Game bug

"That thing! It messed up everything it touched!"

- Wario

Game bugs are small, colored viruses with faces that serve as the central antagonists of the Story mode in WarioWare: Get It Together!. Game bugs are able to corrupt their host game.

A game bug is first encountered during the prelude to Wario's Intro Games level. As it jumps into his level, Wario notices that everything it touched became corrupted, and he jumps after it to prevent the level from being ruined. Similar events occur in the openings of later levels of the Story mode, where Wario encounters the next character and their level only for them to realize that it has been corrupted. Once the level is completed and the game bug is ejected, the corresponding character defeats it using their unique ability, clearing away the corruption of their level.

This continues until the final level in the Story mode, Wario's Anything Goes level, which is invaded by a larger and more hostile game bug known as the Mega Bug. Because of this, the level is much more corrupted, to the point of the cutscene not finishing. Instead, the Wario seen in the cutscene is covered with game bugs, being turned into the Wario Bug as a result.

After the Wario Bug is defeated, all of the remaining corruption is cleared away. While the crew is discussing what to do with the Mega Bug, Wario decides to keep it in his level, allowing him to make it his own level, much to its happiness. Immediately after this, they encounter the Supreme Developer, who reveals that he was the one who brought them into the game to defeat the game bugs. Satisfied that all of the corruption is now gone, he allows them to return to the real world.

During the first ending of the Story mode, as the other characters wonder how the game bugs even came to be, it is revealed that they spawned into the game and multiplied as a result of Wario's own poor programming. Following this, Wario threw the console at the wall rather than fix his programming.

Game bugs also appear during the tutorial stages for most characters, where they serve as stationary enemies that must be defeated using a single attack from the character in order to progress.

In Tetris 99, game bugs are depicted on the Garbage blocks.