39,327
edits
Trial and Error Gameplay: Difference between revisions
m
update links
m (update links) |
m (update links) |
||
Line 17:
Also known as [[Sierra|Curse You Sierra]], a lament directed toward the company most prone to putting such puzzles in their games. [[Save Scumming|Save early, save often, and]] ''[[Save Scumming|don't overwrite saves]]''.
Amusingly, in [[Edutainment Game|Edutainment Games]] or Puzzle games, trial and error may actually be the puzzle itself. These count, but barely, because you may not be punished for getting it wrong, since the entire ''point'' is Trial and Error until you get the solution right. There are also in fact entire games dedicated around this concept too, although to be fair, these games generally tend to give you clues after you make an incorrect guess.
This is much worse when combined with [[Check Point Starvation]]. That said, it is possible to reduce the difficulty by watching and closely studying [[YouTube]] videos of [[Let's Play|it being done right. Or wrong]].
Line 127:
* The original ''[[Wonder Boy (video game)|Wonder Boy]]'' had platforms floating on the screens alone. Jumping to the next one was a leap of faith based on a random guess that ended in death if you guessed wrong.
* Many of the green stars in ''[[Super Mario Galaxy 2]]'', because they're found floating above bottomless pits, and in places carefully put just where the camera can't see. Hence quite a few of them are just 'jump in the general direction and hope you land on the star'. Or in the case of Flipsville, hope you fall into a star you can't judge the location of.
* ''[[Donkey Kong Country Returns]]'' takes this to an extreme, especially in the mine cart and rocket barrel levels where a slightest mistake will cost you a life. It's even ''worse'' in the temple levels due to there being no checkpoints, so be prepared to be back at the start very often (and soon see the pig beckoning you to take the easy way out and use Super Guide).
* ''[[Battletoads]]'' is much, much easier once you've memorized every obstacle instead of needing to react to everything as it comes.
** Up to avoid the the lower barrier, down to avoid the upper barrier, jump the low wall, up, up, down, down, jump, down, up, down, crash into the lower wall for the warp point!
Line 201:
== Strategy Game ==
* Pretty much any game ever produced by Paradox - with ''[[Victoria:
* Later levels of ''[[Valkyria Chronicles]]'' have elements of this to it, as does character selection as something as simple as not including the right number of different types of troops can severely mess you up.
** Chapter 14 is particularly bad about this: The briefing says your mission is to capture the enemy camp, but ''nothing'' even remotely hints that, when you ''do'' capture it {{spoiler|two giant tanks appear from the top and bottom of the map, and you're objective now is to destroy both of them.}} If you left your {{spoiler|Anti-Tank}} units behind, you're screwed. There's also Chapter 13, where the only path to the enemy camp {{spoiler|is blocked off by a minefield}}. If you forgot to bring {{spoiler|an Engineer, who can disarm mines.}} you're pretty much forced to restart. There's absolutely no way you can know about that {{spoiler|minefield}} until it's already too late.
* A particularly bad example can be found in ''[[Command
* ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics]]'' has shades of this, since you're never given a clue as to what sort of situation you're getting into before a battle. You just have the (very basic) layout of your team's immediate starting area, so if you unwittingly put your team of melee combatants into a map against, say, a whole team of archers and mages on the other side of a valley or river, you're in trouble.
** Especially bad during several sequential battle sequences, where you no longer have the option of [[Level Grinding]] if you don't have the right job classes available or if you simply aren't high enough level for the enemies. This can lead to several instances where the game is essentially Unwinnable... Especially during the final game sequence if you made the mistake of passing up your special characters in favor of the generic ones and thus missed the dozens of fights which comprised the "optional" portion of Chapter 4.
Line 214:
* Yes, some Hentai games include this. Biggest would be [[Tsukihime]] and [[Fate/stay night]]. If you don't leave a room, you die. If you attack a temple, you die. If you refuse the call, you die. Luckily, you get NUMEROUS "Have a nice death" things from the Tiger Dojo or Ciel-Senpai.
** A general rule of thumb in [[Type Moon]] games is to always pick the most dangerous option when you're given one. Playing it safe usually ends up with you being eaten by a shark on the ninth floor of a hotel.
*** And I bet you think the previous troper was joking about that. He wasn't. You can get eaten by a shark on the ninth floor of a hotel if you made the wrong choice in the first path deviation in [[Tsukihime]].
* ''Enzai'' is quite merciless if you want to get another ending that's not suicide or being a sex-slave, partly because the only choices that would lead you to a satisfactory ending are counter-intuitive at best. You chose to open the folder that would possibly have information on how to escape prison before a box of chocolates? Enjoy your remaining 30 gameplay minutes before the game kills you. Wanted to go to Jose's cell for a notebook that allegedly would set you free from jail? Say hello to your new life as Durer's sex slave. Especially frustrating since some of the options the game presents can become auto-chosen based on your previous actions.
** The worst of all of them is the [[Failure Is the Only Option|drink wine vs. don't drink wine choice]]. If you choose to drink wine, then {{spoiler|Durer claims you as a sex-slave and the game ends}}. If you don't drink the wine, then {{spoiler|you lose any hope of living and the game ends}}. The only choice that leads to the wine scene is [[Unwinnable by Design|choosing to prepare leather instead of the tools while making shoes in a totally unrelated scene]]. Fortunately, it is a Visual Novel, so the player is bound to have save states from before the leather scene, and the game gives enough hints at the player for it to deduce choosing leather before tools was the choice where [[It Got Worse]] . After you make the choice.
Line 226:
* As displayed in the page quote, [[Tabletop Games]] players have a term for a dungeon with particularly random ways to inflict instant death: [[Dungeons and Dragons|Gygaxian]], though the term also implies heavy use of [[Malevolent Architecture]]. One of the most famous modules of this type is the ''[[Tomb of Horrors]]''. People who survived that module largely did so by searching ''everything'' for traps, and sending [[Mooks]] to open every door in the dungeon. (It should be noted that it takes more effort to roll up a new character than to load a saved game.)
** Favourite Tomb of Horrors moment: There's at one point a statue of a demon that holds an orb. This orb is a teleporter you need to pass through. There's ANOTHER identical demon statue right next to it. That one isn't a portal though -- it's a [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|''Sphere of Annihilation'']]. Oh, and to get through the teleporter safely, you need to perform a non-obvious sequence of actions.
* The board game ''Mastermind'' is actually [[Justified Trope|the entire point of this trope]]. The object of the game is for one player to put down pegs in a pattern, and for the second player to guess what colours the pegs are and in which order they're placed. The first player then tells them whether they have any correct colours in the right places ''or'' correct colours in the wrong spaces, so the second player has to use those clues given by the first player to guess what order the pegs are in.
* Also the entire point of ''[[Battleship (game)|Battleship]]'', where both players try to destroy the other players' fleet by guessing a random square on the grid, and then being told whether or not they hit a ship or missed it, and if you hit, you have to guess what adjacent squares contain a ship as well.
== Game Shows ==
* ''[[The Price Is Right]]'' has a few games where the player can make a guess, is shown what they got right, and can try again. The best example is Clock Game, which is about guessing the value of the prize, being told it's higher or lower, and repeating until getting it right on the dollar before the clock runs out.
* ''[[Lingo]]'' involves guessing what the word is from the provided letters.
----
Line 239:
== Webcomics ==
* ''[[Homestuck]]'': Employing this trope is part of the purpose of [[Time Master|Time players]] in [[The Game Plays You|Sburb]], namely [[The Lancer|Dave]] and [[Stringy
| |||