And now the music is stuck in your head
March 13, 2012 7:34 AM   Subscribe

After I hung up the phone, I went to the bedroom and woke my wife, Lori. "Honey," I said. "You're not going to believe this, but I just got off the phone with a guy who's in charge of video game world records, and he said the world record for Game Boy Tetris is 327 lines, and he wants us to go to New Hampshire this spring so you can try to break the world record live in front of the judges at the world's largest classic video game tournament.

Boston Globe writer Billy Baker tells the story of how his wife set a new world record in Tetris.
posted by MartinWisse (62 comments total) 27 users marked this as a favorite
 
841 lines. That's a hell of a margin over the previous record.
posted by donquixote at 7:49 AM on March 13, 2012 [2 favorites]


They treat DX as a different game, which had a record of 545 lines.

In other news, I used to reach high 300s when my Game Boy was working, but I wouldn't fly to NH to set a world record. Now if the gentleman would fly to London...
posted by ersatz at 7:53 AM on March 13, 2012


Yep. 564 (or 654) was the previous GB color record.

This is an excellent opportunity to plug the "King of Kong"-documentary (which is also mentioned in the article).

It truly is one of the best documentaries I have ever seen.
posted by flippant at 7:53 AM on March 13, 2012 [7 favorites]


841 lines. That's a hell of a margin over the previous record.

Here are the current high scores: (no direct link, you'll have to look it up)

Rank Score

1 4,988 Harry Sep 13 2007
2 2,349 Neil Sep 04 2007
3 841 Lori Jun 02 2007
posted by empath at 7:53 AM on March 13, 2012 [7 favorites]


Loved this, humbling as it is; here I thought my 185 lines was a venerable NES Tetris record. It's refreshing to see relatively psychopathy-free individuals who happen to excel at video games, as opposed to those who rely on said talent for self-definition (King of Kong, et. al.). Also, the different Mario and Tetris sounds were very well-placed throughout the interview to suggest loss, victory, joy, etc.
posted by obscurator at 7:54 AM on March 13, 2012


For two years, I've been at work on a book about jugglers and the controversial movement to turn a 4,000-year-old performance art into a competitive sport.

This sounds great! But unfortunately it's been 5 years and this book doesn't seem to exist yet....
posted by escabeche at 7:56 AM on March 13, 2012 [1 favorite]


Holy shit Empath. That record must've entailed hours (and hours) of playing at the highest level.
posted by flippant at 7:57 AM on March 13, 2012


Harry, thumbs of steel.
posted by helicomatic at 7:59 AM on March 13, 2012


Is there video of poor Harry flipping out trying to get those last 12 lines to make it an even 5k?
posted by robocop is bleeding at 8:00 AM on March 13, 2012 [4 favorites]


What struck me about the article is that she got a chance to set a record because her husband happened to have contact with someone in that world.

She is good, no doubt. But it makes you wonder how many other people are out there who are sort of casually beating a world record on this or that game and then just going about their day.
posted by vacapinta at 8:01 AM on March 13, 2012 [28 favorites]


Man, Funspot is an awesome place. I have a lot of fond memories of going there as a kid.
posted by pemberkins at 8:01 AM on March 13, 2012


I just kept thinking that right as she finished, Billy Mitchell was going to breeze past, mullet flying back behind him, and hand a tape over to Walter Day with 842 lines.*


* with a giant glitch in the tape at line 546.
posted by This_Will_Be_Good at 8:02 AM on March 13, 2012 [23 favorites]


I think everyone is "the best in the world" at some small thing. Some people, like Lori, would never have realized it except for a quirk of fate. Some people have not found that thing, imagine if Lori has never bought a GameBoy, or had never bothered with tetris. They are doomed to walk the earth, never knowing that they are the best tetris DX player ever. Some people are the best in the world at something not yet invented, all the generations of people who lived and died before the GameBoy even existed. Imagine that one prehistoric man who had the unique combination of coordination and drive that would have allowed him to get 5k lines. Or maybe Lori's neighbor down the street could get 10k, but her neighbor's husband never became interested in video game records.

All the people featured in Chasing Ghosts lived at the exact right moment in history to reach their potential. They had the stamina to play defender 40 hours straight and access to the machine. They had such a fleeting moment and they were there. We should all be so lucky.
posted by Ad hominem at 8:04 AM on March 13, 2012 [12 favorites]


I love that. She was routinely breaking the record and didn't even know it.

FunSpot is really neat. We did a MeFi road trip there a while back, though there were only two MeFites and a buddy of mine. There were guys there with iPhones set up on tripods, taking videos of their games. When you enter the classic floor it really is like stepping back in time to the 1980s. There were so many games I hadn't seen since my local arcade was in its heyday.

I'll put in another plug for King of Kong. I know it's heavily edited to make a clear good guy/bad guy story, and I know it's been criticized a lot (even here on MeFi by our own jscott) but it's still a lot of fun to watch. Chasing Ghosts is another great classic game documentary.
posted by bondcliff at 8:08 AM on March 13, 2012 [2 favorites]


On the subject of Tetris records, I'd would like to recommend Confessions of a Tetris Addict (SLYT). It is a 20 minute YouTube video about James Clewett, a PhD candidate and obsessive Tetris player. If you liked King of Kong, this has a similar vibe and is well worth the 20 minutes to watch.
posted by I Havent Killed Anybody Since 1984 at 8:16 AM on March 13, 2012 [1 favorite]


841? That seems kind of small. I have to ask my 13 year old what his record is, because I'm pretty sure it's higher than that.
posted by DU at 8:16 AM on March 13, 2012


(My own record usually being well below 100 and getting lower with every birthday.)
posted by DU at 8:26 AM on March 13, 2012


Oh, good ol' Funspot!
posted by ericb at 8:46 AM on March 13, 2012


This needs more captain awesome.
posted by dr_dank at 8:53 AM on March 13, 2012


Donkey Kong killscreen coming up. If anyone's interested, there's a Donkey Kong kill screen coming up. Potential Donkey Kong kill screen coming up.

I grew up on the NH/VT border, so Weirs Beach was about 1:30 from me. This made Funspot just far enough away that, as a kid and video game lover, any time we could take a trip there would be an event I anticipated as much as anything. Combine that with the fact that, given the length of the voyage, Mom would usually acquiesce into letting me turn a $20 into tokens, and it was pretty much heaven on earth.

Having been gone from the area for a decade an change, it's been funny watching Funspot become synonymous with these sort of record-setting events. To me, it will always be about the new games that you blow by when you first came in (you could play THOSE anywhere), the enormous rows of pinball machines in the split level room above the air hockey tables, and the ticket game room on the bottom level with wall to wall skee ball and roller bowler.
posted by SpiffyRob at 8:59 AM on March 13, 2012 [3 favorites]


I know it's heavily edited to make a clear good guy/bad guy story
The director claims it was heavily edited to make it less of a good guy/bad guy story.

But yes, absoutely a must-see.
posted by louie at 9:01 AM on March 13, 2012 [6 favorites]


That was a thrilling read, thank you. Our household is a big fan of 'King of Kong' too.
posted by of strange foe at 9:11 AM on March 13, 2012


Wow, that's awesome. And thirding "King of Kong"... great movie.

I love seeing that there are places like Funspot, because mall arcades were pretty much where we would hang out on weekends in my teenage years in the late 1970s.

I'm so old I remember that SPACE INVADERS machine had a "TILT screen" that would appear if you manhandled them, just like pinball.

Oh and there was one Formula-1-type video race car game that would give you free plays if you rubbed your feet on the carpet and touched the coin slot, much to the attendant's dismay.
posted by Ron Thanagar at 9:15 AM on March 13, 2012 [1 favorite]


It's important to remember that "Tetris" is a oft-changing thing, and the difference in gameplay between, say, Gameboy Tetris and Tetris DS is immense. There is a lot of drama around Easy Spin, now a required feature by the Tetris Company. With Easy Spin I can pretty much go forever on a Tetris that has it. I still think Tetris DX on an original game boy color is the "canonical" tetris, but that's only because I spent the most time with it.
posted by brianwhitman at 9:15 AM on March 13, 2012


I think everyone is "the best in the world" at some small thing.

Usually it's reading one's own handwriting.
posted by Faint of Butt at 9:22 AM on March 13, 2012 [11 favorites]


it makes you wonder how many other people are out there who are sort of casually beating a world record on this or that game and then just going about their day

Now I have to wonder if my mother could've set one of those records way back when. My youngest sister had a B/W Gameboy for a while (borrowed from a friend IIRC) and we all went nuts for Tetris for a while, mom more than anybody. I can still see her, in my mind's eye, laying on the couch with the Gameboy, playing round after round of Tetris.

(She was also pretty good at Frogger, FWIW, when we went to birthday parties at Chuck E Cheese.)
posted by epersonae at 9:31 AM on March 13, 2012


We should all be so lucky.
posted by roystgnr at 9:32 AM on March 13, 2012


I saw a Tetris doc last fall at the Austin Film Festival, Ecstasy of Order: The Tetris Masters. I suppose it's still looking for distribution, which is a shame because it was hella fun.
posted by donajo at 9:34 AM on March 13, 2012


I highly recommend tetris from rrrrthats5rs.com if your going for high line counts.

We should hold a mefi contest for tetrisweeper lines too before that thread closes.
posted by jeffburdges at 10:01 AM on March 13, 2012 [1 favorite]


Man, I'm such a sap; that article totally made me cry.
posted by rosa at 10:06 AM on March 13, 2012


I think everyone is "the best in the world" at some small thing.

Usually it's reading one's own handwriting.

Nuh uh. I'm way better at reading my handwriting than you are at reading yours!
posted by Green With You at 10:14 AM on March 13, 2012


And so I contacted Mr. Kelly R. Flewin – he always signs his correspondence this way –

I wonder if I will have a feeling of dread when reading a sentence like this for the rest of my life.
posted by cairdeas at 10:14 AM on March 13, 2012 [1 favorite]




"I think everyone is "the best in the world" at some small thing.

Usually it's reading one's own handwriting.

posted by Faint of Butt

Not for me it isn't.
posted by marienbad at 10:21 AM on March 13, 2012


vacapinta: She is good, no doubt. But it makes you wonder how many other people are out there who are sort of casually beating a world record on this or that game and then just going about their day.

In Burnout Paradise I would, on a regular basis, score well over a billion dollars in damage in Showtime mode. I never competed, and after my PS3 died and I lost my saved games I never really played again
posted by zombieApoc at 10:29 AM on March 13, 2012


the enormous rows of pinball machines in the split level room above the air hockey tables

The last time I went to Funspot there was not a single pinball machine I would describe as fully functional. The room you're talking about has largely been taken over by redemption games, with just a few pinball machines left. There is a row on the third floor, but they're in pretty bad shape.

They do an excellent job with their classic arcade games, in that the games turned on all work well, but they seem to have forgotten about pinball. At 13 cents per token with a coupon, and most machines set to one token per game, I don't know how they could possibly keep up with maintenance.
posted by helicomatic at 10:54 AM on March 13, 2012


The punch line of "From now on, YOU pack the car" made me grin. Because when I and my boyfriends were dealing with selling most of our books before a cross-country move, at one point when we were filling a rental car with boxes of books, I grabbed my phone and found Tetris music on the net, in the hopes that it would wake up the parts of our brains that are good at fitting things into limited space.

Oh man that is such a runon sentence but I don't have the time to make it more elegant. n.n;
posted by egypturnash at 11:18 AM on March 13, 2012 [1 favorite]


The last time I went to Funspot there was not a single pinball machine I would describe as fully functional.

This was not our experience. In fact, Metafilter's Own backseatpilot spent a good deal of time on the pinball machines. I even have photographic proof.

The punch line of "From now on, YOU pack the car" made me grin.

Whenever we go on a camping trip or long driving vacation where we have a lot of shit to pack in the car I always tell my wife "Just put everything out by the car and I'll go play Tetris."
posted by bondcliff at 11:23 AM on March 13, 2012 [1 favorite]


it seems odd to me that her record was smashed twice a few months after she set it. can anyone explain this?
posted by timsneezed at 11:52 AM on March 13, 2012


But it makes you wonder how many other people are out there who are sort of casually beating a world record on this or that game and then just going about their day.

I don't know about world records, but my wife does this with games all the time. When we got an iPhone, I used to play the traffic management game a lot. It's the one where you have to swipe vehicles across a 4-way intersection without any accidents. I slowly got good at it and managed a score of 100+ after a couple of days (yes, I was terrible). Then my wife got sick of me playing the game all the time and said she'll play it once to see what the big deal was. She got to 300+ on her very first attempt. Neither of us has played the game since.
posted by vidur at 12:45 PM on March 13, 2012


Yep. 564 (or 654) was the previous GB color record.

To people who care about records, Tetris for Gameboy and Tetris DX are different games. Most versions of Tetris, in fact, have subtle differences from each other that make comparing scores between them impossible. More recent versions (including, sadly, Nintendo's DS version) have the controversial "infinite spin" feature that makes survival at high speeds much easier.

The gold standard for competitive Tetris lately, to my knowledge, has been the Grand Master arcade machines that pretty much only come out in Japan, where the level increases with each piece dropped, and which feature such wonderful and fulfilling play modes as "20G," where halfway through the game the pieces don't fall anymore but appear on the surface of the bin and you have a split second before the piece locks down, and you have to rely on the Next display and inhuman reflexes to play pieces in advance.

Further reading: tetrisconcept wiki.

1 4,988 Harry Sep 13 2007
2 2,349 Neil Sep 04 2007
3 841 Lori Jun 02 2007


There are lots and lots of video games out there and there are Twin Galaxies records for many of them. Some games, like Defender, had a period where people obsessed over them far beyond the ordinary level, and so the top score is something that people who aren't prepared to dedicate their lives to the game for a while will ever have a chance to beat. Other games are less obsessed over, and even a casual player might have a crack at the record. I can personally vouch that Tetris DX is a substantially easier game than the original GB Tetris, so please keep that in mind before you boggle over the guy who nearly got 5,000 lines -- he probably got tired of playing at that point, or mental fatigue overcame him.

Tetris DX is easier, and it's also more obscure, and those two attributes combined were what got Lori the record most likely. Then two other people who probably have much less stuff going on in their lives decided to obliterate it. When there are such obsessives in the world, who can compete?

When I was about 8 or 9 I enjoyed playing Frogger on our Atari 2600. I was rather good at it, and was surprised, when I looked in the back page of an issue of some magazine (maybe it was Joystik, or Electronic Games -- yeah, I was a weird kid) that the listed high score was lower than mine! That was a major ego boost for a little kid, let me tell you, but I never got around to sending anything in.

I think everyone is "the best in the world" at some small thing.

There are far more people in the world than there are things to be best in.

Donkey Kong killscreen coming up. If anyone's interested, there's a Donkey Kong kill screen coming up. Potential Donkey Kong kill screen coming up.

This is one of my least favorite things about the King Of Kong movie, how they made this the subject of fun. As this article reveals, that floor of the Funspot arcade is a video game museum. Many people who go there do it specifically in order to watch high-caliber play, but the director decided to approach it from the angle of, ha ha, he cares about this.

You are free to disagree with me on this, but I proclaim that if you're not wrapped up in at least one obsessive little subculture, you're wasting your time here on Earth.
posted by JHarris at 12:46 PM on March 13, 2012 [5 favorites]


it seems odd to me that her record was smashed twice a few months after she set it. can anyone explain this?

What it seems like is that hardcore gamers weren't taking Tetris (DX) seriously yet, so the high score on record was abnormally low. When an amateur (Lori) happened into their midst and claimed the record, it must have lit a fire under their asses. I'm assuming the "Harry" who now holds the ~5000 line score is the same one who had 500-something before Lori beat it. And it's probably safe to assume that he didn't really break a sweat getting to 500 in the first place.
posted by anazgnos at 12:51 PM on March 13, 2012 [1 favorite]


I'm not trying to minimize her being good at Tetris, but look up "invisible tetris" on YouTube and you'll realize that there really is another class of people when it comes to that game. She happened to stumble on a specific version that had a low record.
posted by thewumpusisdead at 1:02 PM on March 13, 2012


Yes, she probably did. But you know, I find it hard to dump on her. She's not as good as a true Tetris obsessive, but she's better than you, or me.
posted by JHarris at 1:05 PM on March 13, 2012


The original arcade version of Atari's "Pole Position" has a maximum high score.

I know this because I can (well, could) reach it EVERY SINGLE TIME.

I can also beat Double Dragon on a single life, which is really not that big of a deal once you figure out that the "face backwards, repeatedly throw elbow punches" technique kills every enemy every time.

/bragging
posted by BitterOldPunk at 1:06 PM on March 13, 2012 [1 favorite]


There are far more people in the world than there are things to be best in

Really? Even in one specific subculture there are many, many ways to standout. Who's the best headspinner in breakdancing? Who's the best in the world at knowing what time it is if you lock then in a windowless room for 48 hours? Who's the best at pointing you to exact magnetic north? Who's the best at stacking a leaning tower of blocks? Who's the best at whistling in perfect key? Who's the best at performing feats of dexterity with their toes?Who's the best at making the loudest finger snapping sound? In any existing sport, there'll be the best free-thrower, best base-stealer etc. Then think of all the sports that don't exist or would be somewhat boring as sports.

That's just body things. There's also tricks of the mind and specific knowledge. Who's the best at guessing how many people are in a crowd? Who's the best at learning a new language? at remembering what they were doing on a specific day 10 years ago? At crossword puzzles? At word scrambles? At hangman? At sudoku? At scrabble? At whatever word game is not yet invented?

Of course to shine, we need our unique time in history. When our skill is needed. What would the programmers of today have been doing 200 years ago? What about Formula 1 Drivers?

A physically powerful man was invaluable a thousand years ago. Today, it gets him nowhere. The greatest fencer that ever lived could be alive today. But today he or she is just a person engaged in a fringe sport, possibly longing for days when they would have basked in glory.
posted by vacapinta at 1:23 PM on March 13, 2012 [1 favorite]


There are lots and lots of video games out there and there are Twin Galaxies records for many of them. Some games, like Defender, had a period where people obsessed over them far beyond the ordinary level, and so the top score is something that people who aren't prepared to dedicate their lives to the game for a while will ever have a chance to beat. Other games are less obsessed over, and even a casual player might have a crack at the record.

I'm sure that's part of how Brian Kuh managed to set 17 world records in a day according to the article in the OP. Obviously skills from most games translate pretty well, but you're only going to achieve that if you've found some relatively weak records for games that haven't been focused on much.

This is one of my least favorite things about the King Of Kong movie, how they made this the subject of fun. As this article reveals, that floor of the Funspot arcade is a video game museum. Many people who go there do it specifically in order to watch high-caliber play, but the director decided to approach it from the angle of, ha ha, he cares about this.

It's been a while since I saw the movie, but my take on that was that it was part of the picture they were painting of Brian Kuh as an obsequious little worm (see also the bits where they show him giving telephone updates to Billy). The movie doesn't really make fun of Steve Wiebe for caring a ton about Donkey Kong. In other words, it's less he cares about this and more he cares about this.
posted by Copronymus at 1:30 PM on March 13, 2012 [1 favorite]


Really? Even in one specific subculture there are many, many ways to standout. Who's the best headspinner in breakdancing? Who's the best in the world at knowing what time it is if you lock then in a windowless room for 48 hours? Who's the best at pointing you to exact magnetic north?[...]

I understand what you're trying to say here. But there are seven billion people in the world. If you lived to be 75 and came up with one thing to be best at each second of that time, you'd only end up (according to Google) with 2,366,769,450 things. (A weird figure, but I guess Google's converter is being more precise than I would be.) At these sizes, the question becomes less about what people are good at and more about the nature of what we mean when we declare there is some thing that someone can be best at. Anyway, even granting enough time, no single person is going to come up with that many different things.

Technically you could possibly come up with that many things to be best at, but by the time you got that far you'd start getting so laughably specific ("The person who stands on his leg for 12 seconds and loses his balance the least who is also named Bill who lives in Tacoma") that it becomes rhetorically useless. Everyone is already best as being one thing, himself, but that is a tautology, worthless. The closer a statement about bestness approaches that, the less useful it is as a statement.
posted by JHarris at 2:11 PM on March 13, 2012


Technically you could possibly come up with that many things to be best at, but by the time you got that far you'd start getting so laughably specific ("The person who stands on his leg for 12 seconds and loses his balance the least who is also named Bill who lives in Tacoma") that it becomes rhetorically useless.

I do this for myself all the time.
posted by Lucinda at 2:35 PM on March 13, 2012 [1 favorite]


I used to play Astrosmash until the power supply in my Intellivision would overheat, usually after four or five hours.
posted by furtive at 2:59 PM on March 13, 2012


as opposed to those who rely on said talent for self-definition
what are the ok things to use for self definitions
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 3:12 PM on March 13, 2012


Everyone is already best as being one thing, himself, but that is a tautology, worthless.

Actually, some people suck at being themselves....

When I was on the cycling team in grad school, the coach talked a bit about how the best physically-adapted person in the world for cycling was probably an overweight couch potato in Kansas or something. There's a long hard road between having the wiring to potentially be the best at something and having the kind of ridiculous obsessive drive to actually follow through on that potential. And the trick of it is that you don't even know if the potential's there until you've put in a good amount of work training.
posted by kaibutsu at 3:21 PM on March 13, 2012


The punch line of "From now on, YOU pack the car" made me grin.

I just hum the Tetris tune myself when I have a car to pack up. It's practically involuntary.
posted by looli at 6:01 PM on March 13, 2012


What is the lpm on gameboy tetris?

I'm a tetris addict; I use Quinn on the mac. I have currently positions 39,45 & 49 on the top 100 players list. However, I have the second highest lpm on the list at 33.8 (the score at 18 by lemon is bogus -- it is mathematically impossible). I can vouch for Grimm's 40 lpm, I've played against him online.

I've played at over 38 lpm for scores of 1-2 million many times.

Quinn tops out pretty slow, unfortunately -- at about 24 lpm. The faster lpms are by banging the drop key as fast as I can.
posted by lastobelus at 12:11 AM on March 14, 2012 [1 favorite]


On the tetris addict video, I'm confused by his posting high score story, because the original tetris machine would roll. I can't remember where, I think it was at a weird number not at 999,999. Might just have been a bug in the one I played though. I rolled it more than once. The highest level I ever got to was 84. If I played the arcade machine now I would do much better, my tetris has improved a lot since those days.
posted by lastobelus at 12:21 AM on March 14, 2012


wow, concentricity looks cool. I have to try it.
posted by lastobelus at 12:24 AM on March 14, 2012


It is important to note that when one is packing a pickup, it becomes trucktris.
posted by flaterik at 9:31 AM on March 14, 2012


I play tetris most everyday but it's just something to stop myself getting board whilst watching a youtube or other vid where I don't need / want to give it 100% attention. Though I do really chase highscores or anything as that would be like trying to get a highscore in meditation or something
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 11:28 AM on March 14, 2012


Actually, some people suck at being themselves....

Not in the sense in which I mean it, in that, by being themselves, they are 100% good it, while by not being them, others aren't good at it at all.
posted by JHarris at 12:46 PM on March 14, 2012


Here is an awesome Tetris-featuring Javascript NES emulator, if it hasn't already been posted upthread. I found it on the blue recently, and have been brushing up on my short game with -Golf-.

The other games:
Bubble Bobble
Contra
Donkey Kong
Dr. Mario
The Legend of Zelda
LifeForce
Lemmings
Mario Bros.
Mega Man
PacMan
Super Mario Bros
Tennis
Tetris
Tetris II
Zelda II - The Adventure of Link

Wheeee..

posted by obscurator at 1:56 PM on March 15, 2012


I know it's kind of late to comment to this but I only finally went around to dig up the link to what is possibly the greatest Tetris playthrough I have seen. Basically one of those "only in Japan" things to gawk at (I love how the level is called Grand Master Promotional Exam) and if you want to skip to the end, make sure you catch the last 2 minutes where he "finishes" the game and goes on to the bonus level...
posted by xdvesper at 2:45 AM on March 20, 2012


a very late note here, but I noticed that this film was coming to my town for a film fest

Ecstasy of Order: The Tetris Masters
posted by zombieApoc at 6:04 AM on April 12, 2012 [1 favorite]


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