No Fair Cheating/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: A game contains measures to punish or discourage cheating.

  • Straight: You use a cheat code, and you cannot get achievements. Some secrets become unobtainable, too.
  • Exaggerated: You use a cheat code, and the game permanently breaks itself.
  • Downplayed: You use a cheat code, and the main character chews you out.
  • Justified: The game was programmed in such a way that it can't handle cheating devices; alternatively, all rules are known and all moves are made openly between two human players, rendering all cheating obvious.
  • Inverted: The game encourages you to cheat at multiple points.
  • Subverted: The main character starts to harangue you for cheating, but then concedes, "well, that's the kind of guy I am" as he rewrites his hp total.
  • Double Subverted: The main character starts to get angry, and then shrugs and rewrites his hp total...and then your save file gets deleted.
  • Parodied: It's literally impossible to beat the game without using a minor cheat code. However the cheat code is written on the wall with its effects by a Locked Door that requires using it to destroy it. The hero's love interest chews him out for cheating despite hero's protests that it was literally impossible otherwise but the love interest never lets him live it down.
  • Deconstructed: Cheating is punished because God Is Evil and wants everyone to suffer and toil unnecessarily.
  • Reconstructed: Cheating is punished because it's really bad for the fabric of reality in game, doing so multiple times leads to an epic Mind Screw as reality caves in on itself in a Nonstandard Game Over.
  • Zig Zagged: The game encourages you to use cheat codes at multiple points and then punishes you for doing so. However, you can use an Action Replay to lift the punishments, which the main character will snark about if you are detected.
  • Averted: The player can use cheats without penalty.
    • There are no cheats.
  • Enforced: "We feel that cheating ruins one's gaming experience, so we're not going to put up with that sort of thing in our game."
  • Lampshaded: "Oh, would you look at that. All my weapons are gone. Well, I guess that's what happens when people cheat, isn't it?"
  • Invoked: The game includes a Cosmetic Award for setting off the penalty.
  • Defied: The main character warns you that the game has an anti-cheating system... and then provides you a better cheat code to get around it.
  • Discussed: "Incidentally, people who use attempt to use cheat codes to bypass this section shouldn't be surprised if the exit has been sealed."
  • Conversed: "Dammit! Why include cheat codes if you're just going to punish me for using them?"

[1]

  1. ↑ Use the " Main" button, you bastard!
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