What exactly do you consider a game glitch?

[RJ]

Awhile back (both here & DP) I posted a thread about whether Katamari Damacy was a system seller. Recently I've been "discussing" w/ that friend what defines a game glitch.

 

Is it something relatively minor & simple, which doesnt affect overall gameplay, such as (among other situations) a character's arm sinking into a nearby wall, or a bit of graphics blinking out of sight for a moment, then reappearing?

 

Or is it something major, a problem in a game which prevents you from further play (& could possibly require a "workaround" to pass) like a system lockup or corrupt saves/wipes?

 

Or is it something in-between, not so simple but not as extreme?

 

Thoughts/opinions, please...

[sega saturn x]

You charcater getting stuck in a wall is a glitch. A key not opening the door its supposed to is a glitch. Your chacater bursting in to flames for no reason is a glitch. Clipping is really just lazy programing and draw in can be a developer slacking off but from what i have seen its mainly system limitations. The saturn had a huge draw in problem with a lot of games and it was the system more then the devlopers fault.

[SteveW]

I loved playing Vigilante 8: Second Offense on the Dreamcast, but when you were driving down the road, there was always a small possibility of your car suddenly falling through the road. Or if you went a little off the road and hit a bump, you'd clip right through the roadside, but before going completely through, the game would figure it out, and you'd be 'snapped out' of the roadside, and flung halfway across the level.

 

Another glitch about Vigilante 8 was that the physics were painfully bad. You might drive off an embankment, and land at a 45 degree angle, and just stay there for a few seconds until the game's crappy physics engine would right you.

 

These examples are what I consider glitches. Bad programming problems that didn't get caught before the game shipped. And I won't even get into the list of games where the roaming camera gets caught behind a wall, so you can't see your character get it's ass kicked. Bad cameras are also what I consider glitches.

[Dones]

FOLDOC defines it as:

 

glitch

 

/glich/ [German "glitschen" to slip, via Yiddish "glitshen", to slide or skid] 1. (Electronics) When the inputs of a circuit change, and the outputs change to some random value for some very brief time before they settle down to the correct value. If another circuit inspects the output at just the wrong time, reading the random value, the results can be very wrong and very hard to debug (a glitch is one of many causes of electronic heisenbugs).

 

Wikipedia has more information in relation to videogames:

 

In video games, a glitch is a term used by players to indicate a bug or programming error of some sort. It may refer to either a helpful or harmful error, but never an intended behavior. For example, a programming error that makes the game freeze is often referred to as a glitch, and so is an error that gives you 100 lives automatically. However, some glitches' occurrence has been discovered and described by doing certain tasks in a certain order. For example, the Missingno and Glitch City glitches in the Pokémon series follow this principle.

 

The practise of exploiting glitches in video games is known as "glitching". For example, in an online game someone may use an error in the map to get an advantage. This is sometimes considered cheating, but sometimes just considered part of the game.

 

Reading that last paragraph made me remember about Perfect Dark. In the final level, there is a glitch where you can fall off a specific ledge and magically materialize further along the level, avoiding a very difficult path filled with baddies.

The game has many more glitches like it which are considered necessary for getting ultra low times.

Edited April 16, 2005 by Dones

[Clock]

I consider anything that is not supposed to happen to be a glitch.

[DeV0]

"What exactly do you consider a game glitch? "

 

Daikatana

[Lord Helmet]

I consider anything that is not supposed to happen to be a glitch.

838323[/snapback]

 

I second that. I especially hate it when you are playing someone and they use the glitch to beat you.

[joeybastard]

I was playing Air Fortress on the NES yesterday and hit a glitch. At one point in level 2 my character just stopped all movement but could still fire/bomb. The enemies stopped too but could still fire. The energy countdown was aslo stopped. I don't what triggered it but I was pissed, I was having a good game going.