Cool Glitch

[Tirgotehpwner]

I was playing my Gold one day, walking around Azelia at the start of the game, and the game went crazy and a textbox said all sorts of letters, then it froze. I turned it back on, and I saw I had random lettered mail in my mailbox,so I took them out and got a Bike, all the TMs, and 10 ?s in my inventory. I sold the ?s for 100,000 each and became rich. I also got a level 100 Unknown A in my 18th box in my pc. This was cool, but... What the heck happened? When I shut off the game, the Unknown became a Level 6 Charmander. Still cool, and nothing ever happenend again.

What Happenend?

[Tirgotehpwner]

I think the game went wak

[Sceptile_Master]

Are you telling the truth. I mean seriously? Come on.

[Tirgotehpwner]

Yes.

[mr_pikachu]

It could have something to do with a side effect if you've used any devices like Gameshark, Action Replay, etc. It could also be that the game simply had a weird random glitch, or it could simply be that it's getting old (like the problem I mentioned awhile back where the clock stopped working in my game). Frankly, though, without more information on exactly what happened and what was going on before, it's tough to take a glitch report at face value. The only reason anyone believed the Mew glitch trick was because people were able to test and verify it. So do you have any more background info on exactly what happened?

[SupremeChampion]

[i]i'm with mr. pikachu on this one... have you used gameshark or something of that accord on your game before? if so, that could very well be a side-effect.

~The Italian Stallion

[lugias_son]

it also happened to me

[lugias_son]

except it was on pokemon crystal

[MeLoVeGhOsTs]

If this is true (which I doubt) it will probably, like Mr.Pikachu and The IS said, be a side effect of exploiting cheats with Gameshark or AR. Did either you, lugias son or Tirgotehpwner, ever or recently used Gameshark?

[prettyangel]

Interesting that is has that ever happened to anyone with a Silver Version?
I have to also agree with Mr. Pokemon that only weird things like that happen with a gameshark or sheats that can ruin the game.

[Tirgotehpwner]

I got it in 2000, is that old? oh yes, I used my gameshark to get a lv.8 Bulbasaur on my yellow version... but nada else

[prettyangel]

Exposing things like that might have ruined that game and I don't think that 2000 isn't old cuz I have a 2000 Silver too.

[magdaw]

It actually could have to do with the age of the game, who knows? Where was it I read that the more a game is played, the more likely it'll glitch? Can't remember. Oh well.

Aren't a lot of GSC games messing up at the moment? The most common thing is the battery going dead. Dunno if that has to do with wierd glitches.

[prettyangel]

That is happening quite frequently at the moment but I wonder how come my game is fine.

[Sceptile_Master]

As a game designer I can only make a theory from what I know. I could be because of unnatural or corrput values, that cause weird effects when tested by the game (ala "if statements"). I can't speculate on how without further info though.

[mr_pikachu]

It could also have to do simply with the cartridges degrading. As prettyangel mentioned, it seems like a lot of GSC games are having odd problems like this right now. So unless there are unintended values that somehow are set to come into play after a certain amount of time (think Y2K), it could simply be that the materials used in the cartridges are getting too old/weathered/etc. If time can tear away the nose of the Sphinx in Egypt, then it could certainly have negative effects on game cartridges.

[Sceptile_Master]

It is highly unlikely that the age of the cartidge would make any difference at all though. These values usually come into play when actions in the game are taken that the developer hasn't accounted for.

[mr_pikachu]

I'm sorry; I worded that poorly. My apologies. What I was trying to say was the following: Maybe some degradation of the cartridges - which is a possibility considering the rash of recent GSC problems - could be damaging these values and causing the Game Boy to read them incorrectly, thereby generating values that the developers would have no reason to expect. After all, if the memory areas where said values are stored are damaged in any way, who knows what might come up in place of what would be expected. That's how the degradation might cause values to come up in ways they normally wouldn't and shouldn't, thus confounding the game's programming and causing these various errors. It would also account for the wide variety of problems which people have experienced, as one cartridge would likely degrade slightly differently than another over time due to any number of conditions (temperature, humidity, prior physical damage, use of "cheating" devices, and pure luck of one cartridge being ever so slightly superior or inferior to another).

[SupremeChampion]

[i]i think that it is safe to say that it is probably due to the fact that Tirgotehpwner did say he used GameShark that his game messed up... that and the fact that some games are probably just wearing down, as you all have speculated. it is most likely due to how people take care of their cartridges. someone who takes good care of their cartridge, like prettyangel (this is pure speculation, i hope everyone realizes) may have kept it some place safe, where nothing could fall on it or where temperatures didn't swing about wildly, whereas Tirgotehpwner may have not taken as good a care of his game, thus causing the values to corrupt just a little, causing this glitch. really, i guess i'm just building on what mr_pikachu was saying. if either prettyangel or Tirgotehpwner would be able to comment on this, i think we may be able to get a better understanding.

~The Italian Stallion

[mr_pikachu]

Well, in my case, I've held my games in a GBA case for years. It's a pretty small case, so some of the games (and, heck, even the Game Boys themselves) are tightly wedged against each other. In fact, I'm actually considering getting a bigger case, because I can barely get my old case closed nowadays. Add that to the erratic weather of Oklahoma, and may have a very good point about the "taking care of your games" thing, SC.

I will say that I have never used a cheating device on any of the Pokemon which have ever appeared on my GSC games. The closest I've ever come was temporarily trading for a friend's sharked Mew on my old Red version to get Mew in my Pokedex. And I haven't tried to exploit any glitches with the GSC games, either, so that wouldn't be a problem. However, as I said before, my games may not be as safely stored as, say, prettyangel's, so that might have something to do with my cartridge problems.

[Sceptile_Master]

Hmm as said though it is extremely unlikely that weathering would make much difference. There is a very small possibilities. And remember that pokemon was very complex for a GBC game as so exploited a few glitches here and there and seemed very sesitive to unaccounted values. It is possible that weathering could have caused this if the part which holds saved game data, which is... correct me if I'm wrong, a black like chip on the green board that makes up the majority of the game was damaged. Which could also be the connections between this black chip and the board being damaged in some way.

[SupremeChampion]

[i]i'm gonna have to go with what you say S_M, honestly my guess was really a shot in the dark. i guess it could happen, but if its as unlikely as you say then maybe you're right about the glitches people exploiting causing the values to change. however, this still leaves mr_pikachu with a game in which he didn't exploit glitches or cheating devices and still its buggy. any thoughts on this? don't get me wrong, i'm not trying to make you look foolish or put yo in the spotlight or anything, i honestly am interested in whats going on with some people's games here.

~The Italian Stallion

[mr_pikachu]

Well, mine could just be bad luck. I'm rarely a lucky person. >_<;

If we could figure out more information about the origins of the games, that might help. Like, where they were manufactured, or something. Does Nintendo (or whoever actually makes the copies of the game) have more than one manufacturing plant for each game? For instance, could an English copy of Pokemon Crystal be produced either in, say, New York or California? Just a thought.

[Sceptile_Master]

Hmm well my speculation about that is that well... some games are just faulty. And I only have limited knowledge of C++ programming myself but what I've said so far seems to be what i can see going on. Faulty cartridges is a possibilities with mr pikachus cart I suppose. But the main thing that screws peoples carts are cheat devices. Even just one cheat can screw the whole thing. That's why possibly so many peoples carts could possibly be acting up like this.

An example put in simple terms is lets say an on-going process that the game permanantly has to look for. This could be something like activating the PC in pokemon center.This is what we call "loops" in programming. Mabye before allowing you to access the PC the loop checks a few values, within one of these it checks if the value that tells if you are in battle or not (because obviously you can't access the PC if you are in a battle) is false. Mabye if youd used a certain battle modifier with a cheat cartridge this value could be false which takes the game in a completely weird direction that mixes loads of stuff together. That's a really bad example because I don't see why they would check if you were in a battle first or not (because you can't reach PCs in battle anyways) and they would probably have a back-up but hopefully you know where I'm coming from.

[mr_pikachu]

Another example might be the Crystal situation with catching Ho-oh. Suppose you catch Raikou and Suicune, you can't seem to find Entei. After a long ordeal and a lot of frustration, you finally decide to use a cheat device to get an Entei. Now, we all know that normally, you can't catch Ho-oh without catching the three legendary dogs on that cartridge, and that trading them in doesn't fool the game, because it checks ID numbers. An additional safeguard might be the use of data "flags"; that is, each legendary dog has its own flag that activates when you catch it. (In programming terms, this could be a boolean value that switches from "False" to "True" or vice-versa. When all three flags have been switched, Ho-oh is unlocked.) Now, let's say that when you cheat in the Entei, the particular cheat also activates its data flag. But wait! There's still an Entei running around in the wild. So the data flag shouldn't be activated, right? Well, moving on in our example, you eventually happen to find the wild Entei, and you capture it.

This is where the problem in this example lies. When you catch Entei, it's supposed to activate that data flag, say by switching it from "False" to "True". But it's already been switched to "True", so the flag can't be activated. This is the sort of thing that could severely mess up your game and cause weird glitches, because suddenly you've got a situation that isn't supposed to ever arise. Perhaps the game would simply switch the flag back to "False"... but that would only cause more problems if, say, you've already caught Ho-oh. After all, with a data flag in its original position, that shouldn't be possible, either.

Problems like the above only compound the issue of already imperfect cartridges. After all, if a game that has not been exposed to cheat devices or used to exploit glitches (like mine, for example) can be vulnerable to problems over time, imagine what could happen to a game which has already been manipulated in this manner.

...If you don't understand a word of this explanation, then don't worry. You kinda have to have some knowledge of how programming works to even begin to make sense of this, and some of the terms I used may well be exclusive to the languages I have studied the most: Java and JavaScript. So don't worry if this baffles you; just ignore it if it does. ^_^;

[Sceptile_Master]

Hmm it could have been done 2 ways though. When I'm programming something along those lines I try and save variables by putting them all into 1 integer (a variable made up of numbers). In the fact that I'd make the integer increase by 1 each time you catch the dog and then you need the integers value to equal 3 before ho-oh is accessible. In the case above that mr pikachu explained this would cause the integer to increase to 4 which would probably work best in the normal case of the game to stop clitches. The theory being that you could check if the value is equal to or higher than 3. Thus sorting the glitch of multiple catching. Although it could also not work out as you could cheat catch 4 suicunes for example and it would unlock ho-oh. So in theory it would be safest to use the boolean (true or false) values like mr pikachu said but then set an if statement (a function that checks a certain value, this can also include arguments specified by the programmer) to check if it has already been activated therefore only activating the boolean value to true only if it is false. THis in theory would sort the problem. But since this is only one part of the game (a small part of unlocking ho-oh) you can imagine how much of the rest of the game there is too be accounted for. Hopefully now you can take in how sensitive the games are to 'off' values.

[SupremeChampion]

[i]yea, i've always known that games and such were sensitive to 'off' variables... and i don't even know programming. i always figured that messing with the numbers and such couldn't be a good thing.

~The Italian Stallion

[Magmar]

I've never had a single problem on any game, and I've been known to cheat my balls off.

[Poryhedron]

Use of a Game Shark/Action Replay/whatever, if done properly, shouldn't glitch up a game. 99% of the horrible things that happen to people with Game Sharks happen because they entered a code incorrectly or used a largely untested code that wasn't sanctioned by the company that made the cheating device.

[SupremeChampion]

[i]really? i didn't know that the company sanctions codes. i always assumed that it was a use-at-your-own-risj type of deal... but then i was never really into the whole cheating devices thing.

~The Italian Stallion

[mr_pikachu]

Well, I've had friends who have used cheating devices. From what I've seen, the company often publishes books filled with codes for each game that their device is supposed to work on. Beyond that, people experiment to see if they can find other codes that "work". Frankly, I don't trust even the ones that are in the books. After all, the people who made the cheating device aren't the same people who made the game, so it's very possible that they wouldn't know all the intracacies. And with game programming as complicated and delicate as that in Pokemon, if anything is overlooked at all, things can easily go haywire.

[SupremeChampion]

[i]yea, i see what you mean... too many things can go wrong in my mind... but then i wonder what if they published a book with codes in it and it messed someone's game up? i'm sure its happened somewhere. it makes me wonder if someone sued the company for publishing codes that were detrimental to their game. honestly, i wouldn't be surprised if it happened, i mean in this sue happy world where burglars can sue home-owners for hurting themselves when they're attempting robbery and win or a lady can sue mcdonalds for giving her hot coffee w/o telling her, you know?

~The Italian Stallion

[kzzr]

yep i think the game went wak

[Grimreaper]

Umm, I have encountered something similar.. I nevere used any codes or as such, and then suddenly after a week, when i went to play my game, i turned on my gameboy and it said there wasent any games.. So I kept re-booting it and somehow my game had just magically disapeared! I am soo pissed off, Soo many rare pokemon and items now gone! >

[SupremeChampion]

[i]well i really don't know what to tell you... i mean we've talked about some things already in this topic but we really can't pin down a cause... have you neglected your game in anyway, or maybe you have some evil siblings who would erase your game for fun?

~The Italian Stallion

[Poryhedron]

I have a question before you go blaming siblings. How does one choose to erase a game? I know how to SAVE OVER a game, but that's not what's happened. Is it possible for a ten-year-old to pick up a Game Boy and deliberately reset a well-used Pokémon game so that it has NO save file?

[DarkCharizard]

Every glitch i've ever done has gone off when i saved in Azalea town. I can't find Lugia now, :|
But that sounds pretty cool.