The best way to see how digital worlds are created in videogames it to look at how they break.
Videogame worlds may feel like tangible, real spaces to players, but they’re made of rules – rules which often don’t work the way players or developers expect.
Videogame glitches and bugs give us a glimpse behind the curtain. A misplaced texture, a malfunctioning collider box, or an interrupted animation can instantly disrupt the seamless experience of a high-profile, high-budget game.
Many players delight in finding the glitches that reveal the artifice of a game world – enthusiastically exploring the broken geometry of spaces beyond the game’s crafted environments or delighting in the absurdity of a buggy character animation during an emotional scene.
For some players, these bugs can even become positive gameplay features. By clipping through walls or manipulating the game’s physics, players can achieve things that would otherwise be impossible in the game.