Poll of the Day > So when you glitch outside the map in a game

(+) Yeah! (+)

And it seems to go on forever... where is the end? I've gotten outside the map in games and walked for fucking ever and not gotten to a wall. There has to be an end right?

Yeah the end is when you reset your game.
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It depends on the game. Sometimes there can be a distant hit box, or you could literally collide with the skybox renderer, sometimes it's co-ordinate based and you can get to -32bit/+32bit integers in distance... lots of options.

Some just outright crash
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Lokarin posted...

you could literally collide with the skybox renderer, sometimes it's co-ordinate based and you can get to -32bit/+32bit integers in distance... lots of options.

What do these mean exactly? Lol

It depends how the game maps are stored and generated.
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Foppe posted...

It depends how the game maps are stored and generated.

Yeah I just remember when I was younger and had time to waste and walking for like 30-45 minutes and never getting to the edge. I guess there's hardly any memory used by empty space but damn that's a lot of empty space

OhhhJa posted...

Foppe posted...

It depends how the game maps are stored and generated.

Yeah I just remember when I was younger and had time to waste and walking for like 30-45 minutes and never getting to the edge. I guess there's hardly any memory used by empty space but damn that's a lot of empty space

Think of it that only the used part of the map is using any memory. When you walk away from the map, it only calculates your position and how far away you are from the map.
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Foppe posted...

OhhhJa posted...

Foppe posted...

It depends how the game maps are stored and generated.

Yeah I just remember when I was younger and had time to waste and walking for like 30-45 minutes and never getting to the edge. I guess there's hardly any memory used by empty space but damn that's a lot of empty space

Think of it that only the used part of the map is using any memory. When you walk away from the map, it only calculates your position and how far away you are from the map.

But after hours there's gotta be some end right? Or is it some no man's sky shit?

Ya, it depends ENTIRELY on the game.

Some games will stop you when you reach a far enough distance - like if your position can no longer be represented by a 32bit integer.

Sonic 3 converts your position to a smaller bit, which means if you go beyond or behind the borders of the map the geometry starts to loop... this is known as the Loopback Area in Sonic 3 speedrunning circles.

Some games, particularly on the Gameboy, will just pull map data out of the next available RAM address and fill your screen with garbage (Mario Land 2 does this)
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Lokarin posted...

Ya, it depends ENTIRELY on the game.

Some games will stop you when you reach a far enough distance - like if your position can no longer be represented by a 32bit integer.

Sonic 3 converts your position to a smaller bit, which means if you go beyond or behind the borders of the map the geometry starts to loop... this is known as the Loopback Area in Sonic 3 speedrunning circles.

Some games, particularly on the Gameboy, will just pull map data out of the next available RAM address and fill your screen with garbage (Mario Land 2 does this)

Ahhh ok it's starting to make sense to me now. I've just always been interested in stupid stuff like this because my knowledge of programming is shit

OhhhJa posted...

Lokarin posted...

Ya, it depends ENTIRELY on the game.

Some games will stop you when you reach a far enough distance - like if your position can no longer be represented by a 32bit integer.

Sonic 3 converts your position to a smaller bit, which means if you go beyond or behind the borders of the map the geometry starts to loop... this is known as the Loopback Area in Sonic 3 speedrunning circles.

Some games, particularly on the Gameboy, will just pull map data out of the next available RAM address and fill your screen with garbage (Mario Land 2 does this)

Ahhh ok it's starting to make sense to me now. I've just always been interested in stupid stuff like this because my knowledge of programming is shit

I may not look it, since I don't mention it often, but I had a long long career in video game design (doing virtually nothing but proofreading and troubleshooting, but still)
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OhhhJa posted...

Lokarin posted...

Ya, it depends ENTIRELY on the game.

Some games will stop you when you reach a far enough distance - like if your position can no longer be represented by a 32bit integer.

Sonic 3 converts your position to a smaller bit, which means if you go beyond or behind the borders of the map the geometry starts to loop... this is known as the Loopback Area in Sonic 3 speedrunning circles.

Some games, particularly on the Gameboy, will just pull map data out of the next available RAM address and fill your screen with garbage (Mario Land 2 does this)

Ahhh ok it's starting to make sense to me now. I've just always been interested in stupid stuff like this because my knowledge of programming is shit

Think of it like this.
An Integer is a container where you store a value.
32bits shows how big value you can store. In this case, it can store a maximum number of 4,294,967,295. Or if you use a positive and negative value, from 2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647.
16bits can store a number of 65,535, or between 32,768 and 32,767 if we use a positive and negative value.
8bit can store a number of 255, or between -128 to 127 if we use a positive and negative value.
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Sometimes if you go far enough into the void you'll loop back to the main world again in an alternate dimension with altered/nonexistent collision. Very cool, Pokemon Diamond/Pearl had that and it was one of my favorite things to do in that game. You had to walk for 8 hours to get to it.

If you save in that dimension, sometimes you'll load back normally into the main world.
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Lokarin posted...

OhhhJa posted...

Lokarin posted...

Ya, it depends ENTIRELY on the game.

Some games will stop you when you reach a far enough distance - like if your position can no longer be represented by a 32bit integer.

Sonic 3 converts your position to a smaller bit, which means if you go beyond or behind the borders of the map the geometry starts to loop... this is known as the Loopback Area in Sonic 3 speedrunning circles.

Some games, particularly on the Gameboy, will just pull map data out of the next available RAM address and fill your screen with garbage (Mario Land 2 does this)

Ahhh ok it's starting to make sense to me now. I've just always been interested in stupid stuff like this because my knowledge of programming is shit

I may not look it, since I don't mention it often, but I had a long long career in video game design (doing virtually nothing but proofreading and troubleshooting, but still)

Sounds like cool work to me

Foppe posted...

OhhhJa posted...

Lokarin posted...

Ya, it depends ENTIRELY on the game.

Some games will stop you when you reach a far enough distance - like if your position can no longer be represented by a 32bit integer.

Sonic 3 converts your position to a smaller bit, which means if you go beyond or behind the borders of the map the geometry starts to loop... this is known as the Loopback Area in Sonic 3 speedrunning circles.

Some games, particularly on the Gameboy, will just pull map data out of the next available RAM address and fill your screen with garbage (Mario Land 2 does this)

Ahhh ok it's starting to make sense to me now. I've just always been interested in stupid stuff like this because my knowledge of programming is shit

Think of it like this.
An Integer is a container where you store a value.
32bits shows how big value you can store. In this case, it can store a maximum number of 4,294,967,295. Or if you use a positive and negative value, from 2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647.
16bits can store a number of 65,535, or between 32,768 and 32,767 if we use a positive and negative value.
8bit can store a number of 255, or between -128 to 127 if we use a positive and negative value.

Yeah I kinda get what you're saying. It represents your position I guess and eventually you'll reach that maximum number and you'll just ride the edge of the container or pop out as a negative on the other side?

Depending on the game again.
Some games will crash, some will kill you, some will load wrong parts of the map, some will simply loop you, etc.
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Yellow posted...

Sometimes if you go far enough into the void you'll loop back to the main world again in an alternate dimension with altered/nonexistent collision. Very cool, Pokemon Diamond/Pearl had that and it was one of my favorite things to do in that game. You had to walk for 8 hours to get to it.

If you save in that dimension, sometimes you'll load back normally into the main world.

See that's the kinda cool stuff I was always looking for when I wandered outside the map for a while. I was always a glitcher. I've always been big on getting out of maps an such

Foppe posted...

Depending on the game again.
Some games will crash, some will kill you, some will load wrong parts of the map, some will simply loop you, etc.

Interesting. I guess I never wandered far enough

Foppe posted...

Think of it like this.
An Integer is a container where you store a value.
32bits shows how big value you can store. In this case, it can store a maximum number of 4,294,967,295. Or if you use a positive and negative value, from 2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647.
16bits can store a number of 65,535, or between 32,768 and 32,767 if we use a positive and negative value.
8bit can store a number of 255, or between -128 to 127 if we use a positive and negative value.

It's great when you hit too much gold and wind up with negative gold in a game because of this.
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Revelation34 posted...

Foppe posted...

Think of it like this.
An Integer is a container where you store a value.
32bits shows how big value you can store. In this case, it can store a maximum number of 4,294,967,295. Or if you use a positive and negative value, from 2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647.
16bits can store a number of 65,535, or between 32,768 and 32,767 if we use a positive and negative value.
8bit can store a number of 255, or between -128 to 127 if we use a positive and negative value.

It's great when you hit too much gold and wind up with negative gold in a game because of this.

Super Mario Bros got that problem with lifes.
It starts to show symbols instead of numbers at 10, and once you hit enough lifes, they turned negative.
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Most cases I've experienced you just can't move at all outside the map. There are only 2 that allowed me to do so. One of them never "cleaned" up the screen in that area, so you could leave infinite after images in that void. It was cool at first, but the downside is that you lose all sense of distance, meaning you can't tell if you hit a wall or not. The other I was so hyped to keep playing that I used a teleport item to get rid of the glitch. But I think there was a point with no "floor" anymore, so you would fall endlessly from the edge of the world.

Foppe posted...

Revelation34 posted...

Foppe posted...

Think of it like this.
An Integer is a container where you store a value.
32bits shows how big value you can store. In this case, it can store a maximum number of 4,294,967,295. Or if you use a positive and negative value, from 2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647.
16bits can store a number of 65,535, or between 32,768 and 32,767 if we use a positive and negative value.
8bit can store a number of 255, or between -128 to 127 if we use a positive and negative value.

It's great when you hit too much gold and wind up with negative gold in a game because of this.

Super Mario Bros got that problem with lifes.
It starts to show symbols instead of numbers at 10, and once you hit enough lifes, they turned negative.

Reminds me of that glitch in Digimon World 3 where the final boss dealt so much damage to a lv1 Renamon that the health variable would loop backwards and make her immortal for the rest of the fight.

One of the earlier Phantasy Stars game started to give you strange stats if you leveled too much, even giving the androids magical powers even if they are not supposed to be able to use them.
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VixYW posted...

Most cases I've experienced you just can't move at all outside the map. There are only 2 that allowed me to do so. One of them never "cleaned" up the screen in that area, so you could leave infinite after images in that void. It was cool at first, but the downside is that you lose all sense of distance, meaning you can't tell if you hit a wall or not. The other I was so hyped to keep playing that I used a teleport item to get rid of the glitch. But I think there was a point with no "floor" anymore, so you would fall endlessly from the edge of the world.

I wonder if FF15 counts since it really seemed like they were just unreleased areas from what I saw instead of just being outside the walls.
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Yellow posted...

Sometimes if you go far enough into the void you'll loop back to the main world again in an alternate dimension with altered/nonexistent collision. Very cool, Pokemon Diamond/Pearl had that and it was one of my favorite things to do in that game.

@Yellow Do you know of any videos of that? It sounds pretty cool.

OoT ChouBF posted...

Do you know of any videos of that? It sounds pretty cool.

It's not Pokemon, but I know it's actually a legit strat in Super Mario 64 to an extent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpk2tdsPh0A" data-time="

The entire video is super fascinating because of how passionate he is about something so niche and weird, but that timestamp where he begins incorporating parallel universes into his explanation. His main goal is to complete maps while pressing the A button as little as physically possible.
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Lokarin posted...

I had a long long career in video game design

are you talking about your hobbyist stuff, or did you actually work for Bioware or something?
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When i fell through the arkham knight map. it was cool. i saw the whole map as i fell thorugh the floor. it was pretty big and it's cool. Then i hit the imaginary wall and it killed me. i guess the system could render anymore and it finally registered my death. It took a good 5 minutes of free falling before i died.
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That is called the Blue Hell, because most of the time the developers uses the color blue, mostly because of the skybox. The 3D GTA games are famous for this, you can fall down to the blue hell and walk around in blue nothing.
Sometimes the developers place stuff outside the map that you normally cant see.
The intro robbing scene in GTA3 is in a place far away in the sea, it is also known as the Ghost Town. You can reach it with the Dodo, if you are good enough, but it got no solid ground.
One of the Doom ports, it might have been the PS1 version, got a secret love message hidden under the sky texture.
Duke Nukem 3D got hidden rooms on every map, which is just the signature of the map creator.
One of the futuristic CoD games have an RPG hidden outside one of the maps. It is fully fumctional and is from an earlier CoD game, but it didnt fit with the modern setting so they scrapped it from the game, except for that place.
There are tons of examples.
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Sahuagin posted...

Lokarin posted...

I had a long long career in video game design

are you talking about your hobbyist stuff, or did you actually work for Bioware or something?

@Lokarin

Your urgent attention to this matter is required.
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OhhhJa posted...

And it seems to go on forever... where is the end? I've gotten outside the map in games and walked for fucking ever and not gotten to a wall. There has to be an end right?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8X7Vj6JXPk" data-time="

Sahuagin posted...

Sahuagin posted...

Lokarin posted...

I had a long long career in video game design

are you talking about your hobbyist stuff, or did you actually work for Bioware or something?

@Lokarin

Your urgent attention to this matter is required.

I worked for a small local company making edutainment games for the Alberta schools... pretty sure none are still in use, and I didn't get paid - but it counted as high school credit and I got to go to Skills Canada
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Lokarin posted...

I worked for a small local company making edutainment games for the Alberta schools... pretty sure none are still in use, and I didn't get paid - but it counted as high school credit and I got to go to Skills Canada

ok cool, thanks. I thought it'd be pretty awesome if you worked for Bioware, and the geography made that a possibility. But that's still more professional game dev work than I've done.
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Sahuagin posted...

Lokarin posted...

I worked for a small local company making edutainment games for the Alberta schools... pretty sure none are still in use, and I didn't get paid - but it counted as high school credit and I got to go to Skills Canada

ok cool, thanks. I thought it'd be pretty awesome if you worked for Bioware, and the geography made that a possibility. But that's still more professional game dev work than I've done.

I did get to VISIT Bioware tho, was neat
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