Gameplay Journal Entry #5

Glitches!

A glitch is when the game, despite no errors in the code or making, breaks. A glitch is not easily recreated, like a bug. A glitch is random, temporary, and as such it’s best to get video evidence of the glitch to prove it actually happened. In the words of Olga Goriunova and Alexei Shulgin, “A glitch is an unpredictable change in the system’s behavior, when something obviously goes wrong.”(1) For example, I’ll pull both a bug and a glitch from a game I play called Phamophobia. In Phasmo, a popular bug is the ability to “break” doors. This means that if players mess with a door a certain way, the door will break and never close, even when the ghost is hunting down players. This provides an easy escape route for players. The bug I just described is exactly that- a bug. This bug happened only when the players themselves recreated the conditions of its first occurrence- and actually happened again. A glitch is NOT a bug. Glitches are temporary, fleeting, and are very hard, if not impossible, to recreate.

An example of a glitch in Phasmophobia is in the video below at 3:49- the Double Kill glitch. In the video, the players did not mess with the house, press special keys, or otherwise change their behavior from normal gameplay. And yet, this glitch happened- one player was killed by the ghost, and was later killed AGAIN despite already being dead. If this “double kill” glitch were to continue in the game, this would provide death immunity for players that are still alive. Immunity would mean that players would be more likely to take risks since their chance of survival has shot up, and it would make the game much easier for players if they can’t die.

(1) Goriunova, Olga, and Alexei Shulgin. “Glitch.” Software Studies: a Lexicon, by Matthew Fuller, MIT Press, 2008, pp. 110–118.

3:49 “Double Kill” glitch \/\/\/\/\/\/