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Trial and Error Gameplay: Difference between revisions
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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]].
Compare [[Try Everything]] and [[Character Select Forcing]].
{{examples
== 3D Action Games ==
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* An example from ''[[STALKER]]: Call of Pripyat'': During an early mission, you're tasked with recovering a strange artifact from an old barge. As soon as you pick it up and exit, another stalker approaches you with an obviously fake sob story about his brother being sick and needing the artifact or something. If you refuse, he pretends to let you go, only to call a couple of buddies and shoot you in the back a moment later. Since you're caught by surprise and with no cover, dying is nearly unavoidable. The obvious solution, of course, is to reload your save and shoot him first.
* [[Fear Effect]]. The game practically lives and breathes this trope.
* The ''[[Max Payne (Video Game)|Max Payne]]'' series is famous for taking the "[[Save Scumming|quickload junkie]]" style of older [[First
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* In the dragster wheelie competition in ''[[Need for Speed]] Pro Street'' some of the cars cannot pull a wheelie no matter how many upgrades you buy. Some of the cars are much easier to use for drifting too, and the game [[Guide Dang It|doesn't give many clues]] about what to buy. It's not a massive problem since the wheelie competition only comes along when the player will probably have enough credits to buy the 'right' car. But it's irritating to spend ages tinkering with car set-up and driving style in a vain attempt to get the nose of a Supra or RX-7 to lift when the game should mention somewhere that it's a waste of time.
* ''[[Wangan Midnight]] Maximum Tune 3'' 's Ghost Battle mode. When you select a ghost to battle, you are only told the starting ramp, and not what route the ghost take, which gets annoying if, say, you select a ghost that starts on one of the faster routes (i.e. Wangan or Yokohane), and thus put all your tuning points into power and leave nothing for handling, but the race ends on the curvier C1 loop and you keep crashing into walls because your car has no handling whatsoever. The only way to know the route for sure is to have already battled the ghost or watch someone else race it.
** Racing against normal ghost cars is tough enough (though more skillful players can take advantage of the [[Rubber Band AI]]). Battling against the [[That One Boss|King Ghosts]] takes it to a whole new level, requiring both skill and luck, since the [[Rubber Band AI]] is pretty much turned off for the player (meaning even the slightest collision is a surefire way to lose). Moreso if the player who set that King Ghost run did a near perfect run, and if the player challenging the King Ghost has a high level (A or higher) which increases the density of [[Goddamn Bats|traffic]] that gets in the way. Even some of the most skillful players may take [[Crack
* Both ''[[Stunts]]'' and its [[Spiritual Successor]] ''[[Track Mania]]'' have an unwritten rule that the first run of a track ''must'' be played not to win, but to know the layout.
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== Platform Game ==
* The legendary Cinematic-[[Platformer]]-cum- [[Survival Horror]] game ''[[Another World (Video Game)|Another World]]'', AKA ''Out of this World'', combines this sort of level design with [[Everything Trying to Kill You]], and, to add insult to injury, makes your character a [[One
** It should be noted that without [[Trial and Error Gameplay]], the game would take roughly an hour to complete. Depending on who you ask, this can be seen as shameless padding to compensate for storage limitations (it was graphically advanced for its time), an outdated method of creating a cinematic gaming experience by forcing you to perfect action movie stunts, or just part of the game's inexplicable charm.
* Many of the newer ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' 2-D games are like this. Try running full speed ahead (the whole point of the series) only to run into an enemy as a result of having mere milliseconds to react to it once it appears. Better games in the series will have a short wall or upward spikes to let you know when it's time to stop running.
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* The little-known 8-bit NES game ''[[Clash At Demonhead (Video Game)|Clash At Demonhead]]'' took this to another level. Midway through the game, you HAVE to meet with one of the game's Big Bads, [[Hopeless Boss Fight|you CANNOT beat him at this point]], and [[Fission Mailed|you HAVE TO DIE and press Continue]] in order for the story to continue.
* Every single [[Platform Hell]] game and Mario hack ever created. Miss that perfect jump between two walls of spikes while dodging numerous Bullet Bills and spin jumping off a conveniently timed enemy? Instant death to the character. ''[[I Wanna Be the Guy]]'', ''The Unfair Platformer'', ''Sybion Action'' and ''[[Kaizo Mario World|Kaizo Mario]]'' (and every game based off the latter) are common users of this trope.
* Early 1990s platformer ''[[Rick Dangerous]]'' suffered from a combination of this, [[One
* The old SNES game ''[[Prince of Persia]]'' contains one instance of this. While normally, every trap, hazard and enemy is clearly marked, there is one instance in one of the later levels where you find two identical potions. One [[Heart Container|increases your life total]], and the other instantly kills you. Thankfully this is near a save point. This scene is absent in every other port of the game.
* ''[[Kirby]]'s Dreamland 2'' had a section in world 7, where there was an [[Auto Scrolling Level]] with dead ends and no way to go back. There were 3 ways to go. And it happens several times.
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* ''[[Dwarf Fortress]]''. Unless you read an incredibly comprehensive guide before even downloading it (which you probably won't understand anyway; until you play enough to learn the interface, it ''will'' all sound like gibberish), you probably won't even know how to play the game. Until after you've started, been horribly confused by, and lost multiple fortresses. The motto of the game, of course, is [[Kobayashi Mario|"losing is fun."]]
* A lot of the bosses in ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' have abilities that will kill everyone if you don't do exactly the right thing. Some of them are obvious. If you get a message saying the boss is looking at you and a circle of fire starts to gather underneath, probably time to move. But some of them no one would ever guess until its too late, eg. when the boss starts casting a certain spell jump into the damage field it previously placed so that when the spell goes off and puts everyone to sleep, the damage you take from the field will wake you up. Or hurt the boss' aids until they're nearly dead so that when she [[Turns Red|frenzies]] you can kill one of them instantly, because that will dispel the frenzy for some reason. Consequently a pretty sizable chunk of higher end gameplay consists of looking up what the bosses do in advance, and carefully making absolutely sure that everyone knows what to do when. In other games, this might be considered cheating. In Wow, it's the only way to get anything done.
** An unusual example in that a large part of the playerbase ''demands'' that it be like this - since a boss with nothing more complicated than normal gameplay mechanics will be fairly easy to the high-level player who has mastered their class and is properly geared, they complained that they were able to beat the boss first time. The only form of difficulty remaining is for the boss to have surprising tricks that ''must'' be learned through trial and error. Boss guides are so easily found online as well that ''not'' using them is regarded as a form of [[Self
** Some bosses demand adjustment on the part of the group fighting them to take into account group makeup, gear and skill. One boss in the Firelands transforms based on how many players are in one spot; the longer he stays in one form without transforming, the more often he uses special attacks, but the more times he transforms, the stronger his attacks get. Not only do you have to judge how long you keep him in one form before switching, but the amount of time he can remain in one form gradually decreases over the course of the battle, as a form of soft enrage. Even if you know the general strategy to defeat such bosses, finding the right way to execute those strategies requires quite a bit of work, and often a few wipes to test your group's capabilities.
* At one point in ''[[Persona 4]]'', you are given a serious moral choice to make. It's fairly clear to most players what the "good" thing to do is. However, doing so involves getting through several dialogue choices. Picking the wrong one even once gives you a {{spoiler|bad ending}}. Oh, and this occurs right after some lengthy cutscenes.
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* In ''[[Xenon]] 2: Megablast'', two powerups - the side-shot and the rear-shot - are mutually incompatible. At the mid-point and end of each level you are given the opportunity to sell and buy equipment, but without having already played the following section there's no way of knowing which one of the two you should have - and if you get it wrong, you ''will'' lose.
* The C64 shoot-em-up ''Delta'' is pretty much the embodiment of this trope. Enemy waves will quickly scroll across the screen, usually before the player can hope to kill them with their pea-shooter of a gun, and will inevitably destroy the [[One
* ''[[Thunder Force]] III'' has a few death traps that, without prior knowledge, are nearly guaranteed to kill you. Examples include a pillar of lava on [[That One Level|Gorgon]] that doesn't stop, ''very'' sudden enemy attacks, and the moving terrain in Haides.
* At a glance, ''[[Ikaruga]]'' doesn't require a lot of this. But playing for score, which requires stringing together chains (shooting 3 consecutive same-colored enemies), is like studying for a final exam.
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== 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 Haired Ghost Girl|Aradia]]. Should [[Bad Future|something go wrong in Sburb]], like a player dying, the Time player wields the tools necessary to travel back into the past before it happens and [[Stable Time Loop|use their knowledge of what went wrong to ensure it doesn't really happen]]; the averted [[Bad Future]] then becomes a doomed offshoot timeline with its purpose served, and anyone who travelled back in time from it is ultimately doomed to die. For example, in an offshoot timeline where [[The Hero|John]] died, [[Future Badass|that timeline's Dave]] travelled back in time to before that point to prevent it from happening, after hanging around in the future long enough to gather some [[Disc One Nuke|sweet loot]] for the alpha-timeline Dave and John. Aradia apparently did enough of this to [[
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