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{{quote|''Another day, another death course...''|'''Ratchet''', ''[[Ratchet and Clank Up Your Arsenal]]''}}
The linear version of the [[Death Trap]], the
'''These can be found in:'''
* [[Temple of Doom|Ancient temples]], where they are driven by [[Durable Deathtrap|very durable]] [[Bamboo Technology]].
* [[Supervillain Lair
* [[Eternal Engine|Factories]], if they are damaged and were [[No OSHA Compliance|unsafe to start with]].
'''Any of the pitfalls included under [[Death Trap]] may be used in the
* The dart launchers, triggered by the passing of the hero (an automatic machine gun, in modern settings).
* The [[Indy Escape|giant rolling stone ball]], always an [[Indiana Jones]] [[Homage]].
* [[Trap Door
* [[One-Way Entrance]]s
* [[Surprise Slide Staircase|Stairs that become slides]]
* Mines
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* [[Advancing Wall of Doom]]
* The [[Corridor Cubbyhole Run]].
* And, of course, [[Bottomless Pits]] and/or [[Pit Trap
The
▲The [[Death Course]] makes a mundane walk in the park into a slightly less sadistic version of football training camp. It's common in [[Video Game Tropes|video games]] where [[Everything Trying to Kill You|hazards are commonplace]], and action series. Sometimes, there are [[Dungeon Bypass|Dungeon Bypasses]] available.
{{examples}}
▲== Anime & Manga ==
* ''[[Hanaukyo Maid Tai|Hanaukyo Maid Tai: La Verité]]'' has one hidden under the front lawn of the mansion.
* In ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'', Ed discovers one of these on his way into the Fifth Laboratory. After the first few traps, though, he gets sick of it and transmutes the hallway to have perfectly smooth, unbroken walls and walks straight through.
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* The Dog Race in ''[[Deadman Wonderland]]'' features swinging pendulum blades, flamethrowers, electrified water, and a disintegrating floor that empties into a pit of spikes. Because DW is a ''publicly open'' prison/themepark, the horrific deaths and disfigurations that result from this race explained as "special effects" a la a stunt show.
* A very short over-land one shows up in ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog The Movie]]'', consisting mainly of about a half-dozen spike traps and an ambush by a swarm of Buzzbombers.
* One features in the second episode of ''[[Angel Beats
* [[
* An episode of ''Amagi Brilliant Park'' features major characters Kanie Seiya, Sento Isuzu, Moffle, Tirami, and Macaron finding their way into one. When the first huge ball comes rolling down the hallway, Tirami and Macaron scream, "A cliché trap!" Then the spears and sword blades start jabbing or slicing out of the walls, Isuzu and Macaron fall through trap doors....
==
* This is Arcade's MO - for a fee, he'll ''capture'' heroes and put them in a death trap (''Murderworld'') of his own devising. One wonders why villains don't just pay him to capture and collect their unconscious foes.
** Because that's Arcade's 'thing'.
** He is also willing to rent his courses out to various villains so that they can train.
* The [[Don Rosa]] Scrooge McDuck story "Treasure of the Ten Avatars".
* The [[X-Men]]'s Danger Room, in its first incarnation, is one of these, although controlled by the participants.
* In an issue of ''[[Catwoman (
* A hero-villain inversion occurs in ''[[Sin City]]''. [[Heroic Sociopath|Marv]] sets fire to [[Serial Killer|Kevin's]] house, lures him out with gunshots, tries to trip him up with razor wire, sets up his coat as a decoy, tries to lob his head off with a hatchet, and then just resorts to handcuffing him and punching him in the face.
== Film ==
* The ''[[
* In ''[[
{{quote|
* The execrable ''[[Dungeons
* The opening of the "Weird Al" Yankovic movie ''[[UHF (
* Let's not forget the path into Alcatraz in ''[[The Rock]]''.
* [[James Bond (
** ''[[
** Scarmanga's lair in ''[[The Man
* In the later half of ''[[Star Wars]]: [[
* The titular setting of the film ''[[
* The entrance to Lex Luthor's lair in ''[[Superman (
* The tunnel network explored by ''[[The Goonies]]'' certainly qualifies; while it didn't kill anyone in the movie, its traps had caused the death of Mr. Copperpot some decades before.
* Inverted in the ''[[Home Alone]]'' series, in that it's the ''villains'' who are forced to negotiate a
* Shifu's temple from ''[[Kung Fu Panda]]'' has one of these.
* One appears in the song [[Training Montage|"One Last Hope"]] from ''[[Hercules (
* In 1972's anthology ''Tales From The Crypt'', the abusive manager of a home for the blind gets his comeuppance when the visually-impaired men he's been mistreating lock him in his office and construct a
== Literature ==
* In the ''[[
* Near the end of ''Inheritance,'' (the last book of the ''[[Inheritance Cycle]]') Eragon, Saphira, Elva, Arya, and eleven other elves make their way through a hallway filled with traps to get to [[The Big Bad]].
* In [[Matthew Reilly]]'s books ''Seven Deadly Wonders'' and ''The Six Sacred Stones'' almost all the action sequences take place in
* In the ''[[Discworld]]'' books, it is heavily implied that Lord Vetinari has one of these set up in the passage that leads to Leonard of Quirm's cell. Or maybe that's just what he wants you to think.
** Leonard apologizes earnestly for designing it, so it is far more likely to be true.
** The Lost Jewelled Temple Of Doom Of Offler The Crocodile God (from ''[[
*** Maybe not. Given their reaction when Death arrives, it seems Mrs. Cake might already have been...
** ''Small Gods'' features this as a security precaution against visiting dignitaries from hostile lands. They didn't count on the main character's photographic memory.
* In the [[Young Bond]] novel ''Hurricane Gold'', El Hurican has ''La Avenida de la Murete'': a death course where all the challenges are based on legends of the Mayan gods.
* The titular castle ''[[Malevil]]'' is well, ''[[Shaped Like Itself|a castle]]''. See the [[Real Life]] section below.
== Live-Action TV ==
* ''[[
* British game show ''[[The Crystal Maze]]'' (hosted by Richard "Riff-Raff" O'Brien of ''[[Rocky Horror Picture Show]]'' fame) presented a much-toned down version as the central set piece of the program.
* ''[[
* The game shows ''[[Legends of the Hidden Temple]]'', ''Viking: The Ultimate Warrior'' and ''Sasuke'' (known as ''[[Ninja Warrior]]'' in North America) have these either as stages or take place within them entirely. (The games in ''[[
* The obstacles in ''[[Knightmare]]'' - the only children's game show where you could (virtually) die by being impaled on spikes, sawn in half by giant blades, having your head knocked off by flying bits of masonry, falling into bottomlessness after stepping on the wrong tile of an Indiana Jones-style causeway, and so on and so forth.
* The title character of "The Girl Who Was Death", an episode of ''[[The Prisoner]]'' played like a '60s spy movie, set up a death course for No.6 in a movie set/ghost town, with appropriate obstacles in the butcher's, baker's, and candlestick-maker's shops, like triggered machine guns, trap doors, deadly ''electrified'' spikes, land mines, and poison-laced exploding candles.
* Graeme makes a deathcourse for the sole purpose of committing suicide with in one episode of ''[[
* ''[[
* An episode of ''[[The Lucy Show]]'', of all things, has one of these - Lucy's bank built it to protect its vault in order to entice [[The Jack Benny Program|Jack Benny]] to keep his money there. Naturally, she has to give Benny a "tour".
** For that matter, Jack Benny's never displayed (if you discount the Looney Toons cartoon version) vault.
* ''[[The New Avengers]]'' uses one of these disguised as a British agent training course. Agents would be shot with harmless little darts to show whether they passed. The villains poisoned the darts.
** ''[[The Avengers (TV series)|The Avengers]]'' loved this trope. Another episode had a Death Course in the form of {{spoiler|an agent-killing automated factory}}.
* The episode "Legacy" of ''[[
== Tabletop Games ==
* In ''[[Robo Rally]]'', each of the players navigates a robot through a
* ''[[Tomb of Horrors]]''. Enough said.
== Video Games ==
* ''[[
▲* ''[[Baldurs Gate]]'', most particularly 2, where a [[Death Course]] is seen as a training ground for the Shadow Thieves of Amn.
* ''[[Tomb Raider]]'', in which most of the tombs are equipped with diabolical anti-raider devices.
* ''[[Prince of Persia]]'', since day one, has had these in every castle of the ancient world. There are some paranoid sultans out there, apparently. (In ''Prince of Persia: Sands of Time'', it's slightly more
* Arguably, most parts of the ''[[God of War (
** However, the game has two areas that are intentional Death Courses, rather than being naturally inhospitable or dangerous due to damage: The Temple of Pandora (including the Cliffs of Madness), and Hades. The Temple of Pandora is [[Justified Trope|justified]], as it's explicitly designed for the sole purpose of killing anyone unworthy of obtaining Pandora's Box.
* ''[[Sly Cooper]]'' has had its share, as well.
* The ''[[Crash Bandicoot]]'' games are mostly a combination of the various types of Death Courses, with most of the pitfalls included.
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** Lampshaded in ''[[Ratchet and Clank Up Your Arsenal]]'', where, upon being told that the only way to retrieve a mission-critical item is to run through the Annihilation Nation death course, Rachet responds nonchalantly with the quote at the top of this page, much to the surprise of his companions.
*** [[Serial Escalation|And that's only the third game.]]
* Most [[Platformer]] levels, in fact, including the ''[[Super Mario Bros.]]'' and ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' games.
** The first Genesis\Mega Drive Sonic game has the Labyrinth Zone boss in particular, which has spikes and fireball traps, and rising water.
** In the [[wikipedia:Rick Dangerous|Rick Dangerous]] series almost all levels are death courses.
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*** {{spoiler|Taking a mysterious crystal from an inter-dimensional bureaucrat who comes from nowhere tells you to "prepare for unforeseen consequences" and bombarding said crystal with lasers is safe? I mean, I suppose such a thing is so ridiculous that OSHA hasn't covered it, but still. Come on.}} {{spoiler|1=Actually OSHA has a catchall regulation just for "You just did something so absolutely and clearly dangerous to your employees you blew our minds. We could never imagine somebody being so stupid. Here's your fine. You're not going to get off on 'well you didn't tell me [[Suspiciously Specific Denial|not to specifically do this]]'." It's called the [http://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=OSHACT&p_id=3359 General Duty Clause.] }}
*** Well, they WERE worried about if something goes wrong. They just thought it was very unlikely. You get lines of dialog of arguing scientist before the test. Unfortunately, the person complaining is right.
* In ''[[Portal (
* In ''[[
* First two ''[[Max Payne (
* The final level on the path to the fourth ending of ''[[Drakengard]]'' involves having to fly your dragon in, around, and between legions of [[Eldritch Abomination|eldritch abominations.]] If you take three hits or so from their homing attacks, you fail.
* ''[[Quest for Glory I]]'' has two of these, the first played straight, the second played for laughs. In the first, there are brigand archers on either side of the room, a trap door hidden under a rug (with a "Walk here" sign on it, written kinda shakily as if the writer were laughing at the time), two tripwires, and a bridge that dumps you into a pit if you walk on it. The second death course is designed by the brigand warlock ({{spoiler|who is actually the old court jester following the cursed daughter of the baron, who leads the brigands}}), and considering his nature, it almost makes sense that the room completely and totally defies logic. Doors will fall off their hinges and dump you into pits, which causes you to roll through a hole in the wall on the other side of the room and into another pit... which then dumps you out of the same exact hole. It doesn't help that the warlock himself is throwing things at you the entire time, and laughs while you roll along. Additionally, the room has Escher Physics, and walking through a door on one end brings you out on the other side. It actually [[Lampshade Hanging|hangs a lampshade on it]] with one of messages: "[[
* The most fun part of the game ''[[Evil Genius]]'' was creating death courses for the AI heroes to attempt. The more elaborate they were, the more points you got if they tripped them.
** It was less fun when you realized they were killing a lot more of your own minions than of the enemies.
* The K'chekrik Gauntlet in ''[[Heretic]] 2''.
* The Gauntlet in ''[[Nox]]'', through which prospective Warriors must fight their way to show they've got what it takes.
* ''[[Mortal Kombat
** ''[[Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks]]'' has a good number of these.
** In the core games, there were Stage Fatalities, where the winner could use a feature of the area (like the Pit with spikes, the Dead Pool full of acid, or even a subway train) to finish off the opponent. From Deception onward, there were also Death Traps, which were like Brutalities (the ability kill the opponent without reducing his life bar to zero) using something in the area. The nastiest is likely the Falling Cliffs in Deception and Armageddon, which is a platform in a mountainous area that is constantly wracked by earthquakes; knocking a combatant off causes the unlucky fighter to be impaled on a long stalagmite. It's even possible for both players to be taken out by [[Mutual Kill]] here.<ref>In which case, whoever's health bar was less at the time that happens loses the round.</ref>
* This is the entire point of ''[[I Wanna Be the Guy]]''. It would be redundant to list the numerous things that will kill [[One-Hit-Point Wonder|The Kid]] throughout the game, but suffice to say that every single screen is enough to make the proudest [[Adventure Archaeologist]] [[Bowel-Breaking Bricks|shit bricks]].
* ''[[Dwarf Fortress]]'' lets you build these as a very effective method of keeping your fortress safe from invaders. Interestingly, you can make an auxiliary entrance which invaders are forced to take when your drawbridge is up or your main entrance is sealed off in some other way. This entrance, of course, can be extremely long and extremely deadly.
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* Oni Island in ''[[Okami]]'' is a huge deathtrap... which is apparently entertainment for the local youkai. There are even ''rules'' for these areas posted on a small, hard to miss sign right before them. And don't get me started on Tobi, the game master for the largest of these death courses...
* In ''[[Star Wars]]: [[The Force Unleashed]]'', the Death Star level consists of a series of Laser Hallways ''on steroids''
* Jack Vambrace, Treasure Hunter, is first introduced to the party in ''[[Wild
* ''[[N]]'' in all its incarnations is just a ninja [[Le Parkour
* Games with level editors can allow players to make Death Courses. Such as a [[Mega Man Powered Up]] level where the floor and every platform are made from [[Spikes of Doom]], or a [[Halo|Halo3]] multiplayer map where all the teleporters and spawn points are placed outside the map's border.
* The world of ''[[Jumper (
* Forgotten FPS/RPG ''[[Strife]]'' features the Training Facility.
* ''[[Fun Orb]]'' has "Tomb Racer", a
* About halfway through [[
* [[Orcs Must Die]] runs on you creating these, [[Smashing Hallway Traps of Doom|pushing, crushing, smashing]] piercing, slicing, [[Kill It
* The ''Nuka-World'' DLC for ''[[Fallout 4]]'' has one that is literally called “[[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|The Gauntlet]]”, a death course that anyone entering the park much go through. This course has turrets, mines, hostile creatures, and even an “impossible” boss fight at the end, all for the entertainment of the raiders who occupy the park.
* Kind of subverted by good old ''[[8-Bit Theater
▲* Kind of subverted by good old ''[[8-Bit Theater (Webcomic)|Eight Bit Theater]]'': To become the bearded warriors and therefore told the earth orbs location the light warriors are supposed to go through the [http://www.nuklearpower.com/daily.php?date=031202 four hundred bearded trials of strength] which black mage solves (almost) single-handedly by [[Dungeon Bypass|hadokening the whole course]].
* In ''Reality Experiment'', one of the main characters has to run a death course to return to life after being killed. The price of failure is eternal torment. However, after being asked by the Grim Reaper('s assistant) to try to avoid the grinding gears at the beginning, since it jams the whole course and takes forever to clear up, the character throws the Grim Reaper into the gears to jam the whole course and run back to life.
* Most of Castle Heterodyne in ''[[Girl Genius]]'' has turned into one of these by the time Agatha enters it.
** Then again, it was originally one of these ''by design''; it was also alive, and since it was damaged, has gotten crazier.
* In ''[[
* ''[[Darths and Droids]]'', Pete puts the party through the factory sequence from Attack of the Clones while subbing for the regular GM, all because of something that Jim and the others did in a previous RP. They eventually make it through by SHEER LUCK, as revealed in a review by the original GM, who remarks "Wow...I don't see how anyone could make it through this..."
** This becomes a [[Hoist
== Web Original ==
* The ''[[Global Guardians PBEM Universe]]'' villain Minos is obsessed with ancient Greece. His headquarters is ''always'' hidden at the center of a maze-like
== Western Animation ==
* ''[[Kim Possible]]'' has faced many, notably an ancient monkey temple in Cambodia in the episode "Monkey Fist Strikes".
* The ''Raiders'' deathcourse is parodied at the beginning of ''[[The Simpsons]]'' episode "Milhouse Falls in Love."
* In ''[[The Spectacular Spider
* In a episode of ''[[Mucha Lucha]]'', Rikochet ends up taking on soccer, and is doing a rather... challenging drill. As exemplified by his coach: "You must run the course like your life depends on it! Because, a matter of fact... it does!"
* In ''[[Danny Phantom]]'', Fright Knight's entire ''castle'' is a
* The ''[[Thundercats
** The ''[[Thundercats 2011
* In the direct to video sequel ''[[An American Tail]]: The Treasure of Manhattan Island'', Fievel and his friends pass through a
* [[Adventure Time
* In the ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
▲== Web Original ==
▲* The ''[[Global Guardians PBEM Universe]]'' villain Minos is obsessed with ancient Greece. His headquarters is ''always'' hidden at the center of a maze-like [[Death Course]].
== Real Life ==
* Castles, trench lines and other fortifications are typically designed to be a death course, at least for the attacking army. [[Storming the Castle|Storming a properly built fortification]] using a direct assault in practically any time period is an absolute suicide
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Action Adventure Tropes]]
[[Category:Video Game Difficulty Tropes]]
[[Category:This Index Is in The Way]]
▲[[Category:index]]
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