Old man glitch
The old man glitch (not to be confused with the Item duplication glitch) is an infamous glitch in Pokémon Red and Blue. It is one of the ways in which a Trainer can encounter Missingno. and 'M. Its name comes from the old man in Viridian City, whom is required to complete the glitch.
Through the development of Pokémon Yellow, which occurred in the two years following the release of Pokémon Red and Green in Japan, the old man glitch was disabled by blanking the data for wild Pokémon before overwriting it, and reprogramming shore tiles to not call any wild Pokémon. However, even before Yellow, this glitch was fixed in some European versions of Red and Blue, such as the Spanish and Italian versions, by making the shore tiles act as water tiles, but still remains in other European versions, such as the German version.
Performing the glitch
To perform the glitch, the player must talk to the old man located in the north of Viridian City and allow him to demonstrate how to catch a Pokémon. After the demonstration, the player should immediately Fly to Cinnabar Island. Here, the player should surf up and down along the east coast of the island where the water is touching the land without leaving Cinnabar Island. Wild Pokémon will appear, based on the player's name.
Effects
The wild Pokémon that appear are based on the player's name. The third, fifth and seventh slots of the players name are the species of Pokémon that will appear (see table below). The second slot of the players name becomes the level of the Pokémon caused to appear by the third slot, the fourth slot for the fifth slot, and the sixth slot for the seventh slot. In addition, 'M will always appear when using this method.
Table
This table demonstrates what Pokémon specific characters in the player's name will cause to appear, or the level of the Pokémon that they will cause to appear. Only characters possible to include in the player's name are included.[1][2]
Cause
The 1-square-wide strip of water on the right side of Cinnabar and Seafoam Islands was programmed to be a place where wild Pokémon can appear, but which Pokémon can appear there was not defined. When the old man demonstrates catching the Weedle, "Your Name" is changed to "OLD MAN". To do this, it overwrites the variables the player gave to "Your Name". Therefore, the game must store the variables that make up your name in another place, so it can recall them later. The game stores your name in the slots that define which wild Pokémon appear. Usually, whenever the player enters a new area, the slots will be rewritten. However, if there are no wild Pokémon in the new area entered, the slots are not rewritten. So if the player flies to Cinnabar Island, where there are no wild Pokémon, then the data is not rewritten. Because the coast contains the code to enable wild Pokémon to appear, the game encounters a Pokémon by misreading the players name as wild Pokémon data. The odd characters are read as levels and the even characters are read as wild Pokémon. It can read up to 7 characters. The second character of the player's name is the level of the proceeding byte, then the wild Pokémon, etc.
Extensions of the glitch
Due to the fact that Cinnabar Island has no wild Pokémon data but the potential for wild Pokémon to appear, and that wild Pokémon data is not formatted when entering a new area, any location that can be flown from can have it's wild Pokémon available on the coast. This includes the Safari Zone, so players can encounter Safari Pokémon under normal battling circumstances.
References
- ↑ http://www.trsrockin.com/missingno4.html MissingNo Mystery Solved? (retrieved February 18, 2010)
- ↑ http://glitchcity.info/biglist.htm Glitch City Laboratories
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This article is part of Project GlitchDex, a Bulbapedia project that aims to write comprehensive articles on glitches in the Pokémon games. |
