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Everything Trying to Kill You: Difference between revisions
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Video games struggling for creativity will invent unlikely obstacles.
If a level in a [[Platformer]] takes place in a mountain, it's unrealistic you'd run into sequential [[Lava Pit|lava pits]], but there's a logic in that you want to avoid the obvious, skin-boiling danger (though you'll be okay if you just [[Convection, Schmonvection|don't touch it]]). But in some games, you can be injured by the strangest things. Stumbling onto a flying ''soccer ball'' hurts just as much as being run over by a car. All manner of inanimate objects seem primed and ready to hurt you, especially if the setting doesn't allow for more extravagant opponents. In some cases, just to really hammer the point home that the game's creators are [[Killer Game Master|true bastards]], your character will be a [[One-Hit-Point Wonder]], and the slightest injury will make you [[Ludicrous Gibs|explode into a fountain of blood]].
You can usually blame [[Collision Damage]] for this.
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Some games that normally avoid this will design a deliberately ludicrous yet highly dangerous enemy/obstacle for [[Rule of Funny|comedic value]]. A [[Platform Hell]] game will often take this trope to ludicrous places for comedy. See also [[Malevolent Architecture]] and [[Death World]].
Compare: [[Animals Hate Him]]; [[Super
{{examples}}
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* Several games in ''[[The Legend of Zelda (Franchise)|The Legend of Zelda]]'' series contain rooms where the floor tiles will ''fly up to attack you''. ''[[The Legend of Zelda Links Awakening (Video Game)|The Legend of Zelda Links Awakening]]'' takes this to a whole new level, where one boss IS the floor of the room you just walked in.
** There's also a pottery version of the homicidal floor tiles.
** The door traps in the Fire Temple (from ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Video Game)|The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time]]'') that crush you when you try to open one of them.
* ''[[Ganbare Goemon (Video Game)|Legend of the Mystical Ninja]]'', in addition to having ordinary citizens of peaceful, feudal Japanese towns trying to kill you, has a particularly mean enemy: deer. The deer deal out a ridiculous amount of damage, they bound around very quickly and haphazardly so they're difficult to dodge, and worst of all, ''you lose health if you hurt them''. [[Video Game Cruelty Punishment|Because you're beating up on deer, you jerk]].
* The ''[[Castlevania]]'' series loves this trope. Sure, you're going up against Dracula so monsters like skeletons and zombies are obvious. The (empty) coffins in ''[[Super Castlevania IV (Video Game)|Super Castlevania IV]]'' fit with the theme, though common sense doesn't explain why they would be so aggressive. But armadillos, frogs, toads, birds, bats, snakes, plants, [[Lethal Chef|chefs]], [[Battle Butler|butlers]], [[Ninja Maid|maids]] and sometimes [[Brainwashed|previous teammates]] all want you dead. Most of Dracula's [[Offstage Villainy|villainy is informed/off screen]], so it makes you wonder if the Belmonts and company are [[Alternative Character Interpretation|actually just colossal jerks who no one likes]].
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** 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.
** Not all that many games make players try to kill off their characters in every possible way, even fewer have them enjoy it. The latter include the farcical ''[[Space Quest]]'' and ''[[Leisure Suit Larry]]'' series, where even the narrator is basically a [[Deadpan Snarker]]. [http://tmd.alienharmony.com/rw/index.htm A fan website] has cataloged 67 distinct ways to die in ''Space Quest V'' alone. In ''Space Quest III'', trying to pick up a simple piece of metal scrap one room away from the start of the game would result in Roger cutting himself, severing an artery, and dying of blood loss within seconds. Total play time to first death in that situation? About 20 seconds.
** Even the slot machine can kill you. Get three skull-n-crossbones, and it turns you into dust with its built-in [[Disintegrator Ray]]. The slot machine ''is'' named "Slots O' Death"... you could rig the machine in the remake to beat it quickly, but in the original, [[Luck
*** The game even ''warns'' you by showing a little robot with a broom picking up the dust pile of the ''last'' loser and ditching it out the back of the bar. If you go behind the bar, there's a huge dust pile of all the people who lost recently.
** In one area of ''Space Quest II'' the more observant player could notice a square of outlined grass in the terrain. If you attempted the command "look at trap" the narrator would promptly berate you for your overly suspicious approach to the game. The noted area was, of course, a pit complete with spikes.
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** Incidentally, at one point the only way to survive a certain jump is to [[Soft Water|land in a pool of water]]. Making it one of the rare games where the [[Super Drowning Skills|water DOESN'T kill you]] (particularly odd given that that would have been one of the deaths that made sense in real life if it had killed you).
** The [[Fan Sequel|Fan Sequels]] are just as ridiculous. The [[Final Boss]] of ''[[I Wanna Be the Fangame]]'' is {{spoiler|1=the StickyKeys dialog box}}.
* Nearly everything in the [[The Problem With Licensed Games|video game movie]] ''[[Warlock]]'' could harm you, including water dripping from the ceiling and ''otherwise harmless birds if they fly into you''. Even worse, there's one stationary hazard, a thorn vine trap, that will damage you ''even if you cheated and used a [[Game Shark|Game Genie]] to give your character unlimited life and/or gave you unlimited [[Mercy Invincibility]]''. Then again, you could also be killed with those cheats on through [[Super Drowning Skills]] and [[Convection, Schmonvection|staying immersed in lava]].
* ''Jumping Flash''. Killer mosquitoes, dragonflies, strange creatures with cannons for mouths that launch missiles, a diversity of frogs, giant mechanical scorpions... just about the only thing in the game that isn't trying to kill you are [[Space Whale|the air whales]].
* ''Jumping Flash 2'' has a reverse of this trope in both regular and Extra world 6-1, where you can actually safely stand on one of the many rotating spike balls in the level.
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*** And the Greater Mimic, which can imitate larger objects, like a ''room''. The Lurker, Trapper, and Stunjelly in one.
*** ''And'' the great and mighty House Hunter Mimic, which is a house that reproduces by budding, with its offspring being sheds, outhouses, and of course, [http://www.dreadgazebo.com/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=8 Dread Gazeboes].
** Later editions seem to have moved away from this trope, but most of the old monsters have become icons of the game, and continue to be reprinted from one edition to the next. Furthermore, in Third Edition ''D&D'', there are rules for animated objects as monsters, allowing for dungeon masters to easily turn anything within line-of-sight into something that will try to kill you. Furthermore, players noted [[Cats Are Mean|housecats]] could easily kill a 1st level [[Non
** The latest edition has made a decidedly strong return to this trope. While 4th edition removes nearly every outstanding environmental hazard from the previous editions (Hell no longer tries to kill you just from you being in the environment for example), now, quite literally, ''every single creature you meet may attempt to destroy you''. There's no such thing as a truly "Good-aligned" creature anymore, (or there is, but alignment in 4th doesn't actually mean much of anything): angels, devils, humanoids, dragons (all shapes, sizes and colors), living, unliving, [[Killer Rabbit|fluffy bunnies]], [[Happy Fun Ball|very small rocks]], literally anything that can have stats can, and most likely ''wants'' to, murder you.
** [[The Spoony One]] tells of a D&D adventure in a world based on [[Alice in Wonderland]] - where ''everything'' and everyone tries to kill you almost instantly, from the Cheshire Cat to the Caterpillar. Hell, even the ''[[Killer Rabbit|Dormouse]]'' is a [[Crazy Awesome|20th level ninja monk]]
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* Emus are basically really big ''[[Feathered Fiend|Velociraptor]]'' with a beak. Be glad that you do not meet their dietary needs. Cassowaries, too. They were actually used as the models for the ''Velociraptor'' in [[Jurassic Park]].
** Adding to the horror - a Cassowary is basically an emu with warpaint and an axe attached to its head.
* If you think that's bad, Australia was even more of a [[Death World]] back in the Pleistocene, when humans first arrived. Carnivorous buzz-saw toothed kangaroos? Check. Monitor-lizards the size of a city bus? Check. Climbing warm-blooded saw-toothed crocodiles? Check. Gigantic killer pseudo-python? Check. Marsupial lion with sickle thumbs? Check. [[Morally
* [http://www.cracked.com/article_16868_6-deadliest-creatures-that-can-fit-in-your-shoe.html This Cracked article] feels appropriate. No, it isn't all in Australia, but half of it is.
** [http://www.cracked.com/funny-163-australia/ Another Oz-related Cracked article.]
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[[Category:Truth in Television]]
[[Category:Everything Trying To Kill You]]
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