| Minus World | |
|---|---|
| Mario location | |
 | |
| First appearance | Super Mario Bros. (1985) |
| Genre | Platform |
| In-universe information | |
| Type | Level |
| Characters | Mario |
The Minus World (Japanese: マイナスワールド) is a glitched level found in the 1985 video game Super Mario Bros. It can be encountered by maneuvering the protagonist, Mario, in a particular way to trick the game into sending him to the wrong area. Players who enter this area are greeted with an endless, looping water level in the original Nintendo Entertainment System cartridge version, while the version released for the Famicom Disk System sends them to a sequence of three different levels; this difference is due to the data being arranged in different ways between the two versions. It gained exposure in part thanks to the magazine Nintendo Power discussing how the glitch is encountered. Super Mario Bros. creator Shigeru Miyamoto denied that the addition of the Minus World was intentional, though he later commented that the fact that it does not crash the game could make it count as a game feature.
The existence and revelation of this glitch led to rumors being spread about further secrets existing in Super Mario Bros. It is recognized as one of the greatest secrets and glitches in video game history, with the term "Minus World" coming to refer to areas in games that exist outside of normal parameters, such as in The Legend of Zelda. Frog Fractions designer Jim Stormdancer cited it as inspiration for making Frog Fractions the way he did, while Spelunky creator Derek Yu talked about his nostalgia for Minus World, lamenting a lack of mystique found in modern games. References to the Minus World can be found in both Super Paper Mario and Super Meat Boy.