Game coding is usually a straightforward affair, but as the machine executes the given instructions, some logic bugs may appear which we the gamers perceive as glitches during gameplay. Whenever the given set of conditions occur within the game, the glitch would appear and sometimes, the developer just simply rolls it in with the game because it looks cute or fun, or it doesn't really distract from the main gameplay to warrant some serious debugging and elimination.

Many of these glitches, particularly in the older or "Retro" games have in fact contributed themselves as a plus or advantage to the game's core mechanics. The gamer simply takes note of the bug and uses it to one's advantage over and over as needed, as the exploited glitch then proves to be an asset more than a liability as the player takes it in stride, and continues to enjoy the game.

The Glitch Is In The Game

The majority of Retro games had glitches in one way or another as debugging (till today) is not a perfect process, so some of these bugs get through and become part of the gameplay. For us gamers, as long as one can exploit these glitches to one's greatest advantage, one doesn't make a fuzz of it unless one is a gaming purist who may consider it as a cheat. But really, it's already there and anything to make gaming life a bit easier is usually something any gamer would welcome.

Here are some video game classics that have bugs, bugs, and wonderful bugs in their gameplay.

Space Invaders

In the early days of video games, games run on 8-bit machines which by today's standards had minimal processing power with equivalent speed. When you display so many objects on the screen and each one a bot with its own set of running routines, the number will really slow things down.

This is a performance issue that is usually caused by the limitations of the hardware and in the case of the game, the more sprites (enemy bots) displayed, the slower the movement. Then, as the player shoots them down and clears the screen, processing speed can increase and the game gets faster and faster. By the time one alien is left, the game is at its top speed and the enemy whooshes down towards the ground.

It was a hardware limitation so Taito just left it at that and exploited it by using it as one of the most successful gameplay formulas in video gaming history. Start slow, then end with a whoosh and a bang!

Super Mario Brothers

The original Super Mario Brothers despite being one of the most iconic games in gaming history was loaded with glitches. The most popular were the solid wall clipping glitches, and the much talked about "Minus World", a well-timed clip through glitch which accessed an infinite water world.

However, the most useful of the bugs was the "Wall Jump". The move, however, needed a bit of mastery as it involved hitting a wall at just the right angle and just the right time which enabled the player to scale the highest walls in the game, avoiding enemies altogether. Just like Taito, Nintendo decided to exploit the bug and included it as part of the game mechanics in succeeding Mario iterations.

Street Fighter 2

When Capcom was developing Street Fighter 2, they wanted to make the game easier to play so they increased the number of executable controller commands. That’s when they found out that this inadvertently allowed the player to fast cancel one move and move straight to the next. This enabled the linking of multiple attacks together (attack commands executed very quickly one after the other), hitting the opponent all at once.

The accidental feature didn’t create any errors in the game execution, so Capcom decided to include it in the game and “fighting game combos” were born. Implementing this string of attack moves added depth and attack tactics to fighting games changing the genre forever.

Quake

One of the tricks we did back in the day with Unreal Tournament was using the rocket launcher or any similar weapon to jump up, up in the air. This trick or gameplay glitch started though with Quake. Players found out that by aiming the rocket launcher at correct angles (to the ground or otherwise), created a recoil that pushed the player in the opposite direction, enabling them to reach locations which would have been otherwise unreachable.

This glitch was fully appreciated by the FPS multiplayer gamers of the time (pre eSports era) and practically implemented to almost all multiplayer FPS games of the era. Today, it is rare for an MMOFPS or equivalent kind of game not to have this valuable gameplay feature.

Minecraft

Last on the list, but not the last by a longshot is “Minecraft”. No, it’s not Jack Black, although many do consider him as a glitch ha ha, but really, it’s Minecraft’s beloved Creeper. Yes, the Creeper started off as a glitch. When Markus “Notch” Persson was building the pre-alpha of Minecraft, he accidentally made a mistake with the height and width of a pig model he was making. It ended up with the form of the modern-day Creeper.

Instead of just removing the mistake, Notch decided to add textures to the model and use it as a monster in the game, and the following Minecraft iterations from 2009 onwards. The result is the Creeper, along with its trademark hiss, one of the most iconic enemy characters in Minecraft. Although Minecraft today is not a Retro game, Minecraft in 2009 certainly was.

There are more Retro game glitches, not all of them were good and contributed much to the gameplay, and the betterment of the game. Nevertheless, for those that did, it’s a good thing since Retro video games became a lot better and fun to play because of them.

Image Info:
https://pixabay.com/illustrations/minecraft-creeper-game-green-games-5187526/
https://pixabay.com/photos/minecraft-pig-bricks-toy-piggy-1275065/