glitch

A glitch is a short-lived fault in a system. The term is particularly common in the computing and electronics industries, and in circuit bending, as well as among players of video games, although it is applied to all types of systems including human organizations. The term derives from the German glitschen, meaning 'to slip.'

In electronics, a glitch is an electrical pulse of short duration that is usually the result of a fault or design error, particularly in a digital circuit. For example, many electronic components such as flip-flops are triggered by a pulse that must not be shorter than a specified minimum duration, otherwise the component may malfunction. A pulse shorter than the specified minimum is called a glitch. A related concept is the runt pulse, a pulse whose amplitude is smaller than the minimum level specified for correct operation, and a spike, a short pulse similar to glitch but often caused by ringing or crosstalk.

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. A programming error that makes the game freeze is often referred to as a glitch, as is an error that, for example, gives the player 100 lives in a manner clearly not intended by the game's programming. The occurrence of some glitches can be replicated deliberately by doing certain tasks in a certain order. For example, the Missingno., 'M, Mew and Glitch City glitches in the Pokémon series follow this principle. Blue Hell is the name of a glitch where a player is inserted into an area which does not exist, or that is not designated as player-accessible.

Sometimes the game's code may be modified to create interesting glitches. For example, in the game Impossible Creatures, which focuses on combining 2 animals, making a combined animal "combinable" can result in 3 or 4-animal combinations.

The practice 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. It is often against a game's TOS (Terms of Service) and will be punished if discovered.

Sometimes glitches will be mistaken for hidden features. In the arcade version of Mortal Kombat, a rare glitch occasionally caused two characters to be mixed together. Most often, these were ninja characters, resulting in a semi-red ninja character with the name "ERMAC" (short for "error machine"). Upon discovering this, many players believed they had uncovered a secret character, when in fact they had only uncovered a programming bug. Due to the rumors surrounding the glitch, Midway did eventually include a red ninja character named Ermac as an official character in Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, and he has subsequently appeared in other Mortal Kombat games, becoming an instant fan favorite.

See also

• Computer glitch
• Glitch (music)
• Hazard (logic)

External links

• Bulbapedia's article about Pokemon glitches
• David Wonn's Unique Video Game Glitches
• The Center for Glitch Studies
• System Crash - Glitch descriptions and videos
• All consoles glitching forum, hundreds of glitches