Trivia Browser
▲
3
▼
Due to a programming error, the player has a random chance of accessing debug mode in Super Mario Bros. 3 (specifically the one from the NES version of the game, which is carried over to the Super Mario All-Stars port). The debug mode only activates if a value of 80 is stored at the RAM address 7E0160, which can be manually edited by a devkit.
The NES version initializes the equivalent RAM address to 00 whenever the game is turned on, preventing the player from encountering debug mode during the normal course of play. However, due to an oversight, this does not occur in the SNES version, resulting in Super Mario All-Stars reading whatever value is generated by the console itself. Because this value is randomized during bootup, this means that the game has a small chance of activating debug mode in Super Mario Bros. 3 on a retail unit. While the theoretical probability of this occurring is 1/256, it can vary depending on the console's build and the power grid that it is connected to.
The NES version initializes the equivalent RAM address to 00 whenever the game is turned on, preventing the player from encountering debug mode during the normal course of play. However, due to an oversight, this does not occur in the SNES version, resulting in Super Mario All-Stars reading whatever value is generated by the console itself. Because this value is randomized during bootup, this means that the game has a small chance of activating debug mode in Super Mario Bros. 3 on a retail unit. While the theoretical probability of this occurring is 1/256, it can vary depending on the console's build and the power grid that it is connected to.
The Cutting Room Floor articles:
https://tcrf.net/Super_Mario_All-Stars_(SNES)#Old_Debug_Mode
https://tcrf.net/Notes:Super_Mario_All-Stars
Supper Mario Broth video, the description of which includes an explanation for the oversight:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjiVoXiRo1M
https://tcrf.net/Super_Mario_All-Stars_(SNES)#Old_Debug_Mode
https://tcrf.net/Notes:Super_Mario_All-Stars
Supper Mario Broth video, the description of which includes an explanation for the oversight:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjiVoXiRo1M
subdirectory_arrow_right The Orion Conspiracy (Game), Psychosis (Game), Slider (Game), Llamatron: 2112 (Game), Explosive Fighter Patton (Game)
This trivia has been marked as "Not Safe for Work".
It may not be appropriate for all visitors and definitely isn't appropriate for work or school environments.
Click here to unhide it.
It may not be appropriate for all visitors and definitely isn't appropriate for work or school environments.
Click here to unhide it.
▲
3
▼
Kotaku article searching for the first video game to say "fuck" (including Paranoia, The Orion Conspiracy and Discworld):
https://www.kotaku.com/the-search-for-the-first-video-game-to-say-f-1648611829
Explosive Fighter Patton swearing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhN3stcB0is
Skweek controversy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n36EdEJLDCU?t=557
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGSb2HRe_OE?t=80
Llamatron:
https://www.codetapper.com/amiga/random-rants/the-making-of-llamatron/
Discworld release date:
https://web.archive.org/web/20240210010559/https://colinsmythe.co.uk/terry-pratchett/discworld/convention-reports-index/terry-pratchett-chronology/
https://www.kotaku.com/the-search-for-the-first-video-game-to-say-f-1648611829
Explosive Fighter Patton swearing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhN3stcB0is
Skweek controversy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n36EdEJLDCU?t=557
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGSb2HRe_OE?t=80
Llamatron:
https://www.codetapper.com/amiga/random-rants/the-making-of-llamatron/
Discworld release date:
https://web.archive.org/web/20240210010559/https://colinsmythe.co.uk/terry-pratchett/discworld/convention-reports-index/terry-pratchett-chronology/
▲
3
▼
If you write a string of text longer than 2 sentences in Secret Writer's Society then press the text-to-speech button two times, the robot voice will begin to list off a string of swear words. This was supposedly added by a disgruntled programmer who was paid by RTMark (an anti-consumerist advocacy group that had previously - albeit falsely - claimed responsibility for the shirtless men Easter egg in SimCopter and an infamous incident where unsold Barbie dolls and G.I. Joe action figures had their voice boxes swapped) to insert the Easter egg as a way to warn parents and teachers of the dangers of over-relying on educational software instead of committing to communication with their child. This would eventually be proven to be false like the other RTMark claims, as the profanity was simply a bizarre bug based on the game's censorship filter.
subdirectory_arrow_right Sonic The Hedgehog (Franchise)
▲
3
▼
Thrash the Tasmanian Devil, a character introduced in Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog comics, is based on a purple sprite that is created for several milliseconds on the game's title screen if the player quickly switches between Sonic and Knuckles' sprites. Notably, Ian Flynn stated in the graphic novel "Sonic Universe 3: Knuckles Returns" that Thrash was meant to be another rogue of Knuckles who could "throw down with Knuckles and have it mean something", which did not line up with his role in his debut during "Sonic Universe" Issue #11. However, this would later be conveyed during the "Endangered Species" story arc of the main comic, where it's revealed that he has a strong hatred towards the Echidna species due to their actions against his ancestors. When asked about the possibility of bringing Thrash back in the comic's reboot, Ian Flynn said he would love to bring him back, but "it comes with all that baggage... We can't really bring him back without people going 'Oh boy! And here we go!'"
Thrash design origins:
https://web.archive.org/web/20151102123335/http://www.bumbleking.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2220&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=75
"Sonic Universe 3: Knuckles Returns" graphic novel
"Sonic Universe" Issue #11:
https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Sonic-Universe/Issue-11?id=21631#1
"Sonic the Hedgehog" Issue #244 (Part Two of the "Endangered Species" arc):
https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Sonic-The-Hedgehog/Issue-244?id=20223#1
Ian Flynn statement:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aju-OccReIw#t=993
https://web.archive.org/web/20151102123335/http://www.bumbleking.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2220&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=75
"Sonic Universe 3: Knuckles Returns" graphic novel
"Sonic Universe" Issue #11:
https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Sonic-Universe/Issue-11?id=21631#1
"Sonic the Hedgehog" Issue #244 (Part Two of the "Endangered Species" arc):
https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Sonic-The-Hedgehog/Issue-244?id=20223#1
Ian Flynn statement:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aju-OccReIw#t=993
This trivia has been marked as "Not Safe for Work".
It may not be appropriate for all visitors and definitely isn't appropriate for work or school environments.
Click here to unhide it.
It may not be appropriate for all visitors and definitely isn't appropriate for work or school environments.
Click here to unhide it.
▲
3
▼
▲
3
▼
In the generic NES Baseball game, there is a glitch where fielders temporarily disappear. This is addressed in the game's manual as simply "Not a malfunction" without further context.
Baseball manual (Page 10):
http://www.neshq.com/games/b/baseball/baseball-man01.pdf
http://www.neshq.com/games/b/baseball/baseball-man01.pdf
subdirectory_arrow_right Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels (Game), Super Mario Bros. / Duck Hunt / World Class Track Meet (Game)
▲
3
▼
Super Mario Bros. / Duck Hunt / World Class Track Meet has unused graphics from Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels, which can be activated by a Game Genie code, allowing one to play SMB1 levels with The Lost Levels graphics, albeit with some glitched tiles in different parts of the game.
subdirectory_arrow_right Planet Sheen (Franchise)
▲
3
▼
In Super Fall Brawl, one of the many reskins of Jingle Brawl, the new character was intended to be Sheen Estevez from Jimmy Neutron, in promotion for his then-new spin-off series Planet Sheen. However, Sheen was not coded correctly, making him near-impossible to beat in a fight. The game's second update would remove Sheen and his stage completely, and he would never be added back in, making Fall Brawl the only Super Brawl game without any new combatants. Sheen would return in Super Brawl 2, though the House of Pain stage, based on the first episode of Planet Sheen, would be swapped for a Zeenu stage generally based on Planet Sheen instead of a single episode.
▲
3
▼
Because the developers were still experimenting with Double Battles where the player teams up with an NPC ally to fight two NPC opponents, this lead to a glaring oversight during the battle where the player joins with Steven Stone to battle Maxi and Tabitha where, during the battle, Steven's Level 42 Metang can actually gain a substantial amount of EXP simultaneously with the player's own Pokémon. This essentially means that, with careful manipulation, the player can have the ally Metang get enough EXP to grow to Level 43. This so far is the only instance in the entire Pokémon main series where, in a non-scripted battle, an NPC's Pokémon can gain EXP and level up.
▲
2
▼
In the original release of the game, the monster that the player could summon to attack the city was a thinly veiled parody of Godzilla, right down to using the character's iconic roar from the film series; the sound effect is even named "God" in the game's files, furthering the reference. The Godzilla parody is also depicted on the game's box art, gleefully waving at the viewer.According to programmer Don Hopkins, who notably ported SimCity to numerous versions of Unix, Maxis ended up getting sued by Toho, the owners of the Godzilla franchise; additional details were recounted to him by Maxis CEO Jeff Braun:
"We never referred to the name Godzilla, our monster on the box cover was a T-Rex looking character, but... a few magazine reviews called the monster, Godzilla. That was all it took. Toho called it "confusion in the marketplace". We paid $50k for Godzilla to go away. In all honesty, Toho liked Maxis, they said $50k was the minimum they take for Godzilla infringement."
As a result of this suit, the monster was redesigned in the v1.2 release to resemble a giant orange salamander. The creature's roar is also changed and the game's box art is redesigned to replace the Godzilla parody with a tornado. In the v1.3 release, the salamander is given a slightly larger and more detailed sprite to fit the revised art style, but its roar (now internally renamed "Monster") is corrupted.
The Cutting Room Floor article:
https://tcrf.net/SimCity_(Mac_OS_Classic)#Godzilla_vs._Notzilla
Don Hopkins testimony in a Hacker News post:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40050799
MobyGames gallery showcasing the different box art designs:
https://www.mobygames.com/game/848/simcity/covers/
https://tcrf.net/SimCity_(Mac_OS_Classic)#Godzilla_vs._Notzilla
Don Hopkins testimony in a Hacker News post:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40050799
MobyGames gallery showcasing the different box art designs:
https://www.mobygames.com/game/848/simcity/covers/
▲
2
▼
The language select screen in It's Mr. Pants has a bug that makes the sound clips played for each language overlap when they are being selected. Paul Machacek, a designer for the game, says that when QA testers approached the development team with this bug, they overruled it because they felt it was funnier than they intended it to be, keeping it in the final release.
▲
2
▼
Opening Boku's Diary from the menu of a completed save file and continuing to the next day via a glitched button prompt will cause the game to continue past its end point and into August 32nd.
This date has no associated data in the files, but the game continues from one non-existent day to the next without crashing, instead inciting a series of glitches that affect where the player can go, the legibility of text onscreen, and what textures are applied to the character models.
This date has no associated data in the files, but the game continues from one non-existent day to the next without crashing, instead inciting a series of glitches that affect where the player can go, the legibility of text onscreen, and what textures are applied to the character models.
subdirectory_arrow_right Beatmania IIDX 27 Heroic Verse (Game)
▲
2
▼
The song "SOFT LANDING ON THE BODY" features a section in which the BPM doubles from 159 to 318 for seemingly no reason. According to composer Kiyotaka Sugimoto, this was due to an engine bug created by the song going to a 7/8 time signature, and the glitch was kept in when the game released. In honor of this mistake, any sudden large BPM changes or gimmicks have earned the nickname "Soflan" by BEMANI fans (a portmanteau of "Soft" and "Landing"). The "Soflan" moniker became canon to the series when beatmaniaIIDX 27 Heroic Verse included it as part of its Notes Radar parameters, signifying the quantity of BPM changes and their severity.
RemyWiki Page for SOFT LANDING ON THE BODY:
https://remywiki.com/SOFT_LANDING_ON_THE_BODY
Gameplay of SOFT LANDING ON THE BODY:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Z60nSrGiJ4
https://remywiki.com/SOFT_LANDING_ON_THE_BODY
Gameplay of SOFT LANDING ON THE BODY:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Z60nSrGiJ4
▲
2
▼
As of the current updated version of the game, a walkway overlooking a pier found in the southwest portion of the Financial District region contains a spot that does not have collision detection. This spot makes players fall under the world's map where they can unofficially travel under New York City. By carefully traveling northward towards Greenwich, players will come across leftover assets for an underground structure with pipes that can be web swing towards. Entering this structure and climbing up will reveal a Spoiler: leftover unused Kraven trophy room featuring a throne and the mounted heads of Rhino, Vulture, Electro, & Shocker. This Spoiler:trophy room probably would have coincided with the game's story that Spoiler: Kraven The Hunter kills Scorpion on screen, while Vulture, Electro, & Shocker are killed off screen.
subdirectory_arrow_right Web browser (Platform)
▲
2
▼
The Pac-Man Google Doodle was not properly optimized for Firefox users, which led to the Pac-Man sound effects playing in sequence unprompted, even if Google was on a different tab, with many users mistaking the ghosts' movement noises for cartoon police sirens and believing to have caught a virus.
So many questions were posted on Mozilla's Q&A forums that, once they prepared an article to explain the Pac-Man glitch, the company's database server had slowed down to a point where the article took long to upload.
So many questions were posted on Mozilla's Q&A forums that, once they prepared an article to explain the Pac-Man glitch, the company's database server had slowed down to a point where the article took long to upload.
▲
2
▼
According to one of the game's tech leads Jack Mathews, shortly after Metroid Prime shipped, Nintendo told Retro Studios that a "bad batch" of GameCube CPUs shipped, and apparently this game was the only game that misbehaved on them. Upon seeing videos of the issue, it became clear to them what was going on:
In retrospect, he wondered if it was possible to instead rig up the GameCube so it stayed in the freezer and let the wires run out to connect to the TV to save time running back and forth.
On the more technical side, Mathews explained:
When a player called Nintendo of America's support hotline about this animation problem, they would send them a new copy of the game disc with this updated code.
When this story was posted to Twitter in 2022, one user posted an older video of a graphics glitch positing that the issue is "caused by the ANCS file using the wrong CSKR for the suit model", and that it might be possible to simulate the issue outside of the hardware and software conditions it originally happened in. Mathews replied:
Mathews also talked about how it would have been a bigger hassle to rewrite the skinning pipeline to use the locked cache, because it would have been a rewrite by taking the risk of adding new code and may have net slowed things down. Adding the NOPs wouldn't break anything and just moved the stalls from the memory controller to the PPC chip.
"All animated objects were freaking out... we needed to actually slow down some of our code, because it was running too fast for these CPUs to handle! We needed to be able to test this, but Nintendo only had one dev kit with this CPU. We couldn't detect the CPU, and if we slowed it down too much, the game's framerate would tank. If we didn't slow it down enough, it would glitch. Even worse, we had to burn disks for this kit. So each test was hours. Even weirder was to see the problem, the kit had to be cold. Like, freezer cold. So we literally had to put the kit in the freezer, test the game for 15 minutes tops, then start all over. It was crazy. We literally were running the kit from the break room freezer to the TV, and loading save games as fast as possible to as many places as possible in 15 minutes, then trying new code, re-freezing, and back. I'll never forget it."
In retrospect, he wondered if it was possible to instead rig up the GameCube so it stayed in the freezer and let the wires run out to connect to the TV to save time running back and forth.
On the more technical side, Mathews explained:
"Our skinning used the locked cache DMA to read in data and the write gather pipeline to write it out. Most of the Nintendo samples used the locked cache for both read and write, so my method was a bit faster. But it also hit memory bandwidth limits. As I recall, the issue was that the write gather pipe on these broken CPU's wouldn't stall when it was full or properly report its status, so we had to keep inserting NOPs in the code to slow it down just enough to stop stalls from happening, but not so much to slow down the game."
When a player called Nintendo of America's support hotline about this animation problem, they would send them a new copy of the game disc with this updated code.
When this story was posted to Twitter in 2022, one user posted an older video of a graphics glitch positing that the issue is "caused by the ANCS file using the wrong CSKR for the suit model", and that it might be possible to simulate the issue outside of the hardware and software conditions it originally happened in. Mathews replied:
"I don't know if it was writing out less than we were putting in the write-gather, or throwing away and reusing from the buffer, but sort of along these lines, with more jittering and triangles all over the place. This example has coherent skinning, just a bad mapping... I think the WG pipe was a 96 byte circular buffer. So when it wouldn't stall, it would write bytes over earlier entries in the buffer before they could flush to main memory. These would still be four-byte aligned writes, so I think the way to emulate it would be to take blocks of anywhere from 4-32 bytes (a multiple of four) and move them back by 96 bytes in the skinning buffer."
Mathews also talked about how it would have been a bigger hassle to rewrite the skinning pipeline to use the locked cache, because it would have been a rewrite by taking the risk of adding new code and may have net slowed things down. Adding the NOPs wouldn't break anything and just moved the stalls from the memory controller to the PPC chip.
Jack Mathews tweet:
https://twitter.com/jack_mathews/status/1590748677160566786
Older video of a graphics glitch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5f-N9WUHJwE
https://twitter.com/jack_mathews/status/1590748677160566786
Older video of a graphics glitch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5f-N9WUHJwE
subdirectory_arrow_right Bubsy: The Woolies Strike Back (Game)
▲
2
▼
There exists a bizarre occurrence in Bubsy: The Woolies Strike Back where, when pausing on certain stages, Woolies will transform into the demon enemy from Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams, and then turn back when unpaused. It is unknown whether this is a glitch or an Easter egg.
Screenshots from Bubsy: The Woolies Strike Back:
https://forums.atariage.com/blogs/entry/15243-cruizin-bubsy-twisted-dreams-november-2018/
Artwork of Demon from Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams:
https://giana-sisters.fandom.com/wiki/File:Aaaaa086384567116acf2d957e741563.jpg
https://forums.atariage.com/blogs/entry/15243-cruizin-bubsy-twisted-dreams-november-2018/
Artwork of Demon from Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams:
https://giana-sisters.fandom.com/wiki/File:Aaaaa086384567116acf2d957e741563.jpg
▲
2
▼
The NES version is notorious for its poor-quality voice samples, which among other things resulted in numerous mondegreens of the game's title. This is due to an oversight born out of an idiosyncrasy with the console's hardware: the NES's Ricoh 2A03 chip reads DPCM samples' bytes from right to left, whereas the samples themselves are programmed to be read from the traditional left to right. This oversight was not discovered until 2020, when a user on the NesDev forums accidentally reversed the bit order of the game's DPCM samples, resulting in significantly improved playback quality.This issue is not limited to Double Dribble, with similar bit order errors occurring in Abadox: The Deadly Inner War, Ufouria: The Saga, Bomberman II, Mr. Gimmick, Klax, Sword Master, and A Boy and His Blob: Trouble on Blobolonia, among others.
▲
2
▼
Prior to its release, Ducky Dev posted a clip on Twitter showing off a glitch he discovered where rather than being eliminated, a Norman would instead spawn out into dozens of Normans. The clip in question went viral, leading to several wishlists on Steam.
This trivia has been marked as "Not Safe for Work".
It may not be appropriate for all visitors and definitely isn't appropriate for work or school environments.
Click here to unhide it.
It may not be appropriate for all visitors and definitely isn't appropriate for work or school environments.
Click here to unhide it.
▲
2
▼