MissingNo. facts for kids

This is what MissingNo. looks like when you find it in Pokémon Red.

MissingNo., also called MissingNO, is a special Pokémon that isn't supposed to be in the game. Its name means "Missing Number". Game developers at Game Freak created it as a placeholder. It appears when the game tries to find a Pokémon that doesn't exist.

Nintendo first wrote about MissingNo. in their Nintendo Power magazine in May 1999. When you find MissingNo., the game's graphics might look strange. It also makes the sixth item in your bag multiply. This glitch had a big impact on the Pokémon fan community.

What is MissingNo.?

Players can find MissingNo. because of two small mistakes in the game's computer code. One mistake is how the game remembers information about battles. The other mistake is linked to a character called the Old Man in Viridian City.

When you travel in the game, it saves numbers for Pokémon you might find. This information is stored in a temporary memory space. However, near Cinnabar Island and Seafoam Islands, this memory space sometimes doesn't get new information. Instead, it uses old information, like parts of your player's name. This can cause MissingNo. to appear.

What Happens When You Find It?

When MissingNo. appears, you can fight it, run away, or even try to catch it. Just like any other wild Pokémon. After you meet MissingNo., the number of your sixth item in your bag will become 128 times bigger! This is how players could get lots of rare items.

However, finding MissingNo. can also mess up your game's "Hall of Fame" gallery forever. Other parts of the game's display might look strange too. You can usually fix these display problems by looking at a Pokédex entry. Or you can restart your Game Boy console.

MissingNo. often looks like a scrambled letter "d" shape. But sometimes, it might look like a ghost or two old fossils.

MissingNo.'s Impact

Even though MissingNo. only appeared in a few Pokémon games, it had a huge impact. Nintendo called it a "programming quirk." They didn't want players to find it. In the next game, Pokémon Yellow, it was made much harder to get MissingNo. unless you traded for it.

However, many magazines and player guides shared how to find MissingNo. This was because of its useful item-duplicating effect. Some Pokémon players even tried to sell fake "tips" for catching MissingNo. for up to $200!

In 2009, IGN (a video game website) listed MissingNo. as one of the "Top 10 Easter Eggs" in games. They called it a "glitchimon" and said it was great for copying items. IGN also said, "It really says something about Pokémon fans that they took what is a potentially game ruining glitch and used it as a shortcut to level up their Pokémon."

Studying Player Reactions

Experts have even studied how players reacted to MissingNo. This helped them understand how people interact with games. A sociologist named William Sims Bainbridge said that Game Freak "spawned one of the most popular glitches ever in game history." He noted how players used the glitch in interesting ways, both good and bad.

The book Playing with Videogames looked closely at MissingNo.'s effect. It studied how curious players were when they found it. The book also looked at players' own notes and reports of "sightings." It even discussed how Pokémon fan communities tried to make MissingNo. a real part of the game's story. They did this through things like fan fiction and fan art. The book added that this inspired a lot of creativity. It also mentioned that people were celebrating and sharing glitches. They even tried to make MissingNo. an official part of the game's world. MissingNo.'s popularity was truly unusual.

Images for kids

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  The player using a Pokémon to surf on the eastern shore of Cinnabar Island, a key part of finding MissingNo.

See also

In Spanish: MissingNo. para niños