[pests]

I do find it funny the terms gamers have came up with to describe what boils down to bugs in a game. Parallel universes and all the lore around them are all caused by just a 16-bit integer wrapping inside the floor check code. Mario64 usually stores positions as floats but for collision checks it gets converted to a 16 bit int.

[bitwize]

Even so, the effects of these bugs are interesting enough to give names to. I remember some glitches in Sonic the Hedgehog 1 through 3 I called "The Valley of the Shadow of No Background" and "The Valley of the Shadow of No Sprites". The latter of which was caused by an integer coordinate wraparound that caused the game to draw the tile map scenery from your location modulo N, but not populate it with game objects because the coordinates didn't match. As a result, things like loops only half-worked, and the corkscrew things from Emerald Hill Zone didn't work at all -- because invisible objects triggered the movement mechanics specific to those scenery bits.

[Dylan16807]

Since you sound dismissive, do you have a better term?

Lots of bugs have specific names. It would be crazy not to name any.

Changing your position so that you're in the same spot but you're also in a completely different location, all at once. I think the term fits pretty well.

[pests]

Not dismissive at all? Maybe 'funny' was the wrong word but interesting at the least.

The PU term fits very well. It makes sense. It just is also funny knowing what is going on behind the scenes and seeing their explanations and rationaliations.

It reminds me of outsider art. Someone comes along and documents what they find with no exposure to the community or its conventions.

[Dylan16807]

It's less about outsider-ness than about these things being a permanent feature of the game and the details becoming important.

I'd bet that almost anyone that has ever managed to make this trick work could have told you the coordinate is wrapping. What rationalizations are happening?

[pests]

Why are you being so combative in this thread? I pointed out a simple "huh thats interesting" observation and you just want to debate me.

I think if they weren't rationalizing they would explain the concept as is - its a wrapping coordinate. I do agree they understand what is happening low-level and that it is a wrapping coordinate. They still choose to use this parallel universe explaination for ease of understanding and explainability to outsiders. A rationalization is just "the action of attempting to explain or justify behavior or an attitude with logical reasons, even if these are not appropriate" which sounds exactly what the PU explaination is. There is no derogatory insinuation or anything involved here.

[Dylan16807]

I'm not trying to be combative. I'm not sure what you think is combative about my second post? (or the first post other than maybe the first line)

But I do disagree about rationalization. If something is a deliberately oversimplified explanatory tool, that's not a rationalization by my understanding of the word.

[adamrezich]

I agree with pests—it's definitely an interesting and funny way to describe the technical process that is occurring, but it adds a bit of undue mysticism for the casual viewer.