An index of tropes about games not working as intended. Can sometimes be caused by using Cheat Codes. May cross over with Not the Way It Is Meant to Be Played if the player can gain an advantage in the game by using them.
See also Idiot Programming Index.
Tropes:
Sub-indexes:
- A.I. Breaker: A technique that can easily defeat enemy AI.
- Artificial Stupidity: AI that doesn't work.
- Ascended Glitch: A glitch that is later turned into a legitimate game mechanic.
- Auto-Incorrect: Autocorrect correcting a word that didn't need to be corrected.
- Dead Character Walking: A glitch causes a character who should be dead to be registered as alive.
- Disc-One Nuke: An item or character that, given early on, allows the player to easily breeze through the game.
- Dummied Out: Data that didn't make it to the actual game, but still can be accessed somehow.
- Dungeon Bypass: Somehow, the player is able to skip a dungeon, usually through glitches.
- Game-Breaker: A technique, character, or item that allows easy victory in a game.
- Game-Breaking Bug: A bug that can make the game unplayable.
- Gameplay Derailment: A way to play the game the developers didn't intend.
- Glitch Entity: A character created through a flaw in the game programming.
- Good Bad Bugs: Bugs that are either amusing or useful for the player.
- Healing Loop: A poorly balanced fight that's tedious because neither you nor the enemy can deal damage faster than the other can recover.
- Kill Screen: Well, good job playing the game long enough to reach this screen.
- Loads and Loads of Loading: Excessive amount of loading screens,
- Lord British Postulate: A character that is meant to be unkillable...is killable.
- Minus World: An entire level that's full of glitches.
- Not the Intended Use: A player uses the games mechanics against it to play the game in an unintended way.
- Obvious Beta: A game with several noticeable bugs or broken features.
- Overflow Error: A bug caused by a variable overrunning programmatic limits.
- Perpetual Beta: A game that is constantly being developed, and still
- Player-Exclusive Mechanic: The AI doesn't use a feature that the player can use, even if it should.
- Porting Disaster: A port is noticeably inferior to the original game.
- Scrappy Mechanic: A poorly thought out or programmed mechanic in a video game.
- Script Breaking: Performing events in a video game out of order.
- Sequence Breaking: Using unintended shortcuts in a video game to get to a certain area before you're supposed to.
- Stats Dissonance: Game stats don't match up with actual gameplay.
- Useless Item: An item with no practical use because the developers forgot to add a reason to use it.
- Wallbonking: AI characters constantly walking into walls, thanks to poor pathfinding.
