On February 1, 2024, the Classic Tetris World Championship (CTWC) set up a fan-funded bounty for the first player to reach 10 million points in NES Tetris.
Prior to the bounty, PixelAndy had the world record with an 8.9 million score on January 11. So it was only a matter of time before someone claimed the bounty.
On March 11, 2024, Alex T was on his first day of his 10 million grind. He started his livestream on Twitch that day. When he was showing his game display, it showed a score of 9.9 million. He was practicing before going on Twitch and happened to get that score. After some warmups on Level 29 starts, he started his first serious game of the stream.
The Game Begins
At the beginning of the game (Line 18), Alex T was already in danger of topping when he experienced a 32 Line Piece drought. His board was getting really high and managed to roll his way to survival.
At Level 104, he was setting up for a center well Tetris. And then some bad piece sequences caused the stack to get high. But, he managed to dig it out and kept playing.
Eventually, Alex T became the first player to reach 10 million points in NES Tetris. This was done after clearing 1,797 lines at Level 185.
After playing that game for an hour, he finally topped out after reaching Level 235 and 2,374 lines.
Alex T got the score world record of 16,248,080.
He claimed the 10 million point bounty, which earned him $2,643.95.
Here is the entire game
The Classic Tetris community keeps track of these scores via spreadsheets.
Stats on Alex T’s Game
How does the score display work?
Normally, the game’s score counter maxes out at 999,999. Known as a max out.
Alex T used a modified cartridge that uncaps the score.
The score display uses hexadecimal.
In the score counter, A= 1 Million, B= 1.1 Million , C=1.2 Million, D=1.3 Million, E=1.4 Million, and F=1.5 Million.
At 1.6 Million, the score counter resets to 0. This is known as a Rollover.
Alex T’s Rollover in his 16 Million point game
#1 (1.6 Mil): Level 48 – Line 423
#2 (3.2 Mil): Level 93 – Line 874
#3 (4.8 Mil): Level 119 – Line 1130 (B30)
#4 (6.4 Mil): Level 145 – Line 1390 (D90)
#5 (8 Mil): Level 166 – Line 1607 (G07)
#6 (9.6 Mil): Level 181 – Line 1753 (H53) – (100k glitch)*
#7 (11.2 Mil): Level 198 – Line 1920 (J20)
#8 (12.8 Mil): Level 212 – Line 2063 (K63)
#9 (14.4 Mil): Level 226 – Line 2200 (M00)
#10 (16 Mil): Level 235 – Line 2349 (N49) – (810-Line Level)**
Reached 10 Million at Level 185 – Line 1797 (H97) – (100k glitch)*
Alex T reached Level 235, cleared 2,374 lines (N74), with a score of 16,248,080
*100k glitch: At the 8 million mark, the game adds 100K to the score counter. It gets corrected at the 10 million mark. Video explanation by HydrantDude
**810-Line Level: Depending on the player’s starting level, there will be a level (between Level 219 and 235) that will last 810 lines instead for 10 lines. Video explanation by HydrantDude
What happened to the Game Crash?
Alex T used a modified cartridge that patched the game crash. Prior to announcing the 10 million point bounty, the bounty organizers and the participating players approved of using a modified cartridge.
What is Next for Alex T?
Alex T is currently participating in the Classic Tetris Monthly (CTM) March 2024 Mega Masters. He qualified for the tournament as the #1 seed. Check out his first round (Top 64) match.
He is also expected to compete at the 2024 Classic Tetris World Championship that is happening from June 7-9.
Check out his previous CTWC matches
