History Main / TryEverything

* In the fifth episode of ''[[HomestarRunner Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People]]'', when Strong Bad calls Videlectrix and asks for a tip on how to complete a Videlectrix game, he is advised to try to use everything with everything.

* This might go back to "AliBabaAndTheFortyThieves", where Ali Baba's brother forgets the password "Open, sesame!" and tries naming almost every other variety of grain.

* This is more or less the only way to collect all the voice clips in {{Baroque}} if you don't already know how to get each one. Punch every NPC, hit every NPC with a sword, shoot every NPC with your BFG, give every item to every NPC; repeat every time something plot-significant happens. Add to this the fact that there are over 300 items in the game, some NPCs only show up on certain floors of the Neuro Tower, and every floor is randomly generated...yeah. It gets pretty ridiculous. And yes, some of these are LostForever.

* Security experts refer to something that tries to guess passwords by trying all of them as a "dictionary attack" (i.e., try every word in the dictionary), or a more thorough "brute force attack" (try ''every'' possible combination of letters/digits/symbols/etc.). A similar method, called "rainbow table", consists of getting one's hands on an encrypted password and comparing it with a huge table of possible passwords and their encrypted equivalents. [[hottip:*:This is because good encryption methods use a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trapdoor_function "trapdoor function"]] - basically, even if you know the encryption key, you can't directly reverse the process without a different key, or a brute-force effort that dwarfs the rainbow-table approach.]]. The exception to this is the one-time-pad cipher; if you try brute forcing a one-time-pad encryption, you end up with literally thousands to millions of interpretations, and no way to know which was the correct one (that is what the key is for).

-->-- ''[[FamilyGuy Stewie]]'', attempting to figure out his home phone number

* ''[[LaMulana La-Mulana]]'' punishes players who resort to this

** And they really do mean ''everything''.

* This might go back to the Arabian Nights tales, where Ali Baba's brother forgets the password "Open, sesame!" and tries naming almost every other variety of grain.

* Security experts refer to something that tries to guess passwords by trying all of them as a "dictionary attack" (i.e., try every word in the dictionary), or a more thorough "brute force attack" (try ''every'' possible combination of letters/digits/symbols/etc.). A similar method, called "rainbow table", consists of getting one's hands on an encrypted password and comparing it with a huge table of possible passwords and their encrypted equivalents. [[hottip:*:This is because good encryption methods use a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trapdoor_function "trapdoor function"]] - basically, even if you know the encryption key, you can't directly reverse the process without a different key, or a brute-force effort that dwarfs the rainbow-table approach.]]. The exception to this is the one-time-pad cipher; if you try brute forcing a one-time-pad encryption, you end up with literally thousands to millions of interpretations, and no way to know which was the correct one (that is what the key is for).

* Security experts refer to something that tries to guess passwords by trying all of them as a "dictionary attack" (i.e., try every word in the dictionary), or a more thorough "brute force attack" (try ''every'' possible combination of letters/digits/symbols/etc.). A similar method, called "rainbow table", consists of getting one's hands on an encrypted password and comparing it with a huge table of possible passwords and their encrypted equivalents. [[hottip:*:This is because good encryption methods use a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trapdoor_function "trapdoor function"]] - basically, even if you know the encryption key, you can't directly reverse the process without a different key, or a brute-force effort that dwarfs the rainbow-table approach.]]

* Security experts refer to something that tries to guess passwords by brute force as a "dictionary attack" (i.e., try every word in the dictionary), or a more brutish "brute force attack" (try ''every'' possible combination of letters/digits/symbols/etc.). A similar method, called "rainbow table", consists of getting one's hands on an encrypted password and comparing it with a huge table of possible passwords and their encrypted equivalents. [[hottip:*:This is because good encryption methods use a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trapdoor_function "trapdoor function"]] - basically, even if you know the encryption key, you can't directly reverse the process without a different key, or a brute-force effort that dwarfs the rainbow-table approach.]]

* Security experts refer to something that tries to guess passwords by brute force as a "dictionary attack" (i.e., try every word in the dictionary), or a more brutish "brute force attack" (try ''every'' possible combination of letters/digits/symbols/etc.). A similar method, called "rainbow table", consists of getting one's hands on an encrypted password and comparing it with a huge table of encrypted passwords and their unencrypted equivalents. [[hottip:*:This is because good encryption methods use a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trapdoor_function "trapdoor function"]] - basically, even if you know the encryption key, you can't directly reverse the process without a different key or a huge brute-force effort.]]

* Security experts refer to something that tries to guess passwords by brute force as a "dictionary attack" (i.e., try every word in the dictionary), or a more brutish "brute force attack" (try ''every'' possible combination of letters/digits/symbols/etc.). A similar method, called "rainbow table", consists of getting one's hands on an encrypted password and comparing it with a huge table of encrypted passwords and their unencrypted equivalents. [[hottip:*:This is because good encryption methods use a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trapdoor_function "trapdoor function"]] - basically, even if you know the encryption key, you can't reverse the process without a different key or a huge brute-force effort.]]

* Security experts refer to something that tries to guess passwords by brute force as a "dictionary attack" (i.e., try every word in the dictionary), or a more brutish "brute force attack" (try ''every'' possible combination of letters/digits/symbols/etc.). A similar method, called "rainbow table", consists of getting one's hands on an encrypted password and comparing it with a huge table of encrypted passwords and their unencrypted equivalents.

** If you're GenreSavvy, you never even bother with your attorney's badge, just to save time. [[spoiler:Which will screw you over in 1-4, since it's the ''only'' item that gets the old guy to respond. In the following case, if you show your badge to Gumshoe, he will ''still'' say you're "always flashing it around", despite you never having show it to him before.]]

** This was also a detriment to people who didn't have access to the CD case for either borrowing or renting the game, and thus had no way of finding out what it was even if they ''did'' know what the Colonel was talking about. Luckly, the needed frequency in question happens to be very close to the logical starting point of 140.00.

Subtrope of TrialAndErrorGameplay. The inevitable process where, lacking a guide or any hope of solution after they'd exhausted the saner, more rational responses, people ''will'', out of frustration, resort to [[UseItem using every single item]]/trying every option with every other item/funnily shaped spot on wall/steampunk eggplant. As the reasoning goes, you've tried everything else, why not Try Everything? Has varying chances of success and limited efficiency, but sometimes it's the only option. In real life too (commonly referred to as "Brute Forcing"). Can lead to people shouting, "GuideDangIt!", because, really, if you're just trying everything rather than reasoning through it, it's just as much not really figuring it out yourself as a guide would be - and it takes a lot longer.

* In many, many {{Roguelikes}}, drinking your unidentified potions or eating the stuff you picked off that mysterious herb bush is not an option for the sane. When you're down to single-digit HP and attacked by an entire pack of jackals, it may be your ''only'' option: "What's this one? No.. What's this one? Maybe this one?" ''* is devoured whilst blind, sick and invisible* ''

*** How about wands? "I wonder what this does?" * Killer Elephant [[BalefulPolymorph is turned into a newt]]* "How about this one?" * The [[OneHitKill Death Ray]] hits the monster! The Death Ray bounces! The Death Ray hits you! ...[[HaveANiceDeath Do you want your possessions identifed?]]*

* Although AVampyreStory mostly averts this trope, it has one puzzle that appears to be designed around it-you have to take an item from a stack of several, try to use it, return to the stack, notice that one of these things is not like the others, then take ''that'' and use it to solve the puzzle. The problem is that until you try using the incorrect item the game won't acknowledge that there's anything notable about the rest of the stack, nor will it give you any other hint that might suggest a need to return to something you've apparently exhausted. It looks as though the designers expect you to get desperate and start trying everything to eventually bring you back to the stack to find out that "hey, this one looks different, let's try it."
* ''{{Theresia}}'' does its best to avert this by way of {{Booby Trap}}s. Clicking on everything tends to result in your getting peppered with arrows or stabbed by a flying knife.
* [[LaMulana La-Mulana]] punishes players who resort to this

* Being an AdventureGame, Telltale's SamAndMax games include some of this. Of note, though, is how the manual encourages the player to try and shoot everything and anyone with Sam's gun.

** Not related to MGS, but this troper's friend got to the end of {{Resident Evil Code Veronica}}, and spent hours trying to figure out what the code was...

See also MillionToOneChance. Compare CombinatorialExplosion, where the ''developers'' have the headache of coping with lots of items and only one way to do it.

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