An active member of the Tetris community shows that it is possible to reprogram the game directly from itself. This would make it possible, for example, to remove a bug that causes it to crash.
Over the years, some video games become timeless classics. So much so that even someone who has never touched a console in their life will have at least heard of it. This is the case of Tetris For example. You probably know this title created in 1984 which consists of stacking bricks of different shapes to create lines and make them disappear. Despite its 40 years of existence, the game has a still very active community whether on the first opuses or their more modern variations. You can even play it on Excel, that’s saying something.
It will not be until the beginning of 2024 thata 13-year-old boy manages to “beat Tetris”. Understand that it reaches such a high level that the program can no longer keep up and crashes. The controls no longer respond, this is what we call “the screen of death”. Paradoxically, it is this bug that prevents players from reaching even higher scores. It was without counting on a hack explained by the youtuber Displaced Gamers : it allows to reprogram the game on its NES version from itselfwithout modifying the cartridge or console.
Tetris on NES can be reprogrammed from within the game itself
To summarize roughly, we must first connect 4 controllers to a Famicom (the Japanese NES) using an adapter. Next, the idea is to hold down certain buttons on the 3rd and 4th controllers, which will bring up the score screen. There it is possible toenter a sequence of letters and symbols that will change the game code. The technical details are complex, so we refer you to the video below if you want to know more.
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Concretely, Displaced Games managed to postpone the moment when Tetris threatens to crashwhich happens after reaching level 155. But in theory, someone could completely patch the game to allow you to play without fear of seeing it crash while you were about to break the world record. It is currently 8,952,432 points if you want to try.