Cooldown/Playing With
< Cooldown
Basic Trope: An item or ability in a game requires the player to wait between uses.
- Straight: Bob’s Flame spell requires a 5-second cooldown before it can be used again.
- Exaggerated: The cooldown time for Bob’s Flame spell is 3,155,760,000 seconds, or 100 real-life years. And the timer only counts down when playing the game.
- Downplayed: The cooldown is only a second or a fraction of a second.
- Justified: The item or ability uses energy that takes time to charge back up.
- Inverted: The cooldown is negative.
- Subverted: There appears to be a cooldown timer but the ability can still be used.
- Double Subverted: Bob wasn’t actually using the ability.
- Parodied: The ability’s name is “Spell With a Cooldown Timer”.
- Zig Zagged: The cooldown time varies each use, sometimes being no cooldown at all.
- Averted: Bob can use Flame constantly without having to wait.
- Enforced: The developer decides that allowing constant use of the ability would make the game unbalanced.
- Lampshaded: “Why do I always have to wait to use this, even in the heat of battle?”
- Invoked: Bob crafts a weapon and deliberately makes it take some time to recharge/reload.
- Exploited: Emperor Evulz attacks when Bob is most vulnerable: when his weapons are on cooldown.
- Defied: Bob tries to find a way to use Flame constantly or only gets items and abilities without a cooldown.
- Discussed: “It sucks that you have to wait to use that every time, Bob!”
- Conversed: “Why do games always make me wait between uses of an ability?”
- Deconstructed: The cooldowns render weapons and special powers ineffective, making it harder to defeat the bad guys.
- Reconstructed: The heroes figure out a way to defend against attacks during cooldown.
- Played For Laughs: The icon has a funny animation during cooldown.
- Played For Drama: Cooldown makes items and abilities less effective.
- Back to Cooldown