History Main / RiseToTheChallenge

* ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros:'':
** ''VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBros1'': A few levels, including a fortress level with rising lava. There's a code that enables "Challenge Mode". When used on side-scrolling stages, it disables scrolling left, making the experience more like the first ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros'' game (as well as allowing you to occasionally get into an {{Unwinnable}} situation). In vertical-scrolling stages however, it turns falling off the bottom of the screen at any time into an instant death, making those vertically-scrolling stages into Rise To The Challenge levels that move at your own pace.

* ''VideoGame/JakAndDaxterThePrecursorLegacy'' has levels flooding with toxic [[GrimyWater Dark Eco]].

May overlap with {{Auto Scrolling Level}}s, or a vertical form of RatchetScrolling. In these cases, the danger may simply be a rising BottomlessPit.

** ''VideoGame/SuperCastlevaniaIV has the last stage before the Tower of the Four Fiends, which has Simon traversing a large tower, constantly upwards. With floating platforms, stairs, until at one point a giant [[ChainsawGood saw blade]] starts chasing him, ricocheting back and forth between the two walls of the tower until he reaches the top.

** In the original ''VideoGame/{{Metroid|1}}'', Brinstar did have acid lakes. ''VideoGame/SuperMetroid'', on the other hand, did not have them.

** A few levels in ''VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBros1'', including a fortress level with rising lava. There's a code that enables "Challenge Mode". When used on side-scrolling stages, it disables scrolling left, making the experience more like the first ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros'' game (as well as allowing you to occasionally get into an {{Unwinnable}} situation). In vertical-scrolling stages however, it turns falling off the bottom of the screen at any time into an instant death, making those vertically-scrolling stages into Rise To The Challenge levels that move at your own pace.
** There is a lava one in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy''. It's technically because of the ground sinking instead of the lava rising, but functionally it plays like any regular example; then, you have to redo it [[OneHitPointWonder with only one HP.]] In the same game, there is another that is somewhere between this and DescendingCeiling. Mario is upside down to the player so it is hard to say whether the sand is the floor or the ceiling.
** In ''VideoGame/SuperMarioMaker2'', it is possible to make levels of this kind by making lava or poison rise constantly in a vertical sub-area and prevent it from lowering its level afterwards. For levels without the harmful element present, it is still possible to invoke this trope by simply making the screen scroll up.
** One of the mini-games in ''VideoGame/MarioParty DS'' is called "Crater Crawl". In it, Mario and his friends are inside a volcano, trying to climb to the top as the lava inside it rises. [[ButtonMashing Pressing the A button repeatedly makes them climb]], and they also have to watch out for pillars of lava that shoot up, which are indicated by bubbles. The longer at least two players survive, the faster the lava will bubble.

** ''VideoGame/SuperMetroid'''s version of Norfair has several rooms where lava rises as soon as you enter. (Or in one case, as soon as you grab an upgrade at the far end.) In lower Norfair, Samus will also have to deal with acid that rises from the rooms that neither of her suits will protect her from. There's also rising acid in part of the final EscapeSequence, but it's kind of redundant since you're already running to escape an exploding planet, and because it's at the end of the game, your suit's been upgraded enough that the lava doesn't restrict your movement, and you have so many spare energy tanks that the damage inflicted by the acid is negligible, so it's really only there to make you panic.

** The first game has you moving one of two (previously [[BalefulPolymorph cursed]]) boys named Bub and Bob up a series of seven sinking islands, with a harsh time limit and some SuperDrowningSkills to speed you on your way.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Splatoon}}''[='=]s ''Squid Jump'' minigame, you have to outjump a quickly-rising flood of lethal purple ink.

** ''VideoGame/SuperMetroid'''s version of Norfair has several rooms where lava rises as soon as you enter. (Or in one case, as soon as you grab an upgrade at the far end.) There's also rising lava in part of the final EscapeSequence, but it's kind of redundant since you're already running to escape an exploding planet, and because it's at the end of the game, your suit's been upgraded enough that the lava doesn't restrict your movement, and you have so many spare energy tanks that the damage inflicted by the lava is negligible, so it's really only there to make you panic.

%%* On the NES, ''VideoGame/NinjaGaiden 3''.

* ''VideoGame/MegaMan2'' inverts this with Quick Man's infamous laser death trap, where the challenge is going ''down'' without getting blasted by the instant-kill lasers.

** ''VideoGame/MegaManX8'' did this both ways ([[InnocentInnuendo I mean up and down!]]) with fire.

* The first ''VideoGame/TheSmurfs'' game for the SNES had a volcano level with rising lava (Act 12).
* ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog:''

* The 16-bit Disney game ''VideoGame/DonaldInMauiMallard'' had a few of these, notably trying to [[DoNotTouchTheFunnelCloud out-swim a vortex in a shipwreck]] and climbing away from a cloud of death in Hell.

* In ''VideoGame/FallGuysUltimateKnockout'', the event "Slime Climb" has rising slime that eliminates players, and an obstacle course that must be traversed to reach higher ground.

Compare DownTheDrain and OutrunTheFireball. The inverse is DescendingCeiling. Sideways you get an IndyEscape or AdvancingWallOfDoom. See also LiftOfDoom where the rising threat is solid rather than fluid. A form of EscapeSequence.

* The finale of both versions of ''Videogame/{{Ducktales}}'' has Scrooge racing Magica [=DeSpell=] and Flintheart Glomgold to his Number One Dime. Once he beats them however, he still has to escape the rising lava.

* In ''Kaizou Choujin Shubibinman 3'', Stage 3 features a section of this combined with TheWallsAreClosingIn.

** A rising sea of lava also appears near the end of Lava Landing, in ''[[Videogame/KirbysEpicYarn Kirby's Epic Yarn]]''
* ''[[VideoGame/LegacyOfKain Legacy of Kain: Defiance]]'' has the early moment in Raziel's viewpoint, as he [[EscapeSequence escapes]] from the Spirit Realm. The [[GodofEvil Elder God]] cynically asks, "[[IShallTauntYou Where are you going, little soul?]]", after which [[FogOfDoom deadly mist]] rises up and the player is forced to outclimb it.

%%* On the NES, ''NinjaGaiden 3''.

* ''VideoGame/WarioLandSuperMarioLand3'' has an advancing lava wall in the first level of Stove Canyon. It seems ridiculously easy to outrun at first, until you realize that the reason for this is that there is a hidden [[TreasureRoom Treasure Room]] key in this level.

* ''VideoGame/{{Pankapu}}'': The final level in Archipelago Of The Winds has [[PlayerCharacter Pankapu]] racing against rising lava to reach the end of the level.