Non Sequitur Scene/Video Games/Interactive Fiction: Difference between revisions

* Even [[Interactive Fiction]] can have these. The opening sequence of [[Infocom]]'s classic ''[[Planetfall (Video Game)|Planetfall]]'' has the player character forced to scrub the deck in a spaceship corridor. A few turns later, along comes an alien ambassador from the planet Blow'K Bibben Gordo who drips slime all over the deck, and hangs around making a few irrelevant comments. The alien ambassador neither helps nor hinders the protagonist, and leaves just as suddenly as he arrived a few turns later. He is never seen or heard from again (and in case you're wondering, the deck scrubbing isn't important. It's just to give the PC something to do before it's time to rush to the escape pod and begin the real adventure).

** It's a puzzle. Most games start expecting you to DO something, like exploration or combat. Here, those things get you tossed in the brig, making it impossible to get to the escape pod when the time comes. The correct thing to do here is the one thing you can't normally do in interactive fiction - keep your head down and wait for the plot to proceed on its own.

* Infocom's ''[[Wishbringer]]'' also has this, in the form of a small mailbox that comes to life and follows the player around, and a large mailbox that threatens the player. Neither mailbox is relevant to the storyline or puzzles, and if they happen to meet each other, they have this bizarre over-the-top fight where both expand to giant size while a crowd of postal meters gathers to see it. Then, all of them are obscured in a puff of smoke, and when the smoke clears, the mailboxes and the weird spectators are gone. The player is left to just go on as if this really crazy scene never happened.

* ''[[Colossal Cave Adventure]]'' itself was given a few of these. In 1979, David Platt wrote an extended version of ''Adventure'' with several Big Lipped Alligator Moments, which he called "cameos". These included the player meeting Rover from [[The Prisoner]], the robot from [[Lost in Space]], and a cyclops in a worsted three-piece suit who thinks you are a hallucination brought on by the "leafy green substance" he has been smoking.