Everything Trying to Kill You: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

[[File:charliebrown and kite.jpg|link=Peanuts|frame|Tonight on "You're Gonna Get It, Charlie Brown"...]]

 

{{quote|"''Did I just die by walking into the fucking ''door!?'' Yeah! Everything kills you, literally ''everything''.''"|'''[[The Angry Video Game Nerd]]''' on ''[[Dragon's Lair]]'' ([[NES]])}}

 

{{examples}}

* Most of ''[[Ecco the Dolphin]]'''s foes are logical for a dolphin - sharks and jellyfish for the most part. The angry crabs and giant water spiders are a bit weird, but the [[Prehistoria]] levels take it to the extreme with ''trilobites'' and giant seahorses who ''shoot their young at you''.

* Enemies in ''[[Legacy of Kain]]: Soul Reaver 2'' had the rather alarming tendency to forget who they were fighting and come after you. This is even worse when demons and demon hunters become best of friends for the amount of time it takes to kill your character.

 

 

* ''[[Paperboy]]'' is infamous for having everything from runaway lawnmowers to breakdancers to [[The Grim Reaper|the Grim friggin' Reaper]] running around the middle of the street for no discernible reason other than to mess with the eponymous deliverer.

** That's probably why his exploits made the front page of the newspaper every day. In fact, [[Epileptic Trees|one theory that's been floated]] is that the eponymous delivery person is, in fact, ''dead'', and the delivery route is his [[Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory|personal purgatory]]. Only by delivering the paper and surviving every day for a week is he able to escape.

 

 

* Sierra celebrated the way of character death, embraced it, became one with it. Many Sierra [[Adventure Game|adventure games]] would [[Trial and Error Gameplay|kill for making one seemingly innocuous false step]], and then [[Have a Nice Death|mock you for getting yourself killed]]. It became slowly more forgiving with time, replacing [[Unwinnable]] situations with instadeaths (which is a good thing, kind of) and eventually granting an "Oops" button or two.

** Take the second ''[[Laura Bow]]'' game. It would kill the title character by means of an automobile that appeared out of nowhere if she stepped off the pavement onto a seemingly empty road. You were apparently supposed to look at the road first to confirm that no cars were approaching, but the same would happen even if you did that and the game told you it was all clear. (It expected you to look ''both ways'' before crossing the road. Just looking once wasn't enough, in one of Sierra's more... pedantic puzzles. Luckily, you can get everywhere by taxi, and just skip the stupidity.) Another scene would kill you if you wandered into a dark passage without a light. Somehow, a woman in her early twenties would be swarmed and ''overpowered'' by quite ordinary ''bats''—unless she had a light to scare them with.

 

 

* ''[[Mario Kart]]'' can be accused of this if you are in first place. Between everyone behind you out to [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard|spill your blood by spamming powerful items at you]], several that can't be blocked, and trying to dodge track obstacles like pipes, thwomps, or fireballs, this is a game that wants to make sure you don't have it easy.

** [http://www.rockpapercynic.com/index.php?date=2009-06-01 One shell, two shell, red shell, blue shell, death-on-swift-wings-comes-for-you shell.]

 

 

* While not exactly ''everything'' trying to kill you, all of the killable characters in the PC game ''Vivisector: Beast Inside''—whether they're humans or [[Half-Human Hybrid|Half Human Hybrids]]—attack you the moment you first load up the game, even after you switch from the former's side to the latter. There's an attempt at [[Hand Wave|handwaving]], dealing with some flimsy excuse of the humans not authorizing your presence in the game's setting and the hybrids being programmed to see humans as the enemy, but really, it's just an attempt to bring in [[Fake Difficulty]] to the game.

** Similarly, ''[[Shadow the Hedgehog]]'' has both good and evil enemies, and they'll all attack Shadow regardless of his [[Karma Meter]] (except when they're busy fighting each other!)

 

 

* The 80's light gun arcade game ''Who Dunit'' requires you to not only guide a detective through a mansion, but protect him from things like pimps throwing their hats at him, and beach balls bouncing all over the place. Because anything that touches him will instantly skeletonize him, his soul drifting away. Yes, even the ''beach balls''.

** Another Exidy light gun game, ''Crossbow'', is pretty bad about this one as well; the [[Heroic Fantasy]] warriors you're defending will go up in flames if anything touches them, even if the implement of their destruction was ''a coconut thrown by a monkey''. But hey, it beats getting turned into a skeleton by a beach ball.

 

 

* Pretty much every object in the games on the ''[[Action 52]]'' multicart is trying to kill you. Elton John kills you (Non Human). Money kills you (Streemerz). File cabinets kill you (French Baker). The floor kills you (Meong). Pasta kills you (Alfredo, only playable via some emulators). Bowling balls kill you (Hambo) Dildos kill you (Thrusters). You'll wish that the game would self destruct and kill you in real life.

** ''Star Evil'' is pure evil with the way it puts your ship two inches from a cinderblock at the start. And the stage boss moves like a DUI driver (according to mpn1990's Unlicensed Garbage show on [[YouTube]]).

 

 

* ''[[Kingdom of Loathing]]'' has its fair share of unlikely enemies, including hippies, [[McNinja|ninja snowmen]], animated nightstands, anime smileys, fire-breathing ducks, pastiches of characters from ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]'', and the Guy Made of Bees. Then there's the many twists on standard RPG enemies, like Orcish frat boys, apathetic lizardmen, misspelled undead (including zmobies, lihcs, and ghuols), and the 99 Bottles of Beer On A Golem. There's also an area (accessible only while high on [[Mushroom Samba|astral mushrooms]]) where you can fight things like [http://kol.coldfront.net/thekolwiki/index.php/Really_Interesting_Wallpaper some really interesting wallpaper] and [http://kol.coldfront.net/thekolwiki/index.php/Urge_to_Stare_at_Your_Hands the urge to stare at your hands]. Really.

** "Crimbo" 2010 introduced exciting new enemies, such as the Tedious Spreadsheet, the Hideous Slideshow and the Water Cooler. Oh yes, and there were elves climbing out of the toilets, too.

 

 

* ''[[Metroid]]''. You're stuck on a planet where if it is moving it will try to kill you. Even some of the plants will do damage to you in the original ''[[Metroid Prime]]''.

** In ''[[Metroid Prime]]'', most of the plants stay still. (The rare Bloodflower, which spits stuff at you, is an exception.) In ''Super [[Metroid]]'', they actually ''try to eat you if you fall into them''. And some have extending claws that try to grab you.

 

 

* In ''Perimeter'', the nature of psychospheres means that the reality itself is trying to kill you. Psychospheres react to human presence, and forming human fears into reality...and those things then attack humans. Earth was going to be destroyed and humans want to survive, so they need to travel through psychosperes to a new world. The only way to reduce Scourge threats are to keep mental activity in the Frames at minimum, achievable by ''personality elimination''.

* ''[[Outpost 2]]'' could be like this at times. Earthquakes? Check. Volcanoes? Check. Lightning storms? Check. Tornadoes? Check. Meteors? Check. Nuclear reactors that explode if left unattended? Check. All-consuming microbes released by science [[Gone Horribly Wrong]] trying to terraform the entire planet [[Grey Goo|and you along with it]]? Check. And all this is before factoring in the other players...

 

 

* ''[[Nethack]]'' and many other Roguelikes. Virtually anything in Nethack, animate or not, can either kill you outright or lead to your grisly death. Sinks and fountains can spew [[Goddamned Bats]], some magic items can strangle you when equipped, you can fall into a poison-spike pit with no warning, old food can rot and give you food poisoning, etc. Also, all the initially peaceful [[NPC]]s can become hostile.

** Alphaman has various typically-tame woodland critters as enemies and children's cartoon characters as major bosses. (Gumby will kick your ass.)

 

 

* In ''[[Drakkhen]]'', an old Amiga game, sometimes the ''stars'' would randomly turn into crazy monsters which would fly down and kill you very quickly.

* In the original ''[[Neverwinter Nights]]'', the way the faction system was set up some modules created with the toolset would have everything in an area turn hostile as soon as you attack one thing.

* While trekking across the desert in ''[[Secret of Evermore]]'', the player will be actively pursued by ''tumbleweeds'' trying to do him harm.

 

* The ''very premise'' of obscure NES shooter ''[[Gun Nac]]'' is that normally docile animals and even inanimate objects mysteriously come alive and start attacking... everything! Of course, it's up to our hero to find the cause of this madness.

* ''[[Geometry Wars]]'' is pretty much this trope, to the point where the only things NOT trying to kill you are the walls, and (ironically enough) the mines left by the spiked mine-layers. Which ''do'' kill you if you make contact with them.

 

 

* ''720 Degrees'': Police on scooters, bodybuilders, lugers, breakdancers, frisbee throwers, recumbent bikers, cars, other skateboarders, and rollerblading skeletons are all out to slow you down and inhibit your escape from the killer bees that [[Stalked by the Bell|appear when the timer runs out]].

 

 

* In ''[[Silent Hill 1]]'', Harry must get a dagger off the door of a fridge. Simple, right? Not quite. If you don't use an item called "Ring of Contract" on the door and try to walk away from the fridge, a cutscene kicks in, which shows a ''huge tentacle that grabs onto Harry's leg and drags him off into the abyss''.

* The SNES horror game ''[[Clock Tower (series)|Clock Tower]]''. If you look in the mirror in the bedroom your reflection might suddenly reach out ''and strangle you''.

 

 

* ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' was all over this trope like [[Exclusively Evil|chaotic evil]] jam on toast that hungers for your brains. The old [http://www.headinjurytheater.com/article73.htm Monster] [http://www.headinjurytheater.com/article95.htm Manuals] are full of seemingly innocuous objects that are actually monsters waiting to eat you. Examples include the Roper (a stalagmite that sprouts a mouth and tentacles), the Piercer (a stalactite that falls on you in an attempt to stab you), the Cloaker (looks like an old cloak but is actually a levitating manta-ray-like thing), along with its undead equivalent the Sheet Ghoul, the Mimic (can look like ''any'' innocuous object but canonically resembles a treasure chest), the Green Slime (an corrosive amoeboid mass that looks like typical dungeon muck), the Crystal Ooze (a corrosive amoeboid blob that lurks invisibly in pools of water), the [[Cute but Cacophonic|Shrieker]] (a giant mushroom that screams when you approach it; it isn't trying to kill you but the curious monsters investigating the screaming might), the Bowler (sentient mobile boulder) the Galeb Duhr (sentient spellcasting boulder with legs), not to mention the ''three different monsters'' (Caryatid Column, Gargoyle, and Stone Golem) that can all be summed up as "stone statue that comes to life and tries to kill you."

** And let's not forget the [[Malevolent Architecture|Doomy Room]] [[Doomy Dooms of Doom|Of Doom]]: the Lurker (looks like a cave ceiling), the Trapper (looks like a cave ''floor''), the Stunjelly (looks like the wall), and the Gelatinous Cube (perfectly square transparent [[The Blob|ooze]], so '''the space inside the room''' can kill you!)'

 

 

* The ''[[Crusader: No Remorse|Crusader]]'' games, being set in a [[Dystopia|dystopic future]] run by a [[Mega Corp]] so obsessed with profit their attitude towards [[Bad Boss|things like worker safety]] makes China's human rights record look like they give dissenters pats on the backs for being good chaps, has a some less ridiculous variants of this. However, as the game progresses, the nearly-invisible traps, sensors, and hidden weapons of moderate destruction get so cramped you'll be surprised they have room for their [[Science Is Bad|immoral experiments]]. And then there's the vending machines that randomly dispense grenades instead of soda.

** It's not uncommon in certain parts of the game for random scientists to walk into a trap and blow themselves up the moment you enter the screen, often before they could even possibly be aware of your existence.

 

 

* ''Bible Adventures'' has 3 separate games but each with their own assassins.

** In ''Noah's Ark'', rocks appear randomly and the some animals you have to pick up, tries to fight back until you manage to lift them over your head.

 

 

* In ''Kagetsu Tohya'', the sort-of sequel to ''[[Tsukihime]]'', you can get eaten by ''a magical leopard that springs out of Arcueid's underwear drawer and [[Refuge in Audacity|lectures you]]''. Even Shiki is baffled and unbelieving of this one. There are random bizarre deaths like this strewn all over.

 

 

* Due to a glitch in ''[[Grand Theft Auto Vice City]]'', Tommy would sometimes take damage by walking off an ordinary street curb- apparently the mechanism that causes him to be damaged by falls sometimes misjudges the height of the curb, triggering a hit. Fans called this "stubbed toe damage". Getting a steroid power up causes a sort of [[Bullet Time]] that enhances Tommy's speed, dramatically increasing the damage this causes, meaning Tommy can ''get killed by running over a street curb''.

** Similarly, there's a couple of cheats for ''[[Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas]]'' where C.J. can jump really, really high, but the cheat does nothing for his ability to land. So basically you can jump two stories, but unless there's something a story high for you to land on, you're going to take damage when you land. Further, the cheat is only useful ''at all'' in the suburban areas or country towns. out in the country or parks, there's nothing to land on but the ground. In the city, everything's too high. So you can't jump on anything ''and'' you hurt when you land.

 

 

* In the faux-videogame [[Web Comic]] ''[[Kid Radd]]'', the eponymous hero sprite is damaged by apples and bazookas (and by touching [[The Goomba|Bogey]]). And he's damaged ''the same amount'' by each one. This is ''a major plot point''.

* Parodied (of course) in ''[[Adventurers!]]!''. The party encounters an [http://adventurers.keenspot.com/d/0080.html Inanimate Chair] and somehow can't run away from it. An [http://adventurers.keenspot.com/d/0343.html encounter] with [[Dancing Pants|evil pants]] is [http://adventurers.keenspot.com/d/0344.html immediately followed] by one with a [[Rock Me, Asmodeus|demonic boombox]]. As Ardam says when [http://adventurers.keenspot.com/d/20030113.html facing down a killer coffin], "It really says something about our lives that this doesn't seem at all weird."

* ''Is It Canon?'' considers "[http://isitcanon.com/index.php?date=2016-04-07 The only sane way to play RPGs where everything's trying to kill you]"

 

* ''[[Felarya]]''. A land mostly inhabited by [[Cute Monster Girl]]s who tend to see human visitors as tasty snacks. Apart from giant sentient predators, said visitors may also be devoured by animals, carnivorous plants, or even gaping mouths in the ground. Or shredded by sharp leaves falling from a tree. Or... The possibilities are many.

* The [[Binder of Shame]] describes Psycho Dave's gameworld thus:

{{quote|And for the record the most dark and brutal game world I had ever seen was a D&D campaign that Psycho Dave had run many years ago. For this game he had created a hybrid damage system that combined the standard D&D hit point system with the Arduin Grimoire critical hit chart and the infamous Rolemaster critical damage tables. And he used this table for any kind of injury whatsoever for players and NPCs alike. In doing so he created a desolate, blood soaked ruin of a world where carpenters died from complications of bruising their thumbs, people picking at hangnails had their flesh suddenly fall away from their bones in wet red strips and mothers in childbirth frequently detonated.}}

 

 

* The original ''[[My Little Pony]]'' series was filled with [[Vile Villain Saccharine Show|vile villains]], misplaced magical artifacts, and deadly wildlife.

* ''[[Futurama]]'' loves this trope, what with being set in a [[Crap Saccharine World|Crapsaccharine]] future and all. "Ghost in the Machines" takes this to the logical extreme, with Bender possessing nearly every appliance that Fry interacts with.

{{quote|'''Fry:''' I was attacked in my bathroom, ''by'' my bathroom! }}

 

 

* Yes, [[Australia (country)|Australia]] has so much dangerous stuff we had to give it its own section. This quote is quite typical of most people's opinions on the place.

{{quote|"Every creature [in Australia] is bigger and angrier than anywhere else in the world. ...[[Insane Troll Logic|spiders and snakes and the like normally hide under rocks. The Earth is one big rock, Australia is at the bottom of the big rock, and so they're trying to hide under it.]]"

 

 

* One could argue that [[Real Life]] ''itself'' is ''loaded'' with this: wild animals, natural disasters, disasters from space, wars...And let's not get into the [[The Same but More|megadisasters]] on Earth: supervolcanoes, supertornadoes, megatsunamis, [[wikipedia:Hypercane|hypercanes]], ''giant asteroids''...[[The Long List|the list just goes on and on and on...]]

* Column writer Robert Brockway has written a book titled "[http://www.amazon.com/Everything-Going-Kill-Everybody-Terrifyingly/dp/0307464342/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1249601995&sr=8-1 Everything Is Going to Kill Everybody: The Terrifyingly Real Ways the World Wants You Dead]"