History Main / InsurmountableWaistHeightFence

* ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'':

** In the {{Remake}} on UsefulNotes/NintendoGameCube, if you go into the room where you found the first floor map (and used your first self-defense item), you may find that zombie you killed earlier, now mutated into a [[DemonicSpider highly aggressive and physically powerful Crimson Head]], blocked by the three-foot high dresser you have to push out of the way to go down the hall where you killed it the first time.

* The western half of Peasantry in ''VideoGame/PeasantsQuest''.

*** [[HitboxDissonance Things]][[note]]the engine's name for all entities[[/note]] [[HitboxDissonance are infinitely tall]] as far as collision with other things is concerned, so it's impossible to jump over or go under anything that has a collision hull, like a candelabra far below or a hanging corpse five yards above; this quirk specifically makes [[MookMaker Pain Elementals]] very effective movement restrictors. Improvements to the engine implemented with ''VideoGame/{{Heretic}}'' fixed this, and advanced source ports backport this feature to ''Doom''.

* In ''VideoGame/NetHack'', you can do things like dig through the dungeon rock and break down doors and generally destroy most of the environment, but the edges of the two-dimensional world are mysteriously impassable... and also a FourthWall: use a stethoscope in the "up" direction and you'll hear a [[BreakingTheFourthWall faint typing noise]].

** In the first game, the town of Tristram is delimited on all sides by these. A waist-high stone wall to the northeast, a river to the southeast that's maybe a metre wide and 30 cm deep. The western border is blocked by moderately large rocks (150 tall at most). At least in this case, your character has no particular reason to ''want'' to cross the barriers.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Siren}}'' female characters are unable to climb ledges above their hips in terms of height, while males can climb ledges that are just above their height in length. When a mission has a male character and a female one the player controls the male every time and in these ledges the player has to help the female get up the otherwise un-climbable ledge. If the mission is a single female the player has to find an alternate route or method to get to the same destination.

* ''HardReset'' features both insurmountable waist-high obstacles and impassable slightly-shorter-than-your-height gaps. You can't duck through an opening that's slightly below your head height because there is no crouching in the game. Almost as if to emphasize this, such openings are often present.

* Extremely common in ''VideoGame/LiesOfP'', with the most common impassable bearing being someone's discarded luggage. Early on it's not a big deal as you have little reason to go down blocked off streets, but as the game goes on and the world and levels start to circle around more, it becomes more and more apparent how much time P could've saved in saving the city if he could just step over a teddy bear that somebody left on the ground.

*** Due to the way the game handles map geometry, fences are either completely pass-through or infinitely tall. This often leads to flying enemies being unexplainably corralled in because they can't fly over them.[[note]]It actually takes considerably more mapping effort to make a fence that is ''not'' infinitely tall: rather than simply plopping down a linedef, you have to put down a polygon of linedefs to establish a map sector, define the height of said sector, ''and then'' use the fence texture as the sides, effectively creating a solid wall disguised as a fence.[[/note]]

* In the ''VideoGame/AdvanceWars'' series, only one unit can occupy each square of terrain at a time -- meaning that *any* unit in a single-square wide chokepoint acts as an indestructible barrier if the unit trying to get through is incapable of attacking said blocking unit. This can lead to a squadron of fighter jets being unable to fly over ''a submerged submarine''.
** Then there are pipelines; indestructible terrain (except for the seams) that air units can't even fly over, yet ranged units can fire over them without any problems. Dual Strike shows us the pipes are slightly taller than tanks.

* ''VideoGame/JaggedAlliance2'' lets you vault over fences and climb any house that has a flat roof. But you can't climb over crates, tables, and pretty much everything else that isn't either a fence or a flat-topped building.
** This is more a coding issue than intentional blockage for the most part. Fan-mods fix this up some.
* ''VideoGame/MutantYearZeroRoadToEden:'' Any obstacle more than knee high is insurmountable. On the other hand, there is a lot of stealth in this game, and you can usually hide behind the obstacles.

* The insurmountable waist-high fences (and sometimes [[DieChairDie other obstacles]]) felt JustForFun/{{egregious}} in the ''VideoGame/{{Crusader}}'' games, where you were an unstoppable SuperSoldier and had guns that could blow up most of the scenery, but would at most deform metal fences, and not enough for you to climb over them. (In the games' defense, you couldn't jump for shit. Maybe [[PoweredArmor that armor]] was [[Franchise/SpiderMan really tight around the crotch]].)

** Lampshaded in ''Zork: Grand Inquisitor'': using a sword against most objects will result in Dalboz informing you, "Violence never solved anything. Well, not everything. Okay, not this thing!"
** Lampshaded in ''Zork: Nemesis'': several moments in the Conservatory; getting onto the stage, getting behind the stage curtain, and getting into the boiler room - each of which require a puzzle to be completed."

* In ''VideoGame/CaveStory'', early in the plot a locked door provides an obstacle, and a friendly nearby robot is willing to create explosives (out of chewing gum) to break it open. Even though the main character is equipped with a missile launcher, since ''Cave Story'' is a 2D game, that the protagonist can't actually point it at the door.

* In ''VideoGame/CaveStory'', early in the plot a locked door provides an obstacle, and a friendly nearby robot is willing to create explosives (out of chewing gum) to break it open. This ignores the fact that the main character is equipped with a missile launcher.
** Although since ''Cave Story'' is a 2D game, it probably has something to do with the fact that the protagonist can't actually point his missile launcher at the door.