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[Gregory]

sources should be required maybe.  otherwise people will just make shit up for the express point of putting it in the DB (this might be funny, but would undermine its integrity a little I think)

Wikipedia has almost been ruined by folks demanding evidence and sources.  I think it's enough to ask nicely and deal with issues if they arise.

I've started a wikia wiki here: http://videogamelies.wikia.com/ I think people should be able to register/log in and edit.  I've made a front page and a sample page.  I'll probably clean it up at some point, but folks should feel free to make whatever edits they feel appropriate, including adding pages and lies!

[Fuzz]

sources should be required maybe.  otherwise people will just make shit up for the express point of putting it in the DB (this might be funny, but would undermine its integrity a little I think)

Wikipedia has almost been ruined by folks demanding evidence and sources.  I think it's enough to ask nicely and deal with issues if they arise.

I've started a wikia wiki here: http://videogamelies.wikia.com/ I think people should be able to register/log in and edit.  I've made a front page and a sample page.  I'll probably clean it up at some point, but folks should feel free to make whatever edits they feel appropriate, including adding pages and lies!

I can't wait to see this grow!

[Inanimate]

Nice job, Greg! It might even develop it's own community, you never know.

[december]

Has no one mentioned the cow level? 

Speaking of the cow level, I recall there was some kind of bug or exploit which you could use in Diablo 1 to walk through the "unwalkable" barriers in Tristram. If memory serves, when I tried it and walked to the top corner of the map, there was a cow standing there. I couldn't figure out any way to interact with it. The next time I tried that, the cow wasn't there anymore. Perhaps that mysterious cow is what triggered all the "cow level" rumours?

I thought the Cow Level rumor was a reference to the old PC shmup Raptor, where there was a Cows slider in the option screen if you set the computer's clock to April 1st. (cow slider did nothing)

[Fuzz]

I made a page...

[Inanimate]

Ooh, how 'bout ERMAC? Not a lie anymore, but he WAS one!

[Biggerfish]

To acquire Mew at the earliest point possible in the game, the player must not have defeated the Youngster with the Lv. 17 Slowpoke on Route 25 or the Swimmer in Cerulean Gym, and the player must not have defeated the Junior Trainer (the one who says "I saw your feat from the grass" when the battle with him begins) on Route 24 in the grass. It is prudent to save before doing this. The player must defeat Nugget Bridge as usual without engaging a battle with the Junior Trainer.

Before attempting this glitch, it is ideal to have several Poké Balls stocked up. Note that the player must have an Abra that can teleport, and therefore cannot be playing Yellow version unless he or she has reached Route 5 or traded for one prior to attempting the glitch.

The player first heals at the Cerulean City Pokémon Center, so they may Teleport there later.

The player then needs to return to Route 24 and catch (or trade over) an Abra, or withdraw the Abra if it is in the PC, then return to Route 24 if not already there. The player then needs to stand above the Junior Trainer so that he is just offscreen. Then the player needs to move down until seen, and immediately press START. The player then needs to use Teleport with Abra. If done correctly, the trainer should get the indicative exclamation mark while the player teleports.

At this point, the Start menu will not work. The player then needs to head north towards Route 25 and battle the Youngster. It is imperative to not battle anything or anyone else or talk to anyone before then, including the Youngster. The player must engage in battle by him seeing them (and must walk against the wall to be seen, not towards him or the game will freeze).

After defeating the Youngster, the player then needs to walk towards Cerulean City. After a small amount of steps, the Start menu appears. Pressing the B button should begin a battle against a Lv. 7 Mew.

If used on other trainers other than the Youngster, it will often be a different Pokémon (depending on the trainer's Pokémon's Special stat); for instance, doing so with the Lass below the Youngster will result in finding a Lapras, which is normally only avaliable at Silph Co.

http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Mew_glitch

Sometimes the truth is stranger than the lies. I always wondered how people would find these glitches. Is it through a coincidental series of strange movements? Or do they watch changes in the memory of a ROM to work out what causes Pokemon to appear and devise a way to mess with that in order to get a Mew or what?

[Hajo]

Has no one mentioned the cow level? 

And the secret bunny level!

[increpare]

I think it's enough to ask nicely and deal with issues if they arise.

Yeah, ok.

[Melly]

This is one aspect of games I feel was practically lost in the advent of the internet. The lore about amazing secrets in videogames made them seem more interesting and fantastical. Nowadays you should expect all of a game's secrets to be revealed within the week of its release, at most a month, as the obssessive compulsive or the 'I have way too much time on my hands' kind will play the game to exaustion, often how fun or good the game is being an unrelated factor.

I've brainstormed a game to counter this before. A game that, on the surface, seems like a good if somewhat unremarkable game. A nice distraction for a few bucks or free to download. The truth, however, is that within the game's code would be a massive secret, very hard to perform, that would unlock as much if not more game content than it previously had, and mindfuck-style plot addition.

In order to fight the game secret explorers, I have thought of a few possibilities:

- The secret requires a somewhat convoluted series of actions as the player progresses through the normal game. These actions are slightly hinted at throughout with cryptic texts that most would simply ignore as merely a way to flesh out the game world with a bit of extra lore.
- These actions are not preset. Instead they use of procedural generation to change in between plays (when you start a new game). This would prevent people from telling everyone the sure-fire way to get the secret, because there isn't one.
- If necessary (like if you made the game in Game Maker or something like that), the code of the secret would be obfuscated within the code of the actual game, which would be made to look like there's nothing unusual about it (as much as that is possible). Obviously it would be hard to hide verything, like the unique assets. Unless these were also procedurally generated as you found the secret.
- Obviously, nothing would imply that the game has this secret. No official documentation would mention anything of the sort, but there would be small secrets, like stronger equipment or secret places, to keep people from wondering.

Wonder if I'll ever do that. Guess none of you will actually know, until you find it yourselves.

[Valter]

Melly: Make sure that there are certain things that the player can do early on to make the secret totally unattainable.

Also, keep in mind that some people actually hack games. Often, secrets can be positively confirmed or denied, just because people actually took a look at the code.

[gunswordfist]

I remember someone told me a long time ago that there was some secret race track level at the end of Sonic The Hedgehog 2. The sad part is that he seemed to believe he was telling the truth.

[azeo]

In the original super smash bros, you could get a key to use on link's stage that unlocked that cage and sonic came out... that key never appeared 

[ThetaGames]

Sometimes the truth is stranger than the lies. I always wondered how people would find these glitches. Is it through a coincidental series of strange movements? Or do they watch changes in the memory of a ROM to work out what causes Pokemon to appear and devise a way to mess with that in order to get a Mew or what?

From what I understand, that glitch works because the when you teleport (or fly) from a battle, the game still "remembers" that you are in a battle in that location.  For whatever reason, the game stores the id number for the last trainer in the same RAM location as a Pokemon's Special stats.  If you battle a Pokemon with a specific Special stat, the game will store this number as an id number for the battle.  Since it "remembers" that there was a battle in the original trainer's location, as soon as you return to that location, a battle will begin, but the game will generate an enemy whose "battle id" is the same as the Special stat of your last Pokemon battle.  Different Special stat numbers will generate different enemies, some will be trainers, some will be  wild Pokemon, some will be MissingNo's and those other crazy things, and one number (I think it is 26) will generate a Mew during this battle.

This actually worked for me as well.  Sometimes truths are indeed less believable than lies!

[Melly]

Melly: Make sure that there are certain things that the player can do early on to make the secret totally unattainable.

Would cause more frustration than it would be required, and people simply exploring the game in order to find out its secrets would be fucked. There's a line between being really hard and being bullshitty.

Also, keep in mind that some people actually hack games. Often, secrets can be positively confirmed or denied, just because people actually took a look at the code.

I mentioned obfuscated code. I'm not sure how well it'd work on a compiled software, but at least on the source it would make it much harder to figure it out without extensive study. Also add stuff like red herrings and dead-ends and byte-sized variables with no purpose and you could confuse people for a while.

[Nulldorf]

Linked on Kotaku yesterday. Badda-bing!

http://kotaku.com/5163751/finally-a-resource-for-video-game-lies

You're gonna be famous!

[Fuzz]

Linked on Kotaku yesterday. Badda-bing!

http://kotaku.com/5163751/finally-a-resource-for-video-game-lies

You're gonna be famous!

It's already gotten quite big.

[Gregory]

Linked on Kotaku yesterday. Badda-bing!

http://kotaku.com/5163751/finally-a-resource-for-video-game-lies

You're gonna be famous!

Oh, I get linked by Kotaku all the time.

So surprisingly enough, some people feel the need to put nonsense and vandalism into a wiki about lies.  I was reverting stuff left and right, and even felt the need to block a few folks.  It seems to have calmed down a bit since last night, though.  There's some good stuff that people have submitted there!

[QuaziGNRLnose]

go look for cheats online and youll find tonnes of these lol.

one that i remeber, which stands out the most, is that if you beat the super smash bros single player on very hard with a single life, using pikachu, you would unlock raichu which overwrited pickachu (took up his spot in the roster)

oh i tried this so many times as a young 6-8 year old, i got it, and nothing happened 

[Radix]

Someone told me that you could glitch your life counter in Mario 64 by collecting 1000 coins (since the coin counter only goes to 999). I danced around the third Bowser for what must have been hours.