History Main / KillScreen

** Interestingly enough, if you accomplish this in Game B (2 ducks) or Game C (clay shooting), it causes everything to become incredibly slow. In Game C, you even get to see up-close blast animations that are almost impossible to get at normal speed.

* In ''DuckHunt'', a kill screen occurs at Level 100. The level is displayed as "Level 0", ducks fly at insane speeds and jump around the screen so fast they're unshootable, and then the dog repeatedly laughs at you until you get a Game Over.
** Interestingly enough, if you accomplish this in the Skeet Shooting game (I was never good enough to pull it off with ducks!), it causes the skeets to become incredibly slow. You even get to see up-close blast animations that are almost impossible to get at normal speed.

!!Video Game Examples:

* Parodied in episode 5 of [[HomestarRunner Strong Bad's Cool Game For Attractive People]], where it's actually your ''objective'' to cause this to happen in ''Gel-arshie's Pro Fruit-Boarder'' by forcing the game to fire collectibles instead of enemies and changing the difficulty to the hardest level. Your score counter goes up so high it crashes the system, followed by [[spoiler: [[NightmareFuel the screen filling up with ALL WORK AND NO FRUIT MAKES MARSHIE A DULL BOY and him breaking out of the TV]]]].
* Many ''{{Action 52}}'' games do this, eg Thrusters starts blinking on and off in the second level, Atmos Quake has an invisible death barrier at Level 5, and Star Evil displays a blank gray screen on Level 4. In other version of this cartridge, some of these levels won't crash.

!!Non-Video Game Examples

* In an episode of {{Chuck}}, the HollywoodNerd must get the secret codes to a Cold War satellite by getting the Kill Screen in Missile Command.

[[caption-width:350:[[GameBreakingBug OH GOD DAMMIT]].]]

-> '''Strong Bad:''' It's when you play a game for so long, and get a score so high, and have a life so depressing, that it actually breaks the game.

Yep, the Kill Screen, enemy of completionists of yore. You see, back in those days, after hitting a certain number in the background, the game would call an overflow and go BERSERK, spitting out garbage data- thus causing the game to give you an impossible situation to overcome.

This can apply to anything: be it a sequence, a level, or even a spawn error, though the latter is rare.

Most definitely related to and or cause of UnWinnable (although one might regard simply ''reaching'' the KillScreen to be a form of victory). Not to be confused with MinusWorld, which is actually semi-playable and generally is only available through hacking rather than appearing by accident. TheMissingno is a game sprite that exists because of a similar bug.

[[http://donhodges.com/how_high_can_you_get.htm This site]] explains the Kill Screens for ''Pac-Man'' and ''DonkeyKong'' - and contains patches for both of them.

Compare MinusWorld, which is a level that is found by exploiting a glitch, such as world -1 in ''Game/SuperMarioBros.''

* The first-gen {{Pokemon}} games would do this if you started messing around with glitchmons too much.

** Tetris also features a largely theoretical "kill sequence", whereby the random flow of pieces can include a stream of S- and Z-shaped blocks that cannot be used to create complete lines. Assuming a perfect random number generator (and that the programmers have not spotted the problem), such a sequence is bound to happen in a game that is long enough.

* ''In RC Pro Am'', the [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard cheating yellow truck]] eventually makes the race literally {{unwinnable}}. While you only need to avoid last place, the other trucks will eventually speed up as well.

** In Pac-Man Championship Edition DX, the 65th on the right side will affect the right-hand side it is collected on instead of the left-hand side it's supposed to. This can result in pellets being stuck in walls, making it impossible to continue, and if the player is smart (and aware) enough to clean out the side of pellets first, no more fruit spawn. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_iYcHsU6k8&t=9m35s Here's an example of the glitch in action.]] This does (in theory) place a cap on the "Half" course that cannot be beaten, but only Free Mode is affected, as the "Half" course is only ranked on Time Attack courses.

** In Pac-Man Championship Edition DX, the 65th on the right side will affect the right-hand side it is collected on instead of the left-hand side it's supposed to. This can result in pellets being stuck in walls, making it impossible to continue, and if the player is smart (and aware) enough to clean out the side of pellets first, no more fruit spawn. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_iYcHsU6k8 Here's an example of the glitch in action.]] This does (in theory) place a cap on the "Half" course that cannot be beaten, but only Free Mode is affected, as the "Half" course is only ranked on Time Attack courses.

** In Pac-Man Championship Edition DX, the 129th fruit collected (or the 65th on either side) will affect the side it is collected on instead of the side it's supposed to be on. This can result in pellets being stuck in walls, making it impossible to continue, and if the player is smart (and aware) enough to clean out the side of pellets first, no more fruit spawn. Due to how tricky it is to get there, it's extremely unlikely this will happen outside of Free Mode.

* At a certain level of ''{{Dig Dug}}'', the enemies start right on top of Dig, killing him instantly at the start of the round. Repeats until you run out of lives.

** In Pac-Man Championship Edition DX, the 129th fruit collected (or the 65th on either side) will affect the side it is collected on instead of the side it's supposed to be on. This can result in pellets being stuck in walls, making it impossible to continue. Due to how tricky it is to get there, it's extremely unlikely this will happen outside of Free Mode.

* Parodied in episode 5 of [[HomestarRunner Strong Bad's Cool Game For Attractive People]], where it's actually your ''objective'' to cause this to happen in ''Gel-arshie's Pro Fruit-Boarder'' by forcing the game to fire collectibles instead of enemies and changing the difficulty to the hardest level. Your score counter goes up so high it crashes the system, followed by [[spoiler: [[NightmareFuel the screen filling up with ALL WORK AND NO FRUIT MAKES MARSHIE A DULL BOY and him breaking out of the TV]]]]
* The old Amstrad games "Fantastic Voyage" (based loosely on the film of the same name), wherein if you flew the miniaturised ship out through the brain -> optic nerve -> eye, you could reach the end safely. However, if you chose to leave via the mouth (where there is also an opening large enough to fly through) you enter a kill sequence of messed-up screens from the rest of the game, quickly resulting in your ship becoming embedded in an internal wall.
** That sounds more like a MinusWorld.

* Appearance in TV: In an episode of {{Chuck}}, the HollywoodNerd must get the secret codes to a Cold War satellite by getting the Kill Screen in Missile Command.

* ''In RC Pro Am'', the [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard cheating yellow truck]] eventually makes the race literally {{unwinnable}}.

* Appearance in TV: In an episode of {{Chuck}}, the HollywoodNerd must get the secret codes to a Cold War satellite by getting the Kill Screen in Missile Command.

* The webcomic ''2P Start'' referenced the ''Pac-Man'' kill screen in [[http://www.2pstart.com/2009/08/05/the-end-of-the-end/ one comic.]]

Most definitely related to and or cause of UnWinnable. Not to be confused with MinusWorld, which is actually semi-playable and generally is only available through hacking rather than appearing by accident. TheMissingno is a game sprite that exists because of a similar bug.

** Tetris also features a largely theoretical "kill sequence", whereby the random flow of pieces can include a stream of S- and Z-shaped blocks that cannot be used to create complete lines. The odds of this happening - even assuming that the game's random number generator is fair, and that the programmers have not spotted the problem - are 100% in a game that is long enough.

* The back cover of [[ScottPilgrim Scott Pilgrim Vs The Universe]] has a picture of 8-bit Scott opening a door to Subspace, which apparantly looks like a KillScreen.

* Happens in ''{{Donkey Kong}}'', in which the overflow sets your [[TimedMission death timer]] to 400-* , which is about 4 seconds, and is doubtlessly impossible.
** In the documentary film TheKingOfKong one of the players manages to pull off getting to this kill screen.

** In the documentary film TheKingofKong one of the players manages to pull off getting to this kill screen.

* Parodied in [[HomestarRunner Strong Bad's Cool Game For Attractive People]], where it's actually your ''objective'' to cause this to happen by forcing the game to fire collectibles instead of enemies and changing the difficulty to the hardest level. Your score counter goes up so high it crashes the system, followed by [[spoiler: [[NightmareFuelUnleaded the screen filling up with ALL WORK AND NO FRUIT MAKES MARSHIE A DULL BOY and him breaking out the TV]]]]

*Happens in Donkey Kong, in which the overflow sets your [[TimedMission death timer]] to 400-*, which is about 4 seconds, and is doubtlessly impossible.
* At a certain level of ''Dig Dug'', the enemies start right on top of Dig, killing him instantly at the start of the round. Repeats until you run out of lives.

** Tetris also features a largely theoretical "kill sequence", whereby the random flow of pieces can include a stream of S- and Z-shaped blocks that cannot be used to create complete lines. The odds of this happening - even assuming that the game's random number generator is fair, and that the programmers have not spotted the problem - were astronomically low, but nonzero.

** Tetris also features a largely theoretical "kill sequence", whereby the random flow of pieces can include a stream of S- and Z-shaped blocks that cannot be used to create complete lines. The odds of this happening - even assuming that the game's random number generator is fair, and that the programmers have not spotted the problem - were astronomically high, but finite.