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Endless Game: Difference between revisions
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== [[Beat'Em Up]] ==
* ''[[Kung Fu Master]]'' for the arcade and NES ends the fifth level with Thomas and Sylvia reunited, only to be told that "their happiness does not continue long," implying that Sylvia just gets kidnapped again. The game then restarts.
* While the arcade version of ''Renegade'' plays this straight, the NES version averts it. Oddly enough, the arcade version actually has something resembling an ending, with Mr. K reuniting with his girlfriend after the fourth stage, while the NES version simply skips to the end credits (the Japanese version of both games had endings).
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== [[Edutainment Game]] ==
* ''[[Word Munchers]]'', ''[[Number Munchers]]''. and ''[[Fraction Munchers]]''. On Level 19, the troggles move faster. Nobody has lasted long enough to see if the same thing happens on Level 37.
** Legend goes that people have lasted past level 100.
== [[Fighting Game]] ==
* [[Multi Mook Melee|Endless Melee/Brawl]] from ''[[Super Smash Bros.]].''
** Same with Cruel Melee/Brawl, [[Nintendo Hard|in freakin Spades!]]
* ''[[Yie Ar Kung-Fu]]'' repeats its ten stages endlessly, with no discernible shift in difficulty unless player fatigue counts.
* Survival Mode in the ''[[Tekken]]'' games. Each time you win a fight, you gain a little bit of your health back and move on to the next round, which is a little bit harder than the last. Lather, rinse, repeat, until you are inevitably defeated.
** By extension, most fighters include a Survival Mode.
* [[Soul Calibur]] 2's Conquest Mode in the arcade version. You pick one of four armies, you help them conquer the world, 8 rounds at a time. Once all the enemies are out of the way, the world is yours! And then what happens? [[Vicious Cycle|A civil war breaks out and splits the victorious army into four factions!]] [[Foregone Conclusion|Always.]]
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== [[Puzzle Game]] ==
* ''[[Dr. Mario]]''. Depending, of course, on the mode.
* ''[[Pipe Dream]]''. Although, sometimes a level would be impossible to win, because the start was surrounded by blocks.
* ''[[Tetris]]'' (certain modes).
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== [[Shoot Em Ups]] ==
* A great many vertical scrolling [[Shoot'Em Up|Shoot Em Ups]] do this, including ''[[Tiger Heli]]'', ''[[Truxton]]'', ''[[Terra Cresta]]'', ''[[Fire Shark]]'' etc.
** Even moreso if you count shooters that loop back to the first stage with increased difficulty, such as the ''[[Gradius]]'' series.
* The arcade version of ''[[Commando (film)|Commando]]'', while having more unique levels than the NES version, infinitely repeats after level eight, while the NES version, with only 4 unique stages, ends after the fourth loop, with a [[Blind Idiot Translation]] [[A Winner Is You]] screen.
* ''[[Crystal Quest]]'' theoretically has an ending after level 256, at which point it asks for your name and then sends you back to wave 1 with no points. However, the game is so [[Nintendo Hard]] that ''no one has actually beaten the original game''.
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** 201-300 are the same as 1-100 but with a small but noticeable speed increase. 301-400 are the same as 201-300 but flipped horizontally, 401-500 is a bit faster again, and so on and so forth forever. The games at the top of the highscore list have levels in the thousands [[Pinball Scoring|and scores in the tens of billions]]. Nobody has gotten anywhere near to 10000 levels, though, so it's unknown what happens when the 4-digit level counter breaks.
* The NES version of ''[[Legendary Wings]]'' loops back to the first level with a higher difficulty on completion, but the arcade version displays the standard [[Game Over]] screen after the [[A Winner Is You|ending text]].
* Survival Mode in ''[[Heavy Weapon]]'' is like this. The PC version's survival mode ends when you lose a life, while the [[Xbox 360]] remake gives you three lives.
** The remake also has multiplayer modes Arms Race and War Party, the first of which gives each player three lives, while War Party gives you infinite lives and a respawn timer- the game ends when there are no surviving players on the screen.
* ''[[Bosconian]]''
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*** However, experimental mode is endless, but also has no objective.
** The lack of win conditions in ''[[Sim City]]'' is why Will Wright referred to the program as a "software toy" rather than as a "game". But there is "scenario" mode, in which the player is provided with a city that has a problem, and a time limit after which the city is either fits the "win" condition for the scenario or not.
*** Realistically there was a period of 5ish years where all the various Sim games (and there were an unbelievable amount) had win conditions. Games before and after were all sandboxes though.
**** In ''[[Sim City 2000]]'' at least, accomplishing the "win condition" only mean that you don't get thrown out of office and can continue playing indefintely. You don't even get [[A Winner Is You]].
** In ''[[Sim Earth]]'', getting your intelligent species to achieve Exodus (all the world's cities take off in giant city-spaceships, returning your planet to the Evolution phase) counts as a "win", although you can still keep playing and try to raise another species through the Evolution, Civilization, Technology and Exodus stages.
*** Eventually though, the sun will expand into a red giant and then you're really done.
** ''[[Sim Farm]]'' also had a win condition, though you could continue to play afterward.
** ''[[Sim Isle]]'' had numerous victory conditions, even in the sandbox maps, though figuring out how to achieve them was a headache.
** ''[[The Sims]]: Bustin' Out'' (at least the GBA version) actually had an ending sequence if you completed all the missions the game gave you.
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* ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'': Most editions of the game allow the characters to continue playing, if not endlessly at least far longer than any group could ever hope to maintain. In 3rd edition, the rules scaled infinitely (though balance becomes an issue, combats take longer, and adventures are harder and harder to prepare so in practice most DM's draw the game to a close and start over.) The point of the game is the experience and working your way through a shared adventure.
** While all editions encouraged a beginning, middle, and end to their games, 4th edition is the first to avert this within the game mechanics. When the characters reach 30th level, they achieve their "Epic Destiny." This could be anything from ascending to minor god status, to fading into the shadows becoming a mover and shaker unseen. But the point is you won, you pick up a new sheet and start again.
*** The Dragonlance campaign averted this earlier, with only a few exceptional characters in Krynn above level 18, and none above level 20.
*** The old "colored box" games also had a definitive ending -- characters who become immortal, rise to become rulers of the universe, give it up to become mortal again, become immortal ''again'' and rise to become rulers of the universe ''again'' are recruited into the [[Eldritch Abomination|Old Ones]]. Um, yay?
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