Which game tv tropes

The twist was that the machine was gigantic, requiring Zool to jump about on the huge buttons in order to control his own avatar. Night in the Woods has Demontower, an isometric dungeon crawler featuring "The Palecat" on a quest to scale the aforementioned Demontower as her health drops from level to level. Puzzle Game. Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures features an arcade in both the countryside and the city.

The arcade contains both the original Pac-Man and Ms. The Sega Genesis version of the game replaces Ms. Pac-Man with a new game called Pac-Jr. Pac-Man , since Ms. Pac-Man had already been released on the Genesis as a standalone game. Both Ms. Pac-Man and Pac-Jr. Catherine has Rapunzel , an arcade game in the Stray Sheep with eerily similar mechanics to the nightmares but the time limit replaced with a movement limit.

In fact, its similarity to the nightmares is why it was put there. Safe Cracker has Minesweeper on an in-game computer. Shenzhen IO gives you the tools to make one. Your colleagues encourage you to try your hand at it in prototyping mode basically the equivalent of Sandbox Mode in other games.

Given the limitations of the hardware you have to work with, it's easier said than done, though the game does provide a feature for making your own custom LCD for it. It also includes an in-universe solitaire game written by one of your colleagues' kids to play when you need a break from programming. Your character isn't too keen on the liberties taken with the game's depiction of alchemy, given he does the real thing in the actual levels.

The former is downloaded in one of the missions, while the latter is a gift from your neighbour, which she couldn't get to work due to the Region Locking on the console. You get it working anyway by bypassing the Region Locking in one of the game's puzzles. Custom games can be shared with other players by exporting them as an image of a cartridge.

Racing Game. Project Gotham Racing 2 had Geometry Wars in it. Real Time Strategy. Not that Lost Vikings though, it is a Space Shooter entirely made within the capabilities of the map editor. Role Playing Game. The player can earn tokens from the Termacade games that can be redeemed for prizes. Final Fantasy VII has the arcade games found in the Gold Saucer , some of which curiously parallel events that actually happen to your team.

For example, there's a motorbike racing game, which uses the exact same graphics as an actual motorbike chase that your team goes through earlier in the game. This also makes it an early example of an Isekai. Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep contains the Command Board, which takes all of the gameplay and rules of Square Enix's Fortune Street boardgame videogame series and mixes them with this game's characters and settings. The world based on Toy Story also has the cast visit a video game store filled with fictional games, including one that Sora physically enters , a first-person shooter about robots called Verum Rex: Beat of Lead.

Tales of the Abyss had the classic first generation side-scroller Dragon Buster as an unlockable bonus. During said level you get to play games like Pitfall and Breakout. Club Penguin spy missions are all minigames anyway, but in one mission, an arcade game was yet another minigame, making it a game within a game within a game. Another Day is all about that. The former is played by Nagi to an almost unhealthy degree, while the latter is played extensively by Rindo and Shoka.

The first time you play that game, it's actually a plot point. Anachronox has this in the form of game cartridges that can be played on a machine back in Boots' office. The player is required to play it for a while at one point of the game for the main story to progress. There are, however, no normal battles in the same chapter that take place outside it.

The Odio counterpart for that chapter is even fought using the game as a medium, since destroying its physical form would doom the entire ship. Tora in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 developed an 8-bit game in his house called 'Tiger!

In it, you play as a Nopon salvager, evading or subduing obstacles to gather treasure chests and ether crystals before returning to the surface and everything you gather in a winning run, you get to keep for use with the Poppiswap system. Apparently, some other people in Gormott and even on other Titans! Simulation Game. Wario's Woods and Baseball may be obtained as items on the island, accessed by linking with a Game Boy Advance.

Soccer , Donkey Kong Jr. Mario Bros. Super Mario Bros. The Legend of Zelda is in the game's code, but was never officially released; both of these titles can be obtained through cheating devices. Completing certain objectives in these minigames will net you some exclusive furniture, and you can even get a Lip costume from the former, wand included. Tokimeki Memorial Pocket has a beatmania minigame. Stardew Valley has two arcade games at the Stardrop Saloon. Journey of the Prairie King is a shoot-'em-up where you play a cowboy fighting off hordes of monsters it also has a home version that you play with Abigail during one of her friendship events , and Junimo Kart is an Endless Running Game unlocked with the Skull Key found at the lowest level of the caves.

Sports Game. Golf Story has Galf no, that's not a typo , which is designed to replicate the look and feel of NES golf games. You have to find the game cartridge, and then show it to a particular NPC, who will then let you play it on his console.

Like the main game itself, it's a golf game, but as an NES-like game it comes with many of the restrictions of NES-era games, such as only being allowed to shoot in 16 directions and the camera being stuck in an overhead view of the entire course until you get to the green. Fulfilling further sidequests will earn you Galf Seasons and Galf Nights , which are the same game but with different courses. The Pocket spinoffs for Nintendo's portables then went further than that, as in many of them you could unlock a whole new story that had nothing to do with the main one and was either a Minesweeper game for Power Pro-kun Pocket 2 and Power Pro-kun Pocket 3 , a JRPG, a roguelike or even a trading card game.

If you work your number of strokes up past in Arnold Palmer's Tournament Golf on Genesis, you unlock a short playable segment of Fantasy Zone.

Survival Horror. Penumbra : Black Plague includes a shooter minigame in one of the PC's. The Evil Within 2 has a shooting gallery with two modes: A standard police shooting range and a Candy Crush variant. There are three possible doors that Mr. Hugs might be at, and only one can be closed at a time. This is important, because Toy Freddy is an absolutely terrible gamer, so you have to watch out for Mr.

Hugs for him. If he gets jumpscared, he'll leave to jumpscare you , and there's nothing you can do to stop him. Third Person Shooter. It's one of the arcade machines at the firehouse. Jet Force Gemini has at least one instance of this in one of the later levels, involving an arcade machine where you play a top-down racer against the AI.

Com Mons : The monster in monster battlers or card in card battlers for beginners, which quickly becomes useless. Combatant Cooldown System : A combat system where how soon combatants can act again is determined both by their Speed stat and by the complexity of their respective previous actions.

Combat Resuscitation : When a player character runs out of Hit Points , they are put in a temporary injured state and need to be helped back on their feet by a teammate. Most of the time, if the downed player didn't get rescued quick enough, their character will die for real. Comeback Mechanic : A feature that provides assistance to losing players or players near elimination. Common Tactical Gameplay Elements : Rules that add a tactical dimension to video game combat.

Controllable Helplessness : Video games that allow you to control your character somewhat that is in an injured state. Most of your actions are also limited. Cooldown Manipulation : Where you can manipulate the Cooldown of your abilities or your foes'. Corridor Cubbyhole Run : A corridor with a constant hazard you have to avoid by utilizing "safe zones". Cranium Ride : Jumping on an enemy's head and riding them, often across hazards.

Creature-Breeding Mechanic : Breeding in-game animals or monsters to further one's goals. Critical Existence Failure : You can survive any amount of injury with no lasting effects — unless it takes out your last Hit Point , in which case it's instant death. Danger with a Deadline : An enemy or obstacle is very dangerous, but only for a finite period of time. Defenseless Transports : Transport units are usually unarmed. Die, Chair, Die! Direct Continuous Levels : It's a linear game, but not broken up by jumps between levels.

Do Not Run with a Gun : Only the player can move and shoot at the same time; everyone else has to stop if they want to attack. Dream Match Game : Games whose roster include absolutely everyone from a series at the time, at the expense of canonicity. Common in fighting games. Dual-World Gameplay : Gameplay techniques introduced by the idea of the player travelling between two worlds.

Easy-Mode Mockery : The game makes fun of you for playing on an easy difficulty. Then again, in most cases you would not want to play as one of these for long. Endless Game : A game that never ends; you just keep going to more and more levels. Enemy-Detecting Radar : Blip! An Entrepreneur Is You : A game where you run a business of some sort. Equipment Upgrade : Enhance your equippable items instead of replacing them!

Everything Breaks : It's like as soon as you touch it, it crumbles into dust! Everything-Is-Smashable Area : A confined space in a video game where every object surrounding you is smashable, usually for collecting points. Everything Trying to Kill You : Everything in the game wants you dead.

Export Save : Keeping progress with a more often than not ridiculously long save file that is expected to be copy-pasted or exported-then-imported from a. Extra Turn : Take one step, and then again!

Fake Balance : Theoretically balanced gameplay elements that in practice, are not balanced. Fake Difficulty : When game designers create the illusion of a challenge through Luck-Based Mission and other means, or when a game really is hard, but for the wrong reasons. Fake Longevity : Padding a game out to make it longer. Fame Gate : Story progression occurs as the Player Character 's fame increases.

First Person Snapshooter : A gameplay element that requires you to take pictures of things. Fission Mailed : When it looks like you've lost the game, but the plot still continues.

Flash of Pain : Every time an enemy gets hit, it blinks a different colour for a short time. Flushing-Edge Interactivity : Because being able to flush toilets that otherwise serve no function whatsoever is the cinematic interactive experience players are looking for! Follow the Money : Ubiquitous, small, often shiny collectible items, usually in Platform Games. Fractional Winning Condition : You have several objectives, and completing a certain number of them advances you to the next stage though you can stay to get them all.

Game Lobby : A type of hub where players get together and agree to play before an online game can start. Gameplay Automation : When the game optionally runs, or offers to run, parts of itself.

Game Plays Itself : A video game forcibly automates something traditionally player-controlled in that genre of game.

Game Within a Game : Playing a different game inside a game. Geo Effects : Where the terrain can affect battles, such as stats or effectiveness of elemental abilities. Goodies in the Toilets : Bathrooms will contain the most bizarre of treasure, clues, or other useful things, if they're included in a game at all.

Gravity Barrier : A huge cliff or vertical drop that acts as a "fence" keeping the player from passing it. Green Boy Color : If you see this specific palette of green colors, it is likely meant as a throwback to old-school Game Boy games. Grimy Water : Water with a tainted color that harms or kills the character upon contact. Healing Spring : A body of water that heals bathers.

Hit Points : A number attributed to your health that indicates how close to death you are. Home Field Advantage : Common in strategy games and Role Playing Games , where one side has a distinct advantage based on terrain or location.

Homing Boulders : Where any projectile homes into its target—even things like arrows and boulders. Human Cannonball : Launching yourself out of a cannon is a useful form of transportation. In-Game Banking Services : The player can deposit their cash into a bank account.

Idiosyncratic Combo Levels : Names for combo length or timing specific to a game. Informed Equipment : Equipped weapons and armor are not visibly reflected on your character sprites or models. Injured Player Character Stage : The player character in a game gets injured in a cutscene, which affects their abilities in the following gameplay.

A milder and tamer version of Controllable Helplessness. Injured Vulnerability : Attacks and other effects only work on weakened targets. Intoxication Mechanic : The player character consuming drugs or alcohol hinders the player's ability to play the game. Item-Drop Mechanic : Defeated enemies drop items, representing their loot.

Leaning Tower of Mooks : When Mooks stack up into a tower. Level Editor : Make your own levels—ridiculously easy or fiendishly difficult? You decide! Level Goal : The way to mark a definitive end to a video game level without a Boss Battle. Level Scaling : As you level up, so do your enemies.

Lift of Doom : A Floating Platform that ascends, and as it does it passes through everything but the player character. Limited-Use Magical Device : An item that allows you to cast spells until it's spent. Locked Door : You need a key to open the door. No, you can't just knock it down. Loot Command : A specific command you need to press in order to loot something from a defeated enemy. Luck Manipulation Mechanic : Game mechanics that let you reattempt chance based elements to get a better result.

Luck Stat : A vaguely described statistic used as a catch-all for various effects. Maximum HP Reduction : An attack that reduces the target's maximum hit points rather than just their current amount. Betting Mini Game : Let's pause our quest to play craps! Fishing Minigame : Toss a line and reel in the big one!

Game Hunting Mechanic : Hunt wild prey for materials or for fun! Hacking Minigame : Hacking into computer systems is for profit and fun! Hot Coffee Minigame : No need to call Freud — these characters are in fact making out or having sex. Lockpicking Minigame : Set the pins in a lock to open in. Mini-Game Credits : The closing company credits double as their own Minigame. Racing Minigame : First one to the finish line wins!

OR a customization disadvantage that can easily be negated altogether. Mirror Match : Character vs Same Character in a competitive multiplayer game. Are you ready to fight yourself? Morale Mechanic : A game mechanic simulating the combatants' morale and fighting spirit.

Multi-Mook Melee : Where you have to fight a seemingly endless stream of Mooks who slowly become tougher.

Multiplayer-Only Item : Items that are either exclusive to the Multiplayer mode even though they could technically appear in Singleplayer as well , or are useless in Singleplayer. Musical Gameplay : Games where the background music is immediately affected by what happens on the screen. No Bulk Discounts : In games with shops, buying items in bunches never saves you money. Non-Combatant Immunity : No enemies will try to attack you, or be capable of killing you, until you have the means to fight back.

No Points for Neutrality : Choosing neutral options won't get you as much development as a good or evil option. No Such Thing as Dehydration : Video game characters don't need to drink. Not the Intended Use : When the player finds alternative methods to beat the game than what developers intended to allow. Sometimes requires real skill to pull off.

Obvious Rule Patch Olympus Mons : Cosmically powerful Mon that your teen or pre-teen character can capture and harness. One-Hit Polykill : When a projectile goes through its target and can continue to hit more targets. One Stat to Rule Them All : One of the stats you can upgrade grossly outweighs the others in terms of usefulness.

Only Smart People May Pass : Any barrier that requires the heroes to solve some kind of puzzle or riddle in order to pass. On-Site Procurement : If you want better stuff, you'll have to find it on the job. Outside-the-Box Tactic : Certain enemies are vulnerable to tactics that are bizarre or otherwise not intuitive at first glance.

Overheating : Your gun will overheat if you use it for too long, even if you have unlimited ammo. Padded Sumo Gameplay : High defensive and low offensive stats for both the player and enemies result in long, monotonous battles.

Palette Swap : Two sprites characters, monsters, etc. Pass Through the Rings : The player must pass through a certain number of rings or other objects within a limited time period. Password Save : Saving your progress through use of a password rather than game memory. Path of Most Resistance : When you are presented with multiple paths or options, you should always take the most difficult looking one. Playable Menu : Fully interactable main menu sequence.

Player Data Sharing : Aspects of one player's single player campaign can be transferred to another's. Player Death Is Dramatic : The player character's death is played for drama.

Player Versus Environment : A type of video game mode in which the enemies are computer-generated AI, specifically when players can be fought as well outside this mode. Abbreviated as PvE. Player Versus Player : A type of video game mode in which the player competes against other players of the game. Abbreviated as PvP. Plot Lock : Something which you should easily be able to pass through, given your abilities, but the plot decrees you can't. Point of No Return : A place in the story where it becomes impossible to revisit earlier points.

Pop Quiz : A sudden general knowledge quiz regarding obscure facts about the events, characters and monsters in the game universe. Better make sure you pay attention to those trivia if you don't want to replay this section multiple times! Power Up Motif : A song that plays when a timed powerup is being used.

Acts as an auditory cue for how much longer the powerup will last. Pre-Character Customization Gameplay : The game lets you try out its core gameplay loop before you get to customize your character. Pressure Plate : A door that's powered by a floor plate that trips when stood upon.

Press X to Not Die : During a cinematic event, you are instructed to press a button to trigger events or dodge attacks etc. Purely Aesthetic Gender : Character sex where it can be chosen makes no difference in player stats.

PVP Balanced : In games where players can fight against each other, classes must be balanced so one type of character is not overpowered. Reduced-Downtime Features : The game has less downtime between battles. Regenerating Health : Low on HP?

Just take cover for five seconds and your injuries will be healed! Regenerating Mana : Your Mana meter refills on its own. Regenerating Shield, Static Health : You have two health meters , only one of which regenerates. Relationship Values : A usually hidden meter that measures the depth of your relationship to other characters. Ring Out : To win a match held in a bounded area by throwing, forcing, or tricking the enemy into stepping out of bounds.

Rocket-Tag Gameplay : High offensive stats and low defensive stats for both the player and enemies result in quick, unpredictable battles. Run, Don't Walk : Modern games have characters run by default; walking is more difficult to do.

Rules of the Game : An area of the game with special rules or restrictions. Save Point : A specific spot where the player is allowed to save. Justified Save Point : Use this computer terminal to record your progress? Rack up those zeroes! Pinball Scoring : Games that award points in extremely ridiculous amounts. Then again , these machines only exist because players specifically demanded them.

See, regular videogames were simply not exciting enough. Technically the law only allows games that hurt the player , not outright kill them, but that doesn't stop daring gamers from seeking out illicit machines in underground places.

Berry formerly R. Neil Gaiman 's poem "Virus" details how human civilization is destroyed by an utterly addictive video game. Live-Action TV. His game, Kamen Rider Chronicle , is created to turn everyone in the world into a Kamen Rider and force them into an endless fight for survival where a Game Over means dying for real. While he dies before the game is completed, his former partner-in-crime Parado proceeds to take over and manages to complete the game.

Parado, being a "Bugster" game character come to life, uses it as a means for his fellow Bugsters to ultimately wipe out humanity. Later reveals throw new wrinkles into this: Kamen Rider Chronicle actually backs up users' data so that nobody really dies; Kuroto in his own twisted way even intended it as a medical tool to save the lives of people with otherwise incurable ailments. This doesn't actually make anything better, as whoever's in charge of Kamen Rider Chronicle has full control of who gets to respawn and how , and by this point in the series it's in the hands of Kuroto's father Masamune, who holds players' lives hostage to get more and more people playing.

The show Level Up revolves around a group of teens working with the creator of an MMO to defeat monsters from the game that have escaped into reality. The monsters keep escaping even after they initially defeat the game's Big Bad in the minute pilot. Odd Squad : The Season 1 episode "Game Time" involves Otto being sucked into a Robo-Blast-Bots arcade cabinet after he plays it, ignoring the "Do Not Enter" sign hanging from the stanchion rope in front of it that is placed there to prevent people from playing it until Odd Squad can arrive.

Oscar, who arrives to the arcade and fixes the cabinet so nothing else can get sucked into it, decides to play Robo-Blast-Bots since he's good at the game, but when he accidentally drops his Freeze-ray-inator gadget and gets trapped in an ice block, Olive is forced to play the game despite having never played video games in her life. True to her inexperience, she ends up getting numerous Game Overs and is forced to obtain tokens for a dollar each to continue playing, since if Otto dies in the game then he dies in the real world and cannot be revived.

Eventually she manages to get Otto out of the game intact. In one episode of Power Rangers Ninja Steel , the Monster of the Week distributes an addictive video game that makes him stronger the more people play it. Ship to Shore : In one of the episodes, the kids play a choose-your-own-adventure video game and, on a whim, give the player character the appearance and name of the local Buttmonkey Hermes Endakis.

Shortly thereafter, it turns out that whatever calamity befalls the game's hero also soon happens to the real Hermes in real life. The episode doesn't make it clear if the game really could affect reality or if it was just a series of coincidences. In one episode of Stargate SG-1 , Teal'c is trapped in a virtual reality device based on alien technology, which the SGC adapted as a training simulator.

While dying in VR doesn't immediately cause him to die in real life, the shock and pain of his injuries in the simulation will eventually kill him, and the game keeps getting harder every time he dies. One of the reasons the bug triggered turns out to be that the neural interface picked up on Teal'c's subconscious fear that the Goa'uld will never be defeated. Sisko, Bashir, Dax, and Kyra find themselves transported into the game world to serve as pieces while back on the station, Quark is forced by the Wadi to play to get them back The Wadi had been winning too much at dabo, so Quark had ordered the games fixed, which the Wadi discovered.

It certainly seems like a dangerous game; one of the challenges Sisko and the others are subjected to involves poison gas, for example, and when Quark makes a desperate gamble to end the game quickly and get the crew back, he loses , and Sisko and his crew seemingly die It was planted by a woman seeking to gain control of the Enterprise by controlling her entire crew, and spread through the ship due to peer pressure and, eventually, crewmembers forcing it on the few individuals who refused to participate.

The episode gets virtually nothing right about programming or gaming. Urban Legends. There are actually two stories tied to this one, one haunted and one having various in-game stuff causing illness and death. Polybius , a fictional arcade game of American youth and urban lore that's become ubiquitous thanks to the Internet. The game, so the story goes, is a Tempest knock-off that appeared in Portland arcades in The children who played it suffered from all three of the symptoms detailed above before killing themselves in the middle of the night.

The game disappeared shortly afterward, as suddenly as it had come — in some tellings, wheeled away by mysterious men in black.

Someone actually decided to make a Polybius game , purposely simulating elements found in the mythology subliminal messages, supernatural things, and so on. Of course, they can be toggled on and off.

See it here. Video Games. It's not usually the game itself being malignant, but some entity within the game often an AI using its hidden functions in malicious ways. Parodied in the indie game Ben There, Dan That! Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair has a variation in which a video game is a catalyst for the second murder.

The game itself isn't dangerous, but it provides clues to the characters' past lives which serves as a motive. Played straight later on when The Reveal shows that the entire island was a Lotus-Eater Machine being used as a deprogramming device by Makoto , which Monokuma and Junko frequently compare to a video game.

It worked by uploading the user's minds and representing them as virtual avatars which would then be downloaded back into their real bodies, but if the avatar is killed their real body is left brain-dead as there's nothing to send back. In Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony , Monokuma creates a VR game using the code from the Lotus-Eater Machine from the previous killing game and it's explained that if you suffer fatal trauma in the game, your real body goes into shock and dies as a result.

Guess what happens immediately after. Duck Season starts to speed ball into this quickly if you shoot the dog at any point in time. If you have done so, the dog will first make himself known by appearing around your house, before getting directly involved by killing your mother, and then you. Gamer 2 takes place entirely in a virtual reality machine that's been converted into a death trap. The Excuse Plot of the Toaplan Shoot 'em Up Grind Stormer involves a fiendishly addictive game sucking players into arcades in the year A scrapped concept from Half-Life 2 involved the "Manhack Arcade", where some of the Manhacks read: flying killer robots with spinning razor blades in the game world would be controlled by arcade machines being played by your fellow humans, who would have no idea they were actually killing people.

Played for Laughs in Illbleed. In the "Killerman" level, you're asked to choose which of the presented options is the murderer. One of the options is the player , on the grounds that playing Illbleed has driven you insane and turned you into a psychotic killer.

It's the wrong answer. In Kid Chameleon , the new Virtual Reality arcade game on the block turns deadly, and actively tries to kill the players. Kid Chameleon tries to beat the game at its own game, presumably to save the people the game has already beaten. It won't be easy. Though this is a subversion, as she does not attack the teenagers, and is actually needed to get rid of the killer.

The nameless game in Nanashi no Game. Completing it reveals the game's name — Road to Sunrise. The premise of the Adventure Game Omikron: The Nomad Soul is that the player character is you , the person sitting in front of the computer, and that the game is a trap that sucks the souls of players into the game world, where they have to fight to save the world and escape back to reality or be eaten by demons. PaRappa the Rapper 2 features a non-lethal one called "Food Court". If you lose, it makes it so your body will reject any food that isn't noodles.

Apparently, the game's cartridge can also hypnotize people if you put it in a tape deck. Pony Island has the titular game, programmed by none other than Satan himself. Pony Island itself isn't particularly harmful, being a shoddily-made endless runner game that frequently becomes Unintentionally Unwinnable and requires the player to hack into the game's code to progress through. The "danger" comes from the fact that Satan is essentially holding you hostage and forcing you to play it for all eternity, and the game often prompts you to sell your soul in order to progress further.

The Stinger to Shadows of the Servants implies that this trope has been in effect all along: one of the game's characters put the game on the market to trap people's spirits and bring them to the mansion, your avatar among them.

Web Comics. Parodied in this Amazing Super Powers comic. The game in question? Real life basketball. Homestuck and how. We have Sburb, a game that brings about the apocalypse when played. It also uses Time Travel to cause itself to come into being as well as force its players to play, meaning the destruction is predetermined and inevitable. It gets worse from there. Sburb is necessary for the creation of other universes — meaning the players are forced to sacrifice their civilization to bring about a new universe.

IF their game is not a "null session," meaning it is predetermined to fail, making the sacrifice completely senseless. And unfortunately, null sessions are much more numerous than the successful ones. Zig-zagged with a void session, which cannot cause an apocalypse, but the players themselves are still in danger. Web Original. The whole thing can be found here. This trope encompasses an entire subgenre of Creepypasta.

The final battle shows that Red has the ability to cause Zach pain in the real world through his attacks on Zach's monsters, including a Hellfire attack that causes incredible pain, and killing all of Zach's monsters will enable Red to kill Zach himself for real.

When you die in the "game", you vanish, and it is implied that you become minions for the "game". SCP , potentially. It's a game where the AI gets smarter the more hours you have logged into it, starting out at bottom-of-the-barrel Artificial Stupidity where enemies just blindly rush the heroes without any sense of self-preservation or use of tactics, and eventually achieving enough Artificial Brilliance to realize that there is a real person controlling the heroes, at which point it starts going after the player directly.

Usually it doesn't try to do any actual harm to the player, just troll them enough to make them Rage Quit , or use psychological mind games to creep them out. However, in one case, the game had a group of enemies coordinate repeated casts of a Blinded by the Light spell to create Epileptic Flashing Lights which gave the player a seizure. Another thing to note is that the came only creates or updates the "player data" file upon saving and quitting the game.

When a player was instructed to beat the game in one sitting, the result was that the AI remained at its initial level of stupidity the whole way through, and exhibited no strange behaviour.

After killing the final boss, the game autosaved and then spent several hours creating a player data file with an absolutely massive file size. Also, an Apocalyptic Log left by someone who worked on the game also suggests that if the game is allowed to get smart enough, the Eldritch Abomination Big Bad will start to think it is an actual Eldritch Abomination instead of just a video game character, and attempt to leave the game to destroy the real world.

SCP is a Goldilocks and the Three Bears -themed video game that causes various things to happen to the player after completing, or failing to complete, various objectives.

Good things like collecting enough Porridge cause feelings of contentment and instantaneous orgasm.