[mitsu_at]

Gravity at levels 19-28 is 2 frames per cell, and level 29+ is 1 frame per cell. Rolling is pretty much required to survive at level 29+ speeds.

  Lvl 19 (start): 140 lines
  Lvl 20-28:      9 x 10 lines
  Lvl 29-234:     206 x 10 lines
  Lvl 235:        810 lines (because of level up overflow bug https://cohost.org/rgmechex/post/5264863-rgme-article-33-81)
  Lvl 236-255:    20 x 10 lines

Total of 3300 lines cleared before the level overflowed to 0.

Looks like Dog continued playing on for a while, ultimately reaching level 91 again before ending the run with an additional 916 lines cleared after rebirth, due to not being able to recover from an i-piece misdrop.

To clarify, this was on a modified version of the game that prevents game crashes. The original unmodified version of the game actually starts experiencing possible crashes after reaching level 155 (Bluescuti being the first to reach this point is what made headlines some months ago).

[mmmlinux]

-- modified version of the game.

Well that really makes this less interesting tbh.

[drilbo]

Only slightly. It's not as if the patch changes the core game play mechanics, it's only to make it past the "kill screen". When you keep in within context with the fact that making it to this "kill screen" was unheard of less than a year ago, it's still pretty damn impressive.

[mrob]

I'd argue that in the context of overflowing the level counter, dodging the crashes (the most difficult part) is in fact the core mechanic. This doesn't take away from the skill required for playing at this level on the hacked version, but it does make the title misleading. It's not a "NES Tetris rebirth", it's a "Tetris Gym rebirth".

[mitsu_at]

Fair, but it's still an impressive feat in its own right.

Crash dodging comes with its own challenges, explained more here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3f4T0WaDVM

There are some player actions that can avoid or reduce the risk of crash, including:

  - Pushing down <7 points
  - Pushing down 7+ points (note: very difficult at lvl 29+ speeds)
  - Turning off the next box while a line is being cleared
  - Avoiding specific line clear types on specific levels

However, on some levels, these actions will crash the game instead.

Crash probabilities are summarized here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zAQIo_mnkk0c9e4-hpeD...

[jdlshore]

Only very lightly modified to prevent crashes, which seems legit to me.

[kernal]

To be fair, Blue Scuti also used a modified Tetris ROM to set his record.

[mrob]

Only to correct the score display for the benefit of viewers. Unlike removing the crashes, it didn't change how the game actually played.