A lot of games could be better. It’s just a fact of life that nothing is perfect, after all that’s what my first article was. Therefore, many games are easily broken in one way or another. Even the earliest games like Donkey Kong have glitches; the first level can be completely skipped by going down the ladder through the girders. There have been entire YouTube channels dedicated to these types of glitches, some that come to mind are A+Start and Scykohplays. Today, I’ll teach you how to do these types of glitches and how to know these types of glitches.

The first idea we’ll go through is avoiding fall damage. Astroneer is a common example, there are slidable surfaces that can help you avoid fall damage. However, most of the time when you wish to avoid fall damage there’ll be a big gap between you and the floor, that’s why you need to be able to analyze the terrain and land perfectly to reset the game’s calculation of your fall damage. While this maneuver is difficult at first, if you master it then it becomes a great tool in your arsenal.

Another thing you can do in games is a speed boost. The Super Mario 64 Backwards Long Jump glitch is a common example. The BLJ is a move you make by performing a normal long jump and immediately going backward. While seemingly useless, combining it with the right geometry and practicing it can lead to immense speeds. This can be seen on the endless staircase at the end of the game if you don’t have 70 stars. Using a BLJ on the stairs you skip past triggers that make the stairs loop and then push you to the top. This is often used in speedruns, however, some average players can perform the glitch, albeit not as consistently as professionals.

Now I’ve talked about some pretty odd glitches, but let’s talk about the most widely-known glitch ever: getting out of bounds. Out-of-bounds glitches are different in every game, but most usually devolve into seeing a small space where a gap may show in the map’s geometry, and then ramming yourself into that gap in any way possible. The easiest way to talk about out-of-bound glitches is in the game Ultrakill. There are many ways to get out of bounds in the game, some even being acknowledged and approved by the developer, one of these is in level 3-1. In the hallway to the first room, a small gap can be seen slightly moving terrain around the door. Using the rocket launcher’s stasis variant allows you to clip out of this gap and into the out-of-bounds area. From here, you can see most of the out-of-bounds level geometry, however, it is very dark. So you have to guess where you are. This is occasionally very helpful, but sometimes it occasionally causes many problems for the future.

This brings me to the main question of the article. Do glitches cause more harm than good? This is a question I’ve asked myself every time I discover some bug or glitch. After extensive thinking and a few questions… Glitches are not harmful. I have thought hard and long about the answer and after careful consideration, I have differentiated the terms glitch and bug. A glitch is helpful to the player in some way and keeps a game stable. However, a bug is an inconsistent problem in a game that causes a problem for either the player or the developer. While bugs and glitches can always harm a game severely, they only become harmful if the game’s fundamental mechanics or story is broken. I think glitches like an out-of-bounds clip are harmless, but those are the best ways to enjoy a game. If you play in your way, that helps your experience and keeps you immersed more than a hyperrealistic walking simulator.