| 1 | %% Image changed per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1445212041066272400 |
| 2 | %% Image kept on page per IP thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1585718459037605000 |
| 3 | %% Please do not replace or remove without starting a new thread. |
| 4 | %% |
| 5 | [[quoteright:350:[[VideoGame/MarioKartWii https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mario_kart_interface_screw.png]]]] |
| 6 | [[caption-width-right:350:"Where's the wiper button?!"]] |
| 7 | %% |
| 8 | ->''[=hGDSJ:IOhp9iuq23hp;IOSDGh:I=]''\ |
| 9 | ''[=(I)234iulPAOISFHNP[92348YHT=]''\ |
| 10 | ''[=OSEHqoi3245:NGDSN:L87#@Bkln=]'' |
| 11 | -->-- Samus's visor after being hacked by a Rezbit, ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime2Echoes'' |
| 12 | %% |
| 13 | %% Caption selected per above IP thread. Please do not replace or remove without discussion here: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1404492079030138900 |
| 14 | %% |
| 15 | '''Note: [[SelfDemonstratingArticle For "best" reading, rotate head 90 degrees.]]'''[[labelnote:For mobile users]]lock the screen rotation and rotate your phone 90 degrees.[[/labelnote]] |
| 16 | |
| 17 | An event in a video game where the controller buttons are switched around, or the player's display is interfered with. |
| 18 | |
| 19 | This may be one of the StatusEffects. When it's done well, it can be entertaining, funny, or even [[NightmareFuel terrifying]]. However, done poorly, it may break game immersion and cause frustration. If it makes the game noticeably more difficult to play, then it can be considered a form of FakeDifficulty. If such a status effect is available for the player to use on enemies, expect for it to either [[PlayerExclusiveMechanic do nothing at all due to the lack of an interface between the AI and the game]], or cause deliberate ArtificialStupidity to compensate for this. Sometimes used as an [[OminousVisualGlitch intentionally created glitch]]. Can be utilized by {{Multiplayer Only Item}}s. If this is done because the player character has been injured in some way, that's InjuredPlayerCharacterStage. If the player's controls have been temporarily limited in order to focus their attention on exposition, that's ExpositoryGameplayLimitation. If the Interface Screw is caused by the player character consuming a mind-altering substance, that's IntoxicationMechanic. |
| 20 | |
| 21 | SuperTrope to StaticScrew. Compare CameraScrew, EventObscuringCamera, and FalseCameraEffects. Some of the examples will overlap. {{Justified|Trope}} if the game uses a DiegeticInterface. |
| 22 | ---- |
| 23 | !!Examples: |
| 24 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 25 | |
| 26 | [[folder:Accessories]] |
| 27 | * The Platform/SuperGameBoy for the Super NES allows you to do this to ''[[SelfImposedChallenge yourself]]'' by choosing the Graffiti option and selecting the option that lets you draw over the ''game area'', as well, instead of just the border. The Super Game Boy guide encourages players to do this for extra challenge: drawing a star over Mario's probable position in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioLand'' or covering the top of the pit and the Next box with hands in ''VideoGame/{{Tetris}}'', for examples. Also, since you can change what color each of the four shades becomes, you can deliberately (or accidentally!) choose a color scheme that makes things harder to make out, or even invisible! Say, a game of ''VideoGame/DrMario'' in which two of the pill colors are invisible... |
| 28 | [[/folder]] |
| 29 | |
| 30 | [[folder:Action-Adventure]] |
| 31 | * The final BossBattle of ''VideoGame/BeyondGoodAndEvil'' starts off relatively normal, but as the battle progresses the screen blurs, the controls are reversed, and everything happens in [[OverCrank Slow Motion]], [[spoiler:representing the effects of the boss's MoreThanMindControl on her]]. |
| 32 | * In ''VideoGame/BloodstainedRitualOfTheNight'', equipping the Convex Glasses accessory will zoom the screen in, making it harder to see around you. |
| 33 | * ''VideoGame/{{Cadaver}}'' by the Creator/BitmapBrothers reversed your directional controls when you drank an alcoholic potion. |
| 34 | * ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'': |
| 35 | ** [[spoiler:[[ThatOneBoss Barlowe]]]] in ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaOrderOfEcclesia'' not only has a freezing attack, but said attack ''disables the pause feature as long as you're frozen'', preventing you from, for example, busting out potions if your HP is running low. Argh! |
| 36 | ** Also present in 1994's ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaBloodlines''. In stage 5-1, if either John or Eric gets hit by the pollen, then the player's horizontal control are reversed, and in stage 6-3, the entire stage is upside down, and the player's vertical controls are reversed. Another endgame stage also has disconnected top and bottom halves, meaning that everything above the midway point of the screen (most of the time, this includes the upper torso of your character) appears several character widths to the left of their actual location, making for some exceedingly hard jumps even without any enemies to bother you which you'll invariably run into regardless. |
| 37 | * In ''VideoGame/DisneyPrincessEnchantedJourney'', Clockwork Bogs slow everything and turn the screen green. |
| 38 | * In ''VideoGame/EccoTheDolphin: Defender of the Future'', one of the boss fights, Mutaclone, contained a number of egg-shaped stones filled with yellow smoke, and the player is required to break them in order to take down the boss's force field and proceed with the fight. Each time you break one of the stones, the smoke is released, which for a few seconds turns the screen dark and cloudy and reverses the player's controls. |
| 39 | * ''VideoGame/FroggersJourneyTheForgottenRelic'': Taking damage from most enemies in the Black Lotus Hideout will cause Frogger to temporarily start uncontrollably hopping in whatever direction he is facing. He can cure this status early if he eats a pear lying around. |
| 40 | * ''VideoGame/{{Judgment}}'': Drinking alcohol until Takayuki Yagami reaches his limit will affect the controls. He'll no longer be able to walk in a straight line and you'll have to try to navigate while Yagami veers off in random directions and trips over objects. |
| 41 | * ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'': |
| 42 | ** When fighting [[spoiler:Ganon]] at the end of the linked storyline of the ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOracleGames Oracle Games]]'', halfway through the fight he will magically change the room you are fighting into a nauseating pulsing-blue theme. The side effect is that all of Link's directional buttons are reversed. |
| 43 | ** In ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker The Wind Waker]]'', one of the things a Poe can do, including KingMook Jalhalla, is to reverse the direction your Control Stick makes you go. |
| 44 | ** In ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask Majora's Mask]]'', the screen gradually shrinks when the morning of the next day approaches in order to heighten the tension of the time limit. The screen shrinks to only half the normal size which can often get in the way of what you're trying to do. However, the effect isn't active inside dungeons. |
| 45 | * In ''VideoGame/LightCrusader'', being poisoned doesn't do DamageOverTime like in most games, but instead switches around controls. |
| 46 | * The ''VideoGame/MetroidPrimeTrilogy'' includes various ways to impair your vision. |
| 47 | ** In all games, static fills the screen if Samus is too close to electrical enemies or is hit with some static-inducing attack; during one boss fight in ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime'', destroying the enemy's weak spot causes it to explode with such brilliant lighting that Samus's visor thermal overloads, requiring her to switch visors. |
| 48 | ** ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime2Echoes'': |
| 49 | *** The game has an enemy, the [[DemonicSpiders Rezbit]], that actually uploads some sort of virus effect directly into Samus' suit, causing the game to lag like hell, turn off all displays, and fill the screen with snow static. Luckily, you can "reboot" with a button combination input... which still takes a moment, [[CycleOfHurting by which time the Rezbit may just hack your visor again]]. |
| 50 | *** The level boss Quadraxis has a laser attack which, upon successfully hitting Samus, causes the HUD to vanish and the screen to go blurry. |
| 51 | ** In ''VideoGame/MetroidPrimeHunters'', Kanden's charged Volt Driver scrambles your visor for a bit when hit. |
| 52 | ** In ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime3Corruption'', the X-Ray Visor turns into static if an enemy goes into hypermode ... which happens a lot in higher difficult settings. Which makes for some rather annoying encounters when the visor is required if you don't want to shoot blindly. |
| 53 | ** The [[PersonalSpaceInvader Metroids]] latching onto your head cause Samus's visor to fade in and out of static. Also, when it's not in static, you see a large jellyfish-like creature sucking the life force out of your face. Thank goodness for Morph Ball. |
| 54 | * Near the end of ''VideoGame/{{Outcry}}'', everything's getting increasingly surreal. This even manifests in the loading screens, which will get blurry and begin to swim before your eyes. |
| 55 | * In ''Pirates: The Legend of Black Kat'', the Witch Doctor boss has an attack that will screw up your controls. When you first encounter him, that's the first thing he does to you. There's nothing you can do about it, and it doesn't go away; your only choice is to turn your controller upside down and book it out of there. Later, once you've completed a quest for another character, you can come back better equipped to handle the Interface Screw. The Witch Doctor will still mess up your controls, but this time it can be dodged and only lasts for a few seconds if you are hit. |
| 56 | * In ''VideoGame/PokemonRumble'', the Confusion status effect will rotate the player's movement directions randomly... for every three seconds it's active. |
| 57 | * ''VideoGame/ShiningWisdom'' has the Mirror dungeon, which true to its name reverses left and right. |
| 58 | * Some rooms in ''VideoGame/SpudsAdventure'' swap the controls, reversing left and right and up and down. |
| 59 | * [=BlancLand=] in ''VideoGame/AnUntitledStory'' is an area where the screen swings left and right. It gets more severe the further you get. |
| 60 | * ''VideoGame/{{Aquaria}}'' has several. |
| 61 | ** Some octopus and squid enemies can give you the "Blind" status effect, making a black inky blur to cover your screen. |
| 62 | ** You can also deliberately inflict this on yourself by cooking and consuming [[MushroomSamba hallucinogenic soup]]. |
| 63 | * The ''Franchise/WinnieThePooh'' game ''VideoGame/PigletsBigGame'' has many examples: |
| 64 | ** The game involves getting rid of Heffalumps and Woozles using disturbing "Brave Faces" at them, which is apparently scary to them. In order to do said "Brave Faces", you have to press a certain button combination. Some of the Heffalumps and Woozles are able to mess with you so that they can get to you before you get the combination right. For example: |
| 65 | ** The Mirror Woozle rotates the screen clockwise or counterclockwise 90 or 180 degrees every few seconds. |
| 66 | ** The Jackpot Heffalump hides a few of the button pictures when a combination first appears. |
| 67 | ** The Road Sweeper Heffalump sweeps its broom and covers up your combination with a cloud of dust, making the button pictures shaky and blur in and out every few seconds. |
| 68 | * ''VideoGame/ZanZarahTheHiddenPortal'': Several offensive spells can inflict StatusEffects that affect the player, such as temporarily inverting the controls, so that pressing the button to move forward will cause the fairy to move backwards and trying to move left will cause it to move right. It's more dangerous than it sounds, because duels take place in a fairly small arena and falling off it into the BottomlessPits below will kill you. |
| 69 | [[/folder]] |
| 70 | |
| 71 | [[folder:Action]] |
| 72 | * ''VideoGame/ArabianFight'' does this in at least two instances. One stage have you crossing a desert and being caught in a dust storm, and to simulate that effect the screen immediately becomes cluttered with pixelated sand. There's also the fight in the palace where dark magic at work makes the entire screen go cloudy and obscuring your vision. |
| 73 | * ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamAsylum'': |
| 74 | ** Getting hit in the head with a blunt object (usually a metal rod or pipe) will give you "double vision" for a few seconds until it clears up. Electrocution also messes with the display. |
| 75 | ** Scarecrow's second MindScrew starts when you enter a hallway that you've already passed through before. Everything looks the same at first... except that the text pop-up that tells you the name of the room now says "Wayne Manor". |
| 76 | ** Scarecrow's third and final MindScrew, [[spoiler:where he forgoes screwing with Batman [[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou and screws with]] ''[[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou you]]'' [[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou directly]]. Your game appears to crash, and start over from the beginning, except Batman and the Joker have SwappedRoles and you control Joker as you lead a raving, insane Batman through the facility. Then you switch back over to Batman and are locked in first-person POV as Joker puts a bullet in your head. The tip on the [[FissionMailed following Game Over screen]] advises you to "use the middle stick to dodge Joker's shots" (or "tilt the mouse" if you are playing with mouse and keyboard on the PC)]]. |
| 77 | * ''VideoGame/{{Bomberman}}'' has the classic skull 'upgrade', where switching the left/right and up/down control is one of the random effects. Makes it twice as hilarious as you can pass this onto another player. |
| 78 | * There is an older computer game from around 1990 called ''Captain Blood'' (not based on the film; the title's based on a ShoutOut instead). It's space-themed, and the Interface Screw is used to make the game essentially a TimedMission. It's explained pretty explicitly: you're in a cyborg body because several clones have been made of you which have since run off with your precious bodily fluids. Your condition is deteriorating, so as time passes, your cursor (which represents your hand) will start to jitter, making precise clicking more difficult. Finding the clones and rendering them back down stabilizes you and buys you time to find the next clone. |
| 79 | * ''VideoGame/{{Contra}} Rebirth'''s final boss fight will rotate the screen, depending on which attack it's doing (fortunately, not your controls), but the gravity works as though you're still right-side up. |
| 80 | * In ''VideoGame/HotlineMiami'' there's ThatOneLevel where your character is trying to [[spoiler:escape a hospital while barely conscious]], and as a result walking too fast causes the screen to go pale, static to take over the edges, the character to sway as he walks and screeching sounds to play exceedingly loudly. If you don't stop moving every now and again your character will be stunned completely for a second or two. To make matters worse, it's an unarmed stealth mission, something that doesn't happen anywhere else in the game. |
| 81 | * ''VideoGame/KidIcarusUprising'': |
| 82 | ** One stage has several flying enemies appear right in front of the camera behind Pit, obscuring the player's view. Pit even tells them to get out of the way. |
| 83 | ** The Merenguy enemy will also cause this for as long as it stays alive. Its dance is so distracting that Pit is unable to look away, meaning that the camera will always point at the Merenguy until Pit kills it. |
| 84 | * When Lara gets poisoned in ''VideoGame/TombRaiderTheLastRevelation'', the screen goes all wibbly. To players of the game, this is just a cool effect, but for Level Editor users it's a '''NIGHTMARE.''' It sometimes causes the game's graphic engine to collapse and triggers with enemies that aren't supposed to poison you, like bears and dinosaurs. |
| 85 | * ''VideoGame/TreadmillasaurusRex'': Later Party +1s add spotlights or flashes which are likely to obscure the action. |
| 86 | [[/folder]] |
| 87 | |
| 88 | [[folder:Adventure]] |
| 89 | * PlayedForLaughs in one section of ''VideoGame/NightmareNed''. Upon activating a puzzle, Ned finds himself buried in dirt in a giant ant farm, and ends up ''flattened against the screen'', which squeaks as he moves along. He even [[BreakingTheFourthWall begs the player for help]]. Pushing a lever with his yo-yo solves the puzzle and removes the dirt. |
| 90 | * There's an in-universe example in ''Riddle of the Sphinx'', when you direct the little robot inside the narrow air shaft. Any time it gets hung up on debris or cracks in the stone it's traversing, you need to keep trying out different buttons on the in-Verse control panel until it moves again. |
| 91 | * ''VideoGame/AdVerbum'' goes a step further and ignores the out-of-universe commands, if they do not comply with the current rule. A SafeWord (which does comply with the current rule) is given to you by a sonorous voice before entering the constrained rooms so that you can abandon the room without quitting entirely. |
| 92 | * Inn ''VideoGame/AmberJourneysBeyond'', while controlling the ghost of a drowned child, navigating the frozen lake he fell into is made excessively difficult by a heavy bank of winter fog that makes it hard to tell where you're standing, combined with an extra set of diagonal-jump cursors that do nothing but disorient you further. |
| 93 | * ''VideoGame/DarkFall'' series: |
| 94 | ** In ''Dark Fall: Lost Souls'', the cursor's responses becomes sluggish and erratic in a segment where you enter the memories of an alcoholic actress. [[spoiler: These effects can be corrected by clicking on an ice bucket, which presumably makes her soak her head in ice water and sober herself up.]] |
| 95 | ** In ''Dark Fall: Ghost Vigil'', summoning the spirits that haunt [[spoiler: the laundry-area loo, the upper classroom, or the pantry]] cause you to re-live elements of the resident ghost's death, with your screen marred by imagery of fractured glass, ominous red light, and spreading frost respectively. |
| 96 | * ''[[VideoGame/{{Dizzy}} Fantasy World Dizzy]]'': |
| 97 | ** The game features a sequence where Dizzy falls down a well and comes out on the other side of the world, where the game continues, only upside down. |
| 98 | ** The game also contains a bottle of whiskey which Dizzy will drink before setting down. This simulates drunkenness by making him spontaneously roll around every so often. |
| 99 | ** In ''Magicland Dizzy'' he walks into a [[Literature/AliceInWonderland magic mirror]], where he moves backwards and the controls are reversed. |
| 100 | ** In ''The Fantastic Adventures of Dizzy'', the controls are temporarily reversed whenever you touch a butterfly. The same happens with touching the red bee in [[VideoGameRemake remakes]] of ''Treasure Island Dizzy''. This trope seems to be kind of a favorite for the series. |
| 101 | * The Creator/{{Infocom}} game ''[[VideoGame/{{Zork}} Zork I]]'' has the Loud Room. Until you figure out what to do do do... every command you enter[[note]]except for those that take you out of the room and out-of-universe commands like SAVE and RESTORE[[/note]] is ignored ignored ignored... with a mysterious echoing of the last word word word. |
| 102 | * In ''VideoGame/LeisureSuitLarry1InTheLandOfTheLoungeLizards'', when you drink an alcoholic beverage at Lefty's Bar, the directional controls will randomize for a few seconds making Larry stagger around the bar. |
| 103 | %%* Same for ''VideoGame/SpaceQuest''. |
| 104 | * In ''VideoGame/PeasantsQuest'', when the bucket falls over your character's head, blocking out his vision, he walks backwards everywhere and your cursor controls are shifted around (but not reversed -- pressing left makes your character go down, etc.). |
| 105 | * ''VideoGame/{{Stray|2022}}'': If you interact with a paper bag, it will end up on your head and reverse your movement control - the bag will eventually fall off your head if you move around enough and the normal controls will be restored. Justified since (in this case) you are a cat, and most cats tend to freak out when they get their eyesight compromised by something as innocuous as a paper bag. |
| 106 | * Early in ''VideoGame/ATaleOfTwoKingdoms'', the antagonist sorcerer curses you with inverted mouse controls. |
| 107 | * At the end of Episode 4 of ''VideoGame/TalesFromTheBorderlands,'' [[spoiler: should Rhys go against Jack and refuse to rule Hyperion with him, he straps him into his control chair and plugs the override port into Rhys' temple to download himself into the mainframe of the space station. The four-option dialogue format comes up as Rhys tries to call Fiona for help over their radio, but all the options glitch back and forth, switching between him telling her that he's in danger to assuring her that everything's fine, since Jack is hacked into Rhys' brain. No matter which option you choose or how carefully you try to time your button-press to tell her that Rhys needs help, Jack hijacks the speech center of Rhys' brain and talks through him, forcing him to say that nothing is wrong.]] |
| 108 | * In ''VideoGame/WorldsEndClub'', during the first playthrough of the LocomotiveLevel, another choice selection occurs near the end. When the options appear, an unknown force suddenly distorts one of the choices, leaving the other option to be selected. [[spoiler:Its only until the "Ending 1" route is completed can the correct choice be chosen]]. |
| 109 | * In ''VideoGame/ZakMcKrackenAndTheAlienMindbenders'', an alien machine causes you to lose your mind, which gradually blanks out all the command buttons on your interface. |
| 110 | [[/folder]] |
| 111 | |
| 112 | [[folder:Alternate Reality Games]] |
| 113 | * ''ARG/OmegaMart'': The "Complete Your Collection" sale video starts off normal enough, but as soon as it gets to the collector's discs of meat, the video glitches. The cover of the "Behind the Case" meat collection starts vomiting metal sausages, while the collection of meat discs starts flipping endlessly. When the commercial ends, even the jingle is affected! |
| 114 | [[/folder]] |
| 115 | |
| 116 | [[folder:Beat 'em Up]] |
| 117 | * ''VideoGame/NotDyingToday'' have the nurse zombies, who attacks by [[PlayingWithSyringes throwing syringes]]. Getting hit by one does tiny damage, but the contents of the syringe will affect your vision until more than half the screen goes fuzzy and incomprehensible. Needless to say, this is ''not'' preferred when you're cornered by other zombie enemies, making the nurses a GoddamnedBats-type enemy players would quickly target. |
| 118 | [[/folder]] |
| 119 | |
| 120 | [[folder:Fighting Games]] |
| 121 | * Shiki from SNK's ''SVC: Chaos'' also has a grapple move that reverses the opponent's controls. As usual, computer opponents are not affected by the control screw. |
| 122 | * Lieselotte's [[MagicalEye Crimson Gaze]] attack in ''VideoGame/ArcanaHeart'' switches up the controls of her opponent if she connects, which can prove to be quite deadly in a FightingGame. |
| 123 | * In ''VideoGame/{{ARMS}}'', players can use ARMS that have the Blind attribute, which are the Blorb and the Biffler. If a player gets hit by either a Blorb or a Biffler, the player's screen gets obscured with blue (And fruit-flavored) slime and [[CartoonCreature Biff]]-drawn blue stamps respectively. It sticks there until it either clears up by itself or recovering from getting knocked down, clearing it up quickly. |
| 124 | * Tosen's ''bankai'' in ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'' cuts off all of an opponent's senses. In the DS game, ''Blade of Fate'', it blanks out the screen for everyone except the user. Sadly, [[UselessUsefulSpell it's no good against the computer]], because [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard the computer doesn't ''look'' at a screen.]] |
| 125 | * In ''VideoGame/DigimonRumbleArena 2'', one character's special attack mixes what every button does, including movement. The effects are not consistent from time to time, however. And in the same game, there is an item that mixes who is controlling which character. Damage done will be given to the original characters when the effect ends. Said character with the special attack is [=MaloMyotsimon/BelialVamdemon=], and is probably the only thing that makes him difficult to fight, despite being on the hardest end of the final boss scale in one player mode (Even though middle-scale bosses like Diablomon and Duskmon are several magnitudes harder). Probably heralds back to him being such an AntiClimaxBoss in the show... |
| 126 | * ''VideoGame/DissidiaFinalFantasy'' has the Ultros summon, which prevents the opponent from seeing both characters' Bravery[[note]] Mostly. There's just enough of the bravery visible to see if you or your opponent has enough bravery for a winning HP attack (which is indicated by bravery glowing purple), so it only really matters in a close match[[/note]]. |
| 127 | * Xavier the warlock had a "Confusion" power that completely scrambled his opponent's controls (even the directional inputs got mixed up!) in ''VideoGame/EternalChampions.'' Xavier's ranged attacks were almost all bizarre status effects that could qualify as a form of interface screw (like changing the target to a different character or turning them to gold) but the computer [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard almost always blocked them]] (and since they did no damage, if they were blocked, they had no effect whatsoever). |
| 128 | * ''Franchise/JoJosBizarreAdventure'': |
| 129 | ** From ''VideoGame/JojosBizarreAdventureAllStarBattle'', we got Rohan Kishibe, whose style revolves around temporarily "locking" one or some of his opponent's attack buttons. His ultimate move prevents the opponent from using any move or normal attack. |
| 130 | *** Pucci from the same game can steal the opponent's special moves and seal them in a disk, which he keeps on his person. While Rohan's "locks" deactivate automatically after a certain amount of time, Pucci's opponent must knock him down and then grab the disk in order to regain their special moves. |
| 131 | ** In ''VideoGame/JoJosBizarreAdventureEyesOfHeaven'', Diego can [[StanceSystem turn into a dinosaur with different attacks]] at the cost of applying a "thermal vision" filter to the screen that makes seeing things difficult. |
| 132 | * One of Seth's [=DMs=] in ''VideoGame/TheKingOfFighters'' does a piddling amount of damage in exchange for reversing the opponent's controls. And, like all previous examples, it has no effect on AI opponents. |
| 133 | * One of Thanos's super moves in the ''VideoGame/MarvelVsCapcom'' series reverses his opponent's controls -- pressing Left makes the character walk right, etc. However, TheComputerIsACheatingBastard, so CPU opponents will be totally unaffected, rendering this move useless unless you're fighting another player. |
| 134 | * In ''VideoGame/MarvelVsCapcom3'', MODOK's [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Jamming Bomb]] will also reverse the opponent's controls. |
| 135 | * This happens with a couple of supers in ''VideoGame/MeltyBlood'' -- for example, Hisui's Last Arc. If successful, the opponent has their controls mixed up temporarily. Neko-Arc, being a JokeCharacter, notably does this to ''both'' players. |
| 136 | ** In ''Type Lumina'', Neco-Arc gets a super that covers the game with ''a fake stream overlay'' that obscures both players' HUD for 10 whole seconds. |
| 137 | * ''Franchise/MortalKombat'': |
| 138 | ** ''VideoGame/MortalKombatArmageddon'' features auto aim for your fireball attack, usually useful. One level features enemies that fire at you from above, only give you a small opportunity to attack them without being attacked yourself, and frequently have enemies appear on the ground next to you to grab the target of your fireball. |
| 139 | ** Rain and Noob Saibot in ''Mortal Kombat Trilogy''. Rain can actually psychokinetically control his opponent for a few seconds, and as for Noob, he can make it so all attacking or blocking is disabled. |
| 140 | * Caffeine Nicotine had a move like this in ''VideoGame/SamuraiShodown 2''; so did unplayable boss Mizuki. In Mizuki's case, being hit by the attack while suffering from it reverses the reversal. |
| 141 | * The ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros'' games have dozens of items, assist trophies, and stage hazards which screw with the screen somehow. Annoyingly, almost none of these Interface Screws have [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard any effect]] on [[TheAllSeeingAI computer players]]. In a few cases, this means that such effects are too dangerous for a player character to use against [=AIs=], since it will affect only them. |
| 142 | ** ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosMelee'': The invisibility power-up is nearly useless when playing against computers. If an NPC picks it up, you can't see them. If ''you'' pick it up, they can still see ''you'', but ''you'' can't see your own character (unless you hunt for the little arrow). The only reason to pick it up is that it also prevents you from taking additional damage. |
| 143 | ** ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosBrawl'' introduces many Assist Trophies that do this: |
| 144 | *** [[VideoGame/AnimalCrossing Mr. Resetti]] will obscure the screen with text boxes filled with Mr. Resetti's traditional rant about how you shouldn't reset the game. |
| 145 | *** [[VideoGame/{{Nintendogs}} The Nintendog]] will block the screen in the [[CuteApproachesCamera cutest way possible]]. |
| 146 | *** [[VideoGame/DevilWorld The Devil]] can change the stage's size or shift it in a certain direction. If you're in midair, it makes things ''really'' hairy. And if you're already close to the "blast line", it can smash you right off screen for a KO, even if you were on screen when the effect was activated. |
| 147 | ** Some Pokémon abilities will do this: |
| 148 | *** Togepi's Night Shade will make the entire screen black. This is ''incredibly'' dangerous for you, given how easily you can fall off the stage this way -- especially aerial stages. And it has no effect on the [=NPCs=]. Even if it was your own Poké Ball. The [[VideoGame/KirbysAdventure Nightmare]] assist trophy has the same effect. |
| 149 | *** Manaphy's Heart Swap will cause a FreakyFridayFlip and force you to control another character. Better hope you know how to use them! |
| 150 | *** On the Spear Pillar stage, one thing Palkia can do is flip the stage around or invert it, which can easily cause players to fall to their deaths. Some people actually practice on that stage to ensure they're the only one left standing when the flip happens. |
| 151 | ** ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosUltimate'': |
| 152 | *** The game introduced an effect that centres the camera and causes it to zoom in gradually, tightening the blast lines with it. It happens naturally during Sudden Death, and the [[Franchise/{{Splatoon}} Squid Sisters]] assist trophy will cause it in normal gameplay. ''Ultimate's'' DualBoss Master Hand and Crazy Hand can combine to make a FingerFraming gesture that achieves the same effect, but much more abruptly. |
| 153 | *** A number of Spirits have control-screwing and screen-reversal powers that randomly activate during battles. On the flip side, a number of Spirits can also protect the player from an Interface Screw. |
| 154 | *** The Ramblin' Evil Mushroom will spray spores outward, and if an opponent touches them, their left and right controls are temporarily reversed -- the more spores they touch, the longer it lasts. It doesn't seem to affect [=NPCs=] much, if at all. |
| 155 | * In ''VideoGame/XMenNextDimension'', Phoenix has a confusion attack that can reverse all of the opponent's controls. Of course, this doesn't really work on AI opponents. Several characters have moves that can prohibit the user from doing super moves, in attempt to correspond to the actual story's weapons that prohibit [[GameplayAndStorySegregation all mutant abilities.]] |
| 156 | [[/folder]] |
| 157 | |
| 158 | [[folder:First-Person Shooters]] |
| 159 | * ''VideoGame/AlienVsPredator'' has [[PersonalSpaceInvader facehuggers.]] In the Marine campaign, they're instant death, whereas in the Predator campaign they're more of an annoyance. Either way they will make you absolutely [[NightmareFuel shit your pants.]] |
| 160 | * In ''VideoGame/{{Battlefield 3}}'', bullets whizzing past blur the screen, which makes suppression fire effective. The HUD of tanks will also malfunction somewhat when the tank gets hit. Also, getting knifed from behind wrenches the viewpoint from whatever you were looking at right at the enemy who stabs you in the neck or chest then takes your tags. |
| 161 | * {{EMP}} weaponry in ''VideoGame/Battlefield2142'' is intended to stun vehicles, but also affects your character's advanced helmet optics. (Computer-controlled bots aren't bothered at all, except to the degree that they were aware of your presence.) |
| 162 | * Explosions going off near the player in ''VideoGame/{{Battlefield}} 2'' will blur the screen, amplify the player's heartbeat, and put in a ringing sound for your hearing. |
| 163 | * ''VideoGame/{{BioShock|1}}'' has several of these: |
| 164 | ** Drink two or more alcoholic beverages in quick succession and your view will become blurry and wobbly. The effect clears after a few to several seconds, depending on how much you've had. |
| 165 | ** Walking under a water leak will cause a gush of water to momentarily run down the screen as if it were a camera. |
| 166 | ** Then of course there is the level late in the game where [[spoiler:you've injected the first dose of Lot 192 (the antidote to Fontaine's mind control)]] and it has the side effect of giving you only one available plasmid at a time, and which one it is changes frequently. Every time it changes, you automatically switch to the plasmid even if you were holding a weapon. The effect doesn't stop until [[spoiler:you've found the second dose]]. And if you think you can limit the effect by only having a couple of plasmids (say, fire and ice), think again: you're switched between ''all'' plasmids available in the game, and if you didn't have it before, you only have the level 1 version. |
| 167 | ** Being hit by a Bouncer's GroundPound attack temporarily blurs your vision and immobilizes you. |
| 168 | * ''VideoGame/BlacklightRetribution'' looking at the "smoke screen" caused by the Digi-Grenade causes you to get a digital distortion over that area (a whole bunch of various shades of grey boxes with the word Error written on them) and if you get hit by a EMP grenade your vision has a BSOD (which thankfully recovers). |
| 169 | * ''VideoGame/{{Blood}}'' series: |
| 170 | ** ''VideoGame/Blood1997'' has tiny spiders that bite the character, making the screen tilt randomly, the movement controls screw up, and the ammo and health counters on the HUD randomly jump between their actual number and a much higher one; this lasts for a few seconds. |
| 171 | ** ''VideoGame/BloodIITheChosen'' has Thief spiders which attach to the back of the character's head and give the same effects, as well as bone leeches that cover the screen near-entirely, though they have to be shaken off. |
| 172 | * ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands}}'' and ''VideoGame/Borderlands2'': |
| 173 | ** The games make use of this in several ways. Status effects, the UI being loaded or having a function enabled, taking damage to shield or health, shield breaking, being covered in web, you name it. The second game, however, has a sidequest that requires you to crash a wake while being drunk. |
| 174 | ** The visual effect of using an Action Skill or the sway of a weapon with very low accuracy. |
| 175 | ** Gaige can have a 1050% damage bonus but obtain -1050% accuracy due to 600 stacks of Anarchy, which means a Gaige player can [[ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy miss a target at point-blank]]. But her victims should pray to God they don't get hit by her. And all those stacks causes her view to jerk so hard she may end up facing the opposite direction after a shot. |
| 176 | * In ''VideoGame/{{Bulletstorm}}'', the main character (Grayson Hunt) is an alcoholic who tends to drink any booze he can find. During the game, you can pick up and drink random bottles of liquor, which will momentarily impair your vision and cause you to sway from side to side for a short period of time. Interestingly, there are several achievements and Skillshots (namely, shooting enemies while drunk) you can only obtain by doing this throughout the game. |
| 177 | * In ''VideoGame/BzFlag'', there is are two power-ups that do this. One that increases your FOV, causing a disorienting wide-angle effect, and the other reverses controls. |
| 178 | * Common in the ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty'' series. Close explosions will momentarily slow you down and [[ShellShockSilence replace your sound with ringing]], flashbangs deafen you and white out your screen, stun grenades blur your vision and render you nearly unable to move, {{EMP}}s disable your HUD and other electronic equipment, flares will burn into your vision and leave an afterimage for a few seconds... |
| 179 | * In later ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty'' games, ''every'' weapon's aiming is affected when looking down the sights; every gun has an "accuracy" rating that doesn't affect where the bullet lands, which is always where the sights are, but rather, ''how much'' the sights wobble around. Adding an ACOG to any gun severely reduces this rating. Adding an ACOG to the AK-47 makes it wobble around as much as a sniper rifle. It has the added downside that at least a proper sniper rifle comes with the option to hold your breath, reducing the sway for a bit. While the ACOG is close to a sniper scope, it doesn't let you hold your breath, so if the sights swing around a lot, good luck being accurate! |
| 180 | * In ''VideoGame/CliveBarkersUndying'', being attacked by a Sil Lith Inhabitant (a bird-like monster first seen in the Oneiros level), will severely distort the protagonist' vision, and the crosshair will move around the screen instead of staying at the center, making it hard to hit anything with your weapons. |
| 181 | * In ''VideoGame/DeathRally'', picking up a mushroom will make the entire track portion of the screen ripple madly until it wears off. Unsurprisingly, this makes driving in the race considerably harder than normal. Unlike most games, the mushrooms ''do'' affect the AI. If you can ram their cars into the pickups, they're actually affected worse than human players. |
| 182 | * ''VideoGame/DeepRockGalactic:'' |
| 183 | ** Getting tangled in webbing will both slow you down and cover up your screen in sight-impairing strands that go away after a moment, but will probably make it very hard to aim at the worst of times. |
| 184 | ** You can also do this to yourself if you drink too much at the Abyss Bar, complete with [[SingleMaltVision seeing multiples of everything]], swaying screen and occasional random stumbles. The more drunk you get, the worse it is, until you pass out from sheer inebriation... nothing stops you from heading into the caverns like this, but you don't really get anything ''for'' it either, so it's best to just suck it up and drink up a [[KlatchianCoffee Leaf Lover's Special]] before you leave, or take a [[GargleBlaster Blackout Stout]] to just pass out all the way and get rid of inebriation the dwarfishly hard way. |
| 185 | * ''VideoGame/{{Descent}}'': |
| 186 | ** After destroying the reactor at the end of each level in the game, you have to navigate to the exit. The whole time your pathfinding is hampered by large random movements of the controls. |
| 187 | ** The sequel has flash missiles which blind the victim by causing a massive whiteout. The battle against the boss which uses homing flash missiles is supremely annoying because of this. And they blind you for longer than regular flash missiles. |
| 188 | ** Earthshaker Missiles. Exactly what it says on the tin. To distract you from the five homing bomblets it spawns, each as lethal as the first game's Mega Missile. |
| 189 | * In ''VideoGame/DirtyBomb'', being in the proximity of an explosion will cause your screen to grime up and as your health gets lower, the edges of your screen gets bloodier. |
| 190 | ** Thunder's concussion grenade blinds players in a flash of white light. Those who were lucky enough not to look directly at the grenade, but were in its radius will have their vision gray-scaled and distorted. |
| 191 | * In ''VideoGame/DoomII'', if flames start rising up your screen, ''hide right now'', because an Arch-vile is about to explode you! |
| 192 | * ''VideoGame/DukeNukem3D'' also does the "monster latched into your face". |
| 193 | * In ''VideoGame/{{Dystopia}}'', the EMP grenade and [=GreenICE=] deactivate all of your [[PowerUp implants]] and cause a static effect on your screen and sound. Which makes it all so much pleasant to be EMP grenaded by your teammates because "they wanted to [[HollywoodHacking deck]] too", not only having to put up with having your spot in {{Cyberspace}} stolen by someone who's usually noob incompetent, but also having to listen to your teammates distorted speak through voice chat, which can sound incredibly annoying. |
| 194 | * In ''VideoGame/EYEDivineCybermancy'', if you fail to hack a target, they may hack ''you'' - plastering a giant smiley face on the center of your HUD. Or by just [[YourHeadAsplode overloading your implants]]. Anything that you fail to hack, can hack you back, which includes normally harmless [[EverythingTryingToKillYou doors]]. |
| 195 | * In ''VideoGame/FarCry2'', your character is infected with malaria at the beginning of the game. Every so often during gameplay, your vision will thusly go all sickly yellow and faded. The only way to fix it is to take pills to suppress the disease; you get the medicine through special side missions. |
| 196 | * ''VideoGame/FirstEncounterAssaultRecon'': |
| 197 | ** In the games, being near Alma will have this effect, causing static to sound in your radio earpiece and hallucinations to appear. It gets worse in ''Project Origin'', as certain sequences will cause Becket's vision to turn blurry and monochrome, and feedback to sound, indicating that Alma is close. |
| 198 | ** ''F.E.A.R. 3'' has a subtle but very disturbing screw when [[HumanoidAbomination the Creep]] attacks. Normally, your [[WalkItOff health regenerates]] after a few moments - ''except for when the Creep hits you''. The only way to heal damage is to get out of the area the Creep is lurking in. |
| 199 | ** Additionally, in that game, your vision becoming blurred and/or monochrome is generally an indicator that something ''bad'' is about to happen, usually but not always the Creep attacking you. Also, black spiderwebs dancing around the edge of your screen is an indicator that the Creep is close. |
| 200 | * In ''VideoGame/GoldeneyeRogueAgent'', being hit with a Venom Gun causes the screen to flash (and stay) a sickly dark green, while your movement slows. The OMEN X-R causes the screen to flash white as [[DisintegratorRay you rapidly dissolve into a little pile of ash.]] |
| 201 | * ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'': |
| 202 | ** If you get repeatedly shot with an automatic gun, prepare to see nothing but white. And if there are two people shooting you? Forget about hoping to see. Standing too close to an exploding grenade will also cause a brief ringing sound to play, mimicking the effects of tinnitus. |
| 203 | ** On several occasions in the episodes, Gordon and Alyx get {{mind rape}}d by a Combine Advisor. Your HUD all but disappears and the framerate intentionally slows down while the frames themselves leave a motion blur as you look around. Definitely a chilling experience. |
| 204 | * ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'': |
| 205 | ** ''VideoGame/{{Halo 3}}'' has the Flare, which temporarily blinds opponents. Very annoying when those jetpack brutes use it on you. |
| 206 | ** ''VideoGame/HaloReach'': |
| 207 | *** The game uses it in the last level to show the hopelessness of the situation: [[spoiler:as Noble Six takes damage during his/her LastStand in "Lone Wolf", cracks start to form in your helmet, and they ''stay'' there, even if you use a medkit. They first short out your ammo indicators, and eventually a crater forms in your visor. [[DeathByDisfigurement As player characters are normally never permanently damaged, this serves as huge wakeup call that no matter what happens, Noble Six is fucked]].]] |
| 208 | *** In a first for the series, nearby explosions cause the sound to temporarily stop with tinnitus ringing, and the sound is muted in the space part of "Long Night of Solace", averting SpaceIsNoisy. |
| 209 | *** The "New Alexandria" level has jamming devices that interfere with the HUD, similar to the ''GRAW'' example. |
| 210 | * In ''VideoGame/Left4Dead'': |
| 211 | ** The screen will get really blurry (and green) if you get vomited by the Boomer or stay near it when someone kills it. In both the cases, the Horde will become frantic to kill that person. |
| 212 | ** After being incapacitated for the second time, the screen goes black-and-white, hazy around the edges, and you can hear your amplified heartbeat. |
| 213 | ** The textures glow a little bit when you take painkillers. |
| 214 | ** ''VideoGame/Left4Dead2'' adds a few more. Using an adrenaline shot will blur the edges of your screen and distort the sound, and taking hits from Mudmen will partially cover the screen with mud. Also, killing enemies with a melee weapon will cause a bloodsplatter effect that can obscure your vision a bit (though this can be disabled by turning the "gore" setting to low). |
| 215 | ** There is also an uncommon infected of Jimmy Gibbs Jr (the racer whose stock car you steal at the end of the campaign) in the final stage of the Dead Center campaign which has a very low chance of spawning. Its normal attacks have the same effect as the mudmen. (Though it is assumed to be motor oil instead of mud.) |
| 216 | ** A particularly odd case is the Hard Rain campaign of the second game. In the second half of the campaign, the area is hit by storms. When the storm is at its peak, visibility is reduced, and voice chat between the players is heavily muffled. |
| 217 | * ''VideoGame/{{MAG}}'' has scope sway for every single weapon. There are various skills to reduce the sway, but even at maximized sway reduction while shooting prone, you'll still have scope sway. The only way to eliminate it entirely is with a bipod, which introduces a new problem when you can't move while the bipod is extended. Red dot scopes don't seem to have scope sway, but bullets don't always go to the exact center of the red dot to make up for that. |
| 218 | * ''VideoGame/MedalOfHonorAirborne'' has your vision gray out when [[ImpairmentShot hit by a melee attack]]. Being close to an explosion or [[CriticalAnnoyance low on health]] results in both a RedFilterOfDoom and ShellShockSilence. |
| 219 | * In ''VideoGame/{{Overwatch}}'', [[PlayfulHacker Sombra]]'s Play of the Game animation consists of her taking over other character's Play of the Game, including the player name. |
| 220 | * ''VideoGame/PAYDAY3'': Moving near a [[DroneDeployer Techie's]] hiding spot will cause the HUD to glitch out. |
| 221 | * ''VideoGame/PerfectDark'': |
| 222 | ** The Tranquilizer hopelessly blurs your screen, rendering you more or less completely helpless, for a good 30 seconds and ''doesn't wear off even when you die,'' often resulting in five or six quick deaths before the effect finally wears off. |
| 223 | ** The Crossbow (which has bolts laced with tranquilizers) and Throwing Knives (which are laced with poison), which not only induced the blurry effect, but also kept damaging you until you died. The fact that the Crossbow could also kill you instantly in its secondary mode didn't help matters. |
| 224 | ** ''N-Bombs''. A grenade that emits a crackling sphere of dark light that makes your screen look like your eyeballs just exploded. At least you could ''dodge'' the tranq darts. |
| 225 | ** Try fighting a [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard DarkSim]] while it's unarmed. It will punch you so quickly it induces the blurry effect on command. Oh, and then it steals your weapon and kills you a few times for the heck of it. |
| 226 | ** For the same reason do not let a [=FistSim=] hit you, or tag-team with a [=PeaceSim=] to steal your gun, blur your vision, then blur a lot more while beating you down. |
| 227 | ** In ''Perfect Dark Zero'' the Psychosis Gun makes you think your allies are your enemies in the multiplayer mode if you are hit with it. This gun is also available in Perfect Dark but it can only be used in one of the Campaign levels [unless you get the cheat code that lets you use it in ANY level]. |
| 228 | * ''VideoGame/PrimalCarnage'': |
| 229 | ** The Pathfinder can throw down flares and the Pyromaniac has a flare gun as a secondary weapon. The flares will blind any nearby dinosaurs, which is visualized by a white light covering most of the screen. |
| 230 | ** Spitter dinosaurs (''Dilophosaurus'' and ''Cryolophosaurus'') can lob projectiles which cause momentary blindness if it hits any human directly (along with damaging them and/or depleting their stamina). |
| 231 | * ''VideoGame/ProjectSnowblind'', a SpiritualSuccessor of ''VideoGame/DeusEx'', puts you in control of a soldier enhanced with nano-machines. If an EMP grenade explodes near you, it disables the nano-machines, making your screen fills with static for a short moment. |
| 232 | * Many military, counterterrorism, or police themed games (notably ''VideoGame/RainbowSix'', ''VideoGame/CounterStrike'' and ''VideoGame/SWAT4'') have flashbang grenades that will disrupt the sound for players near the blast, and cause gradually fading whiteout and/or afterimage of the screens of players looking towards the grenade. Unfortunately, in multiplayer it can be extremely common (especially with less skilled/experienced players) to affect as many or more teammates than enemies. {{Griefer}}s in Counter Strike often deliberately throw flash grenades at their teammates to mess them up. |
| 233 | * ''VideoGame/RawData'''s "Soul Decrypt" level takes place in a garden where the very air is psychoactive. The player will start seeing rainbows after a short time, and if they stay in unsafe areas for too long they'll begin to hallucinate enemies who aren't there. |
| 234 | * ''VideoGame/Receiver2'' blacks out the screen for a moment every time you fire to simulate your character reflexively blinking. Also when a camera spots you and sounds the alarm, your screen starts glitching out slightly. |
| 235 | * ''VideoGame/RedFaction II'' had EMP effects that turned the screen bright blue and inverted your movement and aiming controls. The EMP [[HandWave supposedly]] screws with your [[SuperSoldier super-soldier]] nanotech enhancements. Volition (developer of the ''Freespace'' and ''Red Faction'' series) seems to love the Interface Screw-by-EMP ploy. |
| 236 | * In ''VideoGame/ReturnToCastleWolfenstein'' getting hit by a ghost would completely black out your screen and all you could hear was your characters breathing... |
| 237 | * ''VideoGame/RiseOfTheTriad'' has a "[[PoisonMushroom mushroom]]" powerup that causes a MushroomSamba: Enemy sprites flash vibrant colors while the player's view moves and sways randomly, for about 30 seconds. The registered version of the game includes a level aptly named "The Vomitorium" which has no shortage of the mushrooms (and jump pads) and can only be accessed via the level-selection cheat. |
| 238 | * In ''VideoGame/SpaceHulkDeathwing'', the DiegeticInterface on your ancestral Terminator PoweredArmor will go haywire when you use Power weapons like the PowerFist, causing your radar and status readout to temporarily go blank. |
| 239 | * ''VideoGame/StarWarsBattlefrontII2017'' has [[Film/TheForceAwakens Rey's]] JediMindTrick invert the controls of anyone it hits. |
| 240 | * In ''VideoGame/StarWarsRepublicCommando'': |
| 241 | ** The Flashbang Grenade blinds the enemy for a few seconds, allowing you to shoot it at will. Of course, if you forget to turn away from the blast, you have a hard time targeting a pure white enemy on a pure white screen... |
| 242 | ** [[GoddamnedBats Scav Droids]] and jammers also cause static and [=HUD=] glitches whenever you're in close proximity. The former would also attach to your face and drill into your visor, making it hard to see until the repair-wipe thing fixed it. |
| 243 | * In ''VideoGame/{{Syndicate}}'' (2012), when you're in the AOE of a jammer, your HUD turns fuzzy until you get out or remove the offending source. If you get hit by EMP, the HUD disappears entirely for a short while. [[spoiler: When Jack Denham tries to shut your CHIP down at the end, your HUD also goes haywire.]] |
| 244 | * ''VideoGame/SystemShock'': |
| 245 | ** The last battle against SHODAN involves trying to shoot her in virtual reality while she [[GrandTheftMe tries to take over your mind]]. This is represented as the screen slowly being replaced with a picture of SHODAN and your crosshairs continuously veering away from SHODAN herself, with the effect getting stronger over time. If the screen completely fills with SHODAN's picture, then you have about 3 seconds of frantic, completely blind firing to try to squeeze out a win before you lose. |
| 246 | ** The Berzerker patches cause your field of vision to go all psychedelic (hallucinations) and reverse your controls. The Reflex patches slow time ''and'' movement, which can make you overshoot or undershoot movement and targeting. The Sight Vision Enhancement patches make everything fully visible, as if you were in bright light, but when they wear off, everything becomes as dark as possible while still technically being lit (even activating the headlamp isn't much of a help, though Nightvision is still 100% effective). |
| 247 | ** Also, the player has a cybernetic interface installed, which reacts poorly to EMP explosions. Your vision glitches out and takes a few seconds to get back to normal, which can be deadly in a firefight[[note]] Hilariously, if this ''does'' happen in a firefight, you have only yourself to blame, as you're the only one in the game with EMP weaponry[[/note]]. |
| 248 | * In ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'': |
| 249 | ** Getting hit with the Sniper's Jarate causes the screen to go yellowish and warped until the effect wears off. |
| 250 | ** The Pyro's fire was at first supposed to obscure the victim's screen, but as it is now you can barely make out the flames around the screen edges. In fact, if it weren't for your character's aim shaking and some rather loud exclamations of "I'm burning! I'm burniiiing!" ''you may not even notice that you are on fire!'' Ironically, the flamethrower is very good at obscuring the vision of the character playing as the Pyro. Pumping out flames often obscures roughly 25% of the center of your screen, more depending on how much you wave the thing around. |
| 251 | ** The Spy's Dead Ringer and Eternal Reward screw with the enemy kill feed and, in some cases, give out completely legitimate achievements and dominations for kills that never really happened. It's even possible for the spy to disguise as another member of his OWN TEAM, and upon his "death" with the Dead Ringer, it will drop the corpse of the class he was disguised as and provide the name of the particular teammate he was disguised as in the kill feed, leaving the enemy completely clueless that they had even "killed" an enemy spy. |
| 252 | ** Pyroland mode is a form of voluntary interface screwing. When visiting Pyroland (activated by wearing a special item), all of the textures on supported maps become psychedelic and pastel, everyone speaks in HeliumSpeech, pain sounds and death screams become laughter, the text on signs is changed (usually to some variant of [[TheUnintelligible "MMMMPH"]]) and the game overall becomes LighterAndSofter in terms of aesthetics, but harder to play because most people are used to a different look and sound to the game. |
| 253 | ** Players under the effect of bleeding will have their screen turn red and their vision repeatedly jerk slightly from taking damage. |
| 254 | ** In the "Freak Fortress 2" mod (a variant of VS Saxton Hale where players team up to fight a [[Memes/TeamFortress2 memetic TF2 character]] like Painis Cupcake or Christian Brutal Sniper), some of the freaks' special abilities do this. For example, Demopan can fill his opponents' screens with fake trade requests. |
| 255 | * ''VideoGame/TeamFortressClassic'': |
| 256 | ** The Spy carries gas grenades that make enemies exposed to the gas see and hear imaginary explosions, gunfire etc. |
| 257 | ** Additionally, the Scout and Medic both carry concussion grenades, which affect any players caught in the blast by slowly moving their viewpoint in a figure-eight pattern, making it exceedingly difficult to aim. |
| 258 | ** If you are set on fire by the Pyro, your vision is blocked by 2D flame sprites. Good luck if you're playing as the Sniper. |
| 259 | * In ''Creator/TomClancy's VideoGame/GhostReconAdvancedWarfighter'', you'd occasionally encounter jamming devices that would screw with the Head Up Display your character - A US Special Operations Soldier wearing extremely advanced equipment - uses, making it hard to see the closer you got to the jammer. Explosions or artillery fire will also cause this along with [[ShellShockSilence temporary deafness]]. Also, in the Sequel, there's a level where you barely escaped a jeep before it was destroyed, and now your fancy HUD is damaged. This is also used as a warning that you're [[BorderPatrol leaving the battle zone]]. |
| 260 | * ''VideoGame/UnrealTournament'' turns your screen highly red for every big hit you receive, plus with the "Screen Flashes" option enabled, every time you fire, your screen flashes, and it's particularly annoying with [[GatlingGood rapid-fire guns]] such as the Minigun. It's one of the most common tweaks for CompetitiveMultiplayer to actually disable this screen flashing. |
| 261 | * ''VideoGame/VermintideII'': |
| 262 | ** When a character takes a direct hit from a Bile Troll's [[AcidAttack vomit]], the player's screen is completely covered with gunk for a few seconds -- a distraction that can be much more dangerous than the actual damage. |
| 263 | ** The FinalBoss [[DefeatEqualsExplosion explodes when killed]], splattering the players' screens for a few seconds. |
| 264 | ** When a PlayerCharacter takes heavy damage, the player's screen becomes slightly obscured by blood splatter around the edges, though this effect can be turned off in the settings. |
| 265 | * Downloadable Platform/WiiWare FPS ''Onslaught'' had a rather clever, if gimmicky version; if you blast one of the [[BugWar bugs]] at point blank range with a gun, their ichor would splatter all over your helmet's visor, severely impeding your vision and damaging you over time if you don't wipe it off (by swinging the nunchuck controller). Initially you wonder why your melee [[RazorFloss laser whip]] [[FridgeLogic doesn't cause this effect despite spilling bugs blood everywhere]], until you realize [[AcceptableBreaksFromReality it was probably implemented mainly to let you avoid this condition in the first place.]] |
| 266 | * ''VideoGame/Wolfenstein2009'' has the interface [[GrayIsUseless fade to black-and-white]] when the player is in the presence of a [[PowerNullifier Veil Inhibitor]]. |
| 267 | * ''VideoGame/{{Xonotic}}'' blurs your screen whenever you are shot. |
| 268 | [[/folder]] |
| 269 | |
| 270 | [[folder:Hack and Slash]] |
| 271 | * In the Dungeons Of Daggoroth fantasy game for the Color Computer as your character over-exerted himself (as represented by the increasingly faster beat of the heart reflecting your stress/exhaustion levels) the screen would start to FadeOut until if you didn't rest it would go blank as you passed out and couldn't do anything until you recovered (if you didn't die outright from a heart attack from overexertion). |
| 272 | * ''VideoGame/NierAutomata'': |
| 273 | ** When [=2B=] is [[spoiler:infected by the Logic Virus, she takes herself to a location to isolate herself so that she doesn't infect the server. As you make your way there, her pod warns you of the level of infection and your screen & sound gets increasingly static. When you reach the bridge, your pod warns you that your head is overheating, which is immediately followed up by your screen going black for a second, then [=2B's=] head exploding in flames (her head is still fine).]] |
| 274 | ** A more minor example occurs when 2B and 9S battle [[spoiler:Eve]]: towards the end of the fight, [[CombatBreakdown their combat functions start to malfunction]], and their health bar (which normally takes up a small portion of a screen) stretches until it goes off the far edge of the screen and wraps back round onto the other side. |
| 275 | ** The [[FantasticDrug E-Drug]] inflicts several visual and auditory glitches onto your gameplay feed with each dose. Similar effects are also a possible symptom of [[spoiler:the close-range EMP blasts that the machines bombard you with]] near the start of Route C/D, in addition to possibly inhibiting your gameplay functions such as lock-on or evasion. |
| 276 | ** During the final battle of Route C, [[spoiler:if you're hit by 9S' hacking attack, A2's melee or ranged attacks will be briefly disabled.]] |
| 277 | * ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroes'': The Rank 4 boss can either invert your controls, your screen, or, if you're really unlucky, both at the same time. |
| 278 | [[/folder]] |
| 279 | |
| 280 | [[folder:Hidden Object]] |
| 281 | * At one point in ''Dark Realm: Queen of Flames'' a dragon tells the main character to run because it's "more fun that way." When you click on the magic boots icon to try to get away by turning invisible, it scorns her mother's "cheap magic tricks" and knocks all of the icons off the screen, making you play a simple mini-game to get them back again. |
| 282 | [[/folder]] |
| 283 | |
| 284 | [[folder:Light Gun Game]] |
| 285 | * ''VideoGame/ConfidentialMission'': |
| 286 | ** One trapped room in the first stage has you locked in a small room with poison gas coming through the vents. Your vision gets wavy and warped as you breathe it in. Even if you succeed in disarming the trap, you still have to endure the wavy screen for a few seconds while you fight off enemy soldiers and wait for the poison to clear your system. |
| 287 | ** A short event in Stage 2 has the agents looking into a train car from the roof, so you fend off several soldiers while upside down. |
| 288 | [[/folder]] |
| 289 | |
| 290 | [[folder:[=MMORPGs=]]] |
| 291 | * ''VideoGame/{{Achaea}}'': |
| 292 | ** There are several drugs in ''Achaea'' and the other Iron Realms games, with differing effects on the interface. Possibly the worst are drugs that cause the "Amnesia" status effect, where the game occasionally ignores a command after it's entered. Annoying in normal play, deadly in combat. |
| 293 | ** A few other status afflictions do this with the interface. Notably, aeon, which causes a sort of artificial lag, stupidity which replaces some commands with random emotes, and the rather aptly-named recklessness, which causes the player's health and mana to always appear full, no matter their actual values. |
| 294 | * Obscure old kid's MassivelyMultiplayerOnlineRolePlayingGame ''VideoGame/CastleInfinity'' had Brainsuckers, which if you touched them, ate a piece of your character's brain. Which, to the player, translated as dropping a splotch of paint over a random section of your screen. Get hit too a few times, your screen would be entirely covered over and you wouldn't be able to see anything (though a consumable item existed to fix this state.) |
| 295 | * In ''[[TabletopGame/CosmicEncounter Cosmic Encounter Online]]'', the alien species Dork has the power to Annoy by filling an opponent's play field with distracting, bouncing graphics during their turn. |
| 296 | * ''VideoGame/EverQuest'' has two examples: The Blind spell, which blacks your entire screen, causing many a frantic player to think their video card just crapped out; and Booze, which causes your character starts to wobble even when standing still and the entire screen to fisheye horribly. |
| 297 | * ''VideoGame/EverQuestII'' has a few. If you are drunk or hit with an effect, your screen can blur and if you get drunk enough/hit enough, you will eventually be seeing quadruple. Some mobs also have abilities that give you Sonic Vision, also known as Piss Vision. Finally, in the Estate of Unrest there is an interface screw towards the end as the boss of the zone tries to come out the screen at you. |
| 298 | * ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'': When you clear the "Final Omega" phase of The Omega Protocol (Ultimate) raid, the game throws up a fake BSoD, even including the standard Windows error sound and some amusing error messages relating to hardcore raiding. Thankfully this isn't intended as a scare, and Omega's dialogue box remains visible the entire time. |
| 299 | * Patching And Skinning (that is, making your own graphics) for ''VideoGame/{{Furcadia}}'' is part and parcel of the whole experience. That being said, Dreamweaver Graphite took this to its most extreme levels with his dream ColdFusion--which was essentially a game of Atomica built on the Furcadia platform. His dream showed just that Furcadia could be altered beyond all recognition through these means. |
| 300 | * The now-offline ''VideoGame/{{Glitch}}'' had Purple Flowers and their distilled form, Essence of Purple, which when imbibed would blur the screen slightly and make text pop up in random places. Additionally, drinking a Pumpkin Ale would temporarily make your character moonwalk whenever moving. |
| 301 | * ''VideoGame/GranadoEspada'''s Wizard stance, ''Darkness'' has a skill called [[AccidentalPun Gloomy Darkness]] that [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin thins down the visibility of your screen for a number of seconds]]. |
| 302 | * In ''VideoGame/GranblueFantasy'', a boss named Oktopode can apply the Inked debuff on the entire party, which covers the HP indicator of the party members with a black ink, while giving their attacks a chance to miss. |
| 303 | * Getting drunk in ''VideoGame/GuildWars'' also has similar (but much more severe at higher states of drunkenness) graphical effects, with the added bonus of the drunk player character shouting typical drunk phrases ("I love you, man!"). Not only is there a special title for those who spend a certain amount of time drunk, but there's also a particularly infamous quest that has you performing various acts while ascending up the drunkenness ladder, culminating with having to herd several pigs into a pen while barely able to stand. |
| 304 | * On April Fools' Day 2014, ''VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing'' introduced "Australia Mode", in which every image was flipped upside down. |
| 305 | * ''VideoGame/TheLordOfTheRingsOnline'' has the Inn League reputation quests. They consist of going to every bar in the Shire and getting progressively more drunk, and other drinking-related debauchery. Eventually, you can black out and wake up in places that one should not be - including on top of a massive stone spire in the middle of the Misty Mountains, with no obvious way up and no pain-free way down. And in snowy areas you can encounter white-outs which make everything onscreen nearly invisible, and at least one monster type can create much the same effect by raising a cloud of dust. |
| 306 | * ''{{Website/Neopets}}'': |
| 307 | ** The old "Secret" version of Meerca Chase (basically ''VideoGame/{{Centipede}}'') would switch the right and left direction buttons every time you collected a Negg. |
| 308 | ** Advert Attack takes a fairly standard racing idea, then adds an increasingly relentless parade of in-game pop-up windows that the player must fight their way through. |
| 309 | * ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarOnline'' has the "Confuse" status effect. When affecting a player, this causes any movement they make to suddenly change directions several times a second (thus making the character all but impossible to control). This can range from annoying (if no enemies are around) to fatal (if any enemies with Megid are nearby). Luckily, it only lasts a few seconds. |
| 310 | * The Panic status in ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarOnline2'' randomizes your movement controls when it's applied (Making right become down and left become right, for instance), but you can still move properly once you've figured out which direction is which. However, it lasts much longer the aforementioned status. |
| 311 | * ''VideoGame/RagnarokOnline'' has 2 of these, but they're thankfully both used rarely enough and for short enough durations that they aren't overdone. |
| 312 | ** Hallucination causes the entire screen to blur in a wavy pattern, making it hard to read anything, see where you're going, or target the enemy you want to hit. It also grossly misreports damage taken (though your health bar will still be correct.) |
| 313 | ** Very often it'll cause your game to run at an amazing 1 frame-per-second for its duration, even on the strongest computers. |
| 314 | ** Chaos screws with your controls in a subtle way - you move the distance you clicked, but not the direction. It's often impossible to tell when it first hits if it's the status effect or just plain lag, especially when making a very small movement. |
| 315 | ** Star Gladiators have a skill, ''Demon of the Sun, Moon, and Stars'', that causes a permanent one of these. It boosts your attack speed by 30% when leveled completely, but each level causes you to slowly lose the ability to see the screen properly. When fully leveled up, you can see ''nothing'' but the character itself. |
| 316 | * When your health gets critically low in ''VideoGame/{{Rift}}'', colors desaturate, normal game sounds FadeOut, and the HeartbeatSoundtrack starts. |
| 317 | * Taken to extremes by ''VideoGame/StarTrekOnline'' if your captain gets assimilated by a Borg drone. The screen turns gray, your captain sprouts Borg implants, and you lose control of the character who immediately starts attacking the rest of the away team until either you or they die. Only then do you get to respawn. |
| 318 | * ''VideoGame/ToontownCorporateClash'': |
| 319 | ** During Rainmaker's Monsoon phase, you can't see the levels and stats of the Cogs you're fighting. |
| 320 | ** Pacesetter will mix up the order of your gag tracks. |
| 321 | * In ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'': |
| 322 | ** Drinking enough alcohol will get you into various stages of inebriation, affecting your motor skills and making your character veer off slightly in different directions as they walk, as well as blurring your screen (lower graphical settings excluded). If you get "completely smashed," enemy {{N|onPlayerCharacter}}PCs will be displayed to your character as having much lower levels than they actually do. And most amusingly, the game will mangle your text chat to others by slurring and misspelling your words. Not that it stands out, however. You shtart talking like thish when you get drunk...hic. Fortunately this does not affect Real ID chat or whispers to other players. This effect led to a very amusing change in one of the earlier patches to the game: "Your character will no longer spout profanity when talking about sitting while drunk." It comes into play during the Brewfest event where getting smashed allows you to see the [[http://www.wowwiki.com/Wolpertinger Wild Wolpertingers]] scattered about. In the 2007 version of this event, being drunk was required to catch them for a quest. |
| 323 | ** There's also one group of Ogres in the Blade's Edge Mountains that are drinking when you start fighting them. Their attacks consist of hitting you with their (large) mugs of booze, which gets you progressively more drunk as you fight them. |
| 324 | ** The Zul'Gurub Spider has a charge poison attack that takes you instantly to the highest level of drunken-ness. |
| 325 | ** Note that the lower level displays is a bit of FridgeBrilliance. While the other effects like the blurred screen and walking in different directions simulate the effects alcohol has on a person's motor control, the lower levels simulate the ''[[LiquidCourage overconfidence]]'' of drinking. You want to attack that ogre? Why not, right? He's three levels lower than you! Pay no attention to his size... |
| 326 | ** In late January 2011 a lot of players would suddenly hear the [[EldritchAbomination Old Gods]]' voices while they were doing archaeology. But in this case, Blizzard could look them in the eye and tell them they didn't have anything to do with it: it was caused by [[spoiler:Deadly Boss Mods, a [[GameMod fan-made add-on]]]]. |
| 327 | ** The end boss of Ahn'Kahet: The Old Kingdom has an attack that causes the player to become unable to differentiate friend from foe, leading to them being attacked by illusions of their teammates. Defeating them returns you to normal. |
| 328 | ** One of the mechanics of the Yogg-Saron fight was the sanity meter which starts at 100 and drops slightly when suffering certain specifics attacks of this EldritchAbomination. You will be DrivenToMadness if it goes to zero at which point your character loses control and starts attacking the raid and must be killed. To the player being affected by this though, ''everyone in the raid suddenly starts looking like faceless minions of Yogg-Saron''. |
| 329 | [[/folder]] |
| 330 | |
| 331 | [[folder:Party Games]] |
| 332 | * ''VideoGame/TheJackboxPartyPack'': In ''Trivia Murder Party'', the Killing Floor minigame "Fingers" forces the player to [[{{Fingore}} pick one of their fingers to chop off]]. For the rest of the game, they can't respond to trivia questions with the answer associated with that finger -- which is problematic if that happens to be the ''correct'' answer. |
| 333 | * ''VideoGame/MarioParty'': |
| 334 | ** ''VideoGame/MarioParty2'': The minigame ''[[http://www.mariowiki.com/Dizzy_Dancing Dizzy Dancing]]'' starts when all four characters are pushed away from a giant vinyl disc that spins rapidly, making them clash against the room's corners; in their stunned form, the movement with the Control Stick will be impaired, yet they have to return to the vinyl's center and grab the musical note located above, and whoever does so first wins. |
| 335 | ** ''VideoGame/MarioParty6'': This pops up in the minigame Bowser minigame Dizzy Rotisserie. Players are initially encased in hanging jails that spin rapidly, and then are freed in a dizzy state. They have to get out of the dungeon before time runs out so the Bowser statues don't burn them with fire, but the controls are reversed due to the characters still being dizzy. |
| 336 | ** ''VideoGame/MarioPartyStarRush'': One item that players can use against their opponents in Coinathlon is the Blooper, which covers one of their rival's screens in ink splatters that obstruct their view of the current minigame. |
| 337 | * In ''VideoGame/UltimateChickenHorse'', the Dance Party level renders all characters and objects as black silhouettes, and also has black bars moving across the screen in various patterns, making it hard to see. |
| 338 | * ''VideoGame/{{Whacked}}!'' has [=BRBs=] ({{Big Red Button}}s) that have a variety of effects that either help you or screw you, including 'Fish-Eye Lense'. |
| 339 | * The ''VideoGame/WiiParty'' minigame Maze Daze has four Miis racing to reach the center of a maze, but on the way they step on two "dizzy spinner" platforms that mix up their controls. |
| 340 | * The fourth volume of the ''VideoGame/YouDontKnowJack'' series, "The Ride", had a ''literal'' example: When using the series' "Screw Your Neighbor" option, forcing them to answer a question they might not know the answer to and thus "screwing" them out of money (at the possible cost of losing the same amount yourself if they answered correctly), you could repeatedly hit the key to fire a multitude of screws into the onscreen image, forcing someone to answer a question obscured by screws. Naturally, it worked best if you didn't give your opponents time to read the question. |
| 341 | [[/folder]] |
| 342 | |
| 343 | [[folder:Platformers]] |
| 344 | * The Coral Cave boss from ''VideoGame/SonicRushAdventure'' sprays ink all over the place, and later on in the fight, some of that ink is sprayed onto your screen. Just before you get the final hit in, it shoots one last glob of ink at the screen; that time, you can wipe it off with the stylus, but since there are some clean areas at the edges of the screen and you're about to win anyway, cleaning it off isn't particularly necessary. |
| 345 | * The freeware game ''Punishment'' is all about this, featuring both items that flip the left and right controls until you touch another one and eyeballs that rotate the screen, to say nothing of levels that rotate the screen on their own in a variety of often seasickness-inducing ways. |
| 346 | * Indie game ''Perspective'' does this at its finale. After you finish the final room, your only option is to select "Exit Game" from the menu. After doing so, your desktop pops up, seemingly ordinary. However, attempting to do anything reveals that the game is still running, and has modeled the VeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon after your desktop. After a few seconds "your desktop" collapses, revealing the final portal; as you walk towards it the credits roll, and once you enter it you're taken to the main menu and can exit for real. |
| 347 | * The Mario fan game ''Revenge of the Walrus'' has this in both the 'drug' themed levels, with the Cannabis Creek level having the screen slowly spin 360 degrees non stop after you accidentally touch one of the bushes in the level, and the Divide by Zero-like level has the lights go on and off BlackoutBasement style when you touch the drug warning poster (and then stop once you reach the next one). Both are rather disorienting. |
| 348 | * In ''VideoGame/{{Actraiser}} 2'', the last segment of the King of Lovaous' mind before Lust/Deception is an area where you must navigate a maze of harmful blue jelly. When the screen rotates, your controls rotate along with it. |
| 349 | * ''VideoGame/TheAdventuresOfRadGravity'' has a planet, Turvia, where the screen image is flipped (hence the name), as well as the controls. Can be frustrating when jumping over BottomlessPits, especially the ones in the beginning with the GoddamnedBats, aka flying sharks. |
| 350 | * In ''VideoGame/BanjoKazooieNutsAndBolts''' Logbox 720, running into the video or sound card will make the screen or sound staticy respectively. It doesn't actually make the game harder to play, it's just a nice touch. It also has a time trial in the Jiggoseum where your rival Trophy Thomas (irritated that you keep besting his times) flips the controls for the custom vehicle. |
| 351 | * ''VideoGame/{{Braid}}'' does this by introducing a new time-travel game mechanic in each world. For instance, one world has time go forward when you move right, and backward when you move left. |
| 352 | * ''VideoGame/ClusterTruck'': |
| 353 | ** One of the events the Twitch chat can start is "Inverted", which inverts your commands for a small period of time. |
| 354 | ** The Twitch chat command "Mini-Max" also counts seeing as it makes you constantly jump, move forward at max speed, and use your ability all at the same time. |
| 355 | ** The devs can also join the chat to induce effects that normal viewers couldn't, including talking directly to the players in-game. |
| 356 | * ''Franchise/DonkeyKong'': |
| 357 | ** ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry2DiddysKongQuest'': Kaptain K. Rool has a gun that shoots various status effect "clouds" in addition to cannonballs. The purple clouds reverse left and right, which is problematic because Rool also can suck the player toward him using the gun -- so pressing the wrong direction results in rapidly crashing into him. On the other hand, it's less dangerous than the cannonballs, because at least if these hit you, you have a chance of not getting hurt. The red and blue clouds induce "slow-mo" and "frozen in place" effects. |
| 358 | ** ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry3DixieKongsDoubleTrouble'': |
| 359 | *** Poisonous Pipeline swaps the left/right movement of your D-Pad whenever you're in water. This makes the level even more infuriating, because the moment you step ''out'' of the water, the controls are reset to normal, meaning getting back on terra firma is a bit of a challenge. |
| 360 | *** Rocket Rush, the final level of the Lost World. The D-pad controls not the rocket itself, but its thrusters; pressing Left activates the left thruster, forcing the rocket to the right, and vice versa, essentially creating reversed controls. The first half, where you're burning Buzzes with your rocket burners, isn't so bad. And then when you reach the midway barrel, the stage goes straight to hell. Your rocket is launched at a ridiculous speed through a corridor. Not only are your controls reversed, but you've got various rock walls blocking your way as you boost your way up. In addition, you've got a limited amount of fuel to get to the top -- so limited that one crash into the wall means that you won't make it. |
| 361 | ** ''VideoGame/DonkeyKong64'': |
| 362 | *** One of the objectives on the Gloomy Galleon level is for Chunky Kong to go down under the deck of a ship (the sailing one) and retrieve his Golden Banana. Once the player reaches the banana and Chunky does his dance, the whole screen constantly distorts itself in different ways, Chunky's walking animation has him leaning backwards with his arms down, and the walking direction controls are reversed, implying seasickness. |
| 363 | *** A MiniBoss is a giant spider (that only Tiny can fight) who shoots globs of webbing which can reverse the controls or freeze Tiny. |
| 364 | * The hidden "Null Driver" in ''VideoGame/{{Iji}}'' randomly and thoroughly screws up all the game's graphics in the most dramatic possible ways. If you're lucky you can still see the floor. And it can be used repeatedly until you get an effect you "like". It also had the side effect of being permanent until the game itself was exited and restarted, which can make things ridiculously irritating when you realize it can [[PermanentlyMissableContent disable upgrade stations altogether]]. |
| 365 | * In ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibleCrashDummies'' LicensedGame for the Platform/NintendoEntertainmentSystem, whenever your head gets knocked off, the controls get reversed. This happens if a bomb explodes near you or you go too fast and smash into a wall. The only way to return the controls to normal is to find a spare head, which can sometimes be found easily, and other times isn't found until the end of the level. Once you pick up the spare head, the controls revert back to normal, which can cause you to jump into an enemy or off a cliff. |
| 366 | * ''VideoGame/JakIIRenegade'' features an unlockable option to mirror the world and your controls to match. This doesn't translate to the Whack-a-mole minigame, where your d-pad and your buttons (which normally map directly to the 8 holes) are flipped. |
| 367 | * In ''VideoGame/JazzJackrabbit 2'', getting hit by the caterpillar's smoke rings in the ''Literature/AliceInWonderland'' levels will make you dizzy (switch around your controls). |
| 368 | * The purple stars in ''VideoGame/{{Jumper}} Redux'' and ''Jumper Two [[LevelEditor Editor]]'' reverse Ogmo's movement until he catches a yellow star. |
| 369 | * In the ''VideoGame/{{Karoshi}}'' games, there are many levels that involve an Interface Screw, for example: Zooming in on the character, rotating screen, making you unable to jump, clicks spawn the player character, restarting the level creates a clone, going in the menu kills you, going in the menu makes the character appear in the menu (you can and have to control him), being unable to go left, jumps get less effective with every jump, jumps get more effective with every jump and much, much more. |
| 370 | * ''Franchise/{{Kirby}}'': |
| 371 | ** Some of the Sphere Doomers and [[spoiler: Magolor Soul]] in ''VideoGame/KirbysReturnToDreamLand'' can flip the screen upside-down temporarily. |
| 372 | ** Paintra from ''VideoGame/KirbyTripleDeluxe'' paints the fourth wall in the most literal sense, splashing the screen to obscure your vision. |
| 373 | ** In ''VideoGame/KirbyPlanetRobobot'', the boss President Haltmann obscures the camera view with [[MoneyToThrowAway banknotes]]. |
| 374 | ** In ''VideoGame/KirbyAndTheForgottenLand'', getting hit by [[spoiler:Morpho Knight's sound waves]] causes the screen to turn 90 degrees, and even [[VariableMix mutes parts of the boss music]] as if Kirby is recovering from the blow. |
| 375 | * ''VideoGame/Me2017'': Touching "Drink" makes the game and platforms seem shakey. |
| 376 | * ''VideoGame/MegaManX7'' is horrendously guilty of this in Snipe Anteator's stage. At certain points in the stage your point of view and ''gravity'' get flipped, '''''but your controls remain as they are'''''. Makes navigating some parts of the stage a right pain in the ass. |
| 377 | * Flash developer {{Creator/Nitrome}} is something of a specialist in these, having used them in quite a few games since its beginnings. As a general rule, the more recent ones are clever (''Chained Heat'' impairs your movements), and the older ones are just irritating (you have to drag yourself along by your teeth.) |
| 378 | * ''VideoGame/{{Pepsiman}}'' has sequences where Pepsiman gets a garbage can stuck on his head, which inverts the player's right and left controls. |
| 379 | * ''[[http://hol.abime.net/1129 P.P. Hammer And His Pneumatic Weapon]]'', a German puzzle-platformer for the Amiga, had one level in which the controls were reversed. Why? Here's the description of the level: "Tasting the winecellar had made you a little drunken". |
| 380 | * ''Franchise/PrinceOfPersia'': |
| 381 | ** ''VideoGame/PrinceOfPersia1'' and ''VideoGame/PrinceOfPersia2'' each had a level with a pair of strange potions you could drink to flip the screen upside down and then back up again. |
| 382 | ** ''VideoGame/PrinceOfPersia2008'' has The Hunter, a boss who, in every encounter after the first one, has a tendency to spit black crap on the camera/screen so you can't see the battle. It eventually fades, but hitting the boss makes it fade faster. |
| 383 | ** The Concubine boss fires a pink bolt that reverses your controls, causing your attempts to retreat to impel you toward her for a thankfully short time. The Alchemist seems to do this as well. |
| 384 | * ''VideoGame/{{Psychonauts}}'' has confusion bombs (and confusion rats), which will cause your screen to turn green and fuzzy, and flip around into a mirror version. The left-right keys flip with the screen, and your attack keys switch to three random PSI powers, whose icons you can't see. |
| 385 | * ''VideoGame/{{Purple}}'' features a glowing green skull touching which will result in reversed controls, a tilting screen, being unable to enter doors and a green-tinted character. |
| 386 | * ''{{VideoGame/Rayman}}'': |
| 387 | ** Mr. Dark from the original ''VideoGame/Rayman1'' inflicts various effects on you throughout the final level, such as reversed controls and disabled abilities. Fortunately for the gamer, the keyboard mappings can be flipped in the options menu (right is left and left is right), which the game will then reverse to the correct orientation, allowing normal play. |
| 388 | ** ''VideoGame/RaymanLegends'' features the infamous 8-bit Remix series, figurative and literal RemixedLevel editions of the [[MusicalGameplay Musical Levels]]. Compared to the regular ones, they feature massive amounts of interface-screwing (ranging from a fisheye lens camera to the screen ''splitting into 64 smaller screens'') and no checkpoints. Some of them make the screen practically unusable, though thankfully the MusicalGameplay present in those levels means you can simply ride the beat to the end goal. |
| 389 | * In ''VideoGame/Rockman4MinusInfinity'', Rock[=/=]Mega Man had to explore a pyramid. When he was inside the pyramid, Mega Man was affected by the curse of the pyramid. The curses are chosen as Mega Man progresses through the pyramid: |
| 390 | ** Reverse: Up/down, left/right, B/A, even select/start are switched |
| 391 | ** Hopping: You can't jump on your own, but it jumps for you every couple seconds. |
| 392 | ** Berserker: You shoot as if you have turbo fire pressed. |
| 393 | ** Roulette: It selects one of your items at random every few seconds. |
| 394 | ** Minimum: One shot on screen at a time. The shot also travels slower. |
| 395 | ** Fidget: You won't stop moving in the direction you're facing. |
| 396 | ** Slipping: You'll continuously slide except when you jump. |
| 397 | ** Fetter: You can only jump and shoot. |
| 398 | * Getting shocked in ''VideoGame/Rockman7EP'' screws up Mega Man's controls. Cloud Man specializes this with his electric attacks. |
| 399 | * ''VideoGame/RogueLegacy'' has a variety of random traits your character can be "born" with. If they have dyslexia then all text, ''including the area names'' is scrambled, while vertigo means that ''all'' rooms, ''everywhere'' are mirrored vertically. |
| 400 | * ''VideoGame/SecretAgent'' has the question mark "powerup", which reverses the left and right controls for a while. "You feel a bit confused!" |
| 401 | * In ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons: Bart's Nightmare'', if you touch the music notes coming from a flying sax, you'll moonwalk for what feels like a minute. |
| 402 | * The Contessa's mind control gaze in ''VideoGame/Sly2BandOfThieves'', which puts the player character under hypnotic stupor. |
| 403 | * ''VideoGame/SnakeRattleNRoll'': The Reverse power-up inverts the controls, found on levels 3 and 5. |
| 404 | * In the multiplayer mode of ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure2'', when playing Treasure Hunt mode, Rouge (or possibly Knuckles) can use a special attack that makes the other player dizzy and will mess up their controls. |
| 405 | * In ''VideoGame/SonicRivals'', Silver's [[PsychicPowers Psychic Control]] momentarily flips the left-right controls of your character. |
| 406 | * ''VideoGame/SpeedyEggbert 2'' has numerous signposts with the main character on it which cause him to moonwalk temporarily. |
| 407 | * ''VideoGame/SuperMario3DLand'' has Inky Piranah Plants which spit ink at the screen, to the same effect as ''VideoGame/MarioKart'' Bloopers. |
| 408 | * In ''VideoGame/SuperMarioMaker'', one of the sound effects also comes with a visual effect reminiscent of "Touch Fuzzy, Get Dizzy". It looks like [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Yj2XMZWymA&t=2m24s this]]. |
| 409 | * In the ''VideoGame/SuperMarioWorld'' hack Super Kusottare World, the start of the third level has a section involving swimming through an underwater maze of deadly spikes. Which would be fairly okay, except the water is ''completely opaque''. You can't see where Mario is ''at all'' in the water, just solid color. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4w4oZNm0XGs&feature=PlayList&p=07D13F6ABF7F1853&index=9 See for yourself.]] |
| 410 | * In ''VideoGame/SuperMarisaWorld'', this is the gimmick of the fight against the MoonRabbit, Reisen. As she takes more damage, the screen steadily begins to warp, making it more difficult to place your jumps. |
| 411 | * In ''VideoGame/SuperPaperMario'', a spell that inverts the d-pad of the Wiimote is seen. |
| 412 | * ''VideoGame/ToejamAndEarl'' has cupids that shoot little arrows at you. When you're hit by one, a bunch of hearts float above your character's head and your controls are screwed up. In addition, there are hula girls throughout the levels that will distract the player characters with their dancing, causing the player characters themselves to dance for a half second here and there as long as they're nearby. |
| 413 | * The online game ''VideoGame/{{Transformice}}'' features some stages that are rotated 180 degrees along with your controls, so left moves you right, right moves you left, [[MindScrew and up makes you jump down]]. |
| 414 | * In ''VideoGame/{{Vexx}}'', one [[PlotCoupon Wraitheart]] in the Under is collected by completing a simple platformer segment...while the screen is upside down. |
| 415 | * ''VideoGame/YoshisIsland'': |
| 416 | ** The game contains a level called "Touch Fuzzy, Get Dizzy," in which Yoshi can collide with cotton-ball enemies that cause the stage to warp and Yoshi to stumble around. In the German version, that level is called [[{{Fun With Acronyms}} Lustiges Sporen Drama]]. |
| 417 | ** If a [[http://www.mariowiki.com/Grim_Leecher Grim Leecher]] hits you, you lose Baby Mario and it starts riding you. Until you get Baby Mario back, your controls are reversed. Fortunately, they're a rare enemy, and not terribly hard to defeat. |
| 418 | * One of the first examples was the Platform/ZXSpectrum platformer ''Cauldron II'', which featured purple disembodied hands that, if you collided with them, would reverse the right/left controls. These were, in turn, a ShoutOut to the purple flowers in ''VideoGame/SabreWulf'', which have the same effect. |
| 419 | [[/folder]] |
| 420 | |
| 421 | [[folder:Puzzle Games]] |
| 422 | * The flash game ''Invisibility'' is entirely about this trope. In each level, you have to click on the start button, then, without touching the walls get to the finishing button and click on it. The problem? Once you press the Start button your cursor turns invisible. To top it off, most levels are NintendoHard by themselves anyway. At least you could cheat... |
| 423 | * Another online game, ''Disorientation'', also revolves around interface screw. |
| 424 | * In ''Eets'' there are anti-gravity aliens and marshmallows. |
| 425 | * In Superior Software's ''Ravenskull'', two levels have traps that reverse your direction controls. In the PC remake, Level 4 of the new scenario "Castle Danube" contains a trap that reverses ''every second keypress'', which is confusing as hell. If you play as the wizard, you are immune to both effects, but [[GuideDangIt the game never tells you this]]. |
| 426 | * The final boss in ''Zuma's Revenge'' has an attack which reverses directions on you. Not too bad since you're using a mouse and the only directions are left and right, but still fairly annoying. |
| 427 | * ''Yoshi's Cookie'' has three different effects you can inflict on your opponent to mess them up. Blind causes the center portion of the playing field is covered up by ? panels in a 3x3 grid. Panic causes all cookies in the playing field to constantly scramble and disables the player's inputs. Slave has the victim lose control to the player who caused the effect, causing the victim's movements and cookie shifting to mimic the "master's" movements and inputs. |
| 428 | * The Platform/AppleMacintosh game ''Diamonds'' (and the clone ''Go Bonkers'' on the Platform/SegaGenesis version of ''Action 52'') has bricks that reverse the controls. |
| 429 | * ''VideoGame/{{Catherine}}'' has the Immoral Beast boss in the final night of the third stage, who can rain down an attack on Vincent that, if he's hit, causes your controls to temporarily reverse themselves. |
| 430 | * In ''VideoGame/DisneyEmojiBlitz'' the final challenge for Halloween 2018 involved this. Bugs would perodically crawl across the screen, keeping you from swiping emojis or activating power-ups if the bug was on it. |
| 431 | * ''VideoGame/HardspaceShipbreaker'' has many ways in which your vision, which is filtered through your helmet and HUD-providing visor, can be messed with. |
| 432 | ** Smack into something too hard and you will leave a crack in your visor that won't go away until you get a repair kit for your suit. If it's a full-on shattered visor (complete with oxygen zeroing), not only will the hole in the glass nearly blind you, the edges of the screen will redden too; this makes it quite difficult to get to the Habitat for repairs. |
| 433 | ** Radiation sources, especially active reactors, will cause your HUD to waver and glitch out slightly; the closer you are, the screwier it gets. |
| 434 | ** If your Scanner is in disrepair from excess use, it will gradually glitch out more and more while in use. |
| 435 | ** Ghost Ships will mess with your vision and audio just with their mere presence in the disassembly bay. [[spoiler:It only stops once all hostile AI nodes have been destroyed]]. |
| 436 | * ''[[VideoGame/{{Jardinains}} Jardinains 2!]]'' has the Paddle Scrambler [[PoisonMushroom powerup]], which reverses the controls of the paddle. Catching another one will set things right. |
| 437 | * In ''VideoGame/LegoPiratesOfTheCaribbean'', getting hit by Blackbeard's projectiles reverses the target's directional movement. |
| 438 | * In ''[=MariAri=]'', a ''VideoGame/MarioAndWario'' Touhou-themed clone game, Sakuya's ability is to stop your mouse movement for a short period of time (along with setting some knives on the stage), being dangerous and potentially driving Alice to her death. |
| 439 | * In ''VideoGame/OneShot'', [[spoiler: at the end of the normal run if "return home" is chosen, after which the window will shake violently as the lightbulb is smashed, and at the end of the Solstice run, Niko will approach the bottom of the window, say their goodbyes, and then ''walk off the game window and out of the screen.'']] |
| 440 | * ''VideoGame/PatricksParabox'': Several optional levels mess with the visuals in certain ways, such as showing what is inside every box side-by-side, or rendering everything in an ASCII style. Pressing the 7 key lets you toggle between these two states and the normal view at any time. |
| 441 | * ''VideoGame/PonyIsland'' revolves around a satanic arcade machine that is constantly breaking down. The main goal of the game is to work out how to undo the interface screws that are breaking the mandatory minigames. [[spoiler:Asmodeus.exe, the game's third boss, screws things up even more by trying to trick the player into looking away from the screen by faking Platform/{{Steam}} messages, social media notification sounds, and even temporarily "freezing" the game.]] |
| 442 | * ''VideoGame/PuyoPuyo15thAnniversary'' has a mode like this, which can be disorienting if the roulette wheel lands on it unexpectedly: Searchlight. In said mode, everything in the play area is completely dark, aside from the piece currently being placed and whatever the titular constantly-swaying searchlight is currently illuminating. It's up to the player to try and remember where the pieces they've already placed are. |
| 443 | * ''VideoGame/RollAway'' has two: Lethargy Pills cause everything to slow down except the timer, which ticks much faster, and also messes around with the camera. Elastic Pills force you to jump continuously until the level is cleared (usually these will be necessary, though, as if you jump forward under the effect of one, you'll jump three spaces instead of just two.) |
| 444 | * ''VideoGame/{{Tetris}}'': |
| 445 | ** ''Heboris Unofficial Expansion'''s Versus Mode has a number of items that fall under this trope. "X-Ray" turns the field invisible, with a scanner running through it to give you a brief glimpse of the screen. "Hide Next" turns off your preview pieces. "Grandmother Block" turns your blocks into black-and-white (or green-and-white, depending on your rotation system) "[ ]" blocks a la the original ''Tetris'' and ''Tetris: The Grand Master 3'' Shirase Mode's last 300 levels. |
| 446 | ** The Premium Missions in ''[[http://www.tetrisfriends.com/ Tetris Friends]]'' sometimes have these too. For example, in "Gorilla in the Minos", there's a gorilla standing next to the game area, and clearing lines will hurt the ape. He will hold out a banana to obscure the next Tetrimino to be sent out into the matrix, or he will throw it onto the hold queue, obscuring which piece you're withholding temporarily. Occasionally, the gorilla will get enraged and attack the game area, screwing up the hole placement in the lines. Once his health is completely empty, he will finally run away and you can continue your game normally. |
| 447 | ** ''VideoGame/TetrisTheGrandMaster'' has a code you can enter before starting a game to turn the playing field upside-down. It makes the game ''much'' harder. |
| 448 | ** The entire gimmick of ''Lockjaw: The Overdose'', a homebrew ''VideoGame/{{Tetris}}'' clone, is that the playfield is distorted by a MushroomSamba. Its predecessor ''Tetripz'' had the same gimmick. |
| 449 | ** An unintentional one in ''Tetris 99'': the game will display garbage attacks to opponents in the form of bunches of stars and sparkles. Though not normally a problem on their own, they can really clutter the screen and your playfield if the attack is big enough and you've targeted enough opponents, especially since they emanate from whatever lines were cleared to start the attack. |
| 450 | * ''VideoGame/ThereIsNoGame'' (and its expansion, ''VideoGame/ThereIsNoGameWrongDimension''): The entire gameplay consists of the Narrator screwing with the interface to keep you from playing the game, and you screwing with it right back to get past the obstacles. |
| 451 | * Played with in the online game ''VideoGame/ThisIsTheOnlyLevel''. In fact, the whole game revolves solely around Interface Screw. |
| 452 | * ''VideoGame/TheWitness'': |
| 453 | ** Objects such as trees and rocks can block panels depending on what angle they are looked at, preventing one from drawing lines through the obstructing objects and forcing the player to find the proper angle to observe the panel from. |
| 454 | ** The endgame area features [[spoiler:increasingly broken puzzle panels whose grid rotates or moves, panels that flash rainbow colors and make it hard to discern the true color of symbols, and a set of panels which you control simultaneously and must solve all at once]]. |
| 455 | [[/folder]] |
| 456 | |
| 457 | [[folder:Racing Games]] |
| 458 | * The final level of ''Uniracers'' has the boss uni doing several evil things, including flipping controls, flipping the screen upside down, and slowing down to "[[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog Hedgehog]] [[TakeThat Mode]]". |
| 459 | * ''Nascar Kart Racing'' has a power-up that can be used to block another driver's view, [[TakeThat which consists of an ad for the driver]] who used the attack. |
| 460 | * ''VideoGame/BanjoKazooieNutsAndBolts'' has a really hard mission where you must pilot a large, clunky ball-shaped car through a course... with the controls reversed. |
| 461 | * ''VideoGame/{{Carmageddon}} 2'' featured the "drink driving" negative powerup, which inverted your controls and did screwy things with the perspective. |
| 462 | * ''VideoGame/IggysReckinBalls'': The "Reverse" item inverts all directional controls for about five seconds. How much of an issue this is largely depends on whether you are currently trying to make a tricky jump; in most other situations, you can simply stop and wait it out. |
| 463 | * In ''VideoGame/LegoRacers'', one of the power-ups is a "Mummy's Curse" trap that reverses the left and right controls of those caught in it, and slows the cars. If they stop, they'll start backing up. It also tints the screen green and rapidly contracts and expands your view. |
| 464 | * ''VideoGame/MarioKartDS'' introduces the Blooper item to the series, which will dump ink into the face of your driver, and therefore onto your screen, partially blocking your view of the road until it drips away. One of the least annoying items in the game, given how many counters it has. ''VideoGame/MarioKartWii'' has the issue of the splatter being predictable in where it initially lands on the screen, meaning so long as you have ''some'' track knowledge, the splatter isn't much of a hindrance. Mario Kart DS suffers from a similar issue as while he DS screen is small enough for the splatter to theoretically be annoying, it only affects the top screen, and you still see literally everything (including items) on the touchscreen. ''7'' and ''8'', however randomize the splatter pattern, with the former no longer showing items on the touchscreen. All the games it's in allow you to use the map on the appropriate screen to keep track of your driver's current position during this situation, meaning its rendered a bit moot (as shown on this page, the map isn't obscured on ''Wii'' either). Using a mushroom or speed boost ramp will also clear this effect. Thankfully this also affects computer players, more so than human players -- blinded CPU racers will weave about the track like drunken clowns. |
| 465 | * Getting hit by ElectromagneticPulse or similar weapons in ''VideoGame/NeedForSpeedHotPursuit2010'' or ''VideoGame/NeedForSpeedRivals'' temporarily zaps the player's interface, even more so in the latter where the whole display goes corrupt for a few seconds. |
| 466 | * Two vehicles' abilities in ''VideoGame/{{ONRUSH}}'' can briefly blind opponents, each of which looks different to distinguish which ability you've been hit by: |
| 467 | ** Every vehicle leaves behind a pixelated sticker-image when they're wrecked, and picking up one left by a [[CoolBike Blade]] makes all light appear as five times brighter for a few seconds. |
| 468 | ** The [[BigBadassRig Enforcer]]'s [[LimitBreak RUSH ability]] leaves a blinding trail that makes it seem like trying to see at night through a heavily-smudged window for every opponent who passes through it. |
| 469 | * ''VideoGame/SegaSuperstars'': |
| 470 | ** In ''Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing'' the Pocket Rainbow item obscures the victim's view with rainbow-colored slime. Presumably for fairness, CPU Racers will spin out upon being hit by this and the Confusing Star. Beat's All-Star has a similar effect, where he skates up to the other racers and covers them in graffiti. |
| 471 | ** In ''Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed'' the Twister item inverts the victim's controls and turns them backwards if they're in a car or boat or upside down if they're in a plane. |
| 472 | * Occurs twice in racing game ''VideoGame/Slipstream5000'' -- One weapon makes the controls reverse for a short time (or until you suffer a serious crash) and one booby trapped powerup has the same effect. |
| 473 | * ''VideoGame/WanganMidnight Maximum Tune 5'' has Extreme VS mode, which is similar to standard VS mode, but, among other things, the distance remaining and distance from opponent counters are obscured, the race length is not shown (the only HUD indicators of a race nearing its end are the "Remaining: '''1.5''' km" and "___ m till goal / rival crosses finish" displays), and all turn and hazard alerts are replaced with a catch-all "!" alert. |
| 474 | * ''VideoGame/{{Wipeout}} Pure'''s disruptor bolt weapon afflicts the target with one of several random effects, the most infamous being the controller reversing. Especially aggravating if you're hit in the middle of a turn (especially one with no guardrail!) and the fact that [[MyRulesAreNotYourRules computer controlled opponents]] [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard suffers no ill effect from this whatsoever.]] [[ScrappyMechanic This specific effect]] was eventually removed with a downloadable content patch. |
| 475 | [[/folder]] |
| 476 | |
| 477 | [[folder:Real-Time Strategy]] |
| 478 | * In ''[[VideoGame/BattleZone1998 Battlezone II: Combat Commander]]'', approaching an enemy Scion Jammer will cause your EnemyDetectingRadar to malfunction, blanking out any enemy or friendly contacts and causing the wireframe terrain display to glitch and vibrate. In the campaign, it also causes messages from MissionControl to become almost indecipherable. |
| 479 | * ''{{VideoGame/Deadnaut}}'' has ''three'' ways of doing this, tied to three signal levels that the enemies in the game can interfere with. If the AUD meter goes down, your crew probably won't receive orders. If VID goes down, the viewport starts glitching up. If DATA goes down, every other part of the interface glitches up. |
| 480 | * ''VideoGame/HostileWatersAntaeusRising'' has your Battle Room interface glitch out during an early mission, making issuing commands harder. It's mostly meant to convince the player to try out the alternate method of issuing commands. |
| 481 | * ''VideoGame/TheNewOrderLastDaysOfEurope:'' If Thermonuclear War is triggered, a significant chunk of your UI immediately disappears, leaving only a warning where the DEFCON indicator used to be, and a burnt-out patch with "'''[[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt ALL GONE]]'''" written on it where your minimap was. After that, all you can do is let the superevent play out, and watch as every region in the world blackens piece by piece, as civilization collapses... and, if you wait longer, some post-apocalypse events to show what follows. |
| 482 | * In both the ''VideoGame/StarTrekArmada'' games, the Borg diamond has a special weapon, nanites, which, if used successfully upon another player, will cause all of their interface elements to float around the screen for a few minutes. Not really a serious gameplay tactic (though it disables the hotkeys of affected players; which slows down their usage of special attacks), but often garners funny reactions -- perhaps just as much for the in-game reactions as much as the player's reactions. Says one Klingon, "Ack! Borg nanites!" |
| 483 | [[/folder]] |
| 484 | |
| 485 | [[folder:Rhythm Games]] |
| 486 | * Upon fulfilling specific requirements in ''VideoGame/{{Arcaea}}''[='=]s World mode, when you attempt to play the track "Axium Crisis", [[spoiler:the game appears to glitch out, with the sound going haywire, the note track changing angles, and the background image breaking up into pieces. [[BaitAndSwitchBoss The track then cuts out]] to introduce the game's FinalBoss track, "Grievous Lady".]] |
| 487 | ** A similar thing happens when certain requirements are met while playing "Ether Strike". [[spoiler:The screen will gradually [[FadeOut fade to white]] during the song, making the notes harder and harder to see, with your life meter gradually decreasing. Surviving this long enough causes the music to [[BaitAndSwitchBoss fade entirely and cut out]] to the ''other'' FinalBoss track, "Fracture Ray".]] |
| 488 | * Several of Konami's ''VideoGame/{{Bemani}}'' series games (''DDR'', ''[=DrumMania=]'', ''VideoGame/GuitarFreaks'', ''IIDX'', etc.) allow the player to toggle self-imposed interface screw challenges. Things such as speed mods, hidden mode, sudden mode, stealth mode, reverse, shuffle/random, etc. Depending on the game and the song, sometimes these mods make the game easier, other times, harder. |
| 489 | * When you run low on health in ''VideoGame/BrutalLegend'', your screen goes red and the sound goes really really faint, with only your heartbeats perfectly audible. Good thing Eddie has HealingFactor though. |
| 490 | * ''VideoGame/DanceDanceRevolution Mix'' has the Trick course in Oni / Challenge Mode. The first stage is on Boost, which makes arrows start slower and accelerate as they move up the screen. The second stage adds Reverse, which makes the arrows move top-to-bottom instead of bottom-to-top. So far, fairly reasonable, and both modifiers are selectable normally as a SelfImposedChallenge. But the third stage swaps out Boost for Brake, which makes the arrows slow down. To almost a halt. Which makes it hard to tell exactly when you're supposed to hit them. Then the fourth stage ditches the previous modifiers for "Fuwa-Fuwa", which pulsates between 0.25x and 1x scroll speed, making the arrows squish together and then move back apart in an accordion-like manner. Then the final stage is [[ThatOneBoss MAX 300]] on 0.25x scroll speed, which results in runs of 10 arrows per second being smushed together so that the 10 arrows span about 1/4th the height of the screen. This shows up again later in the DDR series, and in the fan-tribute/spiritual successor to DDR, ''VideoGame/InTheGroove''. |
| 491 | * Several of the fights in ''VideoGame/{{Everhood}}'' warp and distort the battle screen, inverse the controls, or rotate the screen. |
| 492 | * In the ''VideoGame/{{Gitadora}}'' series, starting from V6, there is now a "Quest Mode" which imposes various interface screw challenges like the above mentioned Trick Oni DDR course. |
| 493 | * ''VideoGame/GuitarHero 3'''s battle mode revolves around doing this: The goal is to make the other player screw up badly enough by, for example, making his notes blink annoyingly or reversing the button order. |
| 494 | * RhythmGame ''VideoGame/InTheGroove'' has a Marathon game mode which lets the player play a set of 4 or so songs one after the other. Most all of these come with gratuitous screws to how the arrows are displayed, some worse than others. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_uCbU4cc5k Here's a video]]. Yes, it is easier to read that (after learning some rhythm) than it is to memorize it. |
| 495 | * Some levels of ''VideoGame/{{Melatonin}}'' obscure the screen to force the player to rely on audio cues: |
| 496 | ** "Dream About Food" has a section where the main character is flying behind clouds. |
| 497 | ** "Dream About Dating" occasionally has the phone tilt itself, making the pictures impossible to see. |
| 498 | ** "Mind" has the player's eyes partially closing. |
| 499 | ** "Dream About the Future" has the position of the aliens glitching out on the display. |
| 500 | * ''VideoGame/PopNMusic'' has the "Dance Ojama" modifier, in which the song's character, instead of appearing in their box on the right side of the screen, appears ''on your playfield'' instead, doing their "dance" animation and blocking your view of the screen. The distractiveness of this modifier ranges from song to song; one song could just have the character in the center of the screen dancing, while another could have something going on across the width of the screen. As if a colorful-looking game with SurpriseDifficulty wasn't NintendoHard enough... |
| 501 | * Some of the games in the ''VideoGame/RhythmHeaven'' franchise will obscure the action at certain parts, to encourage players to follow the music instead of the visuals. |
| 502 | ** "Freeze Frame" from ''Rhythm Heaven DS'' has a crowd of spectators blocking the view of oncoming cars, as well as a few folks walking across the camera directly in front of the player. |
| 503 | ** A lot of the games in ''Rhythm Heaven Fever'' do this as well: "Samurai Slice" not only uses falling snow, leaves, and cherry blossoms, but obscures the ''whole screen'' at one point with transparent slides explaining the mini-game's ExcusePlot. |
| 504 | ** Some of the challenges in ''Rhythm Heaven Megamix'' feature a variant called "Monster Run". As you play one of the mini-games, the screen slowly zooms out to show a monster that will eat the play field and earn you a game over if it zooms out too far. The only way to reverse the zoom out is to score "Aces" by timing your button presses perfectly. |
| 505 | * ''VideoGame/{{Stepmania}}'': |
| 506 | ** Much like the aforementioned ''[=Dance Dance Revolution=]'', stage modifiers are avaliable. In addition, the game supports scripts of "attacks" (either within Nonstop courses, or attached to a song) that allows the modifiers to be activated with different timings, strengths, and so on. This feature was introduced for the SM-based ''VideoGame/InTheGroove'', which dubbed it "Marathon" mode. Naturally, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i47lgav3M_U people started seeing how far they could push it.]] |
| 507 | ** A [[AscendedGlitch restored]] bug handled negative-tempo designations oddly, causing the arrow sequence to skip forward immediately. Several stepchart writers have had [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLVWQuKo_8U some]] [[http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=tsubrothersgamush&emb=0&aq=0&oq=tsubrother# fun]] with this. (The second video shows both negative-tempo tricks [see 4:50, when the circular "mines" turn back into arrows] and what is essentially the game itself throwing predetermined Battle Mode attacks at the player.) [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7XykqvVS2I Here's said bug taken to its logical extreme.]] |
| 508 | ** The branch of [=StepMania=] that ''In the Groove 2'' used (popularly known as 3.95), and to a greater extent, [=StepMania 5=], support Lua scripting (either within XML-based actor files for the former, and all actors using Lua scripts on the latter). Normally, this is used with an API for themes to build screens and add interactivity. However, the system for doing background animations for songs ''also'' uses the same actor system and hooks, and because just about everything on-screen (including the arrows ''themselves'') are an actor, and can thus be grabbed and manipulated by these scripts, this, naturally, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6AwTVozORQ has already been experimented with and abused by many people]]. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kGi9LE21dU More than once]]. |
| 509 | ** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPeeGfHjkDc WinDEU's "Cloud"]] track may as well be called "Interface Screw: The Simfile"! |
| 510 | * ''VideoGame/TaikoNoTatsujin'': |
| 511 | ** There's a battle mode where each player has a bomb, which grows bigger and bigger, covering more of the screen and blocking your view, until one of you makes a mistake. The mistake triggers the bomb, causing that player to lose. |
| 512 | ** The second installments feature boss battles, in which the bosses use different kinds of methods to block your view. Most annoying is Botan's, which covers the screen in black. |
| 513 | * ''VideoGame/TechnoKittenAdventure'' not only has several objects and flashing colors thrown in the background to throw you off-guard, but there are also moments where, for instance, your scores fly through the background and several sections of one map literally renders the entire screen reversed for a few seconds. |
| 514 | * Level 7-7 Boss's speciality in ''VideoGame/{{Thumper}}'' is to bend the rail you're on at sharp angles, which in turn rotates the camera all over the place at high speed. In an already "epilepsy fuel" game, this can certainly disorient the player. |
| 515 | * ''VideoGame/UKSightReadingTournament'', which uses a modified version of ''VideoGame/InTheGroove'''s Marathon mechanic. Behold, "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_cqduPbw8Y Dying Breath of Stokesia]]". Some of the mod effects include parts of the interface ''becoming'' the notes, while still changing in real time, and the notes becoming notes from other rhythm games. All this pales in comparison to the song's bridge: the notefield displays on one screen in a pile of televisions and is skewed accordingly. The correct TV changes every few seconds, and the last two are rotated. |
| 516 | [[/folder]] |
| 517 | |
| 518 | [[folder:Roguelikes]] |
| 519 | * ''VideoGame/AbsentedAgeSquarebound'': |
| 520 | ** The blind ailment shrinks the viewing distance to a [=3x3=] square and also makes it possible to unleash friendly fire on allies. |
| 521 | ** [[spoiler:When Karen lured into a trap by a group of Gangers, she finds herself in a dungeon full of unbeatable enemies. Every time she dies, she loses something that makes her "Karen," which places a penalty on her. One of them makes the log only output garbled text and the item names. In the FinalBoss fight, Karen Alias can glitch Karen's skills, causing them to be unusable while having garbled text.]] |
| 522 | ** The {{Superboss}}'s initial move is to lock out the player's menu for several turns, meaning the player will have to survive without items for a long period of time. |
| 523 | * In ''VideoGame/{{Baroque}}'': |
| 524 | ** Being affected with the Lust status effect turns everything into the same floating kimono-wearing figure; items, enemies, traps and the main character all look the same. |
| 525 | ** Darkness will turn your screen black, and Silence will make it so that the only sound you hear is the background music, although the latter is mostly harmless. As a matter of fact, both of these status effects are necessary to get the "I Am The World" Baroque, where you must fuse with the Absolute God while blind and deaf. |
| 526 | * Some of the Curses in ''VideoGame/TheBindingOfIsaac'' work like this. Curse of the Unknown makes you unable to see your health bar. Curse of the Lost hides your minimap. Curse of Darkness lowers the brightness of the game significantly. Most dangerous is Curse of the Blind, which renders all items as a "?", meaning you can't tell whether it's good or detrimental until you pick it up. There's also the Retro Vision pill, which pixellates the screen for a good 30 seconds or so. |
| 527 | ** Wavy Cap is an active item in ''Repentance'' that when used, grants you increased fire rate but makes the screen and music [[MushroomSamba trippy]], and the effect gradually wears off as you move between rooms. This item also has infinite uses and you can stack the effect multiple times, which makes the trippiness as bad as you want it to be. It's PowerAtAPrice in the form of Interface Screw. |
| 528 | * ''VideoGame/CryptOfTheNecroDancer'': |
| 529 | ** The game has some effects like this. They are worse than usual since this game, unlike other Roguelikes, does not leave you with much time to think (unless you are playing as Bard). |
| 530 | ** Picking up the [[CoolShades Sunglasses]] will give you +1 damage, at the cost of making all enemies into silhouettes. |
| 531 | ** Liches and Confusion Traps in area 4 can cast a confusion spell on you which flips your controls. |
| 532 | ** ''VideoGame/CadenceOfHyrule'' has some enemies use deafening magic or riff loudly on guitars; this deafens you to the beat. This is a bad thing, since acting in time to the beat is at the core of the ''Necrodancer'' experience. |
| 533 | * ''VideoGame/GoldenKroneHotel'' has the Delusion status effect, which randomizes the appearance of everything. The effect is permanently applied in the Pharmacopeia level, making it hard to distinguish normal enemies from the boss. |
| 534 | * In ''VideoGame/LiberalCrimeSquad'', there is a minor example: if free speech laws go Arch-Conservative, swear words and pickup-lines are replaced by GoshDangItToHeck vocabulary and lines that makes no sense, respectively. |
| 535 | * ''VideoGame/NetHack'': |
| 536 | ** The ''VideoGame/{{Rogue}}'' level, a ShoutOut to the game that started the {{Roguelike}} genre. For the duration of the level, all the graphics are changed to be as close to the original ''Rogue'' as possible. Even if you're playing with graphics mode, everything is in ''Rogue'''s ASCII. |
| 537 | ** The Hallucinating effect swaps graphics/characters every turn, and [[http://nethackwiki.com/wiki/Hallucinatory_messages a large amount the descriptive text]] is changed to sound sillier. Some of the things one can see while hallucinating [[http://nethackwiki.com/wiki/Hallucinatory_monster don't even exist during normal play]], and attempting to name a monster only yields the message "You would never recognize it anyway." |
| 538 | --> "Welcome to experience level 4. You hear the studio audience applaud!" |
| 539 | --> "Your sacrifice sprouts wings and a propeller and roars away!" |
| 540 | --> "The possessed waffle iron hits!" |
| 541 | ** ''[=WazHack=]'', an all-graphics variant, makes the background go a glowing, wavy yellow and the monsters, including your pet, turn into random geometric figures when you're hallucinating. |
| 542 | * ''VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeon'' has Blind status, which blacks out your surroundings and causes any items or Pokemon in the vicinity to appear as question marks or substitute dolls, depending on the game. |
| 543 | * ''VideoGame/{{Rogue}}'' itself had the hallucination effect and and the blindness potion ("A cloak of darkness falls around you"). Also an Umber Hulk's gaze could confuse you, shuffling your directional keys. |
| 544 | [[/folder]] |
| 545 | |
| 546 | [[folder:Role Playing Games]] |
| 547 | * In ''VideoGame/ArxFatalis'', having Paralyse cast on the player will not only prevent them from moving, but also freeze the ''cursor'' in place. |
| 548 | * A joke mod for ''VideoGame/BaldursGateII'' allows you to join the Cult of the Unseeing Eye, whose members [[EyeScream gouge out their eyes]] in worship of their god. Once you agree to join, your screen goes black. |
| 549 | * Confusion status in ''VideoGame/BatenKaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean'' made the magnus numbers start rotating, causing you to have to try to get the number you wanted (and often fail, which would mess up your {{combo}}s). The Headache status just shifted the numbers from the corners over to the edges, which was a minor nuisance at most. Strangely, it was also possible to inflict these conditions on the enemy (even though they had no interfaces to screw with) causing them to either use half as many attacks or skip every other turn. |
| 550 | * In ''VideoGame/{{Boktai}}'', confusion scrambles your D-Pad, ''VideoGame/EarthBound1994'' style, while poison and stomach ache causes the screen to pixellate like crazy whenever your character is moving. |
| 551 | * ''VideoGame/BreathOfFireI'': |
| 552 | ** A recurring enemy named Mote transports the party to the Dream World practically every time he meets them, in which many rooms and areas tend to look like {{minus level}}s. Not too bad, until you reach the Dream Tower, which has several maze-like floors. There are certain hidden switches, which are very easy to accidentally step on, which ''turn all the walls invisible''. Not a fun level. |
| 553 | ** The Spyre, a tower that's twice as long as it should be, thanks to the fact that Mote is waiting for you inside where he will trap you in the Dream World again and screw with you for a while. There's one room that's notoriously bad: glass bridge suspended above a black abyss. There are multiple branching pathways, dead ends, no landmarks, and many switches you are ''forced'' to step on which spin the maze around and make it frustratingly difficult to keep track of where you are. Easily the ''worst'' puzzle in the entire game. Solid candidate for ''worst puzzle in any RPG, ever.'' |
| 554 | ** When you finally find Mote inside the Dream World inside the Spyre, after slogging through several more pseudo-{{Minus Level}}s, he challenges you to a fight... and appears as an unintelligible blob of random pixels. You can't hit or damage him at all. After the fight, he laughs and taunts you. |
| 555 | * In addition to making it likely you'll hit your friends, if the person leading the party in ''VideoGame/BreathOfFireIII'' was Confused, your controls flipped. Thankfully, you could rotate them out of the position until the effect eventually faded. |
| 556 | * ''VideoGame/ChronoCross'' had the Flu status ailment, which would cause a slight amount of this when moving on the overmap, as an incentive to, you know, cure it. |
| 557 | * ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'': |
| 558 | ** ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsII'' has certain phantom enemies which cannot be targeted and resemble the intangible multiplayer "ghosts" of other players. They are very real and can target the player just fine, though. It also has a ring which allows you to remove the glowing ghostly aura you have when summoned by another player as a phantom, potentially confusing other players as to who's who (significant, since the host is stronger and must be killed for invading spirits to recieve their reward.) |
| 559 | ** ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsIII'' has a similar ring which makes you appear as a white phantom, even if you're an invading enemy (who normally appears as a red phantom) or the host (not a phantom at all). |
| 560 | * ''VideoGame/DeusEx'' had both alcoholic beverages, zyme (a narcotic), and tranquilizers shot by some opponents. |
| 561 | ** In the original game, zyme just caused massive and long-lasting vision blurriness. In the fan-made mod ''Shifter'', a dose of zyme induces a short period of increased strength and BulletTime-like speed, and ''then'' you suffer the comedown. |
| 562 | ** In the original game, if you drink enough you'll notice that the alcohol also super-zooms the player's vision... its possible to use it as substitute for binoculars or a scope as it doesn't restrict your vision as much, just don't get involved in a close fire-fight while doing it as it can take several seconds to pan across to something that would normally sit on the edge of your crosshair. |
| 563 | ** ''VideoGame/DeusExHumanRevolution'' includes a sequence in the third Tyrant fight where if you [[spoiler: got the biochip upgrade earlier in the story]], your HUD goes through massive glitches over the course of the entire fight. It also has alcoholic beverages that mess with your vision. Getting too close to an EMP effect, assuming you haven't purchased the upgrade that renders you immune, will knock your DiegeticInterface offline for a few moments and force it to reboot. Similarly standing too close to a concussion effect (translation: a flashbang) will blind you unless you buy an upgrade. Finally, the screen tints red if your HP gets low. |
| 564 | ** The spin-off ''VideoGame/DeusExTheFall'' does this too with the EMP grenades and such, and when Ben is having neuropozyne withdrawals. |
| 565 | * Two [[GameMod mods]] for the original ''VideoGame/DeusEx'' also feature this. |
| 566 | ** ''VideoGame/TheNamelessMod'' has one level when you upload an insane AI to your brain. He'll spin around your vision as you frantically try to find a computer to dump him into. |
| 567 | ** ''[[VideoGame/TwentyTwentySeven 2027]]'' features two examples. The ending of the first mission has this start up before fast forwarding two years afterwords. After the end of the Paris lab mission, this will come up, which makes it even worse if [[spoiler: choices made up until then have resulted in an ambush outside the labs]]. |
| 568 | * ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIII'' has arrow pointed floor tiles that will change the direction of the D-pad walking on one which can be frustrating when pressing the wrong arrow will lead you down a hole. The changed directions are fixed depending where the tile arrow is pointing[[note]]An interesting side effect is that, if you start in the right spot (out of two possible spots) and hold up, you'll walk through the maze and get exactly where you need to be without any trouble at all[[/note]]. |
| 569 | * ''VideoGame/EarthBound1994'': |
| 570 | ** The game features one of the Status Effects -- Mushroomization -- that, once outside of battle, will randomly change Left, Right, Up, and Down on the D-pad to other directions, always in relation to each other. This will change every 20 seconds until the mushroom is removed. |
| 571 | ** ''VideoGame/MOTHER3'' does it again with "Feeling Strange". Outside of battle, your party winds up walking in the opposite direction you intended to go. Luckily, this fades very quickly. |
| 572 | * In ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind'', the 'blind' effect darkens the player's screen a percentage based on the effect's magnitude. The effect, of course, has [[UselessUsefulSpell no impact on the performance of NPCs]]. |
| 573 | * ''VideoGame/EpicBattleFantasy5'' has the Shroud status effect, which hides the affected character's health, stats and StatusEffects (barring Shroud itself). Thankfully, its easily cured, either by using the [[StatusBuff Reflex skill]], or by taking [[BlowYouAway Wind]] or [[HolyHandGrenade Holy]] damage. |
| 574 | * When your "party level" reaches 6 in ''VideoGame/EternalSonata'', the attack, special attack and guard buttons will start to randomly switch in the middle of battle. |
| 575 | * ''VideoGame/EtrianOdyssey'': |
| 576 | ** ''VideoGame/EtrianOdysseyI'': In the bonus sixth stratum, the second floor is made up of dark areas combined with pitfalls and F.O.E.s, forcing the player to fully map out the area and either remember their location at all times or match up what they see with the map. |
| 577 | ** ''VideoGame/EtrianOdysseyIIHeroesOfLagaard'': In the ''Fafnir Knight'' remake, the bonus stratum presents F.O.E.s that emit fog so dense that visibility for both the player and other F.O.E.s are drastically hindered, and the map is also turned off. And some of these rooms are damage tile mazes. |
| 578 | ** ''VideoGame/EtrianOdysseyIIITheDrownedCity'': Several floors in Porcelain Forest and Cyclopean Haunt include some areas where your radar is turned off. This means that the map screen does not show you where your party is going. Good luck memorizing the map. [[FromBadToWorse And to make matters worse]], the map does not show where the F.O.E.s are either, although at least you get to see the F.O.E. in your exploration screen. The postgame stratum combines this with identical-looking passages and tiles that spin your party around randomly as well for even more fun. |
| 579 | * ''VideoGame/ExitFate'' has the entire [[spoiler:Spiritual Plane]] dungeon. It is a teleporter maze with several sections that are upside-down (your movement controls are inverted to match), as well as a ''moving, tiled background'' in fights, when in every other part of the game the battle background never changes at all. |
| 580 | * ''VideoGame/FableI'' and ''VideoGame/FableII'': The more [[IntoxicationMechanic alcohol you drink]], the more the camera will start to swim. Literally, it basically turns to water, rippling and eventually dripping down the screen. Drink ''way'' too much, and you can't even tell what's going on, except through sounds. |
| 581 | * In ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'', if your head gets "crippled" from taking too many hits, (described on the Pip-Boy as a concussion) your vision will go slightly blurry, and there'll be an annoying ringing noise. It will also make it ever so slightly impossible to walk in a straight line (you'll drift left and right just a little bit). Luckily, it's easy to cure. |
| 582 | ** Also, the screen will start to bloom excessively from the outside in, making everything blurred. Luckily, this goes away after a few moments, but it repeats until you get yourself fixed up or use a healing item (which you can apply directly to the limb, or heal yourself to heal the limb slightly). The concussion blur is also present when you pull up your Pip-boy, making it rather difficult to find the right item. |
| 583 | ** Any time one of your injected chems stop working, the screen will get the same excessive blur and oversaturation to indicate the feeling. Another screw effect occurs if you become addicted to a chem. Nearby explosions makes the view shake and glow more than if you see the same explosion from a distance. And more regularly: Getting shot causes the view to get a very brief blur and occasionally some slowly-fading and very blurred blood spots to appear. |
| 584 | ** In Vault 106, the atmosphere is injected with a psychoactive drug that causes hallucinations at certain points, including apparitions of James, Amata, and Butch. The apparitions can be targeted and killed, but with loss of karma. |
| 585 | ** Another hallucinatory sequence occurs in ''Point Lookout'' when you are drugged with Punga seeds and given a [[OrganTheft lobotomy]] [[spoiler: by Tobar]]. |
| 586 | * ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' gives us the message [[ThisIsGonnaSuck "you are feeling a little woozy"]]. Congratulations, you've been stung by a [[GoddamnBats bark scorpion]]. (If you're lucky. Because if you're not, it'll be a [[DemonicSpiders Cazador]].) The next thirty seconds or so will be interesting, as you try to fight off [[StatusEffects the effects of a surprisingly potent poison]], as well as the scorpions that caused it in the first place - all without being able to see properly. |
| 587 | ** In addition to poison, the miracle drug Fixer will purge your body of all your current addictions. In exchange for two minutes of sudden visual and audio blurs that occur without warning. |
| 588 | ** In the Courier's Mile from the ''Lonesome Road'' DLC, the background radiation scrambles your EnemyDetectingRadar, which can be fatal with the many [[DemonicSpiders Irradiated Deathclaws]] in the area. |
| 589 | ** ''Honest Hearts'' has you undergo the MushroomSamba treatment once again when you go to fight the Ghost of She, and you encounter several tough enemies along the way while your vision is impaired. |
| 590 | * ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'' has a few areas where the MiniMap is filled with static. In the Pharos at Ridorana, where you need to sacrifice one of your 'skills' (Map, Items, Magick/Technicks or Attack), you can sacrifice your map. In Great Crystal, the mini map isn't just filled with static, but gone entirely, while the full map, instead of showing a proper mapping, merely gives you [[https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/finalfantasy/images/d/db/Great_Crystal_Map_Sketch.jpg a sketch of the crystal with the approximate location of the area you are in being indicated by a dot]], forcing you to either make a map of your own or consult a guide. Also there's a certain attack from the enemies which cause the whole screen to blur and the Battle HUD to bend in unusual directions. |
| 591 | * ''VideoGame/TheForceUnleashed'' featured a download pack mission, in which the character literally confronts his Dark Side (fighting a dark version of himself). His special ability is pseudo-randomly changing the function of each keypad, which increases your chances of hurting yourself more than him significantly. |
| 592 | * In ''VideoGame/GenshinImpact'', a certain variety of the Treasure Hoarders attacks by using a shovel to hurl dirt at you, which temporarily obscures most of your screen. The same effect happens in Albedo's Story Quest if you hit one of the floating dirt clumps in his glider course, but it lasts a lot shorter. |
| 593 | * The ''Pokémon'' virtual pet site ''[=GPXPlus=]'' has weather conditions that affect how Pokémon and eggs mature. During foggy conditions, players are unable to see the berries they feed to other players' Pokémon. Seriously? If the fog is so bad you can't see something you're ''holding in your hands'', maybe you should just stay inside. |
| 594 | * ''VideoGame/HeadlessPrisoner'' has the Death Corridor. While walking through it, the game begins to stutter and stop, finally popping up a 'the game has crashed' window, except Erina's footsteps can still be heard. It's all a trick. Fortunately, the preceeding room has a sign on it that tells the player to keep walking, no matter what happens. |
| 595 | * ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'': |
| 596 | ** ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsI'': |
| 597 | *** Ansem's guardian can temporarily possess Sora, which causes the Attack command to randomly be replaced with a "Freeze" command that causes it to grab Sora and leave him vulnerable to attack if selected. |
| 598 | *** In the Final Mix version, Hollow Bastion's {{Superboss}}, the Unknown (aka Xemnas in an EarlyBirdCameo), has an attack that causes all the menu commands to be replaced with either "Shock" or "Release" as Sora's health drains. Selecting Release will free the menu and stop the health drain, selecting Shock will only make Sora's health drain faster. And the tricky part is that they shuffle around randomly, all while Xemnas is still attacking. |
| 599 | ** ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsChainOfMemories'': The [=PS2=] remake adds the Confusion status, which flips your movement controls and is inflicted by certain room hazards. Confusion carries over into any battle that starts while it's active. The remake also gives Marluxia's first OneWingedAngel form an attack that covers your cards in darkness, forcing you to create any sleights you want to use from memory until it wears off. |
| 600 | ** ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'': Like Xemnas in ''I Final Mix'', Zexion and the Lingering Will can potentially lock out options in the Command Menu, or even outright replace them. When this happens, the only thing you can do is find the right command to free the menu. |
| 601 | ** ''VideoGame/KingdomHearts358DaysOver2'' has two. Flip-foot, which reverses the D-pad controls, and Radar Zap, which temporarily disables the map on the touch screen. Thankfully, they only last for a short while. |
| 602 | ** ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsCoded'' reused the Flip-foot effect. The Trickmaster will also occasionally rotate the camera, along with the D-pad controls, during the third stage of his boss battle. |
| 603 | ** ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsBirthBySleep'' has the Blind stats ailment which coat's the target's face with a dark cloud. The visual side effect of being on the receiving end of this is that most of the screen blacks out with only a small circle to barely see your own character through. Especially problematic during the boss fight with Vanitas Remnant. You can also cast this effect on other players at the Rumble Arena using the Blackout spell or other various darkness commands. |
| 604 | ** In ''[[VideoGame/KingdomHearts3DDreamDropDistance Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance]]'', just like in [[Film/TRONLegacy his source film]], during Rinzler's battle the gravity randomly flips... but the controls and camera ''do not''. This effectively makes you a sitting duck, desperately trying not to blunder into Rinzler (who is [[LightningBruiser very fast, very hard-hitting]], has a [[ConfusionFu weird attacking style]], and is generally ThatOneBoss), until the gravity switches back to normal. |
| 605 | ** in ''VideoGame/KingdomHearts02BirthBySleepAFragmentaryPassage'', attacking certain pillars in one area of the World Within will move Aqua onto the underside of the floor, with the camera and movement controls inverting accordingly. |
| 606 | ** ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsIII'' has the Cloud status, which a number of Thunder commands to move down your Command Menu depending on how hard Sora's PersonalRaincloud is raining, replacing the standard commands in sequence. Using a command when it's replaced by Thunder causes the cloud to zap you with a lightning bolt. |
| 607 | * ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsInTheSky the 3rd'': Since the game is partially a VignetteEpisode with many of the side-stories told in VisualNovel format, the 15th Star Door's memories about the Angel of Slaughter's childhood has static, flashing, and text playing back oddly, representing SanitySlippage as well as intrusive thoughts, all from the trauma of being a small child sold off as a SexSlave. |
| 608 | * ''VideoGame/LiveALive'' had the Drunk status ailment, which would randomize your movement controls, in addition to locking off most of your attacks. |
| 609 | * Two bosses can and will pull this in ''VideoGame/ManaKhemia2FallOfAlchemy''. [[WhenTreesAttack Tetri]], from Ulrika's route, can grow roots over the bottom-right of the screen which completely disable the swap-in mechanics and, by extension, the [[CombinationAttack Intimate Strike/Guard]]. The final fight with Reicher in Raze's story involves a slightly different headache; about halfway through the fight, he'll use a move that buffs him with haste (three actions per turn) and blanks out the game's VisualInitiativeQueue, which makes it almost impossible to plan moves ahead. [[spoiler: Fortunately, a Heavenly Juice item will clear up both at once.]] |
| 610 | * In ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiSuperstarSaga'', Iggy Koopa, rather than simply start the boss battle right there, spins around Mario and Luigi to make them dizzy, then has them navigate a path like that. If they run into a fireball, they have to start over. And the effect lasts until you reach the end of the path. And it's ''different every time''. And also, you can't jump for some reason and you're slowed down to like half speed. |
| 611 | ** In the remake, he also screws with Mario and Luigi's stats, swapping them around by casting magic on the menu itself. |
| 612 | * ''Franchise/MassEffect'': |
| 613 | ** This happens when your character is too close to an explosion. Additionally, when your health starts to decrease in ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'', blood vessels appear on the edges of the screen and sounds become distant and distorted, and getting drunk causes blurring and random swaying of the screen. |
| 614 | ** In the first game, usually when geth are attacking, the minimap in the corner of the screen becomes 'jammed'. This signals the presence of geth Stalkers who have the ability to jam your radar. |
| 615 | ** Flashbang grenades, either from Kasumi or the enemy, generate a hyper-bright light before shaking the screen and causing you characters after image to be superimposed for a brief time. |
| 616 | * ''Franchise/MegaMan'': |
| 617 | ** In the [=VideoMan=] arc of ''VideoGame/MegaManBattleNetwork4RedSunAndBlueMoon'', the D-pad configuration is completely inverted. You also have to carefully navigate the field, because stepping on certain tiles resets you to the beginning of the area. |
| 618 | ** The [=NaviCust=] program, when improperly used, can result in [=MegaMan.EXE=] acquiring random bugs, good or bad. This can make him confused, invert the controls, cause him to move two whole spaces on the field instead of one, cause HP drain, a sudden infliction of damage with the start of every turn until the HP meter drops to the bare minimum of 1 point, make Poison Panels generate, give Mega Man a protective Barrier, or even tamper with the amount of Battle Chips Mega Man can use. In ''[[VideoGame/MegaManBattleNetwork3WhiteAndBlue 3]]'', there is the Bug Style that harnesses a luck-of-the-draw deliberate set of bugs, and in ''4'' and ''[[VideoGame/MegaManBattleNetwork5TeamColonelAndTeamProtoMan 5]]'', using Dark Chips can trigger bugs as well. There is a [=NaviCust=] program called [=BugStop=] which can effectively remove the presence of negative bugs and allow the player to break the rules of the [=NaviCust=] system or take full control of Bug Style. |
| 619 | ** Furthermore, in ''5'', Cross-fusing with a Dark Chip allows Mega Man to use it as a Charged Shot, but it will only work if the shot is released when glowing purple and becomes progressively harder to time correctly as the player spams it. Otherwise, the Cross Fusion comes undone and a [=DarkSoul=] version of Mega Man appears on the enemy field and unleashes a barrage of attacks on him. |
| 620 | * ''VideoGame/MonsterHunterGenerations'' has the [[MonsterClown Malfestio]], an OminousOwl that stores a special pollen in its feathers. It can disperse this pollen to inflict Confusion on anything unlucky enough to breathe it in, which reverses your control scheme for a bit. |
| 621 | * In ''VideoGame/NocturneRebirth'' the {{Superboss}} can use the Burn skill to hide both sides' ATB gauges, making it hard to tell who goes next in battle. |
| 622 | * In ''VideoGame/OctopathTravelerII'', the Steam Tank Obsidian, one of the bosses, can cause the icons in the "Next turn" indicator to all become black, making it impossible to see whose turn it will be next. |
| 623 | * In several areas of ''VideoGame/OdinSphere'', your minimap is unavailable. |
| 624 | * ''VideoGame/{{Okami}}'': During one boss fight, the enemy can take control of your paint screen to paint its own attacks. This happens if you take too long doing your own brush strokes. This is the only enemy capable of this and prevents the player from using the brush screen to pause and strategize. |
| 625 | * [[spoiler:Shadow Baofu]] in ''VideoGame/{{Persona 2}}: Eternal Punishment'' has an attack that hides your party's status windows for a few turns. |
| 626 | * ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'': |
| 627 | ** The underground areas of ''VideoGame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl'' have a "Confuse Trap" item, which scrambles your movements so you go in a random direction. For example, up goes up, left goes down, right goes up also, and down goes left. Which is a crippling disadvantage as it's used in Capture the Flag. |
| 628 | ** ''Platinum'' also has a form of Interface Screw when you encounter [[spoiler:Rotom in the Old Chateau.]] The screen will be embossed and jiggle around before the fight itself, suggesting that the [[spoiler:Rotom]] ''took control of your DS'', effectively also making this an example of TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou. |
| 629 | ** There's also what happens when you've got a Pokémon in your party with a Poisoned status effect inflicted on it; every few steps, the game's graphics go haywire for four seconds and there's a very unpleasant metallic screeching noise. Your Pokémon loses 1 HP every time this happens. But from Generation 4 and on, if this would cause the Pokémon to faint, [[HPTo1 the poison miraculously goes away]]. It's worse when you're moving very fast, especially with the Mach Bike in R/S/E. |
| 630 | ** In ''VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield'', during the early encounter with Zacian or Zamazenta, the Slumbering Weald will get thicker with fog after the second and third battle attempts. This fog also affects the menu interface, and eventually the entire screen whites out. |
| 631 | ** ''VideoGame/PokemonScarletAndViolet'' [[PlayedForDrama plays this for drama]] at one point in [[spoiler:the [[TrueFinalBoss final battle with AI Sada/Turo]]. They activate a Poké Ball lock system that prevents any Pokémon not registered to them from being released from their ball. You toss your party leader's Poké Ball, it clatters to the floor, unopened...''and your battle HUD still appears,'' with nothing on your side of the fight. The Fight/Item/Run commands all fail, but as you try them, the option for the seventh Pokémon on your team (the Koraidon/Miraidon you functionally adopted at the beginning of the game, usually only usable for transportation) [[ChekhovsGun finally becomes selectable in battle]]...]] |
| 632 | * Confusion happens somewhat often in ''VideoGame/RadiataStories''. When a character is confused, the controls switch constantly, enemies and allies alike become targets, and not even locking on can save you. Mercifully it wears off. In addition, when the PlayerCharacter is hit with Blind, the screen becomes incredibly pixelated. |
| 633 | * In ''VideoGame/SagaFrontier'', during the Tarot Quest, getting the Grail Card requires asking a series of brewers where it is. At each one, your character takes a swig. When you actually head for the Grail Shrine, your character is plastered, and takes random steps in various directions (even if you ''aren't'' moving) -- often directly into enemies depending on your luck. In battle itself, your party gets hit with random status effects at the start of battle due to being drunk. |
| 634 | * In ''VideoGame/SanctuaryRPG'', enemies with <BLINDING>, <SHROUDING> and <NUMBING> affixes revel in this. The former will temporarily prevent your move list from displaying (you can still pick attacks, you just can't see what you're doing), <SHROUDING> have their health hidden from view, while <NUMBING> hides ''your'' HP. |
| 635 | * ''VideoGame/SecretOfMana'' has a Confuse effect that reverses your controls (up is down, left is right, etc) until the end of the effect, which wears off with time. (Confuse can be remedied by going to the controls section and pressing L or R to reverse the D pad. Or holding the controller upside-down...) Its West-Coast cousin ''Secret of Evermore'' has the identical Confound. |
| 636 | * ''VideoGame/ShadowHearts'' has the Judgement Ring - a QuickTimeEvent-esque mechanic requiring you to press X in time to a spinner rolling over specific segments of a ring. A number of enemies can inflict StatusEffects upon you which can either add fake segments to the ring, remove the segments altogether, make the ring spin either faster, slower, in the opposite direction or erratically, or simply shrink the ring so small that you can barely see it (made easier if you have a mahoosive television, incidentally). There are also some accessories that do the same, but with good tradeoffs. One removes the visual indicator of where you're supposed to hit, but doubles the amount of damage you do. It's not too hard to learn where to press X, so it's a fairly good accessory to use. Another (not present in the first game) triples your damage, but you not only can't see the hit segments but also can't see the needle showing where you're even hitting. Needless to say, this is much harder to use properly. |
| 637 | * In a [[BreakingTheFourthWall fourth-wall breaking]] moment of ''VideoGame/SuperMarioRPG'', Bowyer pulls out representations of your controller's Y, X, and A buttons. When he shoots an arrow at one of the buttons, its function gets disabled until he hits another button, which re-enables the previously disabled button while turning off the one he just hit. |
| 638 | * ''Survival Kids'' for the Game Boy Color has an effect (referred to as "Confusion" in-game) which rotates the primary directions clockwise (left -> up, up -> right, and so forth) that kick in if the player eats the right (wrong?) type of mushrooms. |
| 639 | * ''VideoGame/TalesOfHearts'' adds the Reverse status to the series list. It inverts the up/down and left/right directions on the D-pad, and for some reason is the characteristic status of the Light element. Its version of Blind also makes everything black and invisible except the affected character. |
| 640 | * ''VideoGame/{{Terranigma}}'' has a confusion status which changes the directions of the D-pad. The direction change every time the confusion message shows up. |
| 641 | * ''VideoGame/{{Ultima}}'': |
| 642 | ** In ''VideoGame/UltimaVI'', drinking alcohol causes the party to go in random directions when travelling instead of straight ahead. |
| 643 | ** ''VideoGame/UltimaVII'' and ''VideoGame/UltimaVIIPartII'' replace NPC dialogue with gibberish when the CopyProtection questions are answered incorrectly. |
| 644 | ** Mushrooms in the ''VideoGame/UltimaUnderworld'' games cause the graphics to [[MushroomSamba go psychedelic]]. |
| 645 | ** In ''VideoGame/UltimaVIII: Pagan'', if you drink too much beer, you stumble around drunkenly. Eat the wrong mushroom, and the same thing happens, plus everything changes colors. |
| 646 | * ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'' does this several times. |
| 647 | ** Papyrus's special attack gives your soul its own gravity, so the {{bullet hell}} sections become ''[[PlatformGame platform]]'' {{bullet hell}} sections. |
| 648 | ** Undyne freezes your soul in place, so you have to block rather than dodge. This also disables the "flee" command until it wears off. |
| 649 | ** [[SpidersAreScary Muffet]] sticks you to her web, so the only way you have to dodge is to jump from strand to strand. |
| 650 | ** [[spoiler:Asgore]] outright ''destroys'' the Mercy option on your menu bar, disabling your access to the "flee" and "spare" commands. |
| 651 | ** The {{final boss}} of the Genocide route, [[spoiler:Sans the Skeleton]], has several different interface screws. Unlike every other encounter in the game, [[spoiler:he attacks first rather than giving you the first turn]]; he leads with his most powerful attack, [[AvertedTrope averting]] the {{Sorting Algorithm of Evil}}; he takes advantage of the fact that the selection cursor is your soul icon to attack you in the menu during your turn. Towards the end of the fight, he ultimately decides simply to never end his turn, keeping you locked in the fight screen forever [[spoiler:until ''you'' screw with the interface yourself to attack him in the middle of his turn, then attack ''twice'' in the same turn to take him out.]] |
| 652 | ** The {{final boss}} of the Neutral path, [[spoiler:Photoshop Flowey]], really takes the cake. It has the same abilities you do -- specifically, the ability to reload an old save. It'll often save before an attack, and if you manage to dodge it, [[SaveScumming reload the save to get another shot at you]]. It will also "crash" the game just before the fight starts. It also attacks continuously and never ends its turn, meaning you can't even get to the menu to do anything (until [[spoiler:pieces of the menu start mixing with its attacks]]). |
| 653 | * In ''VideoGame/VagrantStory'', the NewGamePlus BonusDungeon, Iron Maiden B2, wreaks havoc on your map display. This is done deliberately to throw the player for a loop, as the dungeon has teleporters that loop around the area, there's near-zero visibility due to pitch-darkness, and all corridors look exactly the same. The only way to progress without getting hopelessly lost is to set the camera straight ahead and ''never ever touch it''. |
| 654 | * In ''VideoGame/WildArms1'', if the lead character became confused, they would respond incorrectly to the controls outside of battles. This could be easily remedied by changing the lead character, which could be done in three buttons (start, down, X), making it not so annoying. |
| 655 | * ''VideoGame/TheWorldIsYourWeapon'': Zigzagged. At the 100th floor of the Back World Dungeon, [[spoiler:Weaco can obtain the status window as a weapon. While this makes it harder to view her current status due to the weapon being held at an angle, it does make it easier to see the bottom-left part of the screen.]] |
| 656 | * ''VideoGame/{{Xenosaga}} Episode 2'': The fight with Albedo contains an attack where he ''hides your status window''. Luckily he'll reveal it for certain before he [[TurnsRed gets serious]], and won't hide it after that. Before that point, his attacks aren't all that dangerous, and you can still check your character's health by trying to use healing items on them and hovering the cursor over them, it's just a little more inconvenient. |
| 657 | [[/folder]] |
| 658 | |
| 659 | [[folder:Shoot 'em Ups]] |
| 660 | * In ''Dragon Heroes'', water enemies are likely to cause a confusion status, reversing the left and right movement. |
| 661 | * In the time-traveling top-down arcade SHMUP ''Sky Soldiers'', a boss in one of the 1974 Soviet Union stages releases capsules that discharge electricity which reverses the movement controls of your ship, leaving you a helpless target against the boss' regular projectile attacks. |
| 662 | * The battle against [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24fU9MbKcS8 Lost Property 771]] in ''VideoGame/{{Hellsinker}}'' has the screen invert colors. |
| 663 | * ''VideoGame/{{Cuphead}}'': |
| 664 | ** Ink droplets dropped by squids summoned by Captain Brineybeard are one of the very few things that don't do damage when they hit Cuphead or Mugman. Instead, they darken the screen for a few seconds, especially around the edges. Getting hit by more of them during this time causes black splotches to appear on the screen. |
| 665 | ** [[https://www.vg247.com/2017/12/02/cuphead-patch-eliminates-mugman-army-creation-fixes-rapid-weapon-swap-damage-glitch As of Version 1.1.3]], [[FoulFlower Cagney Carnation]] will occasionally shoots some fuzzies at you that [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOMU6scuTI8 cause the screen to get blurry and distorted for a few seconds]] if you get hit by one a la ''VideoGame/YoshisIsland''. |
| 666 | ** During the regular final phase of The Howling Aces, their airship will grab the sides of the screen and rotate it 90 degrees counterclockwise after every round of attacks. |
| 667 | * When you get hit by a missile in ''VideoGame/{{HAWX}}'' the screen goes fuzzy for a bit, which can compound matters if the attacker who landed the hit isn't the only one going after you. There's also a few missions where your ERS system is jammed by the enemy, which results in static all over everything on-screen. Even worse, sometimes this jamming affects your ability to target or even launch missiles. |
| 668 | * ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'': |
| 669 | ** The FanGame ''VideoGame/YourBizarreAdventure'', several [[FightingSpirit Stand]] attacks obfuscate the victim's vision in some fashion. |
| 670 | ** Getting hit by Platinum Sun's[[note]]Star Platinum[[/note]] Star Finger results in the screen momentarily blurring heavily, leaving the player unable to see much of anything. |
| 671 | ** Downplayed with Ice Album's[[note]]White Album[[/note]] Gently Weeps, which causes the screen to turn blue and frosted but only mildly hinders visibility. |
| 672 | * ''VideoGame/SpaceGiraffe'' uses this trope a fair bit. The entire game takes place in a music visuliser, so the background is reacting to the music (and the harder levels put fairly harsh filters onto this, never so much that you can't see what's going on if you teach yourself to, but sufficiently that your immediate reaction is to panic). Then there are the rotors, which rotate the environment your playing on while they exist, and the feedback monsters. Which explode in a cloud of visual feedback when shot. In a partial inversion, there's at least one level that the visual feedback caused by them makes it easier to see. |
| 673 | * In ''VideoGame/{{Star Strike|1981}}'' for the Platform/Atari2600, a fireball that hits your ship can cause your controls to be temporarily messed up, leaving you at the mercy of your controls. |
| 674 | * ''VideoGame/ThunderForce V''[='=]s FinalBoss starts off with the usual [[BossWarningSiren boss alert screen and text]] ("ALERT! The enemy is approaching fast! [...]"), [[spoiler:except all of the boss's parameters, such as name, weak point, weapons, etc. are "Unknown", and then the entire screen is flooded with "ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT!"]] |
| 675 | * The ''Franchise/TouhouProject'' series, mostly consisting of vertically scrolling shooters, doesn't typically use this trope, but there are some examples: |
| 676 | ** Various portions of the HUD literally shatter during the final boss fight of ''VideoGame/TouhouSuimusouImmaterialAndMissingPower''. First goes the super meter, then the spirit meter, and then the health bars, leaving nothing on the screen except you and the boss by the end. |
| 677 | ** The second stage boss from ''VideoGame/TouhouEiyashouImperishableNight'' blacks out most of your screen during her last few spellcards. One of her explicitly stated powers is causing night-blindness in humans. |
| 678 | ** Marisa in the same game also tends to shake the screen when she fires her [[WaveMotionGun sparks]], which is apparently something of a problem for some players. |
| 679 | ** ''VideoGame/TouhouKaeidzukaPhantasmagoriaOfFlowerView'' introduces Medicine Melancholy, who places poison clouds on the screen that slow the player down, and, more relevant to the trope, slightly obscure the view. Though the Interface Screw potential is used more in ''VideoGame/TouhouBunkachouShootTheBullet''. |
| 680 | ** In ''VideoGame/TouhouHisoutenScarletWeatherRhapsody'' and its expansion ''VideoGame/TouhouHisoutensokuChoudokyuuGinyoruNoNazoOOe'' there's also the Mountain Vapor weather, where in the former it hides the spellcards both players have, and in the latter not only hides it, but shuffles on the player's deck. |
| 681 | ** In ''VideoGame/TouhouSeirensenUndefinedFantasticObject'' the {{Superboss}} has a few spellcards that cover her bullets with blackness. |
| 682 | ** In ''VideoGame/TouhouKishinjouDoubleDealingCharacter'', Seija Kijin has this power as her stated ability, the ability to "overturn" things, starting with a spellcard that flips the playfield horizontally, reversing your horizontal movement. The next one has her flipping the playfield vertically, reversing your vertical movement. Then her last spellcard has her ''flipping the screen 180 degrees every few seconds!'' |
| 683 | ** ''Marine Benefit'' uses five basic colors during certain moments of the game: red, green, blue, white, black. Why is this important to know? Some bosses creates projectiles that turns completely invisible when crossing a harmless mist of the same color. And the extra boss abuses this in her spellcards! [[spoiler:One has her create clouds of three primary colors and pellets to cross those clouds, but those pellets are of the same color as the clouds, which means 1/3 of those will be invisible at some point. Then there's this one where she "darkens" the area and uses black pellets, which becomes invisible through most of the play area. And then there's the worst nightmare: a white mist starts to spread along with WHITE PROJECTILES and, unlike the previous situations, it can cover even the player!]] |
| 684 | * In ''VideoGame/TwilightWing'', one of [[MadGod Discord's]] abilities reverses the controls along with the colours of the screen. |
| 685 | * Various strange effects happen during ''VideoGame/{{Tyrian}}''; one of the bosses has an effect that reverses the screen vertically (and the controls!), and at several other times the screen is temporarily coloured strangely, which generally makes it harder to spot bonuses/enemies by reducing the contrast. |
| 686 | * ''VideoGame/{{Windowkill}}'' is built on an Interface Screw of your PC's operating system itself - the game's window is constantly closing in on you, and can can be expanded by shooting its edges. This gets built on with abilities that let you reposition a window to move their area of effect and bosses that have their own windows separate from yours. Even the game's ''main menu'' takes advantage of this screw by having all of its options appear in separate windows that you can freely move around. |
| 687 | [[/folder]] |
| 688 | |
| 689 | [[folder:Simulation Games]] |
| 690 | * In ''[[VideoGame/FA18Hornet F/A-18 Hornet]]'', your vision will black out if you pull too much G-forces, and red out with excess negative G's. Blackout also occurs if your oxygen supply is damaged while at altitude. The HUD and radar screen can be knocked out by damage as well. |
| 691 | * ''VideoGame/AceCombat'': |
| 692 | ** ''VideoGame/AceCombatXSkiesOfDeception'' made the screen shake whenever a Shock Cannon was fired or a SWBM detonated. Results may prove deadly if flying near the ground. |
| 693 | ** One mission of ''VideoGame/AceCombatZeroTheBelkanWar'' shakes the screen and leaves your HeadsUpDisplay fuzzy for the rest of the mission [[spoiler: after a nuke goes off nearby]]. |
| 694 | ** Getting struck by lightning in ''VideoGame/AceCombat7SkiesUnknown'' will also mess up your HUD and leave you unable to lock on to targets for several seconds. Flying through clouds is a great way to lose a missile, but staying in them for too long will cause your plane to ice up and stall. There are also wind gusts and crosswinds that can push you wildly off course if you don't fight them, and can be a death sentence with low-level flying, which is naturally where they are most likely to occur. |
| 695 | * ''VideoGame/EliteDangerous'' has subsystem damage that can cause all sorts of problems, including losing attitude control and thrusters, or your power generator getting disabled. However, the most debilitating and scariest is if you take enough damage to your ship that your cockpit glass starts to crack. The cracks will distort the heads-up display, and if you continue to take damage, the glass will ''shatter'', removing most of your HUD, exposing your cockpit to vacuum (prompting your life support system to go into emergency mode), and dimming before ultimately muting all sounds that cannot be conducted through your ship[[note]]You'll still hear your weapons fire, for example, but enemy weapons and ships will be completely silent[[/note]]. You also have a limited emergency life support system: at best, you'll have 30 minutes to get to a dock and repair the damage before you asphyxiate. At worst, with the stock life support module? ''Three. Minutes.'' [[ThisIsGonnaSuck Did we mention all of your navigational references are projected on the cockpit glass that just shattered?]] |
| 696 | * ''Videogame/EuroTruckSimulator'' will start to black out the screen if your driver has been on the road for too long without resting, as he's literally falling asleep at the wheel; the longer he's been driving, the more frequent and long the blackouts are. Amusingly, it doesn't actually screw with controls, allowing you to drive your BigBadassRig while "asleep" if the roads are clear. |
| 697 | * ''VideoGame/FreeSpace: Silent Threat'' had EMP disruptor missiles that, when detonated near the player, would screw the HUD and make the ship pick random targets -- effectively disabling any aspect-seeking missiles the player is carrying. And makes the radar useless. [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard The missile doesn't seem to work very well against the AI (friend or enemy)]]. ''Freespace 2'' ups the ante with [[ScrappyLevel a mission in the middle of a nebular storm that induces EMP effects every five seconds]], where the only things guiding you are navigation buoys that are placed at intervals barely inside the effective radar range. |
| 698 | * In some ''VideoGame/HarvestMoon'' games, you can get hit with confusion gas while mining that changes what the directional controls are. If you're lucky, it's a mere reversal, but in at least one of them, the controls are rotated at random. |
| 699 | * In the ''VideoGame/MechWarrior'' series, Interface Screw is somewhat of a gameplay element. Damaged sensors can end up having your radar, targeting or vision impaired. PPC hits temporarily scramble the HUD, and excessive heat buildup can interfere with it as well. In ''Mechwarrior Living Legends'', interface screw is one of the easiest ways for [[PoweredArmor BattleArmor]] players to tell how close to death they are - PPC hits scramble the HUD and cause snow to appear over the suit's visor. [[DiegeticInterface Armor breaches cause the visor to permanently crack]], and causes suit sealant to splash onto the visor, temporarily distorting one's vision. Taking health damage causes blood to get splattered onto the visor, along with diagnostics and warnings popping up on the sides of the visor, usually telling you '''USER DEATH IMMINENT'''. |
| 700 | * Many vehicular simulators like ''VideoGame/MicrosoftFlightSimulator'' often include the possibility to have instruments fail, malfunction or simply become miscalibrated depending on the circumstances. E.G. if the vacuum system on a plane or helicopter fails in a flight sim then the attimeter or artificial horizon will fail since the gyroscope used to determine orientation requires a vacuum to function correctly. Changes in air pressure due to weather and temperature may make the altimeter display an inaccurate altitude, requiring a QNH (Q Code for pressure at mean sea level) or QFE (Q Code for pressure at a reference point, usually an airport, landmark, or low-frequency weather station) in order to re-calibrate. |
| 701 | * ''VideoGame/NoUmbrellasAllowed'': If you report too many customers to AVAC in one day, they'll vandalize your store in protest, breaking your display window and reducing the number of items you can sell the next day. You have to pay the janitor a fee in order to clean your storefront and replace your window. |
| 702 | * In ''VideoGame/RobinsonsRequiem'', there are enemies that will put your eyes out, obscuring that part of the screen. If you lose both of your eyes, [[{{Unwinnable}} you can't see the world around you anymore]]. |
| 703 | * In the original ''VideoGame/StarRaiders'', a damaged long-range sensor will display the original image and a mirrored copy; the player needs to reconcile which image is "true" to navigate. |
| 704 | * ''VideoGame/WingCommander'': |
| 705 | ** In all of the games, the cockpit reflects damage your fighter takes once the shields and armor are penetrated, including destroying video displays used to show important information, and internal components. |
| 706 | ** ''Wing Commander III'' and ''IV'' up the ante with cracked cockpit glass, affecting the player's ability to look outside the cockpit. |
| 707 | ** A conversation option between missions in ''Wing Commander III'' lets the player choose whether or not to take an extra drink. If the choice to drink is made, then during the next mission, the controls for the player's starfighter will randomly reverse themselves periodically, making the mission intensely difficult to complete, although the only real mission requirement is to survive for a period of time, [[spoiler:until the [[WaveMotionGun Behemoth]] is destroyed.]] |
| 708 | ** ''Wing Commander IV'' has a few missions where the odds are against you due to a jamming ship that screws over most of your instruments, including your shields and your missiles, which will not lock. What makes it even more of a kick to the face is that the enemy fighters are not affected at all by the jamming due to [[{{handwave}} frequency-agile avionics and tempesting]] (as per the {{novelization}}), so they have working shields, and missiles that lock. On the upside, though, [[MacrossMissileMassacre salvo-firing off all of your "dumbfire" unguided missiles]] will put a quick end to the jammer ship, once you locate it. |
| 709 | * Used in the ''VideoGame/XWing'' and ''VideoGame/TIEFighter'' PC simulation games, powerful hits will sometimes destroy some of your cockpit displays, such as your sensors, or power readouts. |
| 710 | [[/folder]] |
| 711 | |
| 712 | [[folder:Sports Games]] |
| 713 | * In ''[[VideoGame/MarioAndSonicAtTheOlympicGames Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games]]'', there is a mission where you play Bobsleigh with the controls reversed. |
| 714 | * In ''VideoGame/NCAAFootball'' (starting with the 2005 edition), the "Homefield Advantage" feature would kick in when you played on the road in the more notoriously loud stadiums. Before big plays, the defense could tap a button to rile up the crowd, which would blur the screen and shake your controller furiously. It would also affect [=QBs=] and [=WRs=], who if rattled (determined by their skill, or lack thereof), would have the route pattern outlines wriggly and messed-up if you looked at the line-of-scrimmage play art, or [=WRs=] could also run the wrong route should the QB call an audible (as the Wide Receiver cannot actually ''hear'' the audible over the stadium noise), indicated by the WR moving towards the QB and tapping at his helmet. TruthInTelevision for the big conferences, such as the Big 10 and Big 12. Later games in the series added the ability for the home team, when on defense, to try to quiet the crowd, so that the defense could talk to each other. |
| 715 | * Throughout the ''VideoGame/NFLBlitz'' series, the Fake Field Goal and Fake Punt played bring up the field goal or punt interface as if you're actually going for either, when you're really just doing a regular play. Obviously [[TheAllSeeingAI the computer isn't fooled]], it's mainly to [[BaitAndSwitch fake out]] human opponents. |
| 716 | [[/folder]] |
| 717 | |
| 718 | [[folder:Stealth-Based Games]] |
| 719 | * ''VideoGame/MetalGear'': |
| 720 | ** During the fight with Psycho Mantis in the first ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'', he will occasionally make the screen turn black except for the word "[[Creator/HideoKojima Hideo]]" in the top right corner of the screen, in an apparent attempt to make you turn off the game. In addition, he is extremely difficult to damage unless your controller is plugged into controller port 2. Otherwise he just "reads your mind" (your controller input). These particular effects actually return in ''[=MGS4=]''. Kojima loves that joke, apparently. |
| 721 | ** The colonel drops a doozy of a {{mindscrew}}, which could be considered an interface screw depending on how obedient you are. |
| 722 | -->'''Colonel:''' Turn the game console off. '''Now.'''[[note]]This is actually a call back to the original ''Metal Gear'' game, in which, once it's made clear who your ultimate enemy is, you're contacted by radio and told to turn off the game console. [[spoiler: As the person that's telling you this has just been revealed as the BigBad, doing so is a bad idea: it resets the game, just like it would if you turned off the console normally.]][[/note]] |
| 723 | ** The normal game over screen in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2SonsOfLiberty'' is a "Mission Failed" screen with a small window showing your character's death in the top-left. Once the game's GainaxEnding is in full swing, you start getting "FissionMailed" screens that look like game-over screens with bad spelling, while the game is still going on inside the "death window". |
| 724 | *** If you happen to crawl over sea lice, they will get inside your kit and slowly consume your spare rations. You can shake them off by cycling through your gear. |
| 725 | ** In ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater'', once Naked Snake loses an eye during the storyline, depth perception is screwed with during first-person view, forcing you to re-learn how to aim. On the [[Platform/Nintendo3DS 3DS version]], 3D is permanently disabled from this point on. |
| 726 | * In ''VideoGame/MetalGearRisingRevengeance'' after Raiden loses an arm and an eye during the HopelessBossFight with Jetstream Sam you get a few minutes to shamble around and weakly swing your sword while Sam taunts you, during which the screen flickers and the audio is distorted. It's not meant to add to the difficulty; just [[RuleOfCool look cool]]. |
| 727 | * ''VideoGame/YandereSimulator'': |
| 728 | ** If Senpai is in close proximity to Yandere-chan, the screen will turn pink, [[HeartbeatSoundtrack her heart will begin to race]], her moving speed will be reduced to a slow trudge, and she will drop whatever item she's currently holding to try and still her fluttering heart. |
| 729 | ** If the player tries to look up info on [[InformationBroker Info-chan]], she will hack the phone, filling it with static and chastising the player for trying to dig up dirt on her. |
| 730 | ** If the player attempts to exit school before the day is over, the screen will fill with static and a message will appear stating "No... I must not". |
| 731 | ** If Yandere-chan's sanity is low, the screen will become smudged and desaturated, she'll lose the ability to perceive other students as anything but silhouettes (or interact with them in any way besides murder), and begin to hallucinate herself murdering Osana. |
| 732 | ** Snap Mode--you enter it by ''shattering'' the normal Game Over screen, before entering a state with no HUD elements (replaced with simple commands instead), everything colored in black and red, Yandere-chan being unable to run (it's replaced with an OminousVisualGlitch skipping you forward), and no students moving. Stay too long in it, and your screen will fill with static before teleporting you to your current objective. [[spoiler: And completing the final objective is not optional: if you refuse to press the button, Yan-chan will still eventually kill herself...it'll just be a lot slower than if you had pressed the button.]] |
| 733 | [[/folder]] |
| 734 | |
| 735 | [[folder:Survival Horror]] |
| 736 | * ''VideoGame/Alice2022'': When the PlayerCharacter starts getting close to the ghost, the screen will start to flicker. When they're [=REALLY=] close, [[BloodyHandprint Bloody Handprints]] will cover the screen. |
| 737 | * ''[[VideoGame/AmnesiaTheDarkDescent Amnesia: The Dark Descent]]'' has a few of these when your sanity gets low, ranging from Daniel grinding his teeth to tinnitus (that ringing noise) to - subtly - cockroaches crawling across the screen. If your sanity drops to dangerous levels, occasionally Daniel will stumble and go into a fetal position for a few moments, granting ''just'' enough time for him to eviscerate you. |
| 738 | * In ''VideoGame/CallOfCthulhuDarkCornersOfTheEarth'' if you are doing something particularly dangerous (especially up high) or spend too long looking at any given monster, you actually begin to panic. The screen goes blurry and your coordination starts to go. And if you wait for too long, and manage to survive otherwise, your character will eventually [[NonStandardGameOver shoot himself.]] |
| 739 | * ''VideoGame/ClockTower'': |
| 740 | ** The main character in ''VideoGame/ClockTower3'', Alyssa, has a Panic Meter that fills when she encounters ghosts, undead serial killers, or other scary things. If the meter fills completely, she goes into Panic Mode -- the visuals flicker and become distorted, the character becomes harder to control, she's incapable of using her only defensive weapon, and she'll periodically freeze where she's standing and shiver uncontrollably. (Since this is the only time during the bulk of the gameplay where Alyssa can be killed, and the ghost or monster is usually close by when she goes into Panic Mode, this freezing-and-shivering bit is particularly vexing.) |
| 741 | ** The [[VideoGame/ClockTower1995 first game]] in the same series has a much milder version. When Jennifer's panic meter is blue, she's normal and can probably take a hit from most traps (not counting instant kill ones, or any member of the Burroughs family). As her panic meter changes color (from blue to yellow to orange to red), she becomes weaker. Once it's red, not only is she likely to die instantly from the different traps in the mansion, she also starts tripping when she runs. If Bobby is near when this happens... |
| 742 | * In ''VideoGame/TheConsumingShadow'', as the player's [[SanityMeter Sanity Meter]] decreases... |
| 743 | ** A temporary static effect may appear, combined with an ominous sound effect and a lowered field of vision. |
| 744 | ** An effect similar to vision spots may appear, distracting players. |
| 745 | ** The screen may flash as the player enters a room, distracting them. |
| 746 | ** When entering a dungeon, the objective list in the ticker may suddenly turn into messages such as "imsorryimsorryimsorry" or "ithurtsithurtsithurts". |
| 747 | ** When driving, images of random and completely pale faces or hands [[JumpScare may suddenly appear before disappearing.]] |
| 748 | ** Investigation options may suddenly turn into a button reading [[DrivenToSuicide "Shoot yourself"]]. |
| 749 | * The iPhone {{Interquel}} for ''VideoGame/DeadSpace'' does this after the penultimate Brute battle. [[spoiler: As more Brutes pour into the room, a battery indicator enacts as if the iPhone is about to run out of battery power. It's hard not to find a player who rushed to their nearest iPhone charger in their fear of losing progress.]] |
| 750 | * The FinalBoss of ''[[VideoGame/{{D}} D2]]'' takes away your senses one by one as you fight it. First sight (black screen, although the interface is still there), then hearing (muted audio), then movement (controls locked). |
| 751 | * Many of the sanity effects in ''VideoGame/EternalDarkness: Sanity's Requiem'', from Blue Screens of Death to "ToBeContinued..." and "Controller unplugged" messages. One particularly involved example pretends to restart the console, letting the player attempt to load his save only to find all his saves deleted. Occasionally the console restarts with a different loading screen. "But I'm not playing on an Xbox..." |
| 752 | ** There are also Green Horrors which when they hit you with their lightning attack it both drains your Sanity and reverse your controls for a few seconds, often resulting in you running straight into the monster. |
| 753 | * ''VideoGame/FatalFrame'': Some ghosts have attacks that prevent the player from taking shots with [[MagicalCamera Camera Obscura]] by either having something block the [[FirstPersonSnapshooter Viewfinder]], distorting its view, or making the entire surroundings too dark to see. |
| 754 | ** ''[[VideoGame/FatalFrameI The first game]]'': |
| 755 | *** [[BigBad Kirie]]'s mere presence causes the screen to become distorted and monochromatic, making it slightly harder to see. During her final boss fight, the constant shaking from the Hell Gate also makes aiming at her harder. |
| 756 | *** One of Junsei Takamine's attacks turns the environment dark, making it difficult to see him. |
| 757 | *** Lord Himuro has ghostly heads that surround him and can be sent to attack the player individually. If they succeed, the screen will become HEAVILY distorted and the viewfinder will be harder to control, meaning it will be next-to-impossible to focus on him in time for a counterattack unless the player manages to stay unharmed until the effect is over. |
| 758 | ** ''VideoGame/FatalFrameII'': |
| 759 | *** [[BigBad Sae]]'s presence turns the whole screen monochromatic and slightly distorted (but also adds in static), and her boss fight happens while the Hellish Abyss is shaking the arena, making aiming at her with the camera more difficult. |
| 760 | *** One of the unique ghosts fought is Chitose Tachibana, a crying girl who can disable the flashlight, therefore making the room dark. Of course, you won't be able to [[FirstPersonSnapshooter see anything in your camera's viewfinder]] in the total darkness. |
| 761 | *** The [[VideoGameRemake remake]] of the game grants Sunken Woman, one of the hostile ghosts in the game, the ability to make drops of water fall on the camera viewfinder, making battling her harder. |
| 762 | ** ''VideoGame/FatalFrameIII'': |
| 763 | *** During the final battle against [[BigBad Reika]], she has one attack where she casts Rei into a mix of flashbacks that makes her move much slower, while Reika chases after her. |
| 764 | *** [[EvilMatriarch Yashuu Kuse]] can make the hands behind her leave dirty handprints on the Camera Obscura's viewfinder if they hit you. |
| 765 | *** [[CreepyChild Kozue]] can darken the room with her crying, making it more difficult to aim at her. |
| 766 | ** ''VideoGame/FatalFrameMaskOfTheLunarEclipse'': |
| 767 | *** Encountering [[BigBad Sakuya]] before her designated boss fights has her turn the screen monochromatic and distorted, only this time she also distorts the Camera Obscura so it cannot affect her. |
| 768 | *** The [[ArtAttacker paint]] thrown by [[MadArtist Yuukou Magaki]] can block the Viewfinder temporarily should it connect. |
| 769 | *** [[BeleagueredAssistant Shoji Katagiri]] carries a pen light that he can flash to momentarily blind the player by lighting up the screen. |
| 770 | * The ''Franchise/FiveNightsAtFreddys'' series features a few instances of your interface getting screwy, and in almost all cases, the interface acting up means [[YouAreAlreadyDead you are screwed]]. |
| 771 | ** In [[VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys1 the original game]], if the light and door switches stop working, it means an animatronic managed to sneak its way into your office. Better hope you're at the very tail end of your shift. |
| 772 | ** In ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys2'', if Balloon Boy manages to get into your office, he'll disable your flashlight, the only defense you have against animatronics coming through the front door. |
| 773 | ** In ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys3'', if the ventilation system malfunctions, you'll start to suffer blackouts and hallucinations, giving Springtrap more opportunities to home in on you. Hallucinations of the Phantom Puppet are worse still, since they last longer and render you unable to bring up either the camera or maintenance controls. |
| 774 | ** ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddysSisterLocation'' has the Minireenas in Custom Night, who will slowly cover the screen throughout a playthrough and cannot be removed by any means. Also, Lolbit will occasionally show up on the three monitors unless you type in "LOL" or click the letters spelling "LOL" on the in-game keypad. If you fail to deter them, the screen will be filled out by a "PLEASE STAND BY" screen for seven seconds or until you type in "LOL". |
| 775 | ** ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddysSecurityBreach'': Getting close enough to [[JackTheRipoff Vanny]] distorts your vision, the effect getting stronger the closer she is, with the screen basically being completely glitched out and near impossible to see through when she's close enough to grab you. |
| 776 | * In FNAF fangame ''VideoGame/FredbearAndFriends'', one of the cameras has writing on the lens, obstructing the view of the prowling animatronics (though it provides a clue of its own). |
| 777 | * In ''VideoGame/FridayThe13thTheGame'', Jason can use this to his advantage while hunting the counselors. Using [[VillainTeleportation Morph or Shift]] in close proximity to counselors makes their screens go blurry in a similar fashion as tracking errors on a VHS tape, while the Stalk ability mutes the music, allowing him to better sneak up on his prey. In addition, as [[SanityMeter fear takes hold of counselors]], they will suffer from impaired vision, the loss of their minimap, and increased tripping. |
| 778 | * In a similar vein, the "Panic Mode" featured in ''VideoGame/HauntingGround'', the SpiritualSuccessor to the above. When the game screen is clear, Fiona is healthy and isn't scared. Checking the wrong objects or getting attacked by enemies (or staying around a Chaser too long) causes her extreme distress. The screen will blur and you can hear Fiona's heart race. When she reaches her breaking point, the screen becomes monochrome, blurred and Fiona just starts running like hell. She is mostly uncontrollable in this state, and she'll run into walls, eventually reduced to crawling away. Full Panic also disables you from using items, and commands to Hewie are all cries of "Help!" It will go away if you manage to evade the pursuer long enough, but getting caught and hit by an enemy means [[OneHitKill it's curtains for Fiona]]. |
| 779 | * ''VideoGame/TheLastOfUs'' has an "listen" ability that gives you the ability to see people as white outlines through objects. Then late at the game you need to fight multitudes of enemies in a blizzard, where everything that isn't about five feet in front of you is lost in a comple wall of whiteness. |
| 780 | * ''VideoGame/ParasiteEve'' featured the Confusion status in battles, where the directions were swapped with another direction, while ''VideoGame/ParasiteEve2'' did this in battle at random. These were annoying in both games since you could potentially run straight into an enemy's attack while you're trying to figure out where the hell the "Up" button was mapped to. |
| 781 | * ''[[VideoGame/{{Penumbra}} Penumbra: Black Plague]]'' hits you hard with this. [[spoiler: Your interactions with strange, inhuman artifacts results in having a fragment of an alien HiveMind hitchhiking in your brain. One with limited control over your senses, capable of making you hallucinate on a whim, and actively trying to kill you.]] |
| 782 | * ''VideoGame/SilentHillDownpour'' adds a fisheye lens effect to the camera during the Otherworld segments. It's surprisingly effective at making these areas ''creepy as hell'' by how unnatural it makes everything seem. |
| 783 | * The [[Franchise/TheSlenderManMythos Slender Man]] in ''VideoGame/SlenderTheArrival'' and many other VideoGame/{{Slender}} games causes the screen to distort whenever he goes near you, because the whole game takes place from the perspective of a camera, which Slender Man is known for fucking with. Also, you cannot pause when there is static on screen; this was added in as a way of preventing JumpScare {{rage quit}}ting. |
| 784 | * ''VideoGame/{{SOMA}}'' contains one tied into the backstory. The enemy creatures in-game are enhanced with [[spoiler: structure gel]] created by the [[AiIsACrapshoot WAU]], causing them to give off an EMP effect which results in Simon Jarret's vision becoming pixellated. [[spoiler: It's revealed later on that Simon has no body of his own at Pathos-II. It's someone else's, jammed inside a diving suit reinforced with structure gel, and a cortex chip fitted with cameras where the head should be.]] |
| 785 | * ''VideoGame/SpookysJumpScareMansion'' seems to ''love'' this trope. Some examples include: |
| 786 | ** Some rooms naturally have a fog or lack of light in place to limit your vision. |
| 787 | ** [[StringyHairedGhostGirl Specimen 4]] doesn't do anything special to your screen in the base game, but her other 2 forms in Endless Mode repeatedly covers your view in static that gets thicker until you literally can't see, before immediately going away and soon coming back again. |
| 788 | ** Specimen 5 makes up for its begrudgingly slow speed by covering your screen in fog and warping the game textures to confuse you. |
| 789 | ** [[TheAssimilator Speci]][[VoiceOfTheLegion men 8]] covers your vision in static throughout the entire chase. |
| 790 | ** [[PuppeteerParasite Specimen 10]] puts a weird alienesque flesh on the sides of your screen, which turns your screen more and more orange every time it hits you. |
| 791 | ** [[LittleBitBeastly Unknown Specimen 4's]] area is constantly covered in thick blue fog throughout the chase. |
| 792 | ** Unknown Specimen 5 makes every room redder and redder as they begin to loop, mirroring her actions in [[VideoGame/SilentHills the game she is originally from]]. |
| 793 | ** Monster 5 tints your screen red and turns the walls into bars. |
| 794 | ** Monster 6 is a secret, [[OneHitKill insta-kill]] monster in the Karamari Hospital DLC, but in Endless Mode is an actual chasing enemy that obstructs your screen in thick black fog. |
| 795 | ** Monster 7's chair messes with your vision and flashes hallucinations the longer you sit in it. |
| 796 | * ''VideoGame/YomawariLostInTheDark'': The starfish god will attempt to obstruct Yuzu by distorting the environment or inverting the controls. When it does this, a purple/blue tint appears on the screen. |
| 797 | [[/folder]] |
| 798 | |
| 799 | [[folder:Survival Sandbox]] |
| 800 | * ''VideoGame/{{Subnautica}}'' has the Mesmer, an innocuous little fish that can unfurl its fins to create a hypnotic display. This creates a shimmering distortion effect and makes it difficult to look or move anywhere but directly at the Mesmer -- something that can be fatal if you're low on oxygen -- while also causing the PlayerCharacter to [[MissionControlIsOffItsMeds hallucinate that their PDA is talking to them.]] |
| 801 | -->'''"PDA:"''' It is your primary directive to swim closer to that ''beautiful creature''... Swim closer... Swim closer, now... It looks so ''friendly''... Do not resist... Don't struggle... Go ''closer...'' |
| 802 | * The sequel ''Subnautica: Below Zero'' has an even worse example in the form of the Lily Paddler. This sea horse-like creature reacts to potential threats by releasing a burst of pheremones that disrupt higher brain function in other creatures. Beyond making the screen swim as if the player were drunk and distorting the game's audio, it spins the player around in a random direction, and messes with your HUD display so that its gives inaccurate readings about your depth, compass direction and how far you are from various waypoints, all while the player character groans and gasps like they've been poisoned. |
| 803 | [[/folder]] |
| 804 | |
| 805 | [[folder:Third-Person Shooters]] |
| 806 | * In the story campaign mode of ''VideoGame/KaneAndLynch: Dead Men'', you find out that your partner occasionally suffers hallucination attacks. Midway through the game, you and your partner rob a bank, when all of a sudden your partner goes nuts and starts shooting at all the hostages, essentially screwing up the robbery. Your character asks him what the hell he was doing, and he replies that they were attacking him (you clearly saw that they weren't). If you had played the campaign mode in 2 player coop mode, then the second player controls the partner, and on that player's screen, the hostages are actually rendered as police officers firing guns at you. |
| 807 | * In ''VideoGame/MondayNightCombat'', getting hit by the Tank's Product Grenade means advertisements will plaster your view and assault your ears for a few seconds. The higher the grenade's level, the longer the effect. |
| 808 | * In the ''VideoGame/ReservoirDogs'' LicensedGame, you play one level as Mr. Brown driving the getaway car when he's just been shot in the head. The effect is created by PaintingTheMedium, having Mr. White keep telling you it's okay and to calm down, and making the car get harder and harder to drive as your character is dying under your control and there's nothing you can do about it. |
| 809 | * ''Franchise/{{Splatoon}}'': |
| 810 | ** As part of the ShowsDamage health system, the sides of your screen distort and get covered in enemy ink as you get hurt, reducing your field of view until you manage to recover. |
| 811 | ** The Splattercolor Screen special introduced in ''VideoGame/Splatoon3'' causes any member of the opposing team that passes through it to not only receive damage, but also have their view rendered in grayscale for several seconds, making it more difficult to tell friend from foe, as well as which parts of the stage are covered in which team's ink.[[note]]It also did its job a bit ''too'' well at first, as prior to the 6.0.2 update, the effect was rendered with a white noise effect and brightened the screen. The sudden onslaught of this combination was harsh enough to [[BrownNote cause everything from mild discomfort to debilitating pain for several players]].[[/note]] It also limits visibility for everyone in general, as while it can still be shot through, it's mostly opaque with a handful of transparent sections. |
| 812 | * ''VideoGame/TheSuffering'' had a particularly sinister example, being partly a horror game set in prison. The game has an insanity meter that rises as Torque takes damage, when filled the player can choose to temporarily transform into The Creature until the meter is depleted. The more the player transforms, the more likely they will get the evil ending (amongst other factors). So if you're literally gunning for the good ending, you'd want to ignore than Insanity meter altogether, right? Well, hope you don't mind gruesome images and loud screams to randomly cover your television screen with anywhere from 10 seconds to 5 minute intervals, only ending once the Insanity meter is no longer full. Just try not to take damage at all! |
| 813 | * In ''VideoGame/{{Vanquish}}'' Sam's HUD starts to glitch up when he is critically injured, accompanied by HeartbeatSoundtrack. |
| 814 | * ''VideoGame/{{Warframe}}'' |
| 815 | ** Taking Magnetic damage gives your screen a mildly debilitating scrambling effect. It used to be ''much'' worse, to the point that some players were suffering actual physical side effects from the flashing lights. Even when players didn't have that problem, the fact remained that it basically made the game unplayable while it was active, since you couldn't see anything, even your interface. Eventually, it was toned down. |
| 816 | ** One variant of Corpus bursas can toss flashbang munitions that temporarily cover your screen with white light and make you hear nothing but a buzz. |
| 817 | ** Grineer make use of drones that in addition to boosting the surrounding troopers with [[CannedOrdersOverLoudspeaker propaganda]] also scramble your minimap. |
| 818 | ** In the Cambion Drift, when [[CainAndAbel Fass or Vome]] kill the other, certain parts of the map will be covered in blue (if Vome died) or orange (if Fass died) sludge that will cover the edges of your screen and periodically induce a shortened version of the above Magnetic effect. |
| 819 | ** Also present in the Cambion Drift are [[GoddamnedBats Deimos Tendril Drones]], tiny little bastards which make a beeline for your head and latch on aggressively. They warp the screen like a magnetic effect, but also disrupt your abilities, cause edge blur like Deimos Wyrm toxin, and leave your Warframe clawing at its face in distress, screwing up any animation tells you may have been relying on. |
| 820 | [[/folder]] |
| 821 | |
| 822 | [[folder:Turn-Based Strategy]] |
| 823 | * The Sting DS game ''VideoGame/KnightsInTheNightmare'' makes interface screw the basis of its gameplay. You use the stylus to command units, interact with [=NPCs=], affect the battle, and so on, but all the enemies are constantly attacking ''the cursor'' with various attack patterns all over the screen, so the gameplay is a frenetic mash-up of tactics and BulletHell. [[RuleOfFun Don't question it.]] |
| 824 | * In ''{{VideoGame/Rebuild}}: Gangs of Deadsville's'' Campaign Mode, the final level has some after [[spoiler:It's revealed that the cure for the zombie virus was actually [[OhCrap an enhanced version designed to create supersoldiers]], and [[FromBadToWorse by that point, you've injected at the very least yourself, your entire fort, and your fort in the]] ''[[FromBadToWorse previous]]'' town. You're treated to ''[[BlatantLies lovely]]'' segments where options come up to "sacrifice people on the altar of pain," garbled grammar, mission options all being changed to "Devour," and an absurdly easy military campaign against the [[GreaterScopeVillain Government]] after sacrificing your best soldier character]]. |
| 825 | [[/folder]] |
| 826 | |
| 827 | [[folder:Visual Novels]] |
| 828 | * ''{{Franchise/Danganronpa}}'': |
| 829 | ** In ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaTriggerHappyHavoc'', the opponent in Bullet Time Battles can activate "Nega Time", which blocks the bar and makes it harder to hit the rhythm markers. |
| 830 | ** ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaV3KillingHarmony'' adds an extra element to this mechanic, where sometimes an image will move around the screen, obscuring the markers. |
| 831 | * ''VisualNovel/DramaticalMurder'': When Aoba uses Scrap on Noiz in his route, the game screen begins going wonky and replaying events from Noiz's perspective with the colors and graphics glitching in and out before blacking out completely with only white text on the screen asking you if you want to give up. |
| 832 | * In ''VisualNovel/HerTearsWereMyLight'', [[spoiler:Nil]] can prevent the character Time from rewinding. This means that your mouse wheel and the "Rewind" button become useless, and you are forced to try other options to escape her traps. |
| 833 | * In ''VisualNovel/TheHouseInFataMorgana'', after entering the fourth door, text in the backlog starts getting obscured and text that never showed onscreen appears in the backlog. |
| 834 | * The final puzzle of ''VisualNovel/NineHoursNinePersonsNineDoors'' requires you to [[spoiler: flip the DS upside-down.]] It's actually justified in-story: [[spoiler: Flipping the DS signifies that you are playing as Junpei and sending the answers to Akane in the past]]. |
| 835 | * ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorney'': In the final segment of "Rise from the Ashes," [[spoiler:Damon Gant]] interrupts the final cross-examination in order to try and cut the trial short. The scenario played out as if it was going to be a traditional cross-examination, complete with green text and the cross-examination music, but [[spoiler:Gant's]] "Objection!" causes the theme music to abruptly cut off. |
| 836 | * ''VisualNovel/TokyoDark'': If any of your meters get too low or if Neurosis gets too high, the way you will see the world will change for the negative. |
| 837 | * In ''VisualNovel/YouAndMeAndHer'', at the end of Aoi's initial route, [[spoiler: [[{{Yandere}} Miyuki]] takes over the game, messing with the game data (in her words, "messing with the route branch code"), nuking your saves, and making herself the only option. You are also unable to save, load, or access most of the other menu functions, and can she read your clicks (e.g., right-clicking to bring up the menu will result in her making a snarky comment).]] |
| 838 | [[/folder]] |
| 839 | |
| 840 | [[folder:Wide-Open Sandbox]] |
| 841 | * In ''VideoGame/{{Bully}}'', if you stay up really late, like 1:00 am, then the screen goes all blurry, the music is now freakishly sluggish and your character's response is decreased. If you don't get to your bed in your dorm before 2:00 am, you faint. When you wake, you may have lost some of your possessions (usually your shoes). Needless to say, if you actually ''are'' playing late at night and you start to notice Jimmy's head dropping and the creepily distorted soundtrack very subtly start to creep in, it's pretty unnerving. |
| 842 | * ''VideoGame/DeadIsland'' has Alcohol. Drinking it once will blur your vision (which gets worse as you keep drinking). Twice, and your movements start to become slightly unresponsive. 3 times, and your controls get screwed up, making every direction you try to move in respond with a random direction. 4 times and you can no longer stand up, constantly falling down and getting back up again. |
| 843 | * The first boss of ''VideoGame/DestroyAllHumans 2'' -- the hippie commune leader Coyote Bongwater -- has a hallucinatory rainbow ray gun, which causes your screen to wobble, turn multicoloured, and has colourful flowers pop up for no reason. |
| 844 | * ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto'': |
| 845 | ** ''[[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoViceCity Vice City]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoSanAndreas San Andreas]]'' use a slight version of this to simulate substance abuse, whether alcohol or marijuana. ''Vice City'' features a mission where your friend exposes you to some extremely potent moonshine and then manages to blow himself up. You have to drive him to the hospital whilst your vision and motor control are still severely affected by the booze fumes. |
| 846 | ** This is more pronounced in ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIV'': When Niko gets drunk the camera wobbles, the screen blurs, and the character responds very vaguely to your controls. This could be annoying, if it weren't a completely optional form of gameplay (although if you avoid it you do miss out on some entertaining dialogue). A less optional example comes when a kidnapping victim keeps trying to wrestle control of the car Niko's driving, causing it to veer sharply and randomly, until he mercifully punches her lights out. There's a dose of FakeDifficulty as well since, with some practice, you are able to control a car decently while drunk yet cops will still chase you down when they spot you. Yet, when sober, you can drive far worse without a peep from the cops. |
| 847 | ** And in ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoChinatownWars'', you have at least one mission which messes with your radar map for a specific reason. One of these missions involve you tracing scramblers by looking at how distorted your map is; the closer you are to one, the more unrecognizable the map is. |
| 848 | * ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIII'', Vice City and San Andreas have multiple timed car missions. The timer ends up being splayed across the part of the screen you most need to see. Also, the angle of the camera obstructs a good portion of the road you need to see to drive it without constantly moving the camera up. |
| 849 | * ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'': |
| 850 | ** If you go to the Settings menu and hit the "Super Secret Settings"-button, a filter will be placed over your character's view. Clicking the button multiple times will cycle you through the filters. Some filters are barely noticeable and might even look nicer than the base game, others disrupt your view so much they make the game nigh unplayable. |
| 851 | ** [[TooDumbToLive Eating a pufferfish]] gives you the Nausea status effect, which causes the screen to wobble and wave for however long the effect lasts. |
| 852 | * In ''VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption'', as in ''GTA IV'', you can get absolutely rip-roaring drunk at the bar, to the point where you can't even make John Marston walk a straight line. |
| 853 | ** ''VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption2'' continues this, but also has a sequence where Arthur Morgan gets completely soused and then tries to find his friend Lenny in the saloon, made difficult because [[LostInACrowd he sees ever]][[NeedleInAStackOfNeedles yone as Lenny]]. In addition to being forced into a first-person beer goggles perspective, the normal dialog interface is jumbled up and misspelled; the bartender is labeled "Bartedner", "Greet" becomes "Grete" and "teerG", and the option to call for Lenny cycles between "Lemmy?", "Lneny?" and "?ynneL". |
| 854 | * In ''VideoGame/RetroCityRampage'', getting DrunkOnMilk or [[MushroomSamba consuming certain mushrooms]] makes the screen go wavy. |
| 855 | * ''VideoGame/SaintsRow'': |
| 856 | ** In the original ''VideoGame/{{Saints Row|1}}'', getting drugged makes everything look wobbly. Good thing you've got plenty of ammo... |
| 857 | ** In ''VideoGame/SaintsRow2'', if you drink too much (which is required for some side missions), your vision is blurred, your character's movement becomes worse, and they'll start saying random drunken phrases. The mission "Bad Trip" has the Boss escaping from the Sons of Samedi after being heavily dosed with Loa Dust, and having to fight his way back to the Saints HQ and fend off waves of Samedi goons while stoned. |
| 858 | ** In ''VideoGame/SaintsRowTheThird'', the Boss spends most of the mission "Pimps Up, Hos Down" tripping (and [[FullFrontalAssault naked]]) after infiltrating a Morningstar brothel. Also, during the final showdown with Matt Miller (the leader of the Deckers gang) in "[=http://deckers.die=]", Miller shuts down your character's connection to his network, causing various error screens to show up before you are patched through again. This is particularly jarring if you are playing on the PC. |
| 859 | ** In ''VideoGame/SaintsRowIV'', during Shaundi's loyalty mission she, [[IHatePastMe her stoner self from SR2]], and the Boss all get high on alien drugs that make the screen wobbly and pixellated, and also give the two Shaundis super-powers. |
| 860 | ** In the "How the Saints Save Christmas" DLC for ''SRIV'', if you shoot Clawz with the BB gun too early, it will ricochet and hit Playa in the face, and half of the screen turns red and black temporarily. |
| 861 | * ''VideoGame/{{Stalker}}'''s Controller will suddenly ''drag your perspective right up INTO ITS FACE''. |
| 862 | ** Also, if you drink too much Vodka your character will start swaying and see bright flashes in front of his eyes... Which makes aiming with a weapon, really difficult. |
| 863 | ** In ''Shadow of Chernobyl'', when you enter the Yantar factory complex, you'll come under the effects of Lab X-16's psy-emissions. Your screen will get a whitish-yellowish tint, a strange sound will play every few seconds, and all other sounds (including your own gunfire) will be a little drowned out. The effect is lessened if you have the calibrated psy-protection helmet-- it's more pronounced if you have the non-adjusted helmet, and it's even worse if you don't have the helmet at all. Additionally, staying near a Controller or Psy Dog for too long will cause blurred and double vision as you are influenced by their psy-fields. |
| 864 | * ''VideoGame/{{Terraria}}'' has several examples. |
| 865 | ** Black slimes and corrupt slimes can inflict Darkness on you, which lowers the brightness of your screen. Depending on how high your brightness was set to, it could either be a mild inconvenience to a major handicap. |
| 866 | %%** Ragged Casters inflict Blackout. |
| 867 | ** If a Brain Suckler attaches to your head, everything is blacked out except a small circle around you. |
| 868 | ** Several Hardmode enemies can inflict confusion, which reverses the controls of your left and right buttons. |
| 869 | * ''VideoGame/WeHappyFew'' |
| 870 | ** One of Arthur's main story quests requires him to gather parts for Doctor Faraday, then return the next day. However, as soon as Arthur leaves Faraday's house, [[spoiler: he's knocked onto his back as a giant wormhole opens in the sky]], and the quest marker changes from "Come Back Tomorrow", to "Never Mind Tomorrow, Check On Faraday". |
| 871 | ** Whenever you're close to death, your view will become black and white, and the music will change to a heartbeat and the ticking of a clock. All sounds will be muffled, except the pained noises your character makes, which change from their usual groans and yelps to quiet death rattles. |
| 872 | * In ''VideoGame/XRebirth'', the Albion Skunk's DiegeticInterface will begin to show glitches when the ship is damaged. It is most prominent in the "Hawk" cockpit configuration that replaces the Skunk's glass canopy with a panoramic viewscreen display, where excessive damage causes sections of the window to show heavy static. |
| 873 | [[/folder]] |
| 874 | |
| 875 | [[folder:Other]] |
| 876 | * In ''VideoGame/AngryBirds Fight!'', Stella's sabotage causes large pink bubbles to float up from the bottom of the screen and obscure the gameboard. |
| 877 | * Done in ''VideoGame/Code7''. Since the Alex is [[spoiler: a A.I.]], the entire game is played as a text adventure. Being attacked during hacking will cause the screen to shake and lights to go off. When the narrator gets too agitated, the letters will go crazy and sometimes turn into {{Wingdinglish}}. And when [[spoiler: S.O.L.I. hacks Alex]], the entire screen is oddly coloured, shaking and filled with binary. |
| 878 | * ''VideoGame/TheCorridor'': One level inverts your controls. |
| 879 | * When The Storyteller character is selected in ''VideoGame/CrossyRoad'', the playing field is flipped horizontally, the perspective changed to be similar to the one from ''VideoGame/MonumentValley''. It may seem like a subtle change, but it really changes how one notices obstacles coming into play. |
| 880 | * Some bosses in ''VideoGame/TheDesolateHope'' have the "Hackworm" attack, which causes static to completely hide the screen and only disappear for a few split-seconds at a time, making it hard to give commands or view your status to decide what command to give. Since the boss battles are turn-based with ATB, the boss can get in several free turns while you wait for the screen to clear up. |
| 881 | * The Google Chrome ''VideoGame/DinosaurGame'' cycles between a dark mode and light mode every 100 score points in a day/night cycle, blinding you until your eyes adjust. At even slightly fast speeds, this results in the game changing between day and night multiple times per minute, about as quickly as it takes your eyes to adjust to the change in light. It's probably the hardest aspect of the game after the speed. |
| 882 | * The game ''VideoGame/EmilyIsAway'' involves the game screen becoming an Instant Messenger from the early 2000s. Throughout the game, you write messages to Emily by just typing randomly on the keyboard with the messages you choose appearing. Occasionally, the character you're playing as is too shy to type something, and will change the message. [[spoiler: This becomes especially heart wrenching at the end, when the player tries to reach out and ask Emily how she's really feeling, but the player character keeps changing the message until you have no choice but to say goodbye.]] |
| 883 | * In ''VideoGame/{{Gemcraft}}: Chasing Shadows'', during the endgame fields, the Forgotten may randomly show up and disable your interface, meaning you can't interact with the battle in any way (e.g. moving gems or casting spells) and must rely on your existing defenses taking care of the monsters for about one wave. |
| 884 | * There is one status condition in the video game version of ''Anime/GregoryHorrorShow'' titled Confusion, in which the game's controllers becomes reversed, becoming very difficult to move The Guest. |
| 885 | * ''VideoGame/TheHex'': |
| 886 | ** In ''Combat Arena X'', one of the nerfs Bryce can potentially end up with swaps the buttons for ducking and jumping. |
| 887 | ** During the final act, [[spoiler:a cutscene of Reggie and Irving's conversation (accompanied by numerous {{Ominous Visual Glitch}}es) occurs over the gameplay.]] |
| 888 | * Nocturne's ultimate in ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'' makes the entire enemy team blind and removes their shared vision, setting up the team for a devastating team attack. |
| 889 | * ''VideoGame/NESRemix'' does this in its Remix levels. The levels feature NES games with some oddity: The picture might gradually pixel out, be upside down, be in shadowbox mode (all objects are black), gradually zoom out, or other forms of screw. There are a few levels where you must take [[Franchise/SuperMarioBros Luigi]] through a mirrored version of a level, left to right. It's harder than it sounds. |
| 890 | * The Android ''TabletopGame/{{Scrabble}}'' app will sometimes have the controls go beneath the advertisement at the bottom of the screen making them impossible to use. Of course Creator/ElectronicArts doesn't seem keen on fixing this as it means if you're not paying attention you'll be tapping the advertisement. |
| 891 | * ''VideoGame/WarioWare'': |
| 892 | ** ''VideoGame/WarioWareIncMegaPartyGames'': |
| 893 | *** In Outta My Way, each player is given a chance to play fifteen microgames in a row, and try to clear as many as they can. The catch is that the other players can move their characters around the screen, with the goal being to distract the microgame player and block their view to prevent them from clearing the games. |
| 894 | *** For the final microgame of Milky Way Delirium, all player tokens not owned by the player with the most will remain onscreen and block the view of the screen. The winning player has to complete one microgame with the tokens covering the screen in order to win the whole game, or else their ship will be destroyed, and all the other players win instead. |
| 895 | *** All For One has the screen covered in darkness while one player tries to play microgames. The other players have to move lights around the screen to help the solo player see what they're doing. |
| 896 | ** ''VideoGame/WariowareGold'' One of the challenge modes is called "Wario Interrupts", where every third microgame, Wario messes with the interface in some way to try and screw the player over. The player can, however, clear most of the obstructions away, such as by blowing into the mic to get rid of Wario's cloud of {{fartillery}}. [[spoiler: And if the player does well enough, they can instantly clear the current obstruction by sending Lulu after him]]. |
| 897 | * Done unintentionally in ''[[Creator/ZapDramatic Sir Basil Pike Public School]]'' - at one point, your [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext adviser mouse]] pops up to talk to you... and a game of tennis occurs ''at the same time'', forcing you to look past the mouse to win the match. |
| 898 | * For many older PC games (mid 2000s and earlier), the UI and HUD elements were designed for smaller screens. Playing these older games on modern hardware and bigger screens usually upscales the game so that it's not a blurry mess. However, the HUD/UI may not scale up with the screen size, which results in said elements becoming incredily tiny and difficult to see unless you're using a mod that fixes the issue. |
| 899 | [[/folder]] |
| 900 | |
| 901 | !!Non-video game examples: |
| 902 | |
| 903 | [[folder:Anime and Manga]] |
| 904 | * Shinji Hirako's shikai in ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'' can do this to the interface between the body and brain. Anyone who smells the pink mist it releases has all of their senses and actions inverted, so, for example, if their brain sends a signal to move their left arm downwards, it will instead move their right arm upwards, and vice-versa. When it was used on Aizen, though, he was only disoriented for a few seconds and [[InvincibleVillain quickly adapted to it]], which Shinji claimed was impossible. |
| 905 | [[/folder]] |
| 906 | |
| 907 | [[folder:Comic Books]] |
| 908 | * In Tom King's ''ComicBook/MisterMiracle2017'', a VHS-style distortion effect [[PaintingTheMedium disrupts the pages]] at random intervals. Depending on how you interpret the story, this either indicates that Mister Miracle is trapped in a LotusEaterMachine or that [[ThroughTheEyesOfMadness he's losing his mind]]. |
| 909 | * ''ComicBook/NightOfTheOwls'': At one point while Franchise/{{Batman}} is in the Court's Labyrinth the panels rotate 90 degrees, then another 90 degrees a few pages later before returning to normal. |
| 910 | [[/folder]] |
| 911 | |
| 912 | [[folder:[=DVDs=]]] |
| 913 | * ''[[Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion End of Evangelion]]'''s opening menu seems normal, but leave it on too long and the options begin decaying before your eyes, the screen starts flickering blood red with accompanying screams taken from the movie. [[SoundtrackDissonance All while calm, classical music plays.]] In ''Death and Rebirth'', the options change from the normal 'start, scenes, options, extras' into [[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou questioning the existence of the viewer.]] |
| 914 | * On one of the ''WebAnimation/RedVsBlue'' [=DVDs=], if you leave the DVD sit at the title screen too long, O'Malley will recite a short rhyme, ending with a number, and then remove a menu option to leave that many options left on the screen. This goes all the way down to only one left, then it resets and starts again. |
| 915 | [[/folder]] |
| 916 | |
| 917 | [[folder:Fan Works]] |
| 918 | * ''FanFic/ABrighterDark'': After her head injury, Azura has a hard time focusing and remaining conscious whenever there's loud noises or if she's being moved around to much. Whenever this happens, the text will become ''italicized'' or '''boldened''' or '''''both''''' at random points, sometimes even in the middle of words. |
| 919 | * In ''WebVideo/DragonBallZAbridged'' the second Kai Abridged episode includes the Adobe player plug-in crashing due to Vegeta's rage, and then the crash report exploding due to said rage. |
| 920 | [[/folder]] |
| 921 | |
| 922 | [[folder:Films -- Live-Action]] |
| 923 | * In ''Film/FightClub'', when Tyler is [[TranquilFury calmly but angrily]] monologuing about how a person is not defined by materialistic things like money or a fancy car, he turns to address the audience as the screen aggressively shakes and the film strip peeks in at the edges of the frame. |
| 924 | * In ''Film/{{Unfriended}}'', the vengeful spirit of Laura Barns screws with the computers of her victims and the internet, including (but not limited to) inserting herself a Skype call and not allowing herself to be kicked from it, keeping herself on Blaire's Facebook friendlist, preventing her own Facebook profile from being reported or memorialized, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking posting pop-ups for live webcam girls]]. |
| 925 | [[/folder]] |
| 926 | |
| 927 | [[folder:Literature]] |
| 928 | * ''Literature/TheHeroIsOverpoweredButOverlyCautious'': The setting is an RPGMechanicsVerse where characters can use the Scan spell to read each others' statuses. However, there's a Fake Out skill that can cause any Scan attempts to return a false status or an annoying message if the Scan skill isn't at a high enough level. |
| 929 | * Pac-Man is a fun game. In ''Literature/ReadyPlayerOne'', a fun unit is added when a DiegeticInterface popup (for a scoreboard alert on an ongoing contest) blocks view of the Pac-Man display near the end of a perfect play run. |
| 930 | * ''Literature/RollOverAndDie'': The experiments of the church can cause this, as the twisted nature of Origin's powers means that trying to check their status with the normal StatOVision spell usually leads to a nonsensical result. For example, the first Chimera the main characters meet has pure gibberish in the place of stats, with the only coherent line being "fulfill your duty, flum apricot", which still has no reason to be there. The Retribution eyeballs, on the other hand, have the word "origin" replacing every number of their stats. |
| 931 | [[/folder]] |
| 932 | |
| 933 | [[folder:Live-Action TV]] |
| 934 | * Among the common means of how ''Series/KamenRiderExAid'' abuses its interface is jittery, spasming editing, unnatural lighting and throwing an old tv static filter over shots. Fittingly, it's a video game themed series about game characters invading reality and these effects often accompany them. |
| 935 | * In ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'', Cambot, the robot who actually recorded the show, interacted with the show twice: |
| 936 | ** Added fake ESPN style overlays during a scene in ''Film/TheSidehackers'' |
| 937 | ** Started crying in the final host segment of ''Film/DangerDeathRay'' due to the security cameras destroyed in the climax of the movie. This is represented by water running down the screen. |
| 938 | * ''Series/PersonOfInterest'': |
| 939 | ** The series uses IdiosyncraticWipes of cameras from the Machine's network (the Machine is, in essence, the show's viewpoint character). After a virus is uploaded into it, glitches begin to appear during the wipes, which become increasingly frequent and severe over time. |
| 940 | ** The season three episode "Beta" [[spoiler:and at least the first episode of season four, "Panopticon",]] uses a completely new interface, representing that [[spoiler:a new AI, Samaritan, is online]]. |
| 941 | * When Series/{{Sherlock}} is drunk, as seen in the episode [[Recap/SherlockS03E02TheSignOfThree ''The Sign of Three'']], his SherlockScan is slurred, blurry and inaccurate. |
| 942 | [[/folder]] |
| 943 | |
| 944 | [[folder:Pinball]] |
| 945 | * Bally Midway's ''Black Belt'' has a flipper in the upper-right that similarly, flips toward the player and can be used to send a ball up a ramp.. that goes to the other upper flipper on the left which, like most other flippers, flips away from the player. This is guaranteed to confound players the first few times they play. |
| 946 | * One of the key gimmicks in ''Pinball/BlackHole'' is its embedded inner playfield, which is slanted away from the player, causing pinballs to fall "up" the table during play. Players were guaranteed to be confused the first few times they played it. |
| 947 | * ''Pinball/TheBrain'', a [[RecycledSet rethemed version]] of ''Pinball Party'', shuts down everything for about fifteen seconds at random intervals to simulate an epileptic seizure. |
| 948 | * During Under Attack multiball in ''Pinball/DialedIn'', Dialed In Electronics attacks your flippers with lasers that cause them to stutter should they get hit. |
| 949 | * ''Pinball/GameOfThrones'' will temporarily freeze one of your flippers during the Winter Has Come multiball if you allow the boss in that mode to attack you. |
| 950 | * ''Pinball/GhostBusters'' also reverses the flippers during Mass Hysteria multiball, and goes even further by having the captive ball swap flipper buttons during the mode. |
| 951 | * ''Pinball/GunsNRosesJerseyJack'': The WizardMode switches between seven different control penalties (one for each band member), ranging from reversing the flipper buttons to making specific flippers only respond to the action button. |
| 952 | * SpiritualSuccessor ''Pinball/HauntedHouse'' takes it one step further - there is an ''upper'' playfield with flippers that face away from each other. The left flipper button operates the right one and vice versa. |
| 953 | * ''Pinball/JamesBond007Stern'': The mini-WizardMode "Chaos at Crab Key" reverses the flipper buttons while it's running. |
| 954 | * ''Pinball/QBertsQuest'' has two sets of flippers at the bottom of the playfield, arranged in an X-shape. The lower flippers are operated by the controls on the opposing side, and is guaranteed to confuse newcomers. |
| 955 | * Several alternate dimensions in ''Pinball/RickAndMorty'' cause this, including making the left flipper button control the upper ''right'' flipper, causing either button to control all three flippers simultaneously, and turning every light on the playfield white (and thus removing the [[ColourCodedForYourConvenience color-coding]] that helps indicate what exactly they award). |
| 956 | * In ''Pinball/TheSimpsonsPinballParty'', the flipper controls are reversed during "Springfield Mystery Spot". |
| 957 | * Done unintentionally in Creator/SternPinball's ''[[Pinball/TheAvengersStern The Avengers]]''; it's bad enough that some of the ramps block the view of the playfield lights, but it's worse that the HULK lights aren't even aligned with their targets. |
| 958 | * ''Pinball/TheWhosTommy'' has Blinders that unfold from the bottom of the playfield, completely blocking the player's view of the flippers. You'll need to play like Tommy himself when they're active. |
| 959 | * ''Pinball/WillyWonkaAndTheChocolateFactory'' has two well-hidden codes that reverse either the main or upper flippers for the duration of the game. |
| 960 | * ''Pinball/TheWizardOfOz'', by the same designer, has "Reverse Flipper" mode, which is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin. |
| 961 | * Creator/ZenStudios' ''[[VideoGame/SpiderManZenStudios Spider-Man]]'' pinball game reverses the flipper controls during the Mysterio mission, due to his hallucinogenic gas. |
| 962 | [[/folder]] |
| 963 | |
| 964 | [[folder:Roleplay]] |
| 965 | * ''Roleplay/DestroyTheGodmodder'' has multiple examples, usually as a result of particularly powerful enemies. |
| 966 | ** The most infamous example of this is the [[RealityBreakingParadox Glitch]], which [[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou completely glitches out any posts that aren't formatted in a safe font and/or color.]] |
| 967 | ** [=DTG2=] also has this occur when [[Webcomic/{{Homestuck}} Doc Scratch]] [[HostileShowTakeover temporarily becomes the [=GM=] of the game]], and [[spoiler:the [[EldritchAbomination Red Dragon]] causes a person's post to glitch out if that post mentions his real name, Brine.]] |
| 968 | [[/folder]] |
| 969 | |
| 970 | [[folder:Web Animation]] |
| 971 | * Some Flash applications can "hijack" your pointer. A particularly cute use of this are digital pets that pounce when you hover too close. |
| 972 | * The ''WebAnimation/AnimatorVsAnimation'' series of flash animations does this in a pretty awesome way: the interface is used by both animator and animation for weapons. |
| 973 | * ''WebAnimation/OneMinuteMelee'': the fight between [[VideoGame/{{Touhou}} Sakuya Izayoi]] and [[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure Dio Brando]] lasts for over a minute because, during the last second of the fight, both combatants [[TimeStandsStill freeze time]]. |
| 974 | * ''WebAnimation/DSBTInsaniT'': Bill's third forms Pixel Crush attack...which somehow does huge damage by giving the screen a blocky jittering effect for a moment. |
| 975 | [[/folder]] |
| 976 | |
| 977 | [[folder:Webcomics]] |
| 978 | * [[http://darthsanddroids.net/episodes/1273.html During]] [[http://darthsanddroids.net/episodes/1274.html three]] [[http://darthsanddroids.net/episodes/1275.html strips]] of ''Webcomic/DarthsAndDroids'', the panels get increasingly skewed as the realization of Obi Wan's death sends Boba Fett [[SanitySlippage off the edge]]. |
| 979 | * [[http://www.taleoffiction.com/chapter-13-episode-35/ This]] ''[[Webcomic/ATaleOfFiction Tale of Fiction]]'' strip, representing a particularly impressive high. |
| 980 | * Used in ''Webcomic/AwfulHospital'' when [[spoiler:The Door is trying to mind control Ms. Green. He hijacks the section where user input goes to put only his commands, and then even vandalizes the user comments screaming at Ms. Green to resist into looking like they're agreeing with him]]. |
| 981 | * During a plot arc in ''Webcomic/BobAndGeorge'' in which history was being undone due to a TimeParadox, the strips themselves were erased--first corrupted (along with the author's notes), then replaced with blank images. The effect started at the beginning of the archives and progressed increasingly quickly during the arc; the heroes therefore had to make things right before history (i.e., the comic itself) was completely erased. Once the problem was solved, the archives were restored. |
| 982 | * As it's an AffectionateParody of video game tropes, ''Webcomic/CucumberQuest'' does this sometimes. Whenever [[RealityWarper Glitchmaster]] is around, the panels become pixelated and weird things happen to the URL in the bottom corner. In Chapter 3, Rosemaster {{UnPerson}}s two characters by erasing them from others' memories. Then the author took down their bios from the character sheet and would answer "who?" whenever readers asked where they'd gone. |
| 983 | * In ''Webcomic/{{Goblins}}'' after the [[spoiler:Axe of Prissan]] is broken and hellish corruption begins leaking into the mortal world, the borders of the comic panels become covered in demonic, bloody vines. |
| 984 | * The final page of Chapter 4 of ''[[{{Webcomic/Morphe}} morphE]]'' is the [[http://morphe.thewebcomic.com/comics/2075482/47-w-gh/ paradox event.]] Text boxes move, speech bubbles are out of alignment and on the previous page the control arrows are moved. |
| 985 | * A RunningGag in ''Webcomic/MSPaintAdventures'': |
| 986 | ** In ''Webcomic/ProblemSleuth'', each character has an item that toggles between something harmless, like a pair of keys, and weapon of some sort (e.g. Problem Sleuth's pistol/keys). Usually, referring to an item as its counterpart works [[RuleOfFunny except when it would be funnier for it not to]]. (The wiki refers to such items as "innocuous doubles".) |
| 987 | ** The Midnight Crew in ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'', as criminal counterparts of the cast of ''Webcomic/ProblemSleuth'', have the same issues with decks of cards/storage items. |
| 988 | ** Possibly the most famous example in the entirety of ''Homestuck'' comes a short while into its climactic 14-minute epic ''Cascade'', which serves as the finale to Act 5. A minute in, Jack Noir, the comic's BigBad up to this point, uses his SignatureMove "Red Miles" at maximum power on an entire universe, which also causes ''the borders of the Flash animation to expand outward'', covering the page's title and expanding to fill its gray margins. Up until this point, the comic's images and Flash animations had never done anything like this, and it signaled to readers that the comic was bringing out the big guns. It doesn't stop exemplifying this trope there, though, as the Flash eventually becomes smaller again and starts ''really'' playing with the format. It superimposes multiple shots over top of each other, adds panning backgrounds behind shots, has characters appear out of frame, and more. The format screw culminates with a breakneck sequence of shots appearing and expanding out on top of each other. Then two of the main characters [[spoiler:accidentally [[ItMakesSenseInContext create the Green Sun they were trying to destroy]]]], an act on par with Jack Noir's in terms of climactic story-affecting significance, un-screwing the interface and causing the Flash to remain fullscreen for the rest of its duration. |
| 989 | ** There's also the greater comic's RunningGag "What Pumpkin?" in which a pumpkin appears in a scene but retroactively vanishes ("There is no pumpkin there, and there never has been...") as soon as the players/audience attempt to do anything with it. |
| 990 | ** Early comics made a point of the overcomplicated nature of the kids' inventory methods. John was unable to reach anything not at the top or bottom of the stack, and managed to vandalize his room and fling items into inconvenient locations while he tried to flush needed things out of it. Dave's hashmap modus which had numbered slots for each item would throw things ''at him'' whenever he accidentally put things in an occupied slot, something which he was prone to doing a lot since the slot each item would be stored in was determined by a complex formula based on the item's name. Rose's tree modus was only accessible at the root, and would constantly collapse and drop everything if that item was accessed. Jade had multiple sylladices, but one of them, ''TabletopGame/{{Pictionary}}'', would rely on drawn objects and was rather...liberal. Once the full extent of humor had been milked and the story grew more serious, though, the troubles were phased out. |
| 991 | ** [[RealityWarper Doc Scratch]] has the power to control the appearance of the site; then, as a result of Andrew Hussie literally BreakingTheFourthWall and entering the comic to confront Scratch, he temporarily appeared at the top of the screen above the main panel and narrated over the action. Then, of course, the interface goes completely insane any time [[EldritchAbomination Lord English]] is around, sometimes shifting to ''Webcomic/SweetBroAndHellaJeff'' style .gifs. |
| 992 | ** There was also a period after Terezi scratched the second disc of ''Homestuck'' (as in the story, somehow) where all the text came out as partially-intelligible gibberish. |
| 993 | ** When [[SkullForAHead Caliborn]] takes a crowbar to a structure broadcasting the site in-story (ItMakesSenseInContext), the site's layout is knocked around accordingly - the banners, ads and links all bounce off each other and settle crooked. The comic itself is [[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou so meta it hurts]], but this takes it to a new level. |
| 994 | ** After [[BigBad Caliborn]] stuffs [[ItMakesSenseInContext Special Stardust and Candy Corn into the Act 6 Act 6 cartridge]] and then plugs it into the MSPA interface, [[https://www.homestuck.com/story/6278 the first flash]] stutters and skips until it eventually ''crashes''. |
| 995 | ** One time, Bro did this to Dave's Strife menu by cutting it with his Unbreakable Katana. |
| 996 | [[/folder]] |
| 997 | |
| 998 | [[folder:Web Original]] |
| 999 | * Website/{{Google}}: |
| 1000 | ** Type in [[VideoGame/{{Starcraft}} "Zerg Rush"]] to watch a bunch of O's eat your results ([[UnwinnableJokeGame you can't kill them all]]). |
| 1001 | ** Also, typing [[Franchise/StarFox "Do a barrel roll"]] will actually make your display spin. |
| 1002 | ** Typing in "askew" will give you a results page that is just slightly tilted. |
| 1003 | * Shimejis can cause this due to being displayed in front of any windows you're using. Some can even grab and move windows that aren't maximized. |
| 1004 | * ''Roleplay/DestroyTheGodmodder'': Used lightly on occasion, and also lampshaded with the Glitch, which at one point became so bad players had to type in a specific font to keep their posts from being obliterated. |
| 1005 | * ''Website/{{Neopets}}'': |
| 1006 | ** Some {{Random Event}}s have effects on the current page, such as making it rain Mortogs (a frog-like petpet) by having images of them cascade down the screen, or saying there's an earthquake by shaking the browser window. There also used to be one where the sight of a cursed sigil automatically sent the user back a page to "flee in fear", but that one was eventually disabled due to causing glitches. |
| 1007 | ** The item [[https://items.jellyneo.net/item/41451/ Gigantic Pink Hair Bow]] is seemingly designed to startle people who get sent one. Most item images are 80×80 pixels; the Gigantic Pink Hair Bow is 332×332. Many of the site's layouts don't bother setting a CSS style for item image sizes because all others would display as 80×80 regardless, but some pages, such as the Item Transfer Log, have the image at full size, throwing off the controls. |
| 1008 | * The Website/SCPFoundation contains some anomalies which either directly screw with any documentation about them, or which can't be properly (or even ''safely'') documented unless the documentation is first made screwy. See [[PaintingTheMedium/SCPFoundation the Foundation's subpage on Painting the Medium]] for examples. |
| 1009 | [[/folder]] |
| 1010 | |
| 1011 | [[folder:Western Animation]] |
| 1012 | * ''Creator/{{Toonami}}'''s ''WesternAnimation/TheIntruderII'' delves into this as the event continued, with the bumpers slowly going from "Red Alert" flashing and minor video interference as an alarm goes off, to heavily saturated with a red tint with sound distortions to [[spoiler: weeks 4 and 5 with nothing but garbled red text after the Intruder rips out SARA's core and the alarm starts to fail (Fittingly, week 4 was a marathon of the NightmareFuel-laden ''[[Manga/{{Parasyte}} Parasyte -the maxim-]]''). Week 6's bumpers have error messages after the ''Absolution'' blows up. The event ends this with new bumpers as TOM uploads SARA onto a new base ([[WesternAnimation/TheIntruderIII later revealed to be another ship]], the ''Vindication'').]] |
| 1013 | [[/folder]] |
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