Page 18 - Old School Gamer Magazine Issue #38 FREE Edition

definitive lifestyle gaming event for everyone - with competition at its core, and there’s been nothing like it ever since!”
In the 1990 Nintendo World Championship competition, Tetris was the game to beat. The winner, Thor Aackerlund, is still seen by many as the best to have ever played. Today’s Classic Tetris tournaments are played on that same version of Nintendo Tetris, using original NES game systems, controllers, and Tetris cartridges.
I asked Chris Tang where he sees the competitive Tetris scene in 10 years and he explained, “I see it continuing on a path of increased skill among players, and growing interest along with it. I see a lot of room for variations, expansions, and improvements on rule sets as the current meta kind of formed itself as a response to players being able to break the game with rapid inputs. There seems to still be a demand to see other types of skill demonstrated; offshoot competitions for DAS and other formats are popular and will help broaden the audience/player bases.”
In 2009, a player named Harry Hong became the first to achieve the highest possible score of 999,999 points. Inspired by this achievement, filmmaker Adam Cornelius produced a short film about Harry called “Max-Out” and launched a Kickstarter campaign to document the world of competitive Tetris.
Jonas Neubauer
If you look at all the champions since 2010, there is one name that will rise above the rest. Jonas Neubauer was an American Tetris player, seven-time champion at the Classic Tetris World Championship, Twitch streamer, and a taproom manager. Neubauer is widely considered to be one of the greatest Tetris players of all time. Sadly, Jonas passed away in 2021 sudden medical emergency at the age of 39.
Since 2018, global CTWC stops have been officially added, many of which are directly linked to the CTWC main event in Portland. Other than prizes, the winner of each global stop is sponsored to fly to Portland and try to qualify for the finals. Some of these locations include Hong Kong, Germany, Australia, and Norway.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the Tetris event was held online with a different set of rules from the in-person tournaments. What this meant was, Tetris
turned into a live game show. The iconic video game is letting fans compete for more than $1 million in cash prizes annually, originally announced by N3twork. Tetris Primetime, part of the Tetris mobile app's overhaul, would be played at 7:30 p.m. local time seven days a week.
The history of Tetris has been documented by many sources
and video game magazines, but
in 2023 we got to see the whole story as a featured film. This 2023 biographical thriller film is based on true events around the race to license and patent the video game Tetris from Russia in the late 1980s during the Cold War. It was directed by Jon S. Baird and written by Noah Pink. The film stars Taron Egerton, Nikita Efremov, Sofia Lebedeva, and Anthony Boyle.
As of 2023, The Tetris Company boasts an impressive net worth of $500 million. Tetris is here to stay and there is no stopping it. In my opinion, Tetris has been the most influence game (not just video
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OLD SCHOOL GAMER MAGAZINE • ISSUE #38
SOME TIPS ON HOW TO BECOME A BETTER TETRIS PLAYER.
Memorize how pieces rotate clockwise and counterclockwise.
Look at your next piece while setting your current piece down.
Play on marathon mode to learn the level progression.
Clear 4 rows at a time with “I” pieces to score the most points.
Score singles, doubles, or triples to clear obscured wells.
Practice your movement finesse.
All Photos by David Macdonald