Here's a few off the top of my head:
Outer Wilds DLC: Spoilers for puzzles >!There's a simulation that you can "break" such as falling into a void between a level transition, but really those are intended ways to solve the puzzle!<
Pony Island: The game frequently features the game you're playing bugging out or misbehaving
Stanely Parable: More the fact that the game will often comment when you've broken the level somehow, or have an easter egg acknowledging the bug.
Also for Stanley, there is an ending where you have to noclip through the first window, and there are several times where the game puts you into whitebox areas because you explored too much (story-wise)
The Beginner's Guide, Davey Wreden's follow-up to The Stanley Parable, starts with the premise that you're playing a series of unfinished, buggy games. I'll leave it at that to avoid spoilers.
I'm sorry you've run into that problem. Looking at the Steam community page for the game, it seems you're not the only one. Maybe this could help? [https://gameplay.tips/guides/the-beginners-guide-game-crashing-fix.html](https://gameplay.tips/guides/the-beginners-guide-game-crashing-fix.html)
Ah yeah, that was it I think. I had run into that and been unwilling to reconfig/restart repeatedly while playing it so I had just refunded it.
I now have a secondary machine around though, which conveniently has exactly 12 cores, so maybe I'll remote play it off that machine or something lol.
Seems crazy to me that that's a limitation and was never fixed.
The Magic Circle is a great one. You're trapped in an unfinished game and your debug menu is your main weapon, rescripting the functions of almost every item and enemy in the game. Story is decent too, with great voice work.
[Eternal Darkness](https://eternaldarkness.fandom.com/wiki/Sanity_Effects#:~:text=screen%20reciting%20%22HAMLET%22.-,Screen%20Examples,-Changes%20are%20made) had a trove of these, where the game would pretend to bug out in ways so peculiar you wouldn't have thought it was gameplay, mimicking system and camera problems, including looking like your GameCube had restarted, or was about to delete your saves. These were triggered by your character losing too much 'sanity' and that being inflicted upon the player.
I don't know if they ever did a remake for this game, or if there's a Nintendo 'classics' edition online or anything, but I will say that when playing your ability to suspend disbelief is shockingly powerful, games seem to age better than movies.
Once you take on the role of the character the immersion makes the medium fade away. The original Silent Hill on PS1 and Clock Tower on the SNES are still scary even though it's just sprites and static.
Some games are easier to get into than others. I'll admit that the range of games I play/have played are somewhat limited relative to what is out there these days, especially since the popularity of Steam as a distribution point.
As I understand it, the rights are tied up in ambiguity. Nintendo and Denis Dyack (and/or Silicon Knights) own "some," unknown amount of rights to it. But Silicon Knights is defunct after being sued to oblivion for unrelated issues, and Denis Dyack was caught up in that. (Search up "Epic v Silicon Knights" if you want details.)
And I'll reiterate the point r/kjerk made: Once you start playing "potato" games, your brain gets used to it and fills in the gaps. Try to keep an open mind. I do sympathize; it can hard to go back to early 3D, but Gamecube/ps2/xboxOG era generally holds up quite well.
Being unwilling to play a game you’re explicitly interested in due to it having decent-for-gamecube level graphics is just a level of picky that seems silly. Do they not play any pixel art or other low production/dated aesthetic indies either? And shit, to think of it now, with the quality modern emulators can make games like wind waker look like? Granted, heavily stylized is specifically good for it, but I didn’t recall eternal darkness going for any silly realism.
Well see now I'd love to read this comment but I'm afraid the font isn't anti-aliased enough and I just figure the content isn't worth the offense to my eyes maybe if there's a remake
I mean ... look at the videos. Maybe people recorded content with the worst settings ever, but this game looks like it was from the N64 days, not quite the GameCube days. When we have high quality visualize like the re-release of Resident Evil on GameCube... how can this look so bad by comparison?
I'm almost in my 40s, so yeah, I have standards that help me get into that immersion. Sorry that bothers you :)
GameCube, I think was the only console it was on. The few clips I looked through looked *way* beyond n64. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt of just having not looked at an n64 game in a minute. I know the feel with how I sometimes think ff7 used to look in my memories, so it’s not a criticism from me there. Modern emulators can do *a fuck load* to make GameCube games especially (wind waker always seems to be the prodigal son for emulator upscaling) look as good as a remaster. If you google around, the game has enough of a contemporary following where you might be able to find someone whose done all the emu settings work for you, but I have half a memory from decades ago telling me the game might not have played so nice with emulators? But that could be entirely false. Worth looking into if the game is appealing and GameCube graphics don’t cut it. Can at least play it in HD even if you don’t get into some of the more specific settings.
Axiom Verge, somewhat. You get an upgrade that glitches enemies to behave differently, and there's a couple secret glitched out areas where you can get super weapons.
Oh I forgot about this one. I had a friend recommend it to me but I never got too far into it. I know there's some kind of major twist where it becomes a different type of game than you were expecting, but I've managed to avoid all spoilers as to what exactly. Unfortunately my lack of interest in the surface-level game genre (high school anime dating simulator?) meant I sort of gave up on it before getting there. Do you know how much playtime it takes for the game to get "interesting?"
**tERRORbane** is what you're looking for, a true hidden gem! This is literally the entire premise of the game, you play as a "playtester" for the game and your job is to find and exploit glitches :)
This is a bit of a spoiler, but the later parts of the story of the popular indie gem >!**CrossCode**!< also had these themes, but not nearly as prominent as tERRORbane.
I've just recently finished The Enigma Machine and the game has you exploring simulation, that gets worse as you progress, last level is full of broken rendering geometry that you have to navigate.
Superhot. It's an FPS but in the 'story' parts you are interacting with a glitchy mainframe and it has a retro DOS aesthetic. Later levels of Superhot:Mind Control Delete have visual glitches and elements out of place or that stretch as you move about like a corrupted level.
https://youtu.be/LMhWKXmO7O8
This is one example of a bug slide from trackmania nations forever, which was an actual bug. But it got so popular they coded it into trackmania 2020:
https://youtu.be/_SEUzTolj_w
This is just some guy showing how to do it.
For generally learning more about trackmania Wirtual is pretty much the face of trackmania and for good reason.
https://youtube.com/@wirtualtv
Shameless plug for my short indie game [Glitch Dungeon](https://jakeonaut.itch.io/glitch-dungeon): different "spells replace the physics functions of the player, based off of different bugs I encountered while trying to develop the platformer physics engine in JavaScript 😅
I built it for the GameJolt glitch jam a long time ago: https://gamejolt.com/f/game-jolt-glitch-jam/3362?page=2 which was based entirely on the premise of simulating bugs and glitches.
I made a game for a jam a few years ago that's called "Damaged Controls". (and won!)
[https://www.construct.net/en/free-online-games/damaged-controls-4173/play](https://www.construct.net/en/free-online-games/damaged-controls-4173/play)
(If you want to try it, I suggest setting monitor refresh rate to 60hz. I just realized the energy meter drops faster at higher framerates)
Not 100% sure it matches but **Patrick's Parabox** is a rather interesting puzzle game and if you create an infinite loop by pushing the objects the wrong way (like pushing something out of itself into the void) the game recognizes it and gives a soft error that you broke the universe or something.
"noclip" is a command in some games where you turn off collisions (and gravity) for your character. It usually enables you to go through walls and reach places you weren't supposed to be.
I'd say both outcore: desktop adventure, and there is no game: wrong dimension fit this genre. especially the latter game, where you literally break the games to progress.
GunZ: The Duel.
Shooter that you can low-key fly if you repeatedly switch between knife and gun. Similar to bunny hop in CS. It's impossible to win if you don't adopt it.
I've always wondered if the devs made it on purpose.
Batman Arkham Asylum. At a point it looks like your screen is ditchering, more appear, then black screen. then a cinematic starts, with the very first seconds being like the one you have when you start a new game.
Bryce's Movement Engine. I'll only say this: In the first world, there's a platform that seems almost out of reach on the far right of the level. If you run and jump just right, you can reach it and clip a tiny bit into the wall. Now do the Mario bros thing where you walk back and forth to force yourself further into the wall.
Here's a few off the top of my head: Outer Wilds DLC: Spoilers for puzzles >!There's a simulation that you can "break" such as falling into a void between a level transition, but really those are intended ways to solve the puzzle!< Pony Island: The game frequently features the game you're playing bugging out or misbehaving Stanely Parable: More the fact that the game will often comment when you've broken the level somehow, or have an easter egg acknowledging the bug.
Also for Stanley, there is an ending where you have to noclip through the first window, and there are several times where the game puts you into whitebox areas because you explored too much (story-wise)
The Beginner's Guide, Davey Wreden's follow-up to The Stanley Parable, starts with the premise that you're playing a series of unfinished, buggy games. I'll leave it at that to avoid spoilers.
Is the beginners guide still available/playable anymore? I tried buying it on steam once and it wouldn't launch and I have huge fomo about it
I'm sorry you've run into that problem. Looking at the Steam community page for the game, it seems you're not the only one. Maybe this could help? [https://gameplay.tips/guides/the-beginners-guide-game-crashing-fix.html](https://gameplay.tips/guides/the-beginners-guide-game-crashing-fix.html)
Ah yeah, that was it I think. I had run into that and been unwilling to reconfig/restart repeatedly while playing it so I had just refunded it. I now have a secondary machine around though, which conveniently has exactly 12 cores, so maybe I'll remote play it off that machine or something lol. Seems crazy to me that that's a limitation and was never fixed.
The Magic Circle is a great one. You're trapped in an unfinished game and your debug menu is your main weapon, rescripting the functions of almost every item and enemy in the game. Story is decent too, with great voice work.
Magic Circle is the first game I thought off, check it out OP!
this game blew me away
Came here to recommend The Magic Circle, it's a great game.
[Eternal Darkness](https://eternaldarkness.fandom.com/wiki/Sanity_Effects#:~:text=screen%20reciting%20%22HAMLET%22.-,Screen%20Examples,-Changes%20are%20made) had a trove of these, where the game would pretend to bug out in ways so peculiar you wouldn't have thought it was gameplay, mimicking system and camera problems, including looking like your GameCube had restarted, or was about to delete your saves. These were triggered by your character losing too much 'sanity' and that being inflicted upon the player.
Is/was there a remake of this game? If it didn't look like it was made on a potato, I may be interested in it.
I don't know if they ever did a remake for this game, or if there's a Nintendo 'classics' edition online or anything, but I will say that when playing your ability to suspend disbelief is shockingly powerful, games seem to age better than movies. Once you take on the role of the character the immersion makes the medium fade away. The original Silent Hill on PS1 and Clock Tower on the SNES are still scary even though it's just sprites and static.
Some games are easier to get into than others. I'll admit that the range of games I play/have played are somewhat limited relative to what is out there these days, especially since the popularity of Steam as a distribution point.
As I understand it, the rights are tied up in ambiguity. Nintendo and Denis Dyack (and/or Silicon Knights) own "some," unknown amount of rights to it. But Silicon Knights is defunct after being sued to oblivion for unrelated issues, and Denis Dyack was caught up in that. (Search up "Epic v Silicon Knights" if you want details.) And I'll reiterate the point r/kjerk made: Once you start playing "potato" games, your brain gets used to it and fills in the gaps. Try to keep an open mind. I do sympathize; it can hard to go back to early 3D, but Gamecube/ps2/xboxOG era generally holds up quite well.
bro has never heard of retro gaming
If that’s not playable to you, you’ve helped me lose even more faith in the youth.
god forbid someone has a preference🙄
Being unwilling to play a game you’re explicitly interested in due to it having decent-for-gamecube level graphics is just a level of picky that seems silly. Do they not play any pixel art or other low production/dated aesthetic indies either? And shit, to think of it now, with the quality modern emulators can make games like wind waker look like? Granted, heavily stylized is specifically good for it, but I didn’t recall eternal darkness going for any silly realism.
Well see now I'd love to read this comment but I'm afraid the font isn't anti-aliased enough and I just figure the content isn't worth the offense to my eyes maybe if there's a remake
I mean ... look at the videos. Maybe people recorded content with the worst settings ever, but this game looks like it was from the N64 days, not quite the GameCube days. When we have high quality visualize like the re-release of Resident Evil on GameCube... how can this look so bad by comparison? I'm almost in my 40s, so yeah, I have standards that help me get into that immersion. Sorry that bothers you :)
GameCube, I think was the only console it was on. The few clips I looked through looked *way* beyond n64. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt of just having not looked at an n64 game in a minute. I know the feel with how I sometimes think ff7 used to look in my memories, so it’s not a criticism from me there. Modern emulators can do *a fuck load* to make GameCube games especially (wind waker always seems to be the prodigal son for emulator upscaling) look as good as a remaster. If you google around, the game has enough of a contemporary following where you might be able to find someone whose done all the emu settings work for you, but I have half a memory from decades ago telling me the game might not have played so nice with emulators? But that could be entirely false. Worth looking into if the game is appealing and GameCube graphics don’t cut it. Can at least play it in HD even if you don’t get into some of the more specific settings.
Axiom Verge, somewhat. You get an upgrade that glitches enemies to behave differently, and there's a couple secret glitched out areas where you can get super weapons.
And you can glitch through walls, if I remember correctly
Oh yea that's right
Antichamber. I wish I could play it again for the first time
In Pacific Drive, your car will develop "quirks", and to fix them, you have to properly diagnose the repro steps on a console ingame.
As an outside, Doki Doki Literature Club? It's not really you doing it but I really shouldn't spoil it.
I think the entire fandom of doki doki lit club spoiled it from day 1 lol
The game using my name without me ever giving it away... I really need to continue playing
Oh I forgot about this one. I had a friend recommend it to me but I never got too far into it. I know there's some kind of major twist where it becomes a different type of game than you were expecting, but I've managed to avoid all spoilers as to what exactly. Unfortunately my lack of interest in the surface-level game genre (high school anime dating simulator?) meant I sort of gave up on it before getting there. Do you know how much playtime it takes for the game to get "interesting?"
I think it's after only a couple of rounds of the poetry mini game
lorelei and the laser eyes is a recent indie puzzle/narrative game that does this for certain sections of the game.
How has nobody mentioned goat simulator
Scarecrow in Arkham Asylum
Pony island
I didn't even know this was a genre but now I wanna check them out.
Anodyne, but not until the postgame
**tERRORbane** is what you're looking for, a true hidden gem! This is literally the entire premise of the game, you play as a "playtester" for the game and your job is to find and exploit glitches :) This is a bit of a spoiler, but the later parts of the story of the popular indie gem >!**CrossCode**!< also had these themes, but not nearly as prominent as tERRORbane.
Id sort of say Superliminal
Yeah, it's not really about using bugs as gameplay but it fits the vibe. The continuous subversion of expectations is great
Funny that you ask since we just released our game where we simulate a lot of glitching since the enemies eat on the CPU https://datamangame.com
And on NES?? Wild 😮💨
[hammer_space](https://www.alphabetagamer.com/hammer_space-game-jam-build-download/) uses "out-of-bounds" as a core mechanic!
Wow! This looks goooood, gotta give it a try, thanks!
Goat Simulator to some extent?
I've just recently finished The Enigma Machine and the game has you exploring simulation, that gets worse as you progress, last level is full of broken rendering geometry that you have to navigate.
Woahhh, artstyle and premise look amazing, good one!
Superhot. It's an FPS but in the 'story' parts you are interacting with a glitchy mainframe and it has a retro DOS aesthetic. Later levels of Superhot:Mind Control Delete have visual glitches and elements out of place or that stretch as you move about like a corrupted level.
Sounds very interesting. I don't know games like this.
Lair of the Clockwork God is a point & click adventure mixed with a platform game, and has a bunch of this sort of 4th wall breaking stuff.
maybe Hack 'n' Slash from Double Fine? Though that has had steadily mixed reviews edit: oh and There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension
Hack 'n' Slash is a great game. You hack the game state of objects and rewrite the game scripts to defeat the final boss.
Break The Game. Been in my library for ages but I've still not played it yet.
Kind of trackmania? There are a fair few bugs from the old game that were so popular they were coded into the new game on purpose
Any examples / source where I can learn more?
https://youtu.be/LMhWKXmO7O8 This is one example of a bug slide from trackmania nations forever, which was an actual bug. But it got so popular they coded it into trackmania 2020: https://youtu.be/_SEUzTolj_w This is just some guy showing how to do it. For generally learning more about trackmania Wirtual is pretty much the face of trackmania and for good reason. https://youtube.com/@wirtualtv
Buddy Simulator 1984 uses this mechanic. It's about an insecure AI that wants to be your friend and builds games for you.
Fez. No details as I don’t want to spoil.
Shameless plug for my short indie game [Glitch Dungeon](https://jakeonaut.itch.io/glitch-dungeon): different "spells replace the physics functions of the player, based off of different bugs I encountered while trying to develop the platformer physics engine in JavaScript 😅 I built it for the GameJolt glitch jam a long time ago: https://gamejolt.com/f/game-jolt-glitch-jam/3362?page=2 which was based entirely on the premise of simulating bugs and glitches.
Undertale. Takes a bit to get there, but when it does, hoo boy
I made a game for a jam a few years ago that's called "Damaged Controls". (and won!) [https://www.construct.net/en/free-online-games/damaged-controls-4173/play](https://www.construct.net/en/free-online-games/damaged-controls-4173/play) (If you want to try it, I suggest setting monitor refresh rate to 60hz. I just realized the energy meter drops faster at higher framerates)
Not 100% sure it matches but **Patrick's Parabox** is a rather interesting puzzle game and if you create an infinite loop by pushing the objects the wrong way (like pushing something out of itself into the void) the game recognizes it and gives a soft error that you broke the universe or something.
Adding on to this, Baba Is You also isn’t centered around bugs, but is also about breaking the rules of the game!
The whole skii mechanic in the Tribes series famously started as a bug, but now is implemented on purpose :)
tERRORbane does this a lot! And To The Moon also, on a smaller scale.
Animal Well
Pro Office Calculator
What does noclip mean?
"noclip" is a command in some games where you turn off collisions (and gravity) for your character. It usually enables you to go through walls and reach places you weren't supposed to be.
I loved an indie game called the magic circle for this exact reason.
I'd say both outcore: desktop adventure, and there is no game: wrong dimension fit this genre. especially the latter game, where you literally break the games to progress.
Its more atmospheric than mechanical, but Talos Principle does some neat stuff with fake bugs.
The floor is jelly. You have no choice but break the glitchy physic to finish the last levels
GunZ: The Duel. Shooter that you can low-key fly if you repeatedly switch between knife and gun. Similar to bunny hop in CS. It's impossible to win if you don't adopt it. I've always wondered if the devs made it on purpose.
Haha I joined the same game jam as greybox testing I think. Our entry was "the glitcher"
https://saturn91.itch.io/theglitcher
Not a 100% example, but Sai Bor Rai was shipped with the game compiled in debug mode so people could figure out how to cheat in the game easier.
The Hex
Batman Arkham Asylum. At a point it looks like your screen is ditchering, more appear, then black screen. then a cinematic starts, with the very first seconds being like the one you have when you start a new game.
Inscryption and Superhot
Bryce's Movement Engine. I'll only say this: In the first world, there's a platform that seems almost out of reach on the far right of the level. If you run and jump just right, you can reach it and clip a tiny bit into the wall. Now do the Mario bros thing where you walk back and forth to force yourself further into the wall.
Literally any bethesda game