The TVTropes Trope Finder is where you can come to ask questions like "Do we have this one?" and "What's the trope about...?" Trying to rediscover a long lost show or other medium but need a little help? Head to Media Finder and try your luck there. Want to propose a new trope? You should be over at You Know, That Thing Where.
Find a Trope:
openMarkers/Pings Videogame
A mechanic in some games where you can place down a set marker or send out a ping to your teammates to say "stand here," "shoot that guy," "move that box," "jump off a cliff" etc
Edited by AwkbutTVTresolved Conversation During Gameplay Videogame
A plot-heavy videogame with voice acting will allow players to continue moving and playing the game (solving puzzles or platforming) while the character is holding a conversation with someone - in modern day/sci fi games, it's implied they're using some sort of communication device to recieve orders, while in fantasy games, if it's not magic, you're supposed to assume the characters are talking loud enough to be understood despite the action going on.
This trope is opposed to when games will stop the gameplay to deliver exposition, either through a cutscene where the player can't control the character, or through a Wall of Text where the action buttons just make the dialog boxes move faster.
openboss cliff Videogame
A videogame boss fight against a Kaiju-sized enemy where the player stands on top of a cliff while the boss stands on the ground at the bottom of the cliff, allowing the player to interact with the boss's torso, arms, and head instead of just its feet. Often also a Stationary Boss, since if the boss moved away from the cliff edge the player wouldn't be able to hit them.
Examples
- the second Metal Gear Ray fight in Metal Gear Rising
- The Human-Reaper in Mass Effect 2
- the Reaper on Rannoch in Mass Effect 3
- The Icon of Sin in Doom Eternal
- The raid boss version of Oryx in Destiny
The Icon of Sin and Oryx are notable as examples that aren't also Stationary Bosses, as there are multiple "cliffs" they regularly move between over the course of their respective boss fights.
resolved Dev Leaving stuff in for Datamines Videogame
Okay, I KNOW this is a trope, but I forget the name: what's it called when a developer leaves little things in the files that would otherwise not be found for dataminers?
open3D switch Videogame
A game is made in a 2½D format in which roughly 90% of the game takes place in 2d space. During the final boss battle, the boss goes out of your reach by simply moving back - into the 3D space in the background, meaning the hero can't hit them, though they still respect 2½D by only moving in two dimensions, just on a different "layer". After getting shot at for a few minutes, the hero defies game logic by launching themselves at the boss, then the game seamlessly switches to true 3D as the player resumes their attack.note If you can't envision the switch in your head, think of it as a PC game in which you only use A, D, and Space for movement, and use the cursor to aim your attacks. After going 3D, W and S now see use as Forward and Back, and the mouse moves the camera while the aiming icon stays in the center of the screen. The tropes I'm looking for are as follows:
- A game that starts off as a 2D platformer/shooter becomes a 3D shooter at a pivotal moment.
- During the last section of their fight, the boss is almost completely incapable of hitting the hero because they're so used to fighting 2D targets.
resolved Certain gory scenes are censored even if AdjustableCensorship is disabled Videogame
A video game has Adjustable Censorship to censor or outright remove otherwise-prevalent Gorn; however, there are specific gory scenes which are deliberately censored, even if the Adjustable Censorship is disabled. I'd normally classify this under Gory Discretion Shot, but I can find no examples where shots are left as-is, but, instead, censored. Is this in fact an example of Gory Discretion Shot? Another trope? Or not an example of a trope?
openSome differences between source novels and an adaptation in a videogame Videogame
- Baldur's Gate changed some tropes for drow and Rashemen people compared to source material (novels, manuals etc.). The drow originally had brownish to black skin, while the game popularized them having striking noticeable blue skin, ranging from graysh to silver blue and dark blue.
- Rashemen was a country essentially based on Eastern Europe, but with prominents elements from Tatar, Turkish, Sami, and Ugric culture. The game introduced the idea of an expy of Russia through Minsc, which was later brought again in Neverwinter Nights 2.
- Minsc in particular is notable because he is characteristically bald, while in the lore baldness was virtually non-existant in the culture of Rashemen, as the Rashemi people took great pride in their long hair (interestingly, the reviled novels are based on very early drafts of the game, where Minsc was described as long haired).
- Another change is in the "witches of Rashemen" that lead the country. In the lore, the wychlaran always wear masks, and are strictly chosen from the free tribes of Rashemen that directly descend from the Raumviran ethnic group, which was strictly related to the Sossrim, which were northerners with pale skin said to be related with the Frost People. The game introduced Dynaheir, a black woman (meaning she was either the daughter of immigrants, adopted from foreigners, or a freed slave, all concepts that were not characteristical of Rashemen and its witches), as the first wychlaran for many players. Masks are never mentioned.
- Then we have the red wizards of Thay, who always shave their heads if they are not naturally bald. The game introduces Edwin, who has thick hair. As if he and Minsc swapped the supposed fashion.
Which tropes do you think would best fit those topics?
openGlobal Monster Respawn Videogame
In The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and its sequel, the Blood Moon respawns all of the monsters in Hyrule who have been slain (along with all of the resource nodes). In Sonic Frontiers, star showers respawn all of the enemies that were defeated.
Is there a trope for this?
openSpecial Song They Spent The Most Money On Videogame
This is oftentimes a video game trope, but not always. Metal Gear does this a lot.
Your work (usually a video game) has a full soundtrack. Lotta good songs in there. But there's one (sometimes two, but oftentimes one) that's "special." Like it'll have vocals with lyrics while the other ones don't. One might assume this is the song they spent the most money on. It's not the main theme, but it's the "specialest" song. Examples...
"Heavens Divide" from Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker
"That's The Way It Is" from Red Dead Redemption 2
"Jump Up, Super Star!" from Super Mario Odyssey (Or "Break Free (Lead the Way)," sometimes there's two. But they always stand out in the soundtrack.)
Edited by KaljinyuopenA playable character/class/weapon gets both nerfed and buffed Videogame
Basically, a weapon is completely reworked to better match its design. Do we have a trope like this?
openGame within itself (not game within a game?) Videogame
Looking for the correct trope to list a videogame being played within the game itself. Game Within a Game sounds obvious but that seems to only cover other games which exist in-universe and are played temporarily, whereas in Battle Isle the whole setup is that the game's protagonist himself is also playing the titular game in-universe.
Edited by kopyrightopenEvolving Loading Screen Videogame
A game's loading screen changes to reflect the last level visited (or where the game was previously saved). The closest trope to this seems to be Evolving Title Screen and its third variant, but that trope is mostly about title screens instead.
I looked through some examples in the Evolving Title Screen page, but only 2 mention "loading". Now I'm not sure if those two are valid or if they were shoehorned.
I would've wanted to list some games that specifically have alternate loading screens.
resolved Clothes of the fallen-Semi resolved? TragicKeepsake seems to be what this is Videogame
Thinking about how in some Undertale fanart, Sans on the genocide route is wearing his brother's scarf, and in Ride to Hell: Retribution, the main character wears his brother's jacket. I think it's a trope but I'm not sure where
Edited by jdxtremeresolved Similar To Scrappy Mechanic Videogame
Hi there, I'm going through a variety of online games, and was wondering if there was a YMMV trope similar to Scrappy Mechanic, but it's something scrappy caused by the players rather than the game itself? (Ex: Players overinflating the prices of in-game items for trade, or a certain playstyle being ridiculed because it's considered low tier).
(May not use it if it's more considered flame bait, but would like clarification regardless)
resolved "Game Rule"-breaking Boss Videogame
A video game boss that is allowed to go past otherwise established limits of the game, such as having a larger-than-otherwise-allowed party size. For example, the ax party size for the player and all other units in the game is five, but this boss gets to have six.
Couple of spoilers ahead for Pokémon Legends: Arceus and Unicorn Overlord: (Seems that spoiler tags don't work here)
- In Pokémon Legends: Arceus, Final Boss Volo has his series-standard full team of six Pokemon, then uses Giratina, and then uses Giratina's "Origin Form" on top of that for a total of eight.
- In Unicorn Overlord, Baltro has, in the final battle, including himself, a party with six units that must be defeated. The max the player can create, or is otherwise encountered in the game, is five.
I don't think it's Beyond the Impossible as this is more a violation of a game mechanic than the "internal logic of the story". It toes around Boss Bonanza, but in each of these cases, it's not a series of bosses, but one boss with a larger-than-standard party size to use against you. Maybe there's something to an Inversion of Fair-Play Villain, but I'm hesitant.
Edited by BeerBaronopenTrapping/Immobilization attacks Videogame
A character has a net/vine attack whose only purpose is to temporarily immobilize an enemy.
resolved A video game character that's explicitly an exception to the game's rules Videogame
When browsing MARVEL SNAP, I stumbled across this.
My Rules Are Not Your Rules: So long as there's a location to go to, Jeff the Baby Land Shark can be played or moved into it. This includes bucking a Sandman or Electro's restrictive "only play 1 card a turn" ongoings, allowing his user to play him and another card during the same turn provided they have enough energy. He can also move into and out of locations where cards can't be added nor removed, such as the locations where Prof. X is. Reading through the trope itself, I saw that this applies to video game AI. This isn't AI. I wonder if there's a trope relating to things in games whether player character or item bends a certain rule.
openThe guards know where you breath Videogame
if 1 guard or police officer finds you, ALL guards and police officers know where you are
openReversed video game controls Videogame
Is there a trope for when the controls in a video game are reversed or switched around?
As in the left button goes right, right button goes left, and vice versa. Or a particular unit behaves as if the controls are reversed.
In a game that is otherwise a Wide-Open Sandbox or at least a particularly wide-open example of it's genre, there are subtle limitations put in place keeping the player from exploring too high of level areas or getting exceptional gear too early. It'd be in a similar vein to something like a Beef Gate or Ability Required to Proceed, but less overt.
For example, in Unicorn Overlord, there are several literal Broken Bridges to side areas throughout the game that require getting a certain amount of a certain resource to repair. Some of them lead to really good items, but the game doesn't offer enough of the required resource until you've progressed through most of the region in which they're located, at which point the items are still good but less game-breaking.
TIA for anything!