Double-Death Drowning Bug In The Sonic 3 11-03-1993 Prototype

One of the first things I wondered upon the release of the Sonic 3 prototype by DRX on 11-16-2019 was whether the bug where taking damage as you drowned caused you to die when you hit the bottom of the screen, and thus lose 2 lives, was present. This video shows you that the bug is present (albeit with the use of debug mode due to the level layouts of normal stages seemingly hindering the drowning/double-death process). It also shows you the arithmetic underflow that causes you to go from 1, to 0, and then to 255 lives.

[@NeedleblueOfOhio]

This glitch is actually from Sonic 1 and 2,and it's here because sonic 3 is build of sonic 2(and Sonic 2 is build of sonic 1 as well)

[@DanknDerpyGamer]

Eeyup! Exactly this!

[@andreasjoannai6441]

Why this happens:
- The life count is an unsigned 8-bit integer
- Attempting to decrement an unsigned integer from 0 will result in an integer underflow (In this case, from 0 to 255)
- Because Sonic loses 2 lives before the Game Over resets to the continue/title screen, given an odd number of lives (And performing this double death glitch the required number of times), this can result in the life count underflowing as seen in this video.

[@austinearle7345]

255 lives boiz

[@DJNeoncat]

The Limit is 255

[@DanknDerpyGamer]

Yep - an unsigned 8-bit value

[@abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz9971]

an sonic 2 glitch

[@DanknDerpyGamer]

And Sonic 1 as well. 😁

[@MR.NickyRZ_229]

The worst Prototype ever

[@bloxxeralex1574]

how

[@DanknDerpyGamer]

lol

[@quillllly]

Me when an early build of a game is unfinished