Programmer Michael Birken's new way of drawing video game characters is probably more complicated than it needs to be, but all the more incredible for it.

Birken designed an algorithm that can place single blocks of color in Tetris by strategically building and destroying lines at lightning speed. Precisely place enough blocks, and you’ve got a made-to-order line. Stack enough lines, and the result is a pixellated picture of anything you want. Birken trained the program to build images of classic 8-bit characters like Mario, Link and Samus.

As you might expect, the process is bafflingly complex, but the results — as seen in this video above — are stunning.

If you want to know more about how the algorithm works — complete with handy animations of how to get a single block or precisely printed line — you can do so here. But if you just want to sit at your desk hypnotized by the flashing colors and apparent magic of it all, we certainly can’t blame you for that.

Homepage image courtesy of YouTube, Michael Birken

This article originally published at Geekosystem here