History Main / UnwinnableByInsanity

** A specific method occurs in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemGenealogyOfTheHolyWar'' - if [[spoiler:Quan and Ethlyn]] survive Travant's ambush in Chapter 5 and if you let them conquer Phinora Castle, which is your next step at that point... Congratulations, now Phinora is an allied castle and you can't conquer it back, meaning that you're stuck in Yied Desert with no way to advance further in the game (since your progress is very linear, conquering a castle disables the InvisibleWall guarding the next one). Though you have to try [[http://serenesforest.net/genealogy-of-the-holy-war/miscellaneous/hints-and-secrets/cuan-and-ethlins-survival/ really, really, REALLY hard]] to pull the whole thing off.

* ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' contains the Platinum Angel, which, while under your control, prevents you from losing the game and your opponents from winning. It also contains the Angel's EvilCounterpart, the Abyssal Persecutor, which similarly prevents you from winning the game and your opponents from losing. If you control both of these creatures at the same time, then perform [[https://www.reddit.com/r/BadMtgCombos/comments/cyc9ql/the_game_isnt_over_but_no_one_can_play/ an elaborate combo]] to exile all other cards in the entire game, you will theoretically be stuck like that forever.

* In ''VideoGame/QuestForGloryI'', there's a tricky-but-possible way to die that involves resting in such places as the graveyard, which change between day and night, and staying until nightfall. When night falls, try to leave, and die of a "program bug".
* ''VideoGame/QuestForGloryII'':
** Early on, there's a [[HorseOfADifferentColor Saurus]] dealer right outside of [[CityOfAdventure Shapeir]]'s main gate, who aggressively tries to sell the player a Saurus. If you repeatedly leave and re-enter the screen, he'll get increasingly insistent that you buy a Saurus, eventually [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall Leaning On]] and later BreakingTheFourthWall. Push him enough and he'll get frustrated and leave, saying he was just trying to help you win the game, and the HaveANiceDeath screen reinforces it by saying that the Saurus you '''should''' have bought went to someone else and you can't progress any further in the game without it.
** Late in the game, after you reach Raseir, you need to become friends with Signor Ferrari in order to have a place to stay (if not, you will be arrested for vagrancy causing a GameOver). One segment requires you to pay five dinars to Ugarte for information (which you can haggle down to three if you "bargain" with him). If you do not have the three dinars before you first meet him, Ferrari will kick you out and you lose the game. What makes this insanity is that you received 100 dinars from Omar on the evening before your departure to Raseir, and you had less than three in-game hours to spend it all before nightfall.

* In WebVideo/SwordArtOnlineAbridged, Kayabe wonders aloud if the players trapped in his game don't crave death... and not just any death, but the stupidest deaths possible, based on how they keep managing to invoke this trope. For example, Thinker agrees to a peace talk in the heart of a dungeon, doesn't bring any weapons, gear, or teleport crystals, and then believes the guy who abandons him there when he tells him calling for help is impossible because of bad reception. And to top it off, he doesn't warn the people who come to rescue him of an approaching boss, which almost gets ''them'' killed as well.

* LetsPlay/SpoilerWarning managed to get into one of these in their ''FalloutNewVegas'' playthrough near the end of the Dead Money DLC. At one point, the player is expected to either fight Christine to the death (and use an item to open an elevator) or ally with Christine (and have her open the elevator for you). Instead, Josh had angered Christine into turning hostile, but instead of fighting her he ran away until some timer ran out and she stopped behing hostile. The resulting mix of contradictory event flags meant that he couldn't open the elevator and Christine wouldn't either. They had to use console commands to get past it.

* In ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIV'', you can get stuck at Ouji and Minami Senju before you get the Global Airship if you spend the 500 Macca to go there when you have less than 700 Macca total (as it only costs 200 for the return trip) and don't have the Scout Bonus or Fundraise apps or enough App Points to purchase one. Note that you can still buy your way out...[[BribingYourWayToVictory if you spend the real-world cash]] needed to get the DLC mission that can give you more App Points (unless you are in a region, or your 3DS's region is set as such, where the [=DLCs=] weren't greenlit for sale, like in South America. Which bounces back into this trope).

* ''VideoGame/SecretOfEvermore'': After Tinker hands you a GlobalAirship to seek out parts for his rocket ship, it is possible, via an obscure glitch, to land back outside Tinker's lab--without the aircraft. If the player hasn't completed his {{fetch quest}}, then the game is now unwinnable because you can't [[SpaceZone journey to space.]] And it is possible to save here, thus ruining the player's progress with only a quarter of the game left.

* ''VideoGame/AncientDomainsOfMystery'' has two bonus dungeons that only open at certain levels; the Pyramid and the Minotaur Maze. If you reach a certain level without completing them, they close up for good, rendering everything inside [[PermanentlyMissableContent unobtainable]]. It's possible to enter them, drop one of the [[PlotCoupon Chaos Orbs]], then leave. If you gain that level while the orb is inside, the orb is irretrievable, and you can't open the locks on D:48. This is nigh-impossible to do unintentionally. And in older versions of the game, if you became entangled in webs on [[SlippySlideyIceWorld D:49]], you would be completely incapable of breaking free, and would be trapped, slowly starving to death, one floor away from victory. There is no reason ever to use webs on D:49, since no monsters ever spawn there.

* ''VideoGame/SecretOfEvermore'': After Tinker hands you a GlobalAirship to seek out parts for his rocket ship, it is possible, via an obscure glitch, to land back outside Tinker's lab--without the aircraft. If the player hasn't completed his {{fetch quest}}, then the game is now unwinnable because you can't [[SpaceZone jpuney to space.]] And it is possible to save here, thus ruining the player's progress with only a quarter of the game left.

* ''VodeoGame/SecretOfEvermore'': After Tinker hands you a GlobalAirship to seek out parts for his rocket ship, it is possible, via an obscure glitch, to land back outside Tinker's lab--without the aircraft. If the player hasn't completed his {{fetch quest}}, then the game is now unwinnable because you can't [[SpaceZone jpuney to space.]] And it is possible to save here, thus ruining the player's progress with only a quarter of the game left.

* ''SecretOfEvermore'': After Tinker hands you a GlobalAirship to seek out parts for his rocket ship, it is possible, via an obscure glitch, to land back outside Tinker's lab--without the aircraft. If the player hasn't completed his {{fetch quest}}, then the game is now unwinnable because you can't [[SpaceZone jpuney to space.]] And it is possible to save here, thus ruining the player's progress with only a quarter of the game left.

* In ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIV'', you can get stuck at Ouji and Minami Senju before you get the GlobalAirship if you spend the 500 Macca to go there when you have less than 700 Macca total (as it only costs 200 for the return trip) and don't have the Scout Bonus or Fundraise apps or enough App Points to purchase one. Note that you can still buy your way out...[[BribingYourWayToVictory if you spend the real-world cash]] needed to get the DLC mission that can give you more App Points (unless you are in a region, or your 3DS's region is set as such, where the [=DLCs=] weren't greenlit for sale, like in South America. Which bounces back into this trope).

* * ''VideoGame/DeathGate'': For some reason, on the World of Stone you can drop any inventory item into lava, which irrevocably destroys the item. The game even asks if you are sure. It is probably the only way to make the game unwinnable.

* In ''VideoGame/LuxPain'', the game can become Unwinnable during Chapter 7. If you [[spoiler: take too long finding Yayoi Kamishiro when she is obviously suicidal, then you will be told that Liu Yee is going after her and get an automatic game over. Your time is basically measured by Nami's phone conversations with you. If you save your game after she's talked with you three times, then the game is Unwinnable.]] Luckily, the game warns you and tells you to make a new save before all this occurs; you should be fine as long as you follow the game's advice.

* ''VideoGame/Persona5'': Once the player sends a calling card, they are automatically sent to the Palace the next day. This is because calling cards can only be used once to make a limited window of opportunity to steal the Palace's treasure; if the window expires, the treasure loses material form and the Palace ruler's cognition can't be changed again. The game expects the player to take down the Palace ruler, thus they're told repeatedly that sending the calling card is a one time thing, and can't leave the Palace if they've already used it. However, there's nothing stopping the player from level grinding until they run out of SP after the calling card has been sent, preventing them from being able to beat the boss, and preventing them from leaving the Palace to regain SP because the calling card has been sent. And even if the player could leave the Palace in this event, this would permanently lock them out of being able to steal the treasure because the opportunity created by the calling card has expired, leading directly to one of the many {{Non Standard Game Over}}s in the game. Mercifully, the game does give you an escape clause; if you kick the bucket during the final treasure run, you are given the option to rewind the game one week.

* ''VideoGame/MetroidFusion'' has the [[http://www.metroid2002.com/fusion/other_the_tro_trap.php TRO Trap,]] which is a very tricky {{Sequence Break|ing}} that lets Samus fight Nettori before defeating Yakuza. It fails because the game breaks when bosses are defeated out of the scripted order.
* In ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime2Echoes'', it's possible with some heavy-duty glitch exploitation to skip the scene where [[BagOfSpilling Samus loses her gear to the Ing]]. The game can continue somewhat normally from there... but under no circumstances should you return to the area where that scene takes place. If you do, then the scene will play again, and all of your items will be lost. If you already collected them, then you can't collect them again.

* ''Franchise/MetalGear'':
** In the original ''VideoGame/MetalGear'', during the passage of the game where you rescue Gray Fox, if you run straight through his cell without untying him and run past Shoot Gunner/Shotmaker to retrieve your [=M92F=], you can then go back to Fox's cell and [[JustEatGilligan murder him]]. You don't get a game over, but you take a massive hit to your Rank from which it is impossible to make up the difference, meaning it is not possible to get in touch with Jennifer at the point in the game when you require it.

** You can get stuck during your first run through the Painted World of Ariamas by aggroing the area boss[[note]]She normally lets you leave without attacking, but will never forgive you if you hurt her. Try to leave while she's mad and you just die from the fall.[[/note]] and letting her kill you, then discard all of your weapons and armor. Normally, they'll sit where you left them waiting to be picked up again, but dying or quitting the game makes them disappear permanently. After that, you're left mostly defenseless with only a weak punch to fight with. Exactly one enemy in the area drops either a shield or a spear, both weak and available in the starting area of the game. Going in under-leveled and you won't have enough natural resistance, either. Since you can't warp out the first time you get there, you'll be easily killed in one hit by pretty much everything here, boss included. You can try CherryTapping the boss, but it will require both incredible luck AND skill. Your only other option is to power level your way out by killing the {{Mooks}} in the area, but even then you'll have some difficulty and you'll need to get to the AbsurdlyHighLevelCap.

* In ''VideoGame/SaGa2'', utilizing the "trashcan bug" can result in this if overused. Using the trashcan as an item at specific [[PlotCouponThatDoesSomething MAGI]] counts will give it the effect of other items. Most of the effects are pretty ordinary common items that can easily be bought, but if used at exactly 67 or 68 MAGI, it will have the effect of free, normally very rare [[RareCandy permanent-stat raising potions]] (Power at 67, Speed at 68). However, overusing this glitch will screw up the MAGI counter after a certain number of uses (the exact number of uses depends on equipped MAGI) and [[LaserGuidedKarma leave the player unable to progress with the game.]]

* In ''VideoGame/SaGa2'', utilizing the "trashcan bug" can result in this if you overuse it. Using the trashcan at specific [[PlotCouponThatDoesSomething MAGI]] counts will give it the effect of other items. Most are pretty ordinary, but if you have exactly 67 or 68 MAGI, you can get free permanent-stat raising potions (Power at 67, Speed at 68) if you do this. However, overusing this glitch will screw up your MAGI counter after a certain number of uses (depending on equipped MAGI) and [[LaserGuidedKarma leave you unable to progress with the game.]]

* In ''VideoGame/SaGa2'', utilizing the "trashcan bug" can result in this if you overuse it. Using the trashcan at specific MAGI counts will give it the effect of other items. Most are pretty ordinary, but if you have exactly 67 or 68 MAGI, you can get free permanent-stat raising potions (Power at 67, Speed at 68) if you do this. However, overusing this glitch will screw up your MAGI counter after a certain number of uses (depending on equipped MAGI) and [[LaserGuidedKarma leave you unable to progress with the game.]]

* ''Franchise/Super Smash Bros'':
** In ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros Melee'' and ''Brawl'', if you do an endless-time match with pause turned "off" (i.e. activate the setting that disallows pausing during a match), you can't escape the match unless you turn the game off. This isn't as serious as other UnWinnable cases, and in fact could occasionally be by UnwinnableByMistake (e.g. your friend keeps pausing the game to take Snapshots, so you end your match and turn pause "off." Then, forgetting that Pause is off, you later start an endless match to rack up your Playing Time. Unable to pause and reset your match, you made it unwinnable). But most of the time, you have to be trying.
** With the return of Homerun Contest in ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosUltimate'', you can send the Sandbag to the left side without triggering the auto cancel by sending Sandbag foward out of the starting area and then hitting it back towards the left, as the game doesn't check if you go left after leaving that area. This will cause sandbag to fall infinitely, with no escape except leaving the game entirely. Given the hoops you have to go through to do this, it's almost certainly not happening by accident.

* In ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros Melee'' and ''Brawl'', if you do an endless-time match with pause turned "off" (i.e. activate the setting that disallows pausing during a match), you can't escape the match unless you turn the game off. This isn't as serious as other UnWinnable cases, and in fact could occasionally be by UnwinnableByMistake (e.g. your friend keeps pausing the game to take Snapshots, so you end your match and turn pause "off." Then, forgetting that Pause is off, you later start an endless match to rack up your Playing Time. Unable to pause and reset your match, you made it unwinnable). But most of the time, you have to be trying.