Trial and Error Gameplay: Difference between revisions

Take heart. As annoying as this trope can be, it's far better than the game becoming [[Unwinnable]].

 

 

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]]''.

*** There are at least 200 known unique ways of dying in ''[[Nethack]]''.

*** See [http://nethackwiki.com/wiki/Lessons_learned_the_hard_way here] for another list of things ''not'' to do in ''[[Nethack]]''.

* Many older [[Interactive Fiction]] games rely on this, where it's generally referred to as 'learning through death'. It's frowned upon in modern IF games, though less so when the plot of the game is built around it, like in Adam Cadre's ''Lock and Key''.

* Fairly well-averted in ''[[A Vampyre Story]]''. The game almost always gives you enough information to solve puzzles without a guide, although sometimes you need to be sharp to catch it. As a non-spoilerriffic example, you need to lube up some hinges early on in the game, and in your bedroom you pick up some body oil that'll do the trick-but there's only enough oil for one hinge. No fear-the game will, if you "look" at the body oil, tell you it was made from oils extracted from nuts and dried fruits, which coincidentally you can also collect from your room. In some of the later puzzles it gives you all the pieces (a cop who desperately wants to be recognized as a hero, a little girl's dress, and a bat about the right size to fit into it) and leaves you to figure it out for yourself.

 

=== Horror Games ===

** If you accidentally bump into a ghost (touching the one by the fireplace is almost certain on the first try), they come to life as a [[Nightmare Fuel|nightmare-fueling]] swirling cloud of psychedelic death that chases you around the house until it kills you.

** Another unavoidable first time death occurs in the hallway leading to the library, the woodsman painting starts throwing axes at you. Further down the hallway, a painting of an Indian starts shooting arrows that home in on you, at which point death is inevitable. The player learns the hard way to put the Old Indian Cover on the woodsman painting, and to shoot the Indian painting with the bow and arrows.

 

=== Tabletop Games ===

** 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.