Photo: The Kid Who Beat Tetris

Willis Gibson, 13, became the first Tetris player to trigger a "kill screen."

Since 1989, every single game of Nintendo's Tetris eventually ended the same way: failure. No one had ever "beaten" the game and gotten the bricks to stop falling—until December 21, 2023, when 13-year-old Willis Gibson triggered a "kill screen" on level 157, crashing the game after 38 minutes of play. Another (minor) victory for the indomitable human spirit.