I see a lot of new people getting excited about the NES Tetris record through the aGameScout video (which is great!), but there is one piece of context which I really wish was included that hasn't been.
Thor Aackerlund, the guy who "was the first to reach level 30 in 2011," had a lengthy history with Tetris. He was the champion of the 1990 Nintendo World Championship, which included Tetris as one of the games, and during that time, he claimed to be able to reach level 30. In 1990, the Tetris metagame was in such a place that many top players did not believe him, some even claiming level 30 was impossible. Between 1990 and 2010, Thor Aackerlund lived a private life without any real kind of online presence, only returning to the world of public Tetris competition for the documentary Ecstacy of Order and the first Classic Tetris World Championship in 2010. After his performances in 2010 and his on-camera record in 2011, it is now widely believed he did actually achieve level 30 in 1990.
I get why this didn't get covered in detail in the aGameScout video. It's a lot of ground to cover that has less to do with Blue Scuti than it does Thor Aackerlund, but I think it is context that makes the whole recent explosion in young talent even more impressive. The ramp up from level 30 to level 31 didn't take seven years. It took 28 years, over twice as long as Blue Scuti has been alive. Which I think makes the ramp up from level 31 to level 157 in just six years all the more impressive.
