Endless Game: Difference between revisions

Note that this trope applies to most [[The Golden Age of Video Games|golden age]] arcade games because of the need for the game to be over in order for other people to play. However, specific examples follow:

{{examples}}

* ''[[Critical Mass 1995 (video game)|Critical Mass]]''. The four factions are locked in an unwinnable war, so your character keeps doing missions until he is killed.

 

* ''[[Bubble Trouble]]'', a 1990s game for the Mac. If you pass level 50, it constantly presents random levels as levels 51+ until you run out of lives.

* Survival mode (arguably the "proper" game mode) in the PC game ''[[Crimsonland]]'' has the player character being endlessly assaulted from all sides by zombies, aliens, giant spiders, and more. There literally is no way to win.

* ''[[Burger Time]]'' just keeps looping through the same stages, and the enemies eventually get ridiculously fast. Averted in ''Super BurgerTime'', which ends after World 5.

 

* The hard mode of ''[http://www.bradthegame.com Brad the Game]'', unlockable by finishing the regular game.

 

* ''[[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).

 

* ''[[Bump N Jump]]'' (arcade): after level 8, levels 4-8 loop indefinitely.

* ''[[Spy Hunter]]'' (the original).

* In ''[[Antarctic Adventure]]'', it's no surprise that the game repeats after 10 stages, since the game's between-stage display shows how the path loops around Antarctica. However, the sequel ''Penguin Adventure'' had [[Multiple Endings]].

 

* ''[[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.

 

* [[Multi Mook Melee|Endless Melee/Brawl]] from ''[[Super Smash Bros.]].''

** Same with Cruel Melee/Brawl, [[Nintendo Hard|in freakin Spades!]]

* [[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.]]

 

* ''[[Call of Duty]]: World at War'''s [[Nazi Zombies]] mode. If you manage to get past ten waves, the bloody tally in the corner switches to a number in a simple sans-serif font. It's rumored that the game does eventually end (in a crash!) once you hit an {{{Cap} overflow number}} for rounds e.g. 128, 256, 65536, and so on.

* The April 2009 update for ''[[Left 4 Dead]]'' added Survival Mode, which is [[Super Fun Happy Thing of Doom|Exactly What It Doesn't Say On The Tin]].

* ''[[Halo: Reach]]'''s [[Playable Epilogue]]. The objective is to "survive"(as long as possible). As Noble Six takes damage, his visor is progressively cracked and dinged, and the HUD indicators start to fail. When damaged enough, the game switches to a cutscene where he discards the helmet and a squad of Elites delivers the coup de grace, shown from the helmet cam's perspective.

 

* ''[[Sword of the Stars]]'' has Progression Wars, in which you keep on jumping galaxies trying to survive an enemy that gets more and more difficult.

* ''[[Civilization]]'' has victory conditions, but continues on endlessly if you decide to play just ... one ... more ... turn ...

** Technically, most versions of Civilization have an ending year, with the game ending (and victory awarded to the highest-scoring civilization) if nobody has beaten the game by that point.

 

* Many of the games on ''[[Action 52]]'' loop around to the first level upon "completion" while keeping track of your score. Most of the others, infamously, crash a few levels in. Only a few have a clearly-defined ending.

** ''Ooze'' crashes on level 3 of the more common version of the cartridge, but does have an actual ending on the rarer second version (wonder if anyone actually entered this contest).

* ''[[Tutankham]]'' loops after 16 stages, most of which are [[Hard Mode Filler]].

 

* Most MMORPGs could be said to fall into the trope, but especially the greatest MMO of all time, ''[[Progress Quest]]''!

** ''[[Runescape]]'' plays with this trope. When all skill levels are maxed out and released quests are completed (which takes years), [http://www.webcitation.org/5krwN5Aiv a message appears]: "You have completed the game! GO OUTSIDE! ~Love, Jagex"

* A number of flash games on [[Neopets]] follow this, but scoring well on the high-score tables nets you a [[Cosmetic Award|permanent trophy]]. One game, called ''[[Hopeless Boss Fight|Neverending Boss Battle]]'', somewhat [[Lampshades]] this fact by stating outright that you have no chance to actually win.

 

* [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] by a [[PlayStation 3|Playstation 3 commercial]] featuring a "completionist" asking [[Large Ham|Kevin Butler]] about what to do when finished playing ''[[Little Big Planet]]''. As advertised, due to the absurdly vast stream of [[DLC|downloadable content]], you are physically incapable of finishing the game.

* ''[[Donkey Kong]]'', for the most part, though it's notable as being the first game with a true storyline with an ending, even if viewing it doesn't end the game. There appears to be an ending when you manage to save Pauline from the titular ape, but when that's done the game just restarts at a higher difficulty level (and in the American arcade version, with extra levels) so that you can further increase your score until you run out of lives. At iteration 22 (which very very few people have reached), an overflow occurs which causes the time bonus, which is also a [[Timed Mission|death timer]], to start at a mere 400<ref>that's its effective value; its displayed value is just all over the place</ref>, which is far from enough to complete the level. This is the so-called "kill screen".

* Every game in Nintendo's [[Game and Watch|Game & Watch]] line of LCD handhelds from the 80s falls into this. While some later games like ''[[Donkey Kong]]'' and ''[[The Legend of Zelda (video game)|Zelda]]'' have definite endings, [[Hard Mode Filler|they just repeat a little faster]] until you run out of lives.

 

* ''[[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.

* ''[[Slydris]]'', in both the Survival and Infinite modes. You keep going until you hit the top of the screen and die.

 

* This is the final Protoss level of ''[[Starcraft II]]: Wings of Liberty'' in a nutshell. To get the bonus achievement you have to hold on long enough against Hybrid-led Zerg for the Protoss archive building to finish recording the sum knowledge of Protoss civilization, after which it buries itself in the ground and becomes indestructible. After that, your objective is simply to fight until every last warrior at your disposal is dead.

 

* ''[[Dwarf Fortress]]'' has absolutely no win parameters; you simply play until your fortress dies out for whatever reason, or the action grinds to a standstill because your computer's processing power can't keep up with the ever-increasing number of dwarfs/cats/water/magma/etc, or you get bored, or...

** Losing is fun, afterall.

*** but a continent wide genocide might be attempted.

 

* ''[[Shadowkeep]]'' for the PC was an interesting variation: you ''could'' win the game and defeat the Shadow King. HOWEVER, once you did, the game wouldn't end. You had to actually ''quit the game'' to end it--and get chided for being a coward and a knave.

 

* 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.

* ''[[Bosconian]]''

 

* There are two schools of thought about ''[[Animal Crossing]]'' series. One side thinks ''AC'' is a typical [[Wide Open Sandbox]] example: the player can never win but can't lose either. The other side claims aversion, citing hints from the shopkeeper in the opening cut scenes that the player "wins" with a fully paid-off mortgage and a perfect town, and the rest of the game is a [[Playable Epilogue]].

* Will Wright's ''SimFoo'' games.

* A staple of the ''[[Anno Domini]]'' games. There are also scenarios and a campaign.

 

* ''[[Ski Free]]'' never ends. You just keep skiing until a hyper yeti charges in and swallows you whole. It's possible to evade it by entering Fast Mode with the F key, in which case the course will just loop around. The yeti know neither fear nor defeat, however, and will hound you for the rest of your days.

* The ''[[Punch-Out!!]]'' remake for Wii. It doesn't matter how good you are at the game; you WILL lose eventually, resulting in the game's [[Downer Ending]]. It's possible to beat "Mac's Last Stand"; but after that, it goes into "Champion" mode, in which any fighter (including Glass Joe) can knock you down with just one punch (a reference to the NES game's "Dream Fight" mode where you fight Mike Tyson/Mr. Dream). It keeps going this way until you mess up. There is no "good" ending. To add injury to insult, the file you were using is listed as "retired" afterwards. You can still access it, but you can only play the game's exhibition mode. The game's career mode can never be played again with that file. You have several save slots, but still.

* ''[[Football Manager]]'': The player character manager will never die. So you can play until you get bored or you die in real life.

 

* The "Dead Man Walking" mode in ''[[Max Payne 2]]''.

 

* Many [[Tower Defense]] games are designed that they are in the beginning cakewalks, towards the middle challenges, later-on challenges that required foresight to handle, and in conclusion impossible. Usually, games such as these possess a fixed growth rate for the enemy's health per level, and/or towers that stop getting stronger or become too costly to upgrade. Some games avert this loss by having fixed missions or a certain number of levels.

* ''[[Monday Night Combat]]'' (a [[Tower Defense]] game at its core) features two Endless Blitzes (Blitz being the solo/cooperative mode of the game). Sudden Death Blitz literally had endless waves of robots trying to attack your Money Ball, and you and/or your friends simply held out for as long as you could. But when players displayed strategies that allowed them to hold out for hours (until either boredom or the bad luck of a string of boss waves got you), the creators added a ''Super'' Sudden Death Blitz on a specialized map. The rules were the same, but the enemy robots came in much stronger numbers and more strategic patterns and the map was less in your favor.

 

* The classic computer game ''[[Crush Crumble and Chomp]]''. The only way to end the game is to (eventually) get killed by the humans.

 

* ''[[Minecraft]]'' is this, although a [http://www.minecraftforum.net/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=43677&sid=a4427aa4ada1868bf8a25a2b28edf68e certain thread] on the Minecraft forum would [[Calvin Ball|suggest otherwise]].

** Minecraft has an End! As of the official release, it has a new area known as "The End," home of the Enderman and the Enderdragon. If you manage to [[Nintendo Hard|defeat the]] [[That One Boss|Enderdragon]], then you get [[The End]] credits! You still get to keep playing after that, but it is the canon ending at this point.

 

* ''[[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 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?

 

* Referenced in [http://www.ernestcline.com/spokenword/ Ernest Cline's] monologue "When I Was A Kid": "...and there were no multiple levels, there was just one screen... forever. And it just kept getting faster and harder until you died. Just like ''life''."

 

* In [[Star Trek: The Next Generation|Star Trek the Next Generation]], the game Strategema could turn into one if neither side can gain a winning advantage. Data uses this fact in order to defeat a person who beat him in a normal version of the game.

 

* The [[Ur Example]] may be the pre-electronic arcade game pinball. You keep going till you run out of balls (lives) and the only reward for playing well is [[Bragging Rights Reward|bragging rights]].

* [[Crazy Bus]]