At the Classic Tetris World Championship (CTWC), players compete one-on-one.
In each match, both players play on separate NES consoles and separate CRT Televisions. The judge or commentator does a countdown for the players to start their game at the same time.
How do you win a game at CTWC?
At the end of each game, the player with the higher score wins the game. They score the most points by getting Tetrises (clearing 4 rows at once with the long bar). The game ends when both players top out (the pieces reach the top of the board).
The Game Levels at CTWC
Level 18 – Relaxing Speed For A Professional
All matches in the tournament start at Level 18, where the pieces take 1 second to reach the bottom of the board. The pieces fall a row every 3 frames.
Boring Calculations
For those who want to know the math behind figuring out how long it takes for a piece to reach the bottom of the board, here you go.
At Level 18, the piece falls by 1 row every 3 frames. The game runs at 60 frames per second (FPS) and the board is 20 cells tall. To calculate how many seconds it takes for a piece to reach the bottom of the board, take the number of
The following are the steps I took to get to that equation.
(# of frames it takes for a piece to fall by one cell)/(FPS of game) * (Height of board)
3/60 * 20
(# of frames it takes for a piece to fall by one cell) * [(Height of board)/(FPS of game)]
3 * (20/60)
Simplified Equation to get the number of seconds it takes to reach the bottom of the board
(# of frames it takes for a piece to fall by one cell) * 1/3
3 * ⅓ = 1 second
Level 19 – The Transition
When players clear 130 lines on Level 18, they reach Level 19. The commentators call this the transition.
After the first level increases, the level increases at every 10 lines cleared.
At Level 19, it takes two-thirds of a second for a piece to reach the bottom of the board. The pieces fall a row every 2 frames.
2 * ⅓ = ⅔ second
Levels 19-28 have the same speed. For 100 lines, the players play at Level 19 speeds.
Level 29 – The Killscreen
After clearing 230 lines total, the player reached Level 29. Where pieces fall 1 row per frame, it takes one-third of a second for the pieces to reach the bottom of the board. This is the highest speed on an unmodified cartridge.
Level 29 is known as the Killscreen because it is nearly impossible to move pieces left and right by holding down the directional pad (D-Pad) on the controller, aka using DAS (Delayed Auto Shift).
The Rolling technique makes it possible for players to survive the killscreen speed.
Players play at this speed from Level 29-38, a total of 100 lines.
Level 39 – The Super Killscreen
To prevent games from lasting for over 30 minutes, the tournament organizers modified the cartridge to include a Super Killscreen. This started in 2023, after players were able to make it far past Level 29.
At Level 39, the pieces fall every 0.5 (or ½) frames. It takes ⅙ of a second for the pieces to reach the bottom.
In the tournament, the players attempt to score the most points before reaching Level 39. Where the game will eventually end if they make it that far.
