:37 -- "And lastly... if we start between levels 0-9..."
Wait... you *ALREADY explained* the case-scenario concerning the 0-9 level start... !! :O
.
I always thought Super Mario Bros 1 speed running was next to impossible (any%) and Super Mario 64’s glitches amusing (0 Star), but NES Tetris is on a whole other level of insanity.
good stuff!
One comment: The second loop should be an identical experience to the first except the 810 line level. The 810 line level will occur 46 levels earlier in the second loop, so for example if it was level 219 in the first, it will occur on level 173 on the second.
Sometimes though, there can be two 810 line levels in one loop! For example, levels 45 and 255 at one point.
(Source: fghsgh's video where they clear 26487 lines using the AI from the meatfighter website.)
I got into classic tetris about 3 months ago and wow did I start paying attention at an exciting time. Keep these videos coming! They help people like me understand the excitement in the community and I'm grateful for them!
found this channel from your prev video, and then i watched most of the videos on your channel and i gotta say that they are amazing! you are doing this job lol
This video is very well made, explanations are clear and concise and the timings with the music gave me chills multiple times. I hope to see someone achieve this some day that would be awesome
Hi Cheetah!
There's something poetic about the journey becoming more difficult the farther you go, but always appearing just barely possible. I wonder if practice roms will be a thing.
Very interesting stuff, as an oldie I played this when it originally came out, I find it fascinating that the youngsters are still playing it and pushing it to the limits, I hope to see the 255 barrier reached someday, I wonder what the original coders think of this, if they are still with us, cool video, thanks 👍🏻
The coders actually talked to blue scuti not long ago, it's on CBS news' video about the event
@@jakerussell135 oh really, I missed this, then I do not have access or watch CBS news or any news to be honest, I will try to find it 👍🏻
@@Ultra-Violet you can find it on RUclips, I don't watch news on TV or listen on radio much
@@jakerussell135 thank you 👍🏻
@@jakerussell135no they didn't. the Tetris company guys did (including Pajitnov) but they didn't work on NES Tetris, since the game was made by Nintendo, they only licensed it
POGGERS! One more video on the crash from Eric himself! It's a lot of effort to edit this!
Just hit my pb of 91k starting on level 7 today, so i cant wait to use all of this information to not crash the game in a couple of weeks! Nah, but for real, great video, Eric. You've gotten really good at making stuff clear and easy to follow (compared to watching your beginners video yesteday from 4 years ago)
I'm loving the videos, all the editing, graphics, script, you are doing an amazing job, helping us dive deeper into the high level nes tetris scene!
Great video, especially kept it accessible! In before "oh man I only got 4 rebirths I don't think I'll qualify this year"
In 2034 people will count laps of rebirth
that kinda sounds like Rainbow road from Mario kart now we saw all those colors lol
Itll probably be wayyy sooner than that. People tend to push games way farther than you'd expect way faster than you'd expect
Keep up the great work eric, i only recently discovered this world and watching your videos has been very insightful and also interesting, you really are pushing the community forward.
Man I love this community, great content as always, calm, relaxing, well explained and with good visuals
as someone obsessed with stuff like this, this video is fun to watch.
the 810 line level is one of the most fascinating things to me
This is such an amazing video.
You are so gifted, Eric, as to hear this narration from someone who is both such a talented player and video editor is the best of every possible world.
3:55 An interesting thing here is if you include levels 128-137, this is exactly 128 levels, and it's a sequence of 64 that repeats twice. It's like there's a 6 bit number to choose the colour palette based on the level number, but they only programmed 10 palettes into it, and then added code to make it only use the first 10, but that code stops working after the level number gets past 7 bits (127).
I only noticed this because you said the glitched colours repeat "about halfway through", but it turns out it's _exactly_ halfway through, except the glitched colours actually start at 128, not 138. We just don't notice it because the normal colours are the same as the first 10.
tl;dr 192-255 is an exact copy of 128-191. 192-201 aren't a break in the glitched colour pattern; that's where it restarts (they're a repeat of 128-137).
someone who knows more can correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure it's more apt to say 202-255 plus 0-9 are an exact copy of 138-201? because I believe the way the code internally works is it subtracts 10 from the level and checks if it's negative, and if not it sets the level 10 lower and tries the same thing again - but for levels above 138, it thinks the first result is already negative because of integer overflow. so 10-137 are the levels where the game's code has to "copy" a previous color scheme instead of assigning its own in the table (never mind that the first 118 palettes of the table weren't meant to exist in the first place), and 138-255 plus 0-9 make up the table itself, in that order... if the way I said that makes any sense, which knowing me it probably doesn't
For a moment I thought I travelled back in time and saw the exact same video which I watched 10 days ago. Glad I was wrong and realized this is the part 2.
hi sonic wave infinity
yo hey back in 2019-2020 when all of this glitchiness was unknown I made a TAS that went for three hours and went past level 600 (and yes, it made a second 256 loop)
now what I remember being told back then was that my emulator (fceux) wasn’t accurate and that the game would crash, though now with this video I see that all the crashes I avoided worked exactly like how you described them here
one day when I have time I’ll return to this with new knowledge and document everything as I go even further beyond (though this will have to be like,, 2026 after I finish high school)
That would be pretty cool to see, tho wouldn't the TAS just break the game when the internal score reaches the max integer limit?
I'm 90% sure that an unmodified copy of the game doesn't track score past a maxout whatsoever, it just sets it back to 999999 whenever it gets above it
@@LovroPlaninšek So if the modded version removed the 999999 cap, will it cap at 2,147,483,647 or does the game crash?
you're thinking of the signed INT variable, which uses up 64 bits (4 bytes) of memory... the nintendo entertainment system is an 8-bit console, so it can only move around 8 bits of data at once (anything larger needs multiple reads/writes), also games rarely need to store values that large, and when they do need large numbers (for example the player's score), they split it up into multiple smaller chunks and store/display them all next to eachother at the same time
I looked into it, and specifically for the player score in tetris, they split it up like this: each of the 6 digits is stored as a hexadecimal (4 bits, holds 16 values) which is usually represented with 0-9 and then the first 6 letters of the alphabet
(0123456789ABCDEF)
and that's literally it - it ignores anything from "A" onwards and loops from 9 back to 0 - then, once the leftmost digit exceeds 9 (so over a million), it just sets everything back to 999999
you can uncap that leftmost digit and then it'll go through the letters A to F and then it'll loop back to 0, then 1, 2, 3, and so on and so forth - there's even a game genie code for this "ENEOOGEZ" which a lot of players use
it will loop forever and never break
if for some reason you wanted to uncap all the digits you are also able to do that, but then it'll be in base 16 instead of base 10 (aka normal readable human counting), again it will loop forever (just the loop will take longer) and never break
@@LovroPlaninšek Oh I see, thanks for explaining that!
You and Scout are killing it with the tetris content 🫡
came back to watch this after dog got the first rebirth!! congradulations to dog for achieving the impossible!!!
I know NES Tetris is niche, but I like your presentation style and can totally see you going further into the media field if you wanted. Keep doing you man, you're making great stuff
16:58 I’m really curious to know what the three aforementioned “game crashers” (or other top players) believe about the human viability of reaching the rebirth screen.
I actually asked fractal161 if it was humanly possible in the livestream where he crashed the game, and he responded with one word: “Possibly.” I would be interested in a more elaborate answer to that question.
there really isn't a better answer that I can give at the moment. Like I said at the end, we don't know for sure if crash avoidance techniques are human viable yet.
are there not save states or something u guys can use to start practicing?@@EricICX
I don't know if they are possible by a single person alone, but I could see a development where a player is accompanied by a "navigator" similar to a rally where the navigator looks at a map of the terrain and keeps track of all turns and how difficult they are. In Tetris, the navigator would keep track of all crash possibilities for each level and quickly inform the player (i.e., driver) on what not to do on a particular level.
@@SecondWindd Exactly what I had in mind. The combination of concentration, memorization, and muscle memory necessary to avoid crashes without a navigator would be annoying to attain, perhaps so annoying that people don't bother.
Very neat. The way NES Tetris play has evolved over the last decade or so makes me feel like it won't be all that long before we hear about someone making it back to level 0.
I absolutely love the tetris spotlight. Liked and subbed! 🎉
The Rebirth Paletee is the most fitting pallete I have ever seen for something in a video game
So level 255 (blood red pallet, A8 level counter) is the 256th level since we start at level 00, but it displays as level 254 (dark purple pallet, A5 level counter) because of the level repeating
Crazy to think that less than a year after this video. Some one has accomplished rebirth!
While it took over 30 years from the games launch to get to the true kill screen!
I love seeing this level of intense in-depth analysis.
This is a good follow up to Scout's video. Nice work Eric
infinite confetti seems really convenient as a pause
i find this so interesting, i watched the summoning salt video last night and i keep wanting to learn about tetris! the dedication and skill in the tetris community, especially the teens, amazes me a lot. i’m a college freshman like you eric, keep doing what you’re doing 🙏🙏❤️.
In after AlexT's 810 line stage on "GREEEEEN" (strange that the palette is only on the score modded cartridge)
You're really good at these types of videos. Keep it up!
Someone finally did it!
maaaate. Congratz for the work. I never imagined I would become fascinated with tetris. All this new stuff seems great for the community. Will follow up for new discovers
Beautiful video, good job Eric
Very good and clear pronunciations. You are an excellent narrator. The video had good progression, and the music was only minimally intrusive. Very well done. I don't understand why people put music in their videos. It doesn't do anything.
This is very interesting! Since it looks like the line counter doesn't reset when you get past level 255, I wonder how many loops it would take to break the lines counter in some way...
I'm betting 25600 lines would make it loop back to "000". Or, maybe it'll horribly break at 12800 lines, if the hundreds digit is represented by a signed 8-bit integer.
Maybe you need to beat Level 255, an unhuman 255 times in a row 😈😈
Even if your play-time in the light has set, it is an absolute pleasure to see your research of the game, and I'm sure is beneficial to many in the present and future..
On a side note, nice mullet.
14:37 isn't it poetic that the only non-crashing pieces in the Levels From Hell are the T and the J, the very same pieces that grant their shapes to the CTWC trophies?
only started noticing abt the tetris scene after blue scuti's achievement went viral and now im here cheering for all of yall! excited to see how far yall go
yesss join us!! always here for new fans, come to the tetris side :)
In a few years there will be a most rebirth% category
Beautiful video as usual. Please upload more and keep going
AlexT will rebirth this
Great video Eric!
It's amazing how seemingly unimportant technical details of this game have come together to make this extremely tough gaming challenge
The rebirth run seems like the ultimate endpoint for the game. Something about it seems so romantic, you dodge pieces of the game’s code crumbling around you as you push the game beyond human and inhuman limits until you finally come out the other side.
in agamescout video, it show the colour pallete for level 255 is red.
I guess the last color will be different depending on where you started.
unfortunately, that's incorrect - we all thought it was red, but it's actually purple due to a glitch where the game slips behind one color palette.
@@EricICXHow did they manage to show red with other TASes?
I know De Martian's TAS used a script to cap score updates, which means that none of this (desyncs, confetti, crashes) happened in his run. Beyond that, I don't know, but I would assume something similar.
Eric explains in the video it’s because of an inevitable level desync that happens at some point
@@EricICXis it possible that the color pallete desync doesn't happen at all?
"rolling isnt easy"
Fractal sits there streaming looking over at the chat and playing high speeds and talking and laughing and answering questions
Such a quality video, thanks. 255 would be an insane achievement. It seems impossible, but look at how far we've come...
I'm pretty sure some member of the community could create a program to help trainning the glitched levels.
@hydrantdude3642 actually has! it's a modified version of the tetrisgym training rom that also replicates basically every known feature of the game crash (and confetti), which is a *huge* technical achievement imo. well, specifically, analyzing the game crash well enough to know the exact probabilities of crashing and in which ways under a whole bunch of conditions, which he's been pretty central to doing
Tetris in 5 years:
Yeah the Alex Tach's going for his 8th rebirth
While Fractal going for the 200M points
Dang. 3300 lines with an average of 2.5 pieces per line is 8,250 pieces. This is a long marathon of concentration.
So much so that the piece count starts to use Letters!
Wow, really interesting stuff. After game crash I assumed that the only achievement left was 'just' rebirth but actually there are several milestones to hit before that point.
Lots of opportunities for someone to be 'first' at something 😅
Why does this kind of feel like a creepypasta after you get to 249 lmao
Great video.
14:23 enters that classic theme of resolution for advanced gaming.
with the end of the level 255 the level actually restart from 0, but it keep the lines... SO when arrive at level 0 with LINES-X?? so what if we continue playing reaching LINES-X99? maybe LINES-Y00 and next to LINES-Y99 maybe LINES-Z00. The real question is: what if we beat the level with the LINES-Z99? (maybe it become lines-000 restarting).
After Z99 lines, the Z digit changes into something else. Here’s a good list of reference:
Z
-00 (Minus)
,00 (Comma)
‘00 (Apostrophe)
➡️00 (Arrow)
!00 (Exclamation Point)
🤍00 (Heart)
Then no digits appears for 600 lines afterwards until it starts taking pieces of the sprite sheet.
The lines only loop back to 000 lines after a total of 25600 lines!
Love the video!! There was something really hearthwarming in witnessing the rebirth level after all the stress from the previous levels of hell. I think the question is not if anybody will ever get to the rebirth screen, but actually *when* will someone reach it
Update: Dogplayingtetris got rebirth on Gym
I’ve seen that
This was a fantastic breakdown. Well done!
Great video! 💯 so which level is actually the red level if it’s not 255 like other people have shown? And is level 255 actually 255 (or 256) and displayed correctly? And with the 810 line level, does that make a total of 3340, 3350, or 3360 to reach rebirth?
The red level would be 256 if the levels didn't loop, but the red color palette is also visible at level 190.
specifically, the red palette is the palette that the code would select for level 255, but in a normal game that palette is never updated before the level transitions back to 0, and the color scheme displayed is the one for 254. if you use a cheat code to _start_ on level 255, the red palette will display properly.
@@EricICX im curious what the colors would look like if the level didnt rollover, prob just a loop of 138-191
This is so incredible and the community behind this sounds amazing. WOW!
Eric is a pretty ok guy!
Man for a person who makes awesome tracks for tetrio you really hit this video on the nail🎉 good job bro
Are tetris players going to need an equivalent to a rally co-driver to inform them of game breaking obstacles during a run?
I was thinking they might need someone to control the select box for them.. lol
There is a later video by Adrien Wu, published two weeks after this video, playing all the way to level 255 by an AL, avoiding all those crashes.
According to him (in the first comment), after rebirth the game, quote: “would be almost the same, except that the 810-line level will be at a different level since the line count is different”.
Hehe Demoncrawl music
Great video as always!
yes, demoncrawl music 💯
Oh this video just inspired me to do a challenge mode for my game. As you play, the game would have random rules and challenges or it's game over and it changes at each level of a continuous game. I would not have thought of that without videos like these.
god damn the rebirth after 255 is this game briefly turning into Tetris Effect isn't it
hey is your pfp a picrew? if so, which one?
@@sjn6112 i think so but i made it a long time ago so i have no clue where it's from, sorry
crazy how even though the game ahas been beaten for the first time in 34 years, we have still hardly scratched the surface. the next months and years are gonna be incredible. I bet by the end of the year, we will have significant progress towards the rebirth
Wait I thought dark red was the color Palette for lvl 255?
unfortunately not - we all thought it was red, but it's actually purple due to a glitch where the game slips behind one color palette.
@@EricICX It would've been cool if it's red tho :(
@@EricICXBut thanks for explaining.
its so cool to see how these things happen because of technical errors and glitches, especially with how intentional everythung feels
DOG GOT IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’m really getting into this stuff ever since I discovered bluescuti’s feat a couple days ago. Not that I will take up playing. But it’s fascinating to watch you guys and your journey. Hope someone can keep forging ahead and eventually reach the re-birth. Godspeed to you all, pioneers!
Fun fact : I’m 57 and played the original Pong 🤣😎
The PAL version does not have any level where just placing a piece can crash the game.
hows the research going for pal crash theory? very interested in seeing the differences
@@LilHana On the PAL version of Tetris the crash happens on later levels than on NTSC because the frame is longer.
(I tested the standonle ROM, I did not test the combo cartige ROM. I modded the game so I never goes past level 18 speed and I can start on high levels) The first crash I was able to trigger was a single into level 180, but this seems to have low odds of happening. In general singles only have a low probability to crash. Singles on level 181 and 182 have a low chance to crash. A single into level 183 seems to have the highest chance of crashing but not 100%. Singles on 183 and 184 are risky bust still way less risk than single on level 157 NTSC. Singles on level 185 trigger corruption glitches but no crash. There is no "infinite confetti" on PAL inestead the screen flashes.
The PAL version can not crash by just placing a piece with out a lineclear, because the calculations without a lineclear always happen before the end of the frame.
At about level 194 other lineclears start to become dangerous.
I need to test that behavoir more, I don't know which is the first crash with other lineclears.
Levels 196 to 199 are dagerous for linclears other than singles but by far not as bad as level 169 (or 170) on NTSC.
@@wiirambo7437 wow very interesting stuff. cant wait to see the crash doc for PAL and compare and contrast the differences