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Generation I Glitch Discussion

Pokemon Red/Blue Bicycle Glitch, newly discovered? - Page 1

Pokemon Red/Blue Bicycle Glitch, newly discovered?

Posted by: gnsquared
Date: 2013-06-26 21:13:57
Video of the glitch here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxyDOBSEwdc

Essentially, they just started a new game playing on a classic GameBoy and using a Pokemon Blue cartridge, and played up through Vermilion City, taking small breaks, saving the game and turning the GameBoy off and back on again periodically to let the GameBoy cool down. They had just gotten the bike voucher in Vermilion and traded it in for a bicycle, and upon trying to use the item for the first time the message "You can't get off here" appeared. No matter where they were when they tried to use the bike from the bag, be it in a house, in a town, or a cave, the same message appeared and they could not get on the bike. Apparently others have experienced this glitch, as documented here:

http://www.supercheats.com/gameboy/questions/pokemonblue/57785/I-just-bought-the-bike-Is-the.htm

But no possible causes have been found. It seems to occur mostly on cartridge copies of the game. This obviously isn't one of those fun exploitable glitches with wacky effects or anything, but I figured someone here might be interested in figuring out what causes it none the less. I asked the poster to explain in as much detail as possible what they did leading up to this glitch but all they said was that they were playing through the game "normally. Catching pokes, beating trainers, beating Gym Leaders, etc."

They eventually did fix the glitch by entering Diglett's Cave and using Dig. However they reset the game after fixing it so they could play around with the glitch some more.

Re: Pokemon Red/Blue Bicycle Glitch, newly discovered?

Posted by: VAAMusicalMike
Date: 2013-06-26 22:03:06
Hey gnsquared! I'm the original author from the post on /vp. I wanted to come over here and see if I couldn't help myself, and I thank you for being so diligent in helping me out! I appreciate it immensely.

Now, I'm a total noob when it comes to glitch documentation, so something crossed my mind just now that didn't while I was in the thread. Can manipulating the game from a previous save file cause a new save file to glitch? I ask this because there was a glitch I did try in a previous save file, and in that save file as well, I was unable to ride my bicycle. So perhaps, then, it is no coincidence that this inability transferred over to my new game file.

In my previous save file, I had attempted to learn how to do the glitch where you skip the Pewter City Gym http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IL3dt06QpgI

I got to the part to where I was pressing right and buffering the start menu to bypass the text. Then, what I did, was I SAVED MY GAME before taking another step forward, and the trainer took me back to Brock's Gym.

I didn't mention this before because I assumed tampering with a previous game file would not influence the stability of a new game file, but perhaps I was mistaken?

At any rate, I'm calling this the Ghost Bike glitch, named as such because the game acts as though the bike is equipped, but in actually it is not. An invisible, yet present, yet physics wise not present, Bike.

Re: Pokemon Red/Blue Bicycle Glitch, newly discovered?

Posted by: gnsquared
Date: 2013-06-26 22:16:51
It's unlikely that anything from the previous save file is the culprit, particularly not anything as benign as the skipping Pewter City Gym glitch. Since other people have encountered it before and were most likely not attempting that glitch on their previous save files, I think we can rule that out.

My personal guess, though it's not based on anything concrete, is that it has something to do with dirty or damaged contact points between the GameBoy and cartridge, since everyone who has reported it encountered it a) on a cartridge copy of Pokemon Blue and b) a rather old one at that. Something akin to cartridge tilting on the Nintendo 64 for example. However since you still have the glitch after resetting the game, that might not be the case either.

Re: Pokemon Red/Blue Bicycle Glitch, newly discovered?

Posted by: OwnageMuch
Date: 2013-06-26 22:33:35
This is certainly a very interesting one. What happens if you try to go to the cycling road? Does it count you as being on a bike?

Re: Pokemon Red/Blue Bicycle Glitch, newly discovered?

Posted by: camper
Date: 2013-06-26 23:10:57
I think the save is a bit corrupted, the bit being the cycling road flag. If I'm right, you can't surf either.

Re: Pokemon Red/Blue Bicycle Glitch, newly discovered?

Posted by: VAAMusicalMike
Date: 2013-06-27 00:00:03
Ah, well guys the thing is that I haven't progressed enough in the game to see what cycling road/surfing will do. I haven't beat Lt.Surge yet, but I am progressing through the game as best as I can. I will have more information for you as I continue to progress. Thanks for being patient ;w; <3

Re: Pokemon Red/Blue Bicycle Glitch, newly discovered?

Posted by: camper
Date: 2013-06-27 01:59:35
If you're REALLY impatient, you can always glitch through the game. Just skip the east Snorlax to get yourself to Fuchsia City.

But you should try Escape Rope and Teleport first.

Re: Pokemon Red/Blue Bicycle Glitch, newly discovered?

Posted by: TheZZAZZGlitch
Date: 2013-06-27 02:40:41
I managed to find out why this happens.

This glitch occurs if the player saves the game on Cycling Road and then starts a new game with the save file intact. Somehow the game does not properly reset the "Cycling Road flag" and leaves it set after starting a new game.

Any of the following will fix this state:
- Using Dig
- Using Teleport
- Using Fly
- Using Escape Rope
- Going in and out the Cycling Road
- Blacking out (both in battle and in overworld)

The Cycling Road flag is located at RAM address 0xD732 (at its 5th bit to be exact). Everyone interested could save the game on Cycling Road, start a new game, and look up at this address.

Edit: Yes, this glitch also disables surfing (it gives the "Cycling is fun! Forget SURFing" message)

Re: Pokemon Red/Blue Bicycle Glitch, newly discovered?

Posted by: VAAMusicalMike
Date: 2013-06-27 03:47:19

I managed to find out why this happens.

This glitch occurs if the player saves the game on Cycling Road and then starts a new game with the save file intact. Somehow the game does not properly reset the "Cycling Road flag" and leaves it set after starting a new game.

Any of the following will fix this state:
- Using Dig
- Using Teleport
- Using Fly
- Using Escape Rope
- Going in and out the Cycling Road

The Cycling Road flag is located at RAM address 0xD732 (at its 5th bit to be exact). Everyone interested could save the game on Cycling Road, start a new game, and look up at this address.

Edit: Yes, this glitch also disables surfing (it gives the "Cycling is fun! Forget SURFing" message)


Hey there, thanks for your insight and work into helping figuring this out. =) Funny you mention the solutions now, I was just about to come back and report the same thing (I've been playing through the game and just beat Koga as of now). However, I should point out that I did NOT start a new game upon saving on Cycling Road in the previous game file. I had previously saved in Vermillion City.

Would you guys like for me to try anything out with it? I'm kinda missing my bike as I've been intentionally holding the glitch for testing purposes lol. If nobody has any requests I'll Dig/etc to get my Bike back.

Re: Pokemon Red/Blue Bicycle Glitch, newly discovered?

Posted by: TheZZAZZGlitch
Date: 2013-06-27 04:20:36
Interesting you didn't save previously on the Cycling Road and yet somehow the Cycling Road flag was set when creating a new game…

a) Have you ever used any walk-through-walls glitches on your previous save file? And if you did:
1. Have you ever stepped into Cycling Road with walk-through-walls glitch active?
2. If you were doing the Safari Zone walk-through-walls trick, did you land your last Safari Zone step in the Cycling Road?
b) Also, have you ever tried to do the famous Glitch City glitch? And if you did:
1. While you were walking around for Safari steps to deplete, did you land your last Safari Zone step in the Cycling Road?

Any of these actions above could have screwed up your Cycling Road flag.

Re: Pokemon Red/Blue Bicycle Glitch, newly discovered?

Posted by: OwnageMuch
Date: 2013-06-27 05:18:28

I managed to find out why this happens.

This glitch occurs if the player saves the game on Cycling Road and then starts a new game with the save file intact. Somehow the game does not properly reset the "Cycling Road flag" and leaves it set after starting a new game.



Thanks once again for your research.

This is interesting that there is another artifact of a previous save able to be found within a new game. I expect there are probably many more things left behind than just character name and bike flag, too.

If the save file is erased before starting a new game (by manually erasing it from startup, by save corruption due to powering off while saving or by save corruption due to saving after heavy bug abuse), do you have any idea if the bug would occur in any of these instances? It may be rather difficult to test, however.

Also, I'm not sure on this, but would blacking out also reset the flag? I'd expect such, anyway.

Re: Pokemon Red/Blue Bicycle Glitch, newly discovered?

Posted by: TheZZAZZGlitch
Date: 2013-06-27 05:54:22
Also, I'm not sure on this, but would blacking out also reset the flag? I'd expect such, anyway.


That's true, blacking out resets the flag too. Thanks for mentioning it.

Re: Pokemon Red/Blue Bicycle Glitch, newly discovered?

Posted by: Torchickens
Date: 2013-06-27 09:02:53
This is interesting. I also wonder how VAAMusicalMike got it to work if he didn't start a new game from the Cycling Road or mess with glitches. I'll go and make a higher quality video of it. It appears to work in Yellow as well because D731 doesn't change when starting a new game.

It seems that this isn't the only kind of the glitch because Alexfou4 reported not being able to use Surf after performing the fossil conversion glitch even when going to and leaving the Cycling Road. Entering and leaving the gates on Route 16 and Route 18 usually changes the address (D6B1 in Japanese versions) from 21h to 01h, so it seems that something else was preventing Alexfou4 from Surfing.

By the way, although this glitch disables Surfing, you can still Surf using the ????? (07h) item, obtainable by exploding the items pack or encountering F2h (#209) on the opponent's side via Johto guard glitch and Cable Club escape glitch in Red/Blue with a Bicycle (06h) as the fourth item.

Other alternatives in Yellow include encountering the #209 glitch Pokémon on the opponent's side, including EBh, EEh, F3h, F6h. None of these freeze the game.



I managed to find out why this happens.

This glitch occurs if the player saves the game on Cycling Road and then starts a new game with the save file intact. Somehow the game does not properly reset the "Cycling Road flag" and leaves it set after starting a new game.



If the save file is erased before starting a new game (by manually erasing it from startup, by save corruption due to powering off while saving or by save corruption due to saving after heavy bug abuse), do you have any idea if the bug would occur in any of these instances? It may be rather difficult to test, however.


If you erase the save via Up+Select+B, it resets D732 back to 00, so TheZZAZZGlitch's method won't work this way.

Re: Pokemon Red/Blue Bicycle Glitch, newly discovered?

Posted by: OwnageMuch
Date: 2013-06-27 22:54:39

If you erase the save via Up+Select+B, it resets D732 back to 00, so TheZZAZZGlitch's method won't work this way.


Thanks. I did have ulterior reasoning for asking about erasure due to glitch abuse too. I may have talked about it a long time ago, but I had found an artefact of a previous save that was erased due to glitch abuse (on a real cart, too). The simple story is that, I found that the "cooltrainer move" was giving out names of pokemon in my box when used, so, interested, i changed to an empty box, and it took the name of my previous save file's trainer name. My theory as to how this could happen is a rather simple one, however - since the game wasn't saved over or erased properly from the menu, there would have been no reason for the game to erase the data that it was trying to extract. As far as I'm aware, this cycling flag case is only the second case I've heard of such an artefact being found to remain.

Re: Pokemon Red/Blue Bicycle Glitch, newly discovered?

Posted by: Torchickens
Date: 2013-06-28 07:40:53


If you erase the save via Up+Select+B, it resets D732 back to 00, so TheZZAZZGlitch's method won't work this way.


Thanks. I did have ulterior reasoning for asking about erasure due to glitch abuse too. I may have talked about it a long time ago, but I had found an artefact of a previous save that was erased due to glitch abuse (on a real cart, too). The simple story is that, I found that the "cooltrainer move" was giving out names of pokemon in my box when used, so, interested, i changed to an empty box, and it took the name of my previous save file's trainer name. My theory as to how this could happen is a rather simple one, however - since the game wasn't saved over or erased properly from the menu, there would have been no reason for the game to erase the data that it was trying to extract. As far as I'm aware, this cycling flag case is only the second case I've heard of such an artefact being found to remain.


You're welcome. I remember you talking about that before but it was only a vague memory. Thanks for explaining what happened. I wonder what kind of other things remain in the memory after a new game?