Glitching

Glitching is an activity in which a person finds and exploits flaws or glitches in video games to achieve something that was not intended by the game designers. Players who engage in this practice are known as glitchers. Some glitches can be easily achieved, while others are either very difficult or unperformable by humans and can only be achieved with tool-assisted input. Glitches can vary greatly in the level of game manipulation, from setting a flag to writing and executing custom code from within the game.

Glitches may be found by accident or actively searched for. They require testing and experimentation by the player to be repeatable with some level of success. They can be achieved in many different ways, most often through user input from a game controller, but can also be assisted through hardware manipulation. The mechanics of some glitches are well-understood, due to having access to the game's code or knowing the properties being manipulated, while others are performable but the mechanic to it is unknown. Some glitches are not consistently performable due to uncontrollable factors, usually broadly referred to as random number generation (frequently called RNG).

Glitching is used in speedrunning and competitive gaming, as well as a tool to gain insight on a game's underlying technical mechanics and code. In some contexts, it is considered a form of cheating, and competitions may disallow certain glitches to allow for a more fair or entertaining experience. Many speedrunning communities create separate categories of runs that either restrict or allow use of certain glitches, giving speedrunners the freedom to choose the category that suits their interests or goals.