Welcome to the 32 Dangerous Cheat Codes, a brand new series that will run daily between November 24 and December 25. Join us as we discuss the hazardous ramifications of some of your favorite cheat codes. Today we're taking a look at one of the most famous video game glitches of all time -- Super Mario's minus world. Where did it come from, why is it there and how is it deadly? Find out now when you float through a brick wall and check out today's episode of the 32 Dangerous Cheat Codes.


I'm not sure where we are right now. It's dark and it appears we're lost in the woods. This may not sound like an ideal way to spend the weekend, but don't tell that to Adam. This is a man consumed with the idea of locating the undiscovered. He wants to be the first to find something that can't be found on a map or GPS app. Like a 21st century Christopher Columbus ... only without all the rape and slavery stuff.

That must be how the guy who first discovered Super Mario's minus world felt back in the mid-1980s. There he was, minding his own business and trying to jump through what appeared to be a massive brick wall. And all of a sudden, out of nowhere, the plumber is pushed through that wall against his will and sent down a pipe into what would become the most popular video game glitch of all time.

The minus world isn't so much a cheat code as it is a programming error, but it still deserves a place in this series. The idea is to jump in just the right way to have Mario glide right through the wall and go down a pipe to the minus world. Here you'll be dropped into an endlessly looping underwater stage that looks almost exactly like level 7-2.

What you may not know is that the game thinks you're warping to stage 36, which clearly doesn't exist. Instead of displaying the proper number, the game leaves it blank and gives off the impression that you're going into the negative world or minus world. Without getting too technical, this glitch thinks you're trying to access the second warp zone, which normally only has one pipe and sends you to world 5. But because you're doing this several stages early, all three pipes are present and the game sends you into a level that wasn't supposed to exist. Long story short, you confused the game and triggered the wrong warp pipes.

Now imagine the same thing happens to Adam, who is still stuck searching the forest. There he is, rummaging through the foliage, when all of a sudden he falls through a giant hole and get sucked into an underwater deathtrap. Sure, he found something that even Google's satellites have been able to locate, but that's little comfort when he's seconds away from drowning. Worse yet, there's nobody there to help him spread the word. It's as if the discovery never happened. We know what really happened to Adam, but don't really exist.