The ‘Tetris’ lives, the fight continues: how a Spanish fan of retro video games organizes classic championships

To talk to HeadBack is to talk to one of the most passionate advocates of video games in general and of the classics of the medium in particular. The enthusiasm of this man from Zaragoza is absolutely contagious and his approach to his hobby is so open, honest and inclusive that he immediately destroys any kind of cynicism one brings in one’s backpack.

RetroCabeza, whose real name is Fernando Gil is also, of course, a retro collector and a pixel activist, but he does not get into the pitched battles that often rage on social networks when he discusses prices, speculation or the authenticity of one system or another. RetroCabeza is first and foremost a gamer, and he uses his social networks (especially Twitter, Youtube and twitch) to convey that passion with overwhelming effectiveness.

However, among a multitude of extremely interesting content that cannot be found on other channels (taking advantage of the closure of WiiWare, for example, it has dedicated itself to collecting and playing dozens of unknown games from the now defunct store from Nintendo), the Tetris championships that he organizes on his Twitch channel and that bring together a few fans of the classic every month who fight their way through ancient and modern versions of the mythical puzzle by Alexei Pajitnov.

With the premiere of the Apple TV+ movie that tells the origins and, above all, how Pajitnov’s game became an international success in the key of an industrial espionage thriller, we have looked at this modest but vibrant monthly game tournament . We have spoken with RetroCabeza about his relationship with the classic and many other things related to retro video games. This is what he has told us.

The original Tetris and other initiations.

Of course, we asked RetroCabeza about his first ‘Tetris’ and his experience with the game. “I’ve been playing ‘Tetris’ all my life.” he says. “My father had a PC at home for work and I played ‘Tetris’ in an MS-DOS version in CGA, in four colors. Then with the Game Boy I gave it a lot, but I played it as a child and in the Atari arcade version, which was in all the bars, as everyone”.

However, there is a turning point in the devotion to ‘Tetris’: “I started to take it seriously after discovering the Classic Tetris World Cup and seeing a documentary from a few years ago called ‘The Ecstasy of Order’, which tells the origins precisely of the World CupIt was this way of seeing Tetris as a competitive game, in which player performance can be measured, that led him to change his perspective.

In his case, the competition was against himself and analogically: “I had the NES ‘Tetris’ and I started playing it every day and writing down my scores in a notebook, including what time I played, to know what time I was better at it.” This is how you enter the feverish world of competitive Tetris: against yourself. “The conception of the game changes a lot when you play it casually or play games to entertain yourself for a while and that’s it. When you push the game to the limit and you yourself see that little by little you start at a higher level, that every week you get a better score and you progress and that always motivates”.

And taking all this into account, what is RetroCabeza’s favorite ‘Tetris’? “I have not played all of them, I would say the NES classic because it is the one I have played the most. But to this day, to be honest, the best one is the ‘Tetris Effect Connected’ because it’s like all in one. In it you can play the NES classic and modern versions, which is something that It also surprises people who haven’t played for thirty years and it is believed that it is the same as always, and discovers that now there are reserves, there are hard drops, t spins and strategies for scoring points that didn’t exist before.

Indeed, there is no ‘Tetris’, but as many ‘Tetris’ as versions of the game have been released. For example, the scoring system changes: the NES ‘Tetris’ doesn’t count beyond a million points, which is what’s called a maxout: it only goes to 999,999. You have to use codes and cheats to show higher scores, which is what they do in the tournaments in which this version is played. Also the system of rotation of the pieces changes, as well as the algorithm by which the order of the pieces is decided, which has evolved over time.

And why these changes? Among other things, to ensure balance and equal opportunities: “In modern ‘Tetris’,” RetroCabeza tells us, “the 7-Bag is used, which is as if the 7 pieces were in a bag. You take them out of one by one and when the bag is empty you put them back in and shake and start again. They come out randomly but all 7 come out and that way you make sure that at least every 12 or 13 pieces you will get a stick, which is what are you waiting to make a Tetris”. However, classic Tetris is more unfair: “in the NES there can be droughts of fifty pieces or more without a stick coming to you. It’s absolutely random.”

Championships for all

The amazing thing about ‘Tetris’, and that is why the championships are still exciting, is that they are still living games: “It continues to surprise because it does not have a skill ceiling or at least has not yet been reached. Records continue to be broken and They continue to invent strategies and they continue to surpass themselves every year and that is something that motivates. Five months ago the world record for Tetris for the month of more than six million points was broken. Until recently it was difficult to see a million, since they have already been exceeded six”.

The way to break these records, one after the other, is by inventing new control systems: “The classic Tetris World Cup that is played every year in Portland, there it is played with real hardware and an original NES controller. Until recently The normal thing was little to play with the thumbs, like everyone else, but the time came. hypertapping, which consists of pressing with the index, generally, above the remote to press faster, because it is faster than holding the button down. And the last thing that has revolutionized the world of classic Tetris is the rollingwhich has a little more than a year as a technique applied in tournaments: place your thumb on the crosshead without actually pressing it and drum with the other hand the control underneath”

This brings us to a parallel question: the youth of the new ‘Tetris’ titans: most of the current teachers are under 20 years of age. RetroCabeza tells us why: “in the 2018 World Cup final, the young Joseph Seeley, aged 16, he snatched the championship the historic Jonas Neubauer, seven times world champion. He motivated people his age to start with ‘Tetris’: it’s a very open community, they share their strategies, they motivate and poke each other and the progress one makes is progress for all”

But getting to this level is not easy: “To reach the level at which you are competing today you have to be an athleteyou have to practice every day and it’s something that not everyone can do”. In this context, the tournaments organized by RetroCabeza appear, with the intention that “everyone, regardless of their level, can play with people who are up to His height”.

The championship began when some friends got together to play ‘Tetris 99’ every Sunday three years ago, just before the pandemic, as this multiplayer variant of the original game was the only one where up to 99 players could play all at once. With the appearance of ‘Tetris Effect Connected’, they started a monthly classic ‘Tetris’ tournament in December 2021, with the advantage that it allows crossplaywhich allows emulating the experience of the classic ‘Tetris’ but in modern systems, each player on their platform.

The platform on which the championships have found their final form is on Twitch. In addition, the participants are by Discord to play and train any day of the week. In other words, apart from the tournaments they have formed a community: “There are already players from Mexico, Argentina, Portugal, the United States, and I like to encourage people to sign up to live that experience regardless of their level because it has nothing to do with playing with random people online” . To participate You just have to access the Discord where the tournament rules are found and send a screen with the score in the classic mode of the game.

The next step, of course, is live tournaments. In fact, the one that will be organized at RetroBarcelona has just been announced the next 13 and 14 of May. A wheel that does not stop for a community that does not stop growing. Beyond more aggressive and professionalized eSports, RetroCabeza has shown that a game that is close to four decades old can continue to arouse passions like the first day. This fan, who overflows with devotion to the classic games, has been preparing the pot for some time and it seems that he just got the piece in the shape of a stick.