Glitch - Video Game Glitches

Video Game Glitches

In video games, a glitch is a programming error which results in behavior not intended by the programmers. (An example of this is getting to fight MissingNo. from Pokémon Red and Blue; not only is the existence of MissingNo. itself a glitch, but encountering MissingNo. causes graphical and inventory glitches.) Glitches may include incorrectly displayed graphics, collision detection errors, game freezes/crashes, sound issues, and other issues. Graphical glitches are especially notorious in platforming games, where misformed textures can directly affect gameplay (for example, by displaying a harmless ground texture where the code calls for an area that should damage the character, or by not displaying a wall texture where there should be one, resulting in an invisible wall). 3D games are thought to be more susceptible to this than 2D games, due not only to the additional complexity of the code but to the additional ways in which glitches can manifest on the screen (given the additional display axis). Some glitches are potentially dangerous to the game save data.

"Glitching" is the practice of a player exploiting faults in a video game's programming to achieve tasks normally impossible if the game's script runs as intended, such as running through walls or defying the game's laws of gravity. It is often used to gain an unfair advantage over other players in multiplayer video games. Glitches can be deliberately induced in certain home video game consoles by manipulating the game medium, such as tilting a ROM cartridge to disconnect one or more connections along the edge connector and interrupt part of the flow of data between the cartridge and the console. This can result in graphics, music, or gameplay glitches. Doing this, however, carries the risk of crashing the game or even causing permanent damage to the game medium.

Part of the quality assurance process (as performed by game testers for video games) is locating and reproducing glitches, and then compiling reports on the glitches to be fed back to the programmers so that they can repair the bugs.