A 13-year-old American is the first person to ever beat Tetris, forcing the more than three-decade-old video game into a “kill screen”.

Willis Gibson, who goes by streamer name Blue Scuti, said “Please crash” as he arranged the puzzle pieces cascading down the screen and moments later got his wish when the game froze, leading him to repeatedly exclaim “Oh my God!” in a video uploaded to YouTube on Jan 2.

Tetris, which was first released in 1984 and became a near-immediate worldwide sensation, challenges players to rotate and conjoin seven different falling block shapes.

It had been thought impossible for humans to beat the game as the bricks would fall down the screen too fast for them to place.

Mr Gibson broke world records for the overall score, level achieved and total number of lines in the classic Nintendo game, according 404 Media.

“This is unbelievable,” Vince Clemente, the chief executive of Classic Tetris World Championship, told Reuters. “Developers didn’t think anyone would ever make it that far and now the game has officially been beaten by a human being.”

Previously, only an artificial intelligence computer program had beaten Tetris, Mr Clemente said.

Willis employs a “rolling” controller technique popularised in 2021 that allows a player to move the blocks at least 20 times per second, far more than the previously popular “hyper tapping” method, 404 Media said. 

“Hyper tapping” involves hitting the controller D-pad with lots of quick presses, but this can strain fingers and even cause minor injuries. The “rolling” method, however, involves keeping one hand still above the controller and continuously pushing it up from below in a smooth motion that is easier on the hands.

Tetris, which was first released in 1984 and became a near-immediate worldwide sensation, challenges players to rotate and conjoin seven different falling block shapes.

Created by Alexey Pajitnov at the Moscow Academy of Science during the height of the Cold War, Tetris has shown remarkable staying power, spanning generations.

It is the best selling video game of all time with 520 million copies sold, according to The Tetris Company.