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4[[quoteright:333:[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rsz_rupoor.png]]]]
5[[caption-width-right:333:"[[PokeThePoodle Damn, now I can't make the payment on my horse]]."]]
6%%
7-> ''"We'll either be real strong, or real sick."''
8-->-- '''Pac-Man and Mrs. Pac-Man before trying the super power pellets''', ''[[WesternAnimation/PacMan Pac-Man: The Animated Series]]''
9
10An item which harms the player who picks it up or uses it instead of helping them. Differs from PowerUpLetdown in that the harm it causes is direct and intentional, rather than from a design flaw.
11
12So, if it's harmful, why would anyone pick it up or use it? Players don't mean to, but poison mushrooms have four main ways of getting around that:
13
14# In games where immediately useful items randomly drop from killed enemies or other things, having them sometimes be poison mushrooms serves to punish players for blindly chasing down items as soon as they appear.
15# Sometimes they just wait in strategic locations for hapless players to stumble into them, in which case they serve as an obstacle to be avoided. Which raises questions: why would your character go out of their way to pick up something harmful? Or are we to understand that they literally absorb all in-game powerups via skin contact?
16# Other times, they try to look similar to a beneficial item to trick a player into taking it. Beneficial and harmful items may [[PaletteSwap differ only]] [[ColorCodedForYourConvenience in color]], which hurts players with poor color vision or a monochrome display.
17# It could also be an item that has [[RandomEffectSpell random effects]], some of which are negative.
18
19Whatever their method, it's a PowerUp that powers you down instead. Contrast with ChestMonster, which is a monster that disguises itself as a PowerUp or other item, and PowerupLetdown, which is a PowerUp that is unintentionally hindering. Compare CursedItem, if the harm is magical; BoobyTrap, which might be used to trick the player into picking up the item; and {{Zonk}}, a "prize" that isn't worth anything.
20
21For tropes about actual mushrooms, see FesteringFungus and MushroomMan.
22----
23!!Examples:
24[[foldercontrol]]
25
26[[folder:[=4X=]]]
27* ''VideoGame/{{Civilization}}'':
28** The series (and many subsequent generations of turn-based strategy game) feature the so-called "Goody Huts" -- old dwellings unaffiliated with any faction that, when explored, may turn out to contain scrolls of ancient knowledge, secret treasures, nomads or tribespeople who are sick of living in the ruins... or a barbarian hideout that is none too thrilled with your intrusion. (''Civ V'' replaces these with ancient ruins, which don't carry the risk of barbarian attack; instead, one possible bonus from exploring them is revealing the locations of several nearby barbarian camps.)
29** In the ''Civ V'' expansion ''Brave New World'', Indonesia's unique unit is the Kris Swordsman, which gets a unique promotion at random after its first battle. While most of these promotions are very powerful, two of them, Enemy Blade and Evil Spirits, seriously diminish the unit's fighting power; the former causes it to take 20 damage if it ends the turn in enemy territory, while the latter gives it a 10% combat penalty when attacking and a 30% combat penalty when defending. The Ambition promotion is a double-edged sword, giving the unit a 50% combat bonus when attacking but a 20% combat penalty when defending.
30* ''VideoGame/SidMeiersAlphaCentauri'' contains terrain features that are supposedly escape pods from the crashed starship. Could have personnel, could have recoverable tech data, could have a map of local metal deposits, could have [[FaceFullOfAlienWingWong helminthoid parasitic mindworms that attack your troops and psychically prey upon their minds before ripping apart their]] [[NightmareFuel AAAAAAA GET IT OFF MEEEE...]]
31[[/folder]]
32
33[[folder:Action Adventure]]
34* An old ''Series/TheAddamsFamily'' game, ''Fester's Quest'' for the NES, has red power downs for your gun and whip, as well as the blue powerups.
35* ''VideoGame/BraveFencerMusashi'' has a couple of assimilated abilities that are like this. Sleepy cranks your fatigue to 100% for a short period of time which renders Musashi too exhausted to run, swing his sword at full power, or even resist falling asleep if he doesn't keep jumping around, and Toxin temporarily poisons Musashi. Bonus points in that they both come from mushroom enemies. Subverted with B.O. which makes you smell terrible and Depress which makes Musashi temporarily depressed: [[GuideDangIt not that the game tells you]] but when you smell terrible bats leave you alone and being depressed makes the giant ants ignore you, which are both extremely useful.
36* ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'':
37** Several games in the series have, alongside the usual food items used to restore health, several rotten food items like "Rotten Meat" and "Spoiled Milk". In ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaDawnOfSorrow'', equipping a Ghoul soul makes Soma an ExtremeOmnivore, able to eat them safely. After which, against logic, they will heal disproportionately large amounts of heath -- apparently, to a ghoul, spoiled milk is more nutritious than an entire turkey is to a human.
38** The Flesh Golem soul has the same effect in the previous game, ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaAriaOfSorrow''. It's a kind of [[InvertedTrope inversion]] of ReviveKillsZombie.
39** ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaSymphonyOfTheNight'' has a literal example in the Toadstool, an edible item that inflicts poison status on you. Clever players might think to equip the headgear that converts poison damage to health and then try eating it, only to find that [[UselessItem the Toadstool heals a whopping 1 HP]].
40** ''Vampire Killer'' for the MSX has red books that increase prices in the level's {{Dungeon Shop}}s, the opposite effect of the white books.
41* In ''VideoGame/CaveStory'', equipping the Nemesis weapon essentially turns experience crystals into this. At level 1, the Nemesis is a powerful weapon. Collecting 1 EXP will level it "up" to level 2: a weaker Nemesis with shorter range and less damage. Collecting 1 more EXP will bring it to level 3: rubber ducks with short range that do 1 HP of damage.
42* ''VideoGame/FroggersJourneyTheForgottenRelic'': The blue eggs appear to be items that Frogger can collect, but they cause him to lose health instead of gaining it if he eats them.
43* ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'':
44** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime'':
45*** In some of the later dungeons in the game, there are treasure chests that, upon Link opening them, will either freeze him like a Freezard does with an ice wind or make a Floormaster fall from the ceiling towards him.
46*** Poes have a random effect when consumed. You may either have all your hearts refilled, only one heart refilled, one heart depleted, [[HPTo1 or your whole life meter depleted save for the last heart quarter.]] This also applies in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask'', but the scarcity of normal Poes (they only appear in a room in Stone Tower Temple when inverted; otherwise, it's actually easier to find and fight Big Poes or even the Poe Sisters) makes this trope's presence very uncommon on principle.
47** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaFourSwords'': There are Black Rupees (aka Rupoors), which upon collection make you drop your wallet's Rupees (allowing other players to steal them). The player will drop up to four red Rupees. This is actually helpful during Rupee Fever, which doubles the value of all Rupees when all Links are at full health.
48** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess'': Purple Chus, which leave behind Purple Chu Jelly when killed. Other types of Chu Jelly are very useful, either restoring a good amount of health or as a Lantern Oil substitute, so Purple Jelly should have a good effect too, right? Wrong, they have a ''random'' effect: while they can heal a random amount of Hearts, they can also ''hurt you'', even taking you down to a quarter of a Heart. The Nasty Soup, which can be gotten where you get the Lantern, has the same effect. The main purposes of Purple Chus are to make you fight a Chu without getting anything good out of it, or to have them in the same area as useful Chus, forcing you to kill the useful ones and grab their jelly before the purple ones absorb them and take away their useful qualities.
49** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaPhantomHourglass'': The game features "Rupoors", which ''directly'' reduce the number of Rupees Link is currently carrying when found. A minor key version of the series' trademark ItemGet fanfare plays when a Rupoor was found, complete with Link holding the item above his head but looking none too pleased about it. One area in the game consists of a maze with Rupoors for walls, requiring Link to walk carefully to avoid them. And to make it more difficult, Keese are flying around the area -- and half of your projectile weapons pick up Rupoors.
50** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword'': Rupoors make an appearance in the digging minigame. The look on Link's face (seen in the page image) when you pick one up is priceless.
51* ''VideoGame/LuigisMansion1'''s minibosses toss one of these when they hit low HP. Since they bounce randomly and cut off your vacuum (touching them shrinks Luigi to about a third of his size and immediately disable the ability to use the vacuum, meaning you WILL lose your grip; plus you lose change and can't open doors), they can prevent good runs if you're unlucky. In addition, these may pop up out of Heart places when you vacuum them instead of actual hearts.
52* The arcade game ''VideoGame/MagicSword'' has plenty of powerups lying around, from stronger weapons, to gaining an infinite projectile attack for some time, to invincibility. And then there is a pair of scissors: pick it up, and your companion is instantly killed.
53* The blue X parasites in ''VideoGame/MetroidFusion'' start off as this. Because blue X are affiliated with the cold, Samus cannot absorb them due to her Metroid DNA and she'll suffer massive damage if she absorbs them. This also crosses with ItCanThink since the blue X will gladly kamikaze into Samus to exploit her weakness. Once Samus regains the Varia Suit, the trope becomes inverted by making the blue X safe to absorb due to the Varia Suit regulating body temperature. After you absorb the first few blue X, [[OhCrap the rest will flee in terror, now knowing Samus can absorb them harmlessly]].
54* ''VideoGame/MysticTowers'' has literal poison mushrooms that will instantly kill Baldric if he eats them -- unless he's already poisoned, in which case they [[MagicAntidote remove poisoning]].
55* The ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'' game for the NES has this in the form of green and red Kryptonite, which sap your energy instead of giving it like the blue power crystals.
56* ''[[Creator/LJNToys The Uncanny X-Men]]'' has magnets which, if picked up, paralyze you for a ridiculous amount of time. How long you stay frozen is anyone's guess; you ''will'' die before it wears off.
57[[/folder]]
58
59[[folder:Action Game]]
60* ''VideoGame/{{Bomberman}}'':
61** The Skull item, which, when picked up, will temporarily give the player a randomly chosen negative effect, such as inability to drop bombs, the inability to NOT drop bombs, slow motion, invisibility (worse than you might think), and a few others. There is a small silver lining, however; you can share or transfer (depending on the game) the effects of the Skull item with another player by touching him or her.
62** The Fire Down, Bomb Down and Speed Down items do exactly what their names imply, namely lowering a player's explosion range, bomb stock and speed, respectively. The last of those three is most commonly depicted as a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geta_(footwear) geta]].
63** The Salt Bomb from ''VideoGame/BombermanHero'' was mostly useless, but at least were the only bombs that could defeat slug enemies. The item's reappearance in ''VideoGame/PowerBomberman'' however, falls somewhere between this and JokeItem, as it has no use besides lowering that player's explosion range to a single tile.
64* ''VideoGame/Bomberman64'' and ''VideoGame/Bomberman64TheSecondAttack!'' have "Bomb-Down," "Sandal," and "Fire-Down" items, which lower the amount of bombs you can place, your speed, and the blast radius of your bombs respectively. These also occur throughout the multiplayer modes of most ''Bomberman'' games. ''Bomberman 64'' also features an "Evil" item, which activates a stage-wide effect potentially affecting all players. Some effects include a tornado, maxing out everyone's bomb count and explosion size, shuffling the positions of all players, and an "evil disco light" that [[InterfaceScrew saturates the screen with bright colours]], making it hard to see the action. They become useful in one specific section of ''The Second Attack!'' which requires the player to cross the reactor core of a spaceship. Reducing the Blast Radius to zero is the only way to safely cross the otherwise lethal reactor fluid. At zero radius, ice bombs won't blowback on the player if they're careful.
65* The ZX Spectrum/Commodore 64 game ''Bounder'' has powerup tiles. Unless you have prior knowledge, a given powerup tile can't be told apart from a trap tile. Worse, the game is an auto scroller, where these powerup tiles appear in the path of where you need to land on each bounce.
66* If you pick up one of these in ''VideoGame/FerazelsWand'', it's your own fault, given that they're black with a skull. They're an instant kill, and are typically buried in soft ground (visibly) as an obstacle to digging.
67* In the ancient Atari 2600 game ''Fast Food'', among the delicacies flying at increasingly high speeds towards your disembodied mouth avatar are green pickles and purple pickles. Green pickles are the most valuable food to devour. Purple pickles make you lose a life.
68* In ''VideoGame/FeedingFrenzy'', some of the smallest fish are radioactive and [[SicklyGreenGlow glow yellowish green]]. In the first game, eating one causes the player's controls to stop responding for a brief period, leaving his fish immobile and an easy target for a larger fish. In ''Feeding Frenzy 2'', it's even more disconcerting, since eating one causes the player's controls to operate in reverse.
69* In ''VideoGame/LowGMan'', enemies occasionally drop red potions when killed, which takes away half a bar of health if you collect one by accident. A boss in the later part of the game tosses an endless supply of red potions as its main method of attack, which are much more dangerous than conventional bullets since they don't inflict MercyInvincibility, and trying to attack said boss from within its lair is ill-advised at best, and suicidal at worst.
70* In ''VideoGame/PowerPete'', the [[BigFancyCastle Fairy Tale Trail]] levels have apples in both the normal and poison variety. It is hard to tell them apart, but a good way to do so is if Power Pete is equipped with the [[InvincibilityPowerUp shield]]. If he doesn't take the apple when he runs over it, the apple is poisoned.
71* ''VideoGame/TheTowerOfDruaga'' has the Potion of Energy Drain and the Potion of Death, the latter of which makes the timer run out faster. Also, not picking up the Balance on any of the five floors that have one will turn the item on the next floor into an "Evil" item.
72* ''VideoGame/ZombiesAteMyNeighbors'' has the Mystery Potion give random effects. Most of its effects are beneficial (mimicking those of Speed Shoes, Red and Blue Potions, or First-Aid Kits), but they can also damage you when you drink them. The worst effect, however, is Mr. Hyde, which turns the player briefly into an uncontrollable monster who kills any victims he touches.
73[[/folder]]
74
75[[folder:Adventure Game]]
76* ''VideoGame/{{Uninvited}}'' has the infamous Ruby. In the NES version, it's found in a drawer in the master bedroom, and an unsuspecting player may nab it, thinking it's one of many items that are necessary to finish the game. In reality, it's the exact opposite: the Ruby's only purpose is to kill you if you have it in your inventory for too long, and [[GuideDangIt the resulting message does not at all indicate such, just saying that you suddenly slumped over dead for no discernible reason]]. It's even worse in the original Platform/{{Macintosh}} version, where the Ruby is found in the mailbox at the very beginning of the game and is completely mandatory to pick up, making the entire game one giant TimedMission.
77* In ''VideoGame/{{Gobliiins}}'', many items Dwayne can pick up will harm him and make him lose some of the energy bar. Sometimes, he will ''deliberately strike himself with the object''.
78* In ''Ravenskull'', you can't tell the effects of a scroll or potion without trying it out. Some that you can get are a Lightning Strike Scroll that kills you, a Thief Potion that, as its name suggests, empties your inventory of any items you currently hold (including the potion itself!) and an Energy Drain scroll that reduces your health every square you move instead of every ten. For HundredPerCentCompletion, you have to use all of these.
79* ''VideoGame/SpaceQuestIVRogerWilcoAndTheTimeRippers'' comes from a long series where nearly every item you found has a plot-important use. Yet in this game, early on, you can find a piece of Unstable Ordinance. If you keep it in your inventory while moving to the next zone, you explode and die. Your only option is to put it back where you got it from... for which you receive praise and points for doing something smart. Likely the only reason it even exists at all is to teach the player to save often because this game ''can'' be rendered UnwinnableByMistake if you do the wrong thing or miss something important.
80* In the Super Nintendo version of ''VideoGame/DragonsLair'', you can pick up a Shuriken. Basically, when you throw it, it arcs upward and comes back around to hit anyone it didn't already... Including you. That's right: A weapon that can kill you when you use it. Considering you could easily be on a moving platform with enemies flying around you, and you can only strike downwards, it's the worst weapon you could have in a game like this.
81* ''VideoGame/IndianaJonesAndHisDesktopAdventures'': Sometimes, you'll be given tequila at the bar. Drink it, and you lose health.
82* In ''[[WesternAnimation/TopCat Top Cat in Beverly Hills Cats]]'', fresh fruit gives you health and rotten fruit takes it away.
83[[/folder]]
84
85[[folder:Beat 'em Up]]
86* The question-mark items in ''VideoGame/ComixZone'' will sometimes ''explode'' when picked up.
87* ''VideoGame/TheCrystalOfKings'' has a pickup that [[BewitchedAmphibians turns you into a frog]]. You can't inflict any damage on enemies while even low-level Halflings can OneHitKill you, until the effect wears off a few seconds later.
88* ''VideoGame/LikeADragon'':
89** When fighting [[{{Superboss}} Jo Amon]] in ''VideoGame/Yakuza0'', he may sometimes put "Staniman Spork" items in your inventory, which look identical to, share a description with and have a similar name to the "Staminan Spark" healing item. However, Staniman Spork will drain your health instead.
90** Several games have the [=AppStim=] RX and [=AppStim=] Half items, which also drain some of your health - interestingly, these are presented as a ''beneficial'' item, being bought at the medicine shops and described as "stimulates your digestive tract". Presumably, they're meant to make it more convenient and faster to eat all the foods in restaurants for HundredPercentCompletion, as you recover health when you eat - and if your health is full, your character won't eat at restaurants.
91* ''VideoGame/TigerRoad'' has you regain health from gourds. Some gourds cost you health instead of restoring it; these can be identified by one feature -- they're upside-down.
92[[/folder]]
93
94[[folder:Driving Game]]
95* ''VideoGame/MarioKart'':
96** Fake Item Boxes in ''VideoGame/MarioKart64'' through ''Mario Kart Wii'' do about the same thing as Poison Mushrooms, whereas the normal item boxes are rainbow-colored or bluish and have a "?" while a fake one will be red and have a "¿". Both blocks look exactly the same from a distance (the fake one changing when you get closer), but most players can avoid them by memorizing where real items boxes should appear. The boxes can also be detected, at least in the DS version, by checking the game map. The fake ones appear different than the regular ones.
97** The TropeNamer itself appears in the original ''VideoGame/SuperMarioKart''. It can be placed on the track by a CPU-controlled Princess Peach or Toad and shrinks any driver who touches it.
98** ''VideoGame/MarioKartWii'' and the ''Arcade GP'' series play with this via the Thunder Cloud. When you get it, it automatically gets used. While it's active, your speed increases, and you can drive offroad with no penalty to speed. However, it eventually strikes you with lightning, shrinking you like a regular lightning bolt... unless you [[HotPotato ram your kart into someone else's, forcing them to deal with it]].
99* ''VideoGame/CrashTeamRacing'' has green and red potions which serve the same purpose as the fake item boxes in Mario Kart, allowing players to create their ''own'' poison mushrooms by planting the potions behind or inside item crates which will respawn and completely hide the trap within. This can be done with [=TNT=] and Nitro crates too, but it requires near perfect angle and timing otherwise the trap is somewhat visible.
100* ''VideoGame/{{Carmageddon}}'':
101** Pinball Mode causes you to bounce off objects at increased speed, causing thousands of damage in the first game and probably wrecking you instantly in the sequel. The best thing you can do is sit motionlessly and hoping nobody hits you. There is also Bouncy Bouncy (your car jumps every few seconds), Jelly Suspension (your car wobbles and tips over), Jupiter Gravity (good luck getting uphill), and the second game has a ball and chain that attaches to your car and Ethereal Pedestrians (can't run over them, so you can't get extra time on your clock for 30 seconds - oops). There's also The Drugs, Miniature Pedestrians, Turbo Opponents, basic exploding powerups, Hot Rod (speed boost combined with 'wheelie' suspension, great for blasting into a wall at 600 kph), Greased Tires and the various powerups that crumple up your car or make it break in two.
102** The second game lets you buy any car you wrecked in a race. This is a good thing unless you end up buying a bad car, wasting all of your money and being worse off. Hint: almost everything you can buy in the early game is worse than your starting car. This becomes a problem near the end, where you ''need'' something very heavy to kill your opponents (who at that point are driving enormous logging trucks and buses with rocket engines) but almost all of the heavy vehicles are either insanely slow, have terrible handling, get stuck under or between scenery all the time or all of the above. Then there are the racing missions which have the opposite problem: you need to figure out which cars have high speed and good handling.
103* ''VideoGame/SkunnyKart'': Some of the possible pickup items can slow the racer or cause them to lose time.
104[[/folder]]
105
106[[folder:Fighting Game]]
107* ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros'':
108** Super Mushrooms make your character grow, while Poison Mushrooms make you shrink. The latter can be identified from the former by a slightly darker color and a slightly meaner expression, with the outer corners of the Poison Mushroom's eyes turned [[TsurimeEyes upward]] rather than [[TaremeEyes downward]]. However, this difference may not be obvious when the camera is zoomed out enough.
109** The Hammer present in all games and the Golden Hammer in ''Brawl'' and ''[=SSB4=]'' both have a chance of being defective and completely harmless, which is a bit problematic when you can't voluntarily get rid of them. It's especially bad in the case of the former, as the head of the hammer falls off, after which it can be used as an extremely powerful throwing weapon, with the most likely target being the defenseless wielder of the broken hammer (now a useless stick). The Golden Hammer doesn't have such complications, but you can probably buy one in real life: The Golden ''Squeaky'' Hammer.
110** The Lightning Bolt item in ''Brawl'' shrinks opponents to make them easier to knock out. Then it has the ability to shrink you and not the others. Or it may make them all grow giant instead, leaving you in the midst of massive enemies.
111** The Stopwatch in ''Brawl'' lets your opponents move slowly so you can hit them easier. But there's a chance that all players can be slowed...or just you be slowed.
112** The Fake Smash Ball in ''Ultimate'' looks and moves like a regular Smash Ball, but breaking it open will not bestow you with your [[LimitBreak Final Smash]]. Instead, it explodes and sends you and anyone unlucky enough to be close by flying. Like the Poison Mushroom, it can be identified by its distinct markings. [[note]]The Fake Smash Ball's vertical line is thinner than its horizontal line, as opposed to the real Smash Ball's thick vertical line and thin horizontal line.[[/note]]
113* ''VideoGame/DissidiaFinalFantasy'' has Summon Stones you can equip on your fighters which have various effects when activated. However, a couple of the more nostalgic characters have questionable effects.
114** The Chocobo runs across the screen, randomly jumbling each digit in both your own and your enemy's [[BreakMeter brave meter]], which often results in both players getting either a massive boost or a royal screw-over.
115** The Moogle summon will randomly select an ability from any other summon in the game, which, coupled with poor timing, can result in the player getting hosed by a usually-beneficial effect (like Alexander's bravery-freeze when your brave is at or near 0).
116** When [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyV Gilgamesh]] is called, he will either use Excalibur to triple your bravery, or Excalipoor to [[HPTo1 reduce your brave to 1]]. "I feel so betrayed..."
117[[/folder]]
118
119[[folder:First-Person Shooter]]
120* ''VideoGame/DeusEx'' lets you smoke and drink booze. Smoking whittles away at your health, while the booze blurs your screen and sways your view for a time (though it can also heal you). While nothing forces the player to try either booze or cigarettes, the assumption that these droppable items must have some actual ''use'' may draw naive souls in. The Cigarettes can actually ''kill'' JC if he chain-smokes a truely heroic quantity of them; on the order of chain-smoking ten whole packs at once (because each time you smoke, you consume an entire pack, and each pack deals you 10 health damage to the torso). The FantasticDrug Zyme also behaves like alcohol, but much stronger and without the healing effect. Booze is carried over into the prequel, ''VideoGame/DeusExHumanRevolution''.
121* ''VideoGame/SystemShock2'' features various alcoholic beverages and cigarettes aboard the ships. The booze mildly heals you at the cost of some of your [[ManaMeter psychic power points,]] and cigarettes simply take a point off of your HP.
122* In ''VideoGame/{{BioShock|1}}'', you can eat and drink all sorts of food items lying around. Drinking alcohol restores HP at the cost of EVE, and if you drink too much, you get drunk and the screen blurs for a little while. Smoking does the inverse, taking off some health to restore EVE. Admittedly not the same type of poison mushroom as elsewhere, but given that you may need some EVE, players may intentionally harm themselves on one or the other to get a quick boost. The Gene Tonic "Booze Hound" does subvert this trope for alcohol, as it increases EVE instead of decreasing it when drinking, but it does not remove the drunk effect.
123* ''VideoGame/BioShockInfinite'' has rotten fruit, which uses the same icon as its respective healing item and damages you if you eat it. Best check for mold before you eat things out of a trashcan.
124* Literal poison mushroom shows up in the old {{FPS}} shooter, ''VideoGame/RaisingDead'', dropped by the flying skull enemies, where picking each of them will automatically inflict health damage on the player. What's even worse is that flying skulls have a tendency to ZergRush the player in ''droves'' -- so after killing an entire horde of flying skulls, the player is now stuck in a minefield crammed with deadly shrooms.
125* ''VideoGame/RiseOfTheTriad'':
126** The game has the Shrooms Mode powerdown and the annoying (and depending on where it's located, potentially deadly) Elasto Mode powerup. Shrooms Mode makes shooting straight virtually impossible (and will probably make you feel a bit sick). Elasto Mode makes you bounce off solid objects and drastically reduces your friction with the ground. Given all the hazards in the game, you don't want to wind up picking up an Elasto Mode powerup in a large number of the areas in the game.
127** One of the secret levels only reachable via warp cheats includes large rooms full of the Shrooms powerdown, floors filled with bounce pads and little else. It is aptly named the ''Vomitorium''.
128* ''VideoGame/PathwaysIntoDarkness'' has the poisonous Brown Potion that causes you to lose health until you consume a rare blue potion, an Alien Artifact that you need to open the exit also drains your health unless you put it in the Lead Box, and a red cape that essentially gives you a reverse bullet time effect. [[GuideDangIt The kicker?]] [[ForbiddenChekhovsGun Using all of these items is required to complete the game.]]
129* You can actually invoke this in ''VideoGame/PerfectDark'' with the Dragon's SecondaryFire mode, which lets you throw down the weapon onto the floor like it was dropped by a dead player. At the same time, though, a proximity mine built into the weapon is activated, so if an enemy sees it and goes over to pick it up...
130* ''VideoGame/SeriousSam'' games, similar to ''Quake'', commonly have health and armor in concentrations of several 1HP/AP pickups. However, lone health tablets or armor shards, be it out in the open or hidden in a corner or under stairs, almost always spell quick doom via spawning enemies, commonly in the form of much-dreaded [[DemonicSpiders Kleer skeletons]] ambushing you from behind the next corner or just ''from behind''. As enemies in the Serious Sam games don't reward anything but corpses and score, players not going for a high score will quickly learn to leave these pickups alone.
131* ''[[VideoGame/ShadowOfTheWoolBall Rise of the Wool Ball]]'': In addition to the ordinary pink-hatted mushrooms which [[SpringJump allow you to jump up to higher places]], there are completely pink mushrooms found indoors, which launch you upwards all right... right into the ceiling, taking away a big chunk of your health.
132* ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyZombies'' has an example of this in the final ''[[VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOps Black Ops]]'' Zombies map, Moon. The QED Wonder Weapon (a grenade with a host of random effects) has the potential to spawn corruped versions of the Power Ups common to the mode, but with a ''red'' aura instead of a green one. These Cursed Power Ups grant the opposite of what they're supposed to[[note]]a Cursed Max Ammo takes all your bullets, a Cursed Bonus Points take all your points, a Cursed Fire Sale moves the Mystery Box far away and increases its cost to use, and Cursed Random Perk Bottles remove a perk from the player. It should be noted that it's actually difficult to simply avoid them, as they last for 30 seconds ''and the zombies can pick them up as well''[[/note]]. The Demonic Announcer even specifically taunts you should pick one up. Moon is the ''only'' map these Cursed Power Ups appear in; they don't even appear in the Zombie Chronicles remaster of the same map!
133* The Rocketdude game mode in ''VideoGame/Left4Dead2'' have actual mushrooms with various effects such as recovering health or giving a random grenade item. The poison mushrooms are all black and its eerie red outline doesn't appear until you're right on top of it. Touching the poison mushrooms inflicts heavy damage, makes you deaf for a few seconds, and can ignite explosive items nearby like gas cans and propane tanks. Poison mushrooms are generally put in places where you have to risk jumping over them since they may not be another way around them.
134[[/folder]]
135
136[[folder:Hack and Slash]]
137* ''VideoGame/{{Gauntlet}}'':
138** The games have poison and Death hiding in treasure chests identical to food and potion chests. It's impossible to tell which is which without opening them. ''Gauntlet II'' has poisoned cider and poisoned blue potions. Shooting either of them causes enemies to slow down. There's also "IT", which chases down a player and bonds to him or her, causing enemies to follow them. The IT effect persists throughout the level and can only be mitigated by tagging another player ("Tag, you're IT!"), which simply passes the effect to that player.
139** The upgraded ''Gauntlet: Legends'' and its sequel, ''Gauntlet: Dark Legacy'', avert this somewhat with the X-Ray Glasses power-up, which allow you to see what the chest contains; even without the Glasses, observant players will quickly notice that if a chest is shaking and jumping, it very likely contains Death. In any case, each chest location holds the same type of power-up every time, allowing the wise player to avoid opening harmful or useless chests on replay.
140** ''Gauntlet: Dark Legacy'' has green apples (poison fruit that cost a player 50 health) and green drumsticks (poison meat costing 100 health). You can tell if food is poisoned if it's green, has two bones sticking out of it in an "X" and has a bite out of it. Good food (red apples and brown drumsticks) can become poisoned if it gets hit with what comes out of a green barrel (poison gas).
141[[/folder]]
142
143[[folder:Maze Game]]
144* ''VideoGame/LadyBug'' has skulls scattered around the maze with the dots and other pickups. Running into a skull causes the player to lose a life, but skulls are just as deadly to the enemies. There are more skulls on later levels than earlier ones.
145* In ''Oil's Well'', landmines float across the screen just like all the powerups, but, unlike everything else in the game, are lethal to your drill bit.
146[[/folder]]
147
148[[folder:Miscellaneous Games]]
149* In ''VideoGame/GirlsGarden'', picking up dead black flowers will kill half of the blossoms in Papri's bouquet. Also, the bee can drop a deadly skull.
150* In ''VideoGame/ProgressBar95'', any segment that is not blue or grey. Orange ones fill the bar but don't give points at the end of the level that blue ones would, pinks reduce progress, and reds make you lose a life.
151* ''VideoGame/RadicalFishing'': Jellyfish taste horrible and catching Giant Jellyfish is illegal, so you end up losing money if you get them.
152[[/folder]]
153
154[[folder:MMORPG]]
155* ''VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing'':
156** The game has a [[http://kol.coldfront.net/thekolwiki/index.php/Dungeons_of_Doom_potion series of potions]] that are a clear reference to these sorts of items. Their effects are mapped to specific potions differently for each person and each ascension, so they're risky until you've got them mapped out - especially if you hit the one that increases drunkenness while you're one point away from your limit (which makes you unable to continue adventuring) and have more than the rollover cap worth of adventures left.
157** "Goofballs". It enhances your skills for a 10 turns, after which it penalizes your character by weakening him for the next 30 turns ("goofball withdrawal"). How do you cut the penalty short? Take more goofballs. And the price of the goofballs? First one's free. Subsequent ones ramp up in price by 1000 meat each time. And subsequent consumption also causes lost of stat to boot. The moral? DrugsAreBad.
158** Food and booze of particularly low quality may reduce your stats upon consumption. Some may also harm you, and a few will actually poison you.
159* Drugs in ''VideoGame/{{Achaea}}'' include cactus weed, gleam, alcohol and tobacco. Effects range from slurred speech and nausea to crippling withdrawal symptoms, distracting or disturbing hallucinations, and ''death from overdose''.
160* ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'':
161** The game has the [[http://www.wowhead.com/?quest=5253 Crystal of Zin-Malor]] that some players have actually found a use for (despite the fact it constantly damages you if you have it equipped) as opposed to turning it in for a quest.
162** The alcoholic items actually get you drunk. Your screen becomes blurry, you sway to one side, and you see enemies as lower level than they actually are, [[FridgeBrilliance simulating the lack of fear that drunk people often have in dangerous situations.]]
163* The laboratory maps in ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'' and ''VideoGame/CityOfVillains'' sometimes feature lab equipment, that when destroyed, will bestow a random temporary status change on you. It can be a good one (increased regeneration, recovery, recharge rate, damage) or a bad one (decreased regeneration, recovery, recharge rate, damage, or just damages you outright). As the duration is several minutes and the bad ones can be debilitating, many players don't take the risk and just leave them alone.
164* ''VideoGame/{{Runescape}}'':
165** In the early days, there was the classic scam of taking a Karambwan octopus (the ONLY fish in the game you can cook half-way), and having you cook it. You might think that it is completely cooked, but it ''isn't'' (it's cooked ''half-way'', remember?). Eating it would damage you for 30-50 HitPoints, maximum 99, ''and'' poison you to the tune of ''13 HitPoints every ten seconds''. Needless to say, you would be screwed if you ate it, especially if you were in the middle of nowhere and didn't have an antipoison. Fortunately, the damage was dramatically reduced after an update, and it no longer poisons you, ''and'' you get a warning when you try to eat it.
166** The Invention skill revolves around augmenting weaponry and armour and giving it special, randomly determined perks. While many are beneficial, some of them are harmful, with effects such as dramatically lowered damage against certain creatures or the inability to use protection prayers, among others.
167* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI'' has several variations of poison potions and similar items. Using them afflicts you with a status debuff. More useful than you might think actually, because having a status effect already overrides you acquiring another of the same type, even if it is stronger. Even better, most types of Sleep are completely useless when you are Poisoned, because the DOT you have will immediately wake you up and help save you from a potentially more lethal attack.
168* The Assassin Cross class in ''VideoGame/RagnarokOnline'' can, with a certain skill, mix bottles of Deadly Poison, drinking which will poison but also buff them, but a character of any other class will die on the spot when drinking this.
169* ''VideoGame/DragonNest'' has rotten versions of food items that have a differently colored aura and a grey tint when compared to their originals. The penalty for each is ''at least'' a hefty 30% of a character's ''full'' HP or MP (sometimes ''both'') or a nasty debuff and it's hard to spot them in the inevitable carpet of loot unless the player turns item labels on.
170* Angel's Tears in ''[[VideoGame/NexusWar Nexus Clash]]'' are fantastically useful for curing characters who have been poisoned or cursed by demonic magic...unless the character in question ''is'' a demon, in which case it horrifically burns them from the inside out instead.
171[[/folder]]
172
173[[folder:Party Game]]
174* ''VideoGame/MarioParty'':
175** The series has Ztars (also known as Shadow Stars in ''VideoGame/MarioParty6'' and Dark Stars in ''VideoGame/MarioParty7'') in some of the earlier games, which are either worthless (in ''VideoGame/MarioParty1'' and ''[[VideoGame/MarioParty2 2]]'') or reduce your number of stars (in ''[[VideoGame/MarioParty5 5]]'', ''6'', ''7'', and ''DS''). Bowser loves giving these out. Extra points if you actually paid for them.
176** Actual Poison Mushrooms make appearances in the series. For example, in [[VideoGame/MarioParty1 the first game]], a player landing on a Mushroom Space loses a turn if they choose a Poisonous Mushroom. In other games, Poison Mushrooms (known as Cursed Mushrooms in ''5'', ''6'', and ''7'') reduce the maximum number of steps provided by the dice on the next roll from 10 to 3 or 5.
177** ''VideoGame/MarioParty2'' has the Bowser Bomb, which is obtained only in item minigames and the northeast item shop in Bowser Land. It is used automatically after every player makes their move; upon activation, Baby Bowser transforms into Bowser, rolls ''three'' dice blocks, and traverses the board, stealing every coin from any player he runs into. Tellingly, when a player gets this item in a minigame, the announcer's ItemGet phrase is said with concern instead of excitement. Clever players might use this item to their advantage if their rivals are within Bowser's range while being a safe distance away.
178** ''VideoGame/MarioParty3'' has both the classic Poison Mushroom (which retains the ''Mario Party'' property of reducing the maximum number of steps for one turn) and the Reverse Mushroom, a green mushroom with a red U-turn symbol drawn on it. With the latter item, a character can inflict a Reverse status on another, forcing them to move backwards in their next turn.
179** ''VideoGame/MarioParty5'':
180*** The Cursed Mushroom Capsule is merely the [[VisualPun encapsulated]] version of previous games' Cursed/Poison Mushrooms, having the effect of reducing the possible number of steps after hitting the dice block (this proves benefitial when the player wishes to land onto a nearby good space).
181*** Many of the new capsules are meant to be placed as traps in the board's spaces, so it'll be a bad idea if you use them onto your own character: Hammer Bro Capsule (a Hammer Bro. appears to extract 10 coins from the affected player), Blizzard Capsule (Mr. Blizzard lands onto the player and eliminates all stored capsules), Bubble Capsule (a Lava Bubble appears to hit the player onto their butt and make them move 10 steps forward while burning all stored capsules ''and'' bypassing the Star's space should they reach it along the way), Piranha Plant Capsule (the player is eaten by a Piranha Plant and spit back with only half their coins, minus one if the previous number was odd), and Bob-omb Capsule (a Bob-omb appears to explode near the player and make them 20 coins).
182** ''VideoGame/MarioParty9'': Mini-Ztars appear at certain points on each board. The player who collects them will have Mini-Stars deducted from their score. Z-Bananas appear on DK's Jungle Ruins, and serve the same purpose.
183** ''VideoGame/SuperMarioParty'': All numbers in Bob-omb's dice block are negative, so the number gotten from it will substract from the number obtained by the dice of the player's character.
184* In ''VideoGame/SonicShuffle'', one of the Forcejewels in the game is a Carbuncle, which can be obtained in both mini-games and from drawing [[{{Whammy}} the Eggman Card]]. The Carbuncle eats the other Forcejewels in the player's inventory, and when there are no other Forcejewels left, [[{{Autocannibalism}} it resorts to eating itself]].
185[[/folder]]
186
187[[folder:Platform Game]]
188* ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'':
189** ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBrosTheLostLevels'':
190*** The game marks the debut of the TropeNamer, the Poison Mushroom, which is a subtle PaletteSwap of the iconic Super Mushroom. Picking one up is the same as touching an enemy. The SNES release of the game made the Poison Mushrooms a completely and totally unmistakable solid purple with a skull on the cap of the mushroom and gave them angry eyes. Subsequent remake on the Platform/GameBoyColor, ''Super Mario Bros. Deluxe'', retained the skull cap.
191*** ''The Lost Levels'' also has backwards {{warp zone}}s. Not only does it take back Mario or Luigi to a previous world, but it also [[PermanentlyMissableContent permanently prevents]] access to World 9 (since ''no'' warp zones are allowed for use at all if that world is to be unlocked).
192** ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros2'': Starting from World 5, some grass patches contain Bob-ombs with a short fuse. These items are completely useless and serve no other purpose than to be a booby trap, damaging the character if they don't throw them away on time.
193** ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros3'': While the original game doesn't feature Poison Mushrooms (nor any other item with adverse effects), the ''Advance'' version on the Platform/GameBoyAdvance has a downloadable e-Reader level (Vegetable Volley) where some of the grass patches contain them. However, it is easy to avoid them.
194** ''VideoGame/SuperMarioWorld'' has a level where a swarm of mushrooms in bubbles are floating across the screen. They're not poisonous, but they ''will'' replace the worthwhile fire flower or feather in your reserve, and popping the bubbles messes with your momentum and drops you into the drink below.
195** In many ''VideoGame/SuperMarioWorld'' {{ROM Hack}}s a level gimmick might be the green orbs that complete the level scattered about. However they will be placed in areas where touching them will [[KaizoTrap result in Mario falling off the screen]]. You either have to avoid them or use a item (P-switch) to block a gap to complete these levels.
196** ''VideoGame/SuperMario3DLand'': The Poison Mushroom returns in the Special Worlds, but to make up for it being an easily-identifiable purple, it will home in on Mario, making you have to actively avoid picking it up if you free it from its ? box.
197** ''VideoGame/SuperMarioMaker'': You can deliberately do this by sticking any enemy inside of an "?" block, and emerge out of the block when players hit it. They even make the sound effect of an item popping out when they do.
198** ''VideoGame/SuperMarioMaker2'': The night version of Ground levels turn 1-Up Mushrooms into Rotten Mushrooms, which are completely purple mushrooms with rotting skull-like caps. Unlike regular Poison Mushrooms, Rotten Mushrooms will chase after Mario, even going up one-block high ledges.
199* Some of the earlier ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'' games have the "Eggman Monitor" (Robotnik) item, which acts like taking an attack from an enemy if its monitor is opened.
200** Their first appearance was in the 2-Player mode in ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2''. Particularly evil given that the monitors in 2-Player mode don't display an icon representing what's in them until you open them[[note]]merely showing static or question marks[[/note]], and that the number of items collected is included in each player's score. The only ways to know you're safe from them is to memorize where and what every item is, or turn on the "Teleport Only" option (so all monitors [[FreakyFridayFlip make Sonic and Tails switch places]]). Also, in Casino Night Zone, if you get three Eggmen/Robotnik on a slot machine, you lose [[strike:all your]] 100 rings.
201** ''VideoGame/Sonic3AndKnuckles'' has the these first appear in Act 2 of the Hydrocity Zone, but they are easily missed. Later they appear in the [[SlippySlideyIceWorld Ice Cap]] zone, where they used the "obstacle" approach (and are frozen in a layer of breakable ice, building in a slight margin for safety).
202** Hacking also reveals that Eggman Monitors existed in the coding for the first ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog1''. They aren't programmed to actually do anything if you hack one in and break it, but one can assume that they would have if they were actually implemented.
203* ''VideoGame/ToeJamAndEarl'' has these in two ways. First is the food that you can pick up to recover energy. Good food includes bacon & eggs, cake, and fudge sundaes. Among this good food is bad food, like moldy cheese and fish bones (and a few which look innocuous at first, like the lettuce, which turns out to be old). These cause you to LOSE energy. The game is also scattered with gift-wrapped presents -- their contents are at first a mystery, but opening a present (or consulting a [[BunnyEarsLawyer wise-man in a carrot suit]]) will identify all presents which have the same wrapping paper. The presents are mostly good, like weapons, "vehicles", food and money. Others are not so nice -- instant death, bad food, a sleep spell, or the infamous Randomizer, which makes you start the identification process all over again.
204* ''Franchise/PrinceOfPersia'':
205** The poison potions in ''VideoGame/PrinceOfPersia1'' and ''VideoGame/PrinceOfPersia2'' look almost exactly like the regular potions (they have blue bubbles instead of red -- a detail that can be difficult to make out in the console versions if you have a small TV, and easy to miss in general) but hurt you instead of restoring or increasing health.
206** Both of the original games also have a green potion that flip the screen and reverse your controls. To reverse the effect, you have to find the other potion of the same kind.
207** The Super Nintendo version of the first game, in one of the all-new levels, has a room with two large potions: the typical [[HeartContainer life-upgrade potion]], and a potion that instantly kills you.
208* The "Fat Head" power up from ''VideoGame/DynamiteHeaddy''. It's occasionally mixed in with other powers in a power-up box, and if you accidentally pick it up, Headdy gets stuck with an over-sized head that forces him to move slowly and prevents him from jumping for several seconds. Fortunately, you seldom encounter it in a location swarming with enemies, but on the other hand, it occurs in multiple boss battles.
209* ''VideoGame/EarthwormJim 2'' has a weapon known as the BubbleGun, which is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: It shoots out ''soap bubbles''. Obviously, it's not even remotely useful in trying to defeat enemies. What raises this above a mere PowerupLetdown is that (at least in the Genesis version) there is no way to switch weapons, so you're stuck with the last weapon you pick up until it runs out of ammo. This is a minor annoyance in the first level, where you can just stop and use it up, but a death sentence in the last level, a foot race against Psy-Crow, where you need a useful weapon to clear away obstacles so you can beat him to the checkpoints, and using up the ammo wastes valuable time you don't have. Failing to do so results in him [[StalkedByTheBell closing the gate behind him]] and triggering an inescapable DeathTrap (if you're ''lucky'' - if you aren't, a glitch will prevent the DeathTrap from firing, leaving you to [[{{Unwinnable}} sit in the now-sealed room until you give up and reset the system]]). And even in the versions where you ''can'' switch weapons, you'll usually get the bubble gun at the worst possible moment.
210* ''{{VideoGame/Rastan}}'' also has poisoned potions, which are red fluid in triangular bottles, as opposed to the safe blue potions in round bottles. While it reduces your vitality by as much as 15%, a red potion also is worth 10,000 points.
211* ''VideoGame/CrystalCaves'' has deadly green poison mushrooms appear in a number of levels. Pick one up, and it's a level restart, regardless of how much health you have left. Unfortunately, they're not the only mushrooms in the game which can be picked up (red ones are an actual powerup, and blue ones are worth a lot of points). Also, since it's a simple PlatformGame, by "picking up" we mean "touching" or even "brushing against ever so slightly".
212* Late in ''VideoGame/Stinkoman20X6'', you find poison capsules. These deal 1 damage to you and look like a sickly green PaletteSwap of the power crunch capsules that restore full health.
213* In ''VideoGame/SyobonAction'', you will die if you touch anything that looks like a ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'' powerup (not only the Poison Mushroom). On the one hand, this means you should take care not to hit certain blocks (and yes, some of them are {{Invisible Block}}s) from underneath, because you'll need to jump on them when they don't have a lethal item sitting on them. On the other hand, some of the game's puzzles are solved by feeding these items to enemies.
214* ''VideoGame/LegacyOfTheWizard'' has a poison item that is quite obvious, what with having a skull on it and everything. It drains some of your life - not ''that'' big a deal unless you're badly damaged. The problem is that they're commonly dropped by enemies and can be difficult or impossible to avoid in narrow corridors, forcing you to wait for them to disappear. Graciously, you can walk past them, since the enemies have to [[DeathThrows plummet offscreen Mario-style]] before their spoils appear.
215* ''Franchise/{{Kirby}}'':
216** The "Sleep" ability, gained from inhaling a Noddy, is absolutely useless in the vast majority of games; it puts Kirby to sleep, for approximately 5-10 seconds, leaving you vulnerable to any sort of enemy attacks. ''VideoGame/KirbySuperStar'' uses the ability as part of a challenge during "The Great Cave Offensive": one room has a number of Sleep powerup spots, a wind blowing towards the entrance, and a treasure at the far end. The trick is to get to the treasure without hitting a Sleep powerup, which will cause Kirby to fall asleep and be blown back to the entrance.
217** The True Arena in ''Kirby Super Star Ultra'' always has a pedestal with the Sleep powerup and a pedestal with an actually useful ability, which combined with the 5 tomatoes that barely heal you instead of your precious Maxim Tomatoes just goes to show how NintendoHard The True Arena is.
218** ''VideoGame/KirbySqueakSquad'' attempts to give Sleep a modicum of use: once you get the Copy Scroll for the ability, it will restore a small amount of health while you're asleep. Of course, you can just stock up food items in the touch-screen based inventory instead...
219** There is also ''VideoGame/KirbyAirRide'', where hitting someone will put him to sleep too. But you still need a very good luck to hit someone when you can't turn...
220** ''Air Ride's'' City trial mode has gray power up items, which reduce the stat they are for instead of raise it. There's also an event that makes some power up items turn fake. These have a subtly changed sprite and cause a small amount of damage if you grab one.
221** In ''[[VideoGame/KirbyAndTheForgottenLand Forgotten Land]]'', the Sleep ability is actually useful, as it heals Kirby, and the Noddy is usually in a safe location for Kirby to take a nap. However, one of the side rooms in Moonlight Canyon still weaponises a negative effect of this ability in a manner reminiscent of ''The Great Cave Offensive''. It is a timed Waddle Dee segment with a bridge made of blocks that crumble when stepped on, and it is littered with Sleep Copy Essences and Noddies. Since Sleep causes Kirby to slow down drastically and eventually stop, thus falling into the abyss below, they must be avoided in order to rescue the Waddle Dee in time. This hazard is nullified if Sleep is upgraded to Deep Sleep, which doesn't slow Kirby down, and allows him to sleep at will instead of automatically. The blueprint for Deep Sleep is not found until a later level, however.
222* ''VideoGame/YoshisStory'' has the peppers, which are similar in size to the fruit your Yoshis need to eat in order to complete the game, and sometimes found in the same bubbles that fruit is often found in. Eating it damages any but the hidden Black and White Yoshis, and even the Black and White Yoshis don't count it as actual fruit (they're just immune to the damage, and it heals them a little.)
223* Eggplants from ''VideoGame/WonderBoy1'' and ''VideoGame/AdventureIsland''. Like all power-ups, they're hidden inside eggs, so you won't know you're about to open one up until after the ominous-sounding music plays. When you do, your health meter drains three times as fast, leading to a very quick death if you don't [[WizardNeedsFoodBadly eat up quickly.]] In ''WB'', the bad eggs are spotted, while in ''AI'', there is no distinction.
224* In ''VideoGame/SuperMarisaLand'''s unlockable "Alice Mode", all of the mushrooms that previously served as power-ups now serve as {{Poison Mushroom}}s. ''All of them.'' You have to complete the ''entire game'' without powering up. At least you have the dolls to throw...
225* ''VideoGame/NewSuperMarisaLand'':
226** The game has the blue mushroom, which turns Marisa into a Yukkuri. In this form, she can very easily spin out of control, and whatever form she was in before is lost. Similarly, there's the UFO Suit, which is slow and reverts back to small Marisa after a short time. While these powerups have their uses, they more often than not exist to make life difficult for the player.
227** The World 7 boss, [[spoiler: Nue Houjuu]], throws powerups at the player. The only problem is, you fight her in mid-air in UFO form, and all other forms will make Marisa plummet to her death. [[spoiler: It is entirely possible to catch a [[InvincibilityPowerUp Super Mushroom]] and fall into the boss, killing her in one hit. Good luck actually pulling it off, though...]]
228* In ''VideoGame/AlexKidd in Miracle World'', some blocks contain a GrimReaper that homes in on and kills you. Ignoring the "?" he spawns in will often shift him to another one later in the level. The one he shifts to if ignored normally contains a powerup or even an extra life, so it's in your best interests to "risk" him at the first opportunity and try to escape or glitch him out of existence.
229* ''VideoGame/LowGMan'' has red potion bottles that drain one block of health instead of restoring one block as the blue potions do. In fact, the main attack of one of the stage bosses is to throw these bottles at you.
230* ''VideoGame/TheQuestOfKi'', like ''VideoGame/TheTowerOfDruaga'', has one type of item found in chests that will make the level timer run out faster.
231* In ''VideoGame/{{Athena}}'', among the items that can randomly drop are flasks of poison which running into causes Athena's hit points to start draining. This can be countered either before or after by picking up an antidote flask. The harp item, that will let Athena keep her items after dying, has an evil version that instantly takes all of them away. In the NES version, the hourglass item that affects the timer also has a broken version that will reduce rather than increase it.
232* ''VideoGame/KickMaster'' has a "poison" item that decreases your LifeMeter. It's utterly obvious and avoidable unless you're not looking closely at what enemies drop.
233* In ''Ninja Jajamaru-kun'', breaking open the brick sections of platforms sometimes reveals useful powerups and sometimes bombs that kill you if you jump into them but go away after a few seconds. The sequel ''Jajamaru no Daibouken'' also has bombs in blocks, though these don't disappear on their own.
234* ''Franchise/MegaMan'':
235** ''VideoGame/MegaMan9'' and ''[[VideoGame/MegaMan10 10]]'' have the Book of Hairstyles item that only Mega Man can purchase from the shop. When used, Mega Man loses his helmet, and all damage he takes is doubled.
236** ''VideoGame/Rockman4MinusInfinity'': The Skull Amulet (obtained by finishing off Skull Man with the Recycle Inhaler) originally cursed Hell Wheel (Skull Man's weapon), making it incredibly slow and turning it into an outright JokeWeapon. This was changed in the v0.01 release.
237** ''VideoGame/MegaManZXAdvent'': The enemy Mechaniloid referred to as "Vitaful" resembles a Max/Full Life Restore pickup, but glows purple instead of orange-red-yellow. As soon as you approach it, Vitaful will morph into its "adult" configuration and divebomb you. It is found in three areas: The Tower of Verdure, the Scrapyard, and the Oil Field (which, on a side note, could very well be the same geographical location of Launch Octopus's stage from the classic Mega Man X game, if the sidequest "Set the Transmitter" is to be taken as actual canon--besides, the Oil Field is described in-game as an "ancient dried sea").
238* ''VideoGame/WerewolfTheLastWarrior'' has a blue "W" which will cause you to be BroughtDownToNormal if you're a werewolf (the red "W" powerup effects the inverse transformation) or cause you damage if you're a human.
239* In ''Fantasy World VideoGame/{{Dizzy}}'', it is possible to pick up a "large round hole". [[RedHerring It's not useful]]; as soon as you pick it up and store it in your bag, everything falls out through it. (Including the hole.)
240* In ''Whizz'', enemies drop either red mushrooms that replenish the player's health or blue mushrooms that deplete it. What is insidious about this is that the red mushrooms will turn into blue ones if left alone. There is also a poison item that drains your health rapidly until you get to a first aid box; the final level actually forces poison on you.
241* In ''VideoGame/TheKillingGameShow'', eliminating a group of enemies can spawn either a [[HeartsAreHealth heart that restores some energy]] or a skull that takes some away. These hearts and skulls float away in the same manner.
242* ''Ironsword: VideoGame/WizardsAndWarriors II'' contains roast chickens that restore your health and swollen, bulging chickens that reduce it.
243* ''VideoGame/GhostsNGoblins'' is in love with this (not counting the flame that's just a PowerupLetdown):
244** The axe that appears as a guaranteed drop in Stage Five, and while marginally useful throughout (though not better than the knife), the Stage Five boss is ''immune to it'', meaning if you pick it up not only are you guaranteed to die but you also need to spend a lot of time grinding ghosts for a replacement knife.
245** ''Every'' weapon drop once you've obtained the shield (cross) weapon, as if you beat the level without it you'll be forced to restart the level rather than progress.
246* ''VideoGame/ClarencesBigChance'': The hamburger will give Clarence "breath like an ogre" and make him look fat, which will cost you a lot of points at the date section.
247* ''VideoGame/DukeNukem'':
248** Grey boxes in ''VideoGame/DukeNukemI'' might contain critical items like access cards and super jump boots, they might contain nothing at all -- or they can contain bombs that wait one second and then send out a carpet of flame to injure Duke.
249** Red crates in ''VideoGame/DukeNukemII'' often contain health items. Sometimes they can contain a bomb instead, that will explode if shot, or after a short time if not, and send out a shockwave of fire. Unlike the first game, where bombs can only injure Duke, these ones will also destroy other crates, enemies, and the soda can health pickups. There's a way to find out if a crate contains a bomb: Duke will walk behind the crate as opposed to in front of a safe one. To a clueless player, they're a curse; to a savvy one, they're a deterrent to shooting wildly.
250* ''VideoGame/DefaultDan'': Anything that looks like it would help you in a typical platform game you need to stay away from in this one. Coins, white platforms, cupcakes, presents, hearts, touch any of them, you [[LudicrousGibs explode]].
251* A couple of badges in ''VideoGame/AHatInTime'' are either useless or outright harmful, with the Mumble Badge turning voice acting into inaudible mumbling like the ''VideoGame/BanjoKazooie'' series and the 1-Hit Hero Badge turning you into a OneHitPointWonder. It's thoroughly {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d with the Badge Salesman himself remarking how some of his badges are terrible but people inexplicably buy them anyways, and the badge icons have flies circling them in the pause menu.
252* In ''VideoGame/OriAndTheWillOfTheWisps'', a few of the [[StatusBuff Shards]] do significantly more harm than good; for example Overcharge halves the [[{{Mana}} Energy]] cost of Abilities, but causes Ori to take double damage, which you definitely don't want in Hard mode, where damage is already doubled from Normal.
253* ''VideoGame/Miner2049er'' features [[PowerUp various items]] on each level -- mostly mining tools, but also other items such as candlesticks, dollar bills and cocktail glasses -- that give you a bonus of a few hundred points and temporarily transform the radioactive mutants infesting the mines into smiley green creatures which you can kill by touching them. Level 5 has a suspiciously flashing cocktail that does both those things... but also kills you instantly.
254* The Famicom Franchise/{{Garfield}} game ''Garfield no Isshukan''[[note]]''A Week of Garfield''[[/note]] has the fishbone item, doing a heavy amount of damage to Garfield if he collects it.
255* ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' games:
256** In ''VideoGame/TazManiaSega'', the bombs are primarily intended to be picked up and thrown at enemies, but Taz can eat them, and doing so will cause them to explode inside him, taking away a hefty chunk of his health. The "No Weed" bags in the last jungle level of the Genesis version are similar, in that they are intened to be used against [[ManEatingPlant Weed-ola]], but Taz can also eat them, and in doing so, he will spit them out in disgust and lose some of his health.
257** In ''VideoGame/TazInEscapeFromMars'', eating a bomb, or anything that looks like a bomb, such as [[DynamiteCandle a cake with a dynamite stick in place of candles]] causes Taz to lose health.
258** In ''VideoGame/DesertSpeedtrap Starring [[WesternAnimation/WileECoyoteAndTheRoadRunner Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote]]'', Road Runner replenishes his health by eating from plates of birdseed. Some of these plates have explosives hidden inside the birdseed, and if Road Runner eats from them, he takes damage.
259** In ''VideoGame/CheeseCatAstrophe Starring WesternAnimation/SpeedyGonzales'', eating cheese replenishes any health Speedy may have lost. In the Mega Drive version, there is also rotten cheese. While it doesn't take away Speedy's health, it does temporarily make him run slower and jump lower.
260[[/folder]]
261
262[[folder:Puzzle Game]]
263* ''[[VideoGame/{{Arkanoid}} Arkanoid: Revenge of Doh]]'' has a reduce capsule that shrinks the paddle size in half. However, it does provide double points while it is active.
264* The fairly unimportant '96 ''VideoGame/{{Breakout}}'' clone named ''Twinblok'' has a powerup that temporarily transforms all balls on the field into tennis balls. They turn completely harmless to blocks and the sudden change in their behavior is often lethal, since you're still obligated to keep at least one in play.
265** Another ''Breakout'' clone called ''[=MacBrickout=]'' has blocks randomly drop capsules. The majority of the capsules do useful things, such as increase the size of the paddle, allow the ball to stick to the paddle, or giving the player extra balls to juggle. A few, however, have negative effects, such as shrinking the paddle; the worst is the red "X" capsule which makes the paddle useless. And getting too many "paddle expand" capsules will actually cause ''half of the paddle to break off'', so if you're close to the breaking point, even they prove to be Poison Mushrooms.
266** This is common in ''Breakout''-style games that use powerups. One variation, ''Alpha Bounce'', includes the "P" items that do something different depending on which paddle you're using.
267** In another Mac clone, ''Breakline'', there are four types of ball, and passing over "+" and "-" squares will transform a ball into the next stronger or weaker type. Hollow spheres, the weakest type, can't damage blocks at all. Their ''main'' gameplay function is that certain blocks will emit hollow spheres, which you can control in addition to your main ball, aiming to guide them into collectors to receive in-game currency. Of course, if your main ball is "-"ed and then goes into a collector....
268** ''[=BeeBop=] II'' has a block that takes away your missiles, but has to be hit anyway along with all the other blocks.
269** While summoning Eyes in ''VideoGame/BricksOfEgypt2'' usually is very useful, the bonus summoning a random Eye can sometimes bring the black Poison Eye, whose tears will shrink the paddle. If the paddle is at it smallest, one life is lost.
270* The objective of Platform/BBCMicro PuzzleGame ''Xor'' is to collect all the smiling masks. However, there are also frowning masks, which ''[[BlackoutBasement turn off the lights]]'', making the walls [[InvisibleBlock invisible]] until a second frowning mask is collected.
271* The BreakingOut game ''VideoGame/{{Jardinains}}'' and its sequel have some bad powerups. If you know what they look like, you can usually avoid them unless they happen to be close to the ball at a crucial moment.
272** Shrink Paddle and Fast Ball do exactly what you'd expect.
273** The Paddle Scrambler, which only appears in the second game, [[InterfaceScrew reverses the controls of the paddle]].
274** The appropriately named Very, Very Bad removes the effects of all good powerups, makes your paddle tiny and the balls super fast. Unless you have great reflexes and/or are very close to finishing the level, this might as well be a death sentence. At least it looks like a no parking sign, so you'll [[SchmuckBait probably]] be smart enough to try to avoid it.
275* Matching Broken Heart tokens in ''VideoGame/{{Huniepop}}'' deals a significant amount of damage to your Affection meter. In the early game, you can survive a couple of them, but by the late game when you need 2,000+ Affection to win, a single Broken Heart match is usually reason enough to RageQuit. Not for nothing do a lot of the Date Gifts remove them from the grid.
276* The BreakingOut game ''VideoGame/PrismLandStory'' includes two "power-ups" that shrink the player's paddle and speed up the ball.
277* In ''VideoGame/ShovelKnight: Pocket Dungeon'', Plague Knight loses health from collecting potions instead of gaining it. The only way he can heal is by dealing killing blows to enemies.
278* The ''VideoGame/{{Amidar}}''-like game ''Zoom!'' has a question mark powerup, which can either give you points, skip you to the next level, or kill you outright.
279[[/folder]]
280
281[[folder:Real-Time Strategy]]
282* ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert'' has crates that explode and cause damage when picked up.
283* ''VideoGame/{{Liero}}'' features a weapon called the Booby Trap, which creates land mines disguised as medikits. They could be distinguished from the real thing because they didn't bounce like the real powerups did.
284* ''VideoGame/Pikmin2'': Doodlebugs are an unusual living example. They look very similar to their MetalSlime relatives, but leave small clouds of poison lying around as you follow them.
285[[/folder]]
286
287[[folder:Rhythm Game]]
288* ''VideoGame/FridayNightFunkin'' [[GameMod Game Mods]] are fond of doing this, just to screw you even more. If a song sends you unusual-looking notes alongside regular ones, chances are these are bad for you. Just to set things straight, they tend to look either ObviouslyEvil or are themed after your opponent to send the feel you are being showered with SchmuckBait, [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs or both]], given this tactic is predominantly used by evil characters anyway. Interestingly, such mechanics are not new to the genre, appearing in other games like ''VideoGame/TaikoNoTatsujin'''s story modes in the form of bombs, to the point where the rhythm game community has given them the collective name of 'mines'.
289** ''VideoGame/TheTrickyMod'' spices up the song ''Hellclown'' with burning notes that deal hefty damage, and ''Expurgation'' has a fair share of red-haloed black notes for a NonStandardGameOver.
290** ''VideoGame/VsAce'' chills his songs with icy notes, freezing your controls for a while. These are initially rare, but become more frequent as the game goes on and the weather grows colder. However, as an AntiFrustrationFeature and being the NiceGuy he is, Ace will offer to disable them should this pose a problem to you.
291** ''VideoGame/VsRetrospecter'' is generous with [[TechnicolorToxin poisoned green]] blade notes after the titular antagonist goes OneWingedAngel. Predictably, these deal DamageOverTime.
292--->''"Sorry about the poison notes. Do you want me to disable them?\
293'''[[BaitAndSwitchComment TOO BAD. THIS SONG IS HARD FOR A REASON. HAHAHA.]]"'''''
294---->-- '''[=RetroSpecter=]''', after losing to him in ''Ectospasm''
295** ''Bob's Onslaught'' sends you [[DarkIsEvil creepy black]] notes causing a InterfaceScrew in the final song, fittingly for Bob's SurrealHorror theme.
296* ''VideoGame/SuperBeatSports'': One of the items in Buddy Ball is a Bomb, which immediately takes away a heart from any player who hits it.
297[[/folder]]
298
299[[folder:Roguelike]]
300* In ''VideoGame/{{Angband}}'', the items which look different from game to game are rings, amulets, staffs, wands, rods, potions, [[MagicMushroom mushrooms]] (of course) and scrolls. All of these items exist in beneficial and harmful varieties. There are also cursed weapons and armor with negative bonuses; fortunately, ''Angband'' doesn't require the player to wield an item before identifying it. If you do wield a cursed item, it will instantly feel "deathly cold" and cannot be removed easily.
301* [=PS2=] Roguelike ''VideoGame/{{Baroque}}'' is full of these. You can be injured, killed, or otherwise negatively affected by certain items in your inventory, but in a more direct example of the trope, certain Meta-Beings will drop Disks upon being [[strike:killed]] purified. Disks that are visually indistinguishable from any other type of Disk. Disks that might, say, turn your sword into a piece of meat, or explode violently when stepped on. And by the time you encounter these enemies, you've probably gotten into the habit of instinctively picking up everything as soon as it hits the floor.
302* ''VideoGame/TheBindingOfIsaac'':
303** Some pills are helpful, some are harmful, but usually the only way to discover what they do is by trying them. One of them, "I found pills (and ate them!)", simply gives Isaac a slack-jawed idiotic expression to acknowledge that taking unmarked pills you find on the floor is a total ViolationOfCommonSense.
304** ''Repentance'' adds an item called Birthright, which has unique benefits based on the character who picks it up[[note]]Isaac gains his tainted counterpart's gimmick without the drawbacks, Magdalene can carry 18 heart containers, [[OneHitPointWonder The Lost]] never finds useless items, etc.[[/note]]. With Tainted Jacob, however, picking up Birthright will cause [[TheDreaded Dark Esau]] to ''split in two'', both of who still want to kill him. Though [[TropesAreTools to be fair]], ''[[TropesAreTools it's not yours]]''.
305* ''VideoGame/DiceyDungeons'':
306** The Scrap Kettle in the [[spoiler:Parallel Universe and Bonus Rounds]] inflicts 1 Burn on you every turn it's in your hand. Upgrading it will make you roll one extra burning dice each turn instead... which isn't much unless you're willing to risk [=2HP=] to use it. Its [[spoiler:Marshmallow Rule]] counterpart, the Iced Latte, inflicts 1 Freeze every turn instead, and upgrading it will make you roll an extra 1, which still isn't much but it at least gives you an extra dice.
307** The Blood Let attack in the [[spoiler:Parallel Universe]] makes you lose [=2HP=], but then regain 1, which is a net loss of 1.
308* ''VideoGame/DungeonsOfDredmor'' has the "Potion of Replenishment" with the description that says it will replenish your health and mana. It also has the "Potion of Repunishment" with the description that says it will repunish your health and mana. The rest of the descriptions and image are identical. There's also a literal example with the Mud Wen. Most other MagicMushroom will give a buff or recover HP or MP, but the Mud Wen is just poisonous. Since you can use ItemCrafting to craft poison arrows and bombs, it's still useful.
309* ''VideoGame/NetHack'':
310** The loadstone weighs an obscene amount (more than some characters' suits of armor) but if picked up cannot be dropped unless you cast an uncurse spell on it (and it automatically re-curses itself if you pick it up again). Of course, it looks just like two moderately useful other items when unidentified, and magical identification only works on items you're carrying... (Though [[spoiler: mercifully, a player can test unknown stones by kicking them; a loadstone won't move.)]]
311** Several potions, even after being identified, can also be harmful if they are cursed, regardless of if you are aware of it or not. For example, potions of enlightenment usually give you insight and increase your wisdom, whereas cursed versions [[spoiler:just reduce your wisdom]]. Potions of gain level usually give you an extra experience level, cursed versions [[spoiler:warp you to the floor above you, that is, you gain a ''dungeon'' level.]]
312** The Sink, Fountain, and Throne all have various effects when kicked/quaffed from, quaffed from, and sat upon respectively; most are beneficial, but negative effects are irritatingly common. In the upgrade ''VideoGame/SlashEM'', there are also Gypsies, who may cause anything from a free wish to instant death when talked to.
313* In {{Roguelike}} games like ''VideoGame/NetHack'' and ''VideoGame/DungeonCrawl'', what the different magic items look like varies from one game to the next. In one playthrough of ''[=NetHack=]'' for example, a square amulet is an Amulet of [[AutoRevive Lifesaving]], while in the next a square amulet is a cursed [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Amulet of Strangulation]]. Part of mastering the game is developing tactics to discover which items are bad without killing yourself.
314* ''VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeonExplorers of Sky'' has the Lookalike items. The first one you'll likely come across (Or'''e'''n Berries) does the opposite of what it's supposed to do, but there are a few like the Slip Seed which are beneficial. However, the fact that you can throw items at enemies to forcefully apply their effect to them means even the bad items have their uses. The funniest of these is probably the Revi'''s'''er Seed, which ''does'' revive the Pokémon... only for them to realize that there's an S instead of a V, upon which they faint again from bursting into spontaneous laughter. [[AntiFrustrationFeatures Thankfully]], Reviser Seeds are only used in the absence of any Reviver Seeds, so the Pokémon would be out anyways.
315* The original ''VideoGame/{{Rogue}}'' has a Potion of Poison, a hallucinogenic potion, and the infamous [[InterfaceScrew "cloak of darkness"]] potion.
316[[/folder]]
317
318[[folder:Role-Playing Game]]
319* In the ''VideoGame/StarOcean'' series, item creation often yields items like this, especially to begin with. One particularly annoying example is the Bounced Cheque in ''VideoGame/StarOceanTheSecondStory'', which continually drains your party's money until you get rid of it, which costs money to do since you can't throw items away and its sale value is negative.
320* ''VideoGame/{{Fable}}'' also lets the player character drink, with approximately the same effect. He'll even throw up if he gets smashed enough.
321* ''VideoGame/{{Faxanadu}}'' has vials of poison that look very similar to health potions.
322* ''VideoGame/PaperMario'':
323** [[VideoGame/PaperMario64 The first]] [[VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor two games]] let you equip some badges that have a negative effect on you, allowing you to make the game more challenging if you wish. Unlike the normal badges, they don't require any badge points.
324** They also have some recipe items that sometimes have adverse effects (such as negative status or damage).
325** The [[http://www.mariowiki.com/Mystery_Box_(item) Mystery (Box)]] in the first 2 games can have good effects, like healing Mario or damaging the enemies, but there are a few bad effects, like an actual Poison Mushroom or a rock that hurts Mario.
326** In ''The Thousand Year Door'', Mario can get three Poison Mushroom cards, which give him an array of nasty effects. Specifically, it cuts Mario's HP, his partner's HP, his [[{{Mana}} FP]], and his Star Power in half and prompts the entire audience to flee the battle so you can't recover Star Power easily either. It's best to avoid it all costs.
327** ''VideoGame/SuperPaperMario'' has actual poison mushrooms that you can hold onto. They're mainly useful for recipes. The place of the classic poison mushrooms from ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBrosTheLostLevels'' is now taken by the zombie mushrooms, which spawn from ?-blocks like items, but quickly show their true undead face and chase Mario as enemies.
328** ''TTYD'' and ''Super'' both have [[http://www.mariowiki.com/Trial_Stew Trial Stew]]. In the former game, it [[HPTo1 takes all but 1 HP from Mario and his partner]], and takes away all of his [[{{Mana}} FP]], but fill his Star Power and triples Star Power gain for a limited time. In the latter game, it still takes away all but 1 HP from the character, but gives you XP equal to the amount of health you lost multiplied by 100.
329* ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' has some equipment that gives godly stat boosts, but the trade off is forever status ailments (depending on what it causes) until you take the item off. The ''Thorn Crown'' (found in 5 and 6) is a very strong headgear but causes a slow loss of {{Hit Point}}s, the ''Bone Mail'' (found in 5) is incredibly powerful armor but makes you undead, [[ReviveKillsZombie and thus makes magical healing hurt you instead]]. Another one is the sword Excalipoor (found in 5, used by a [[SummonMagic summon]] in 8) which makes all your attacks do only one point of damage. And then there is the ''Cursed Shield'' (found in 6) which is very bad, but transforms into an incredibly good shield if you keep it equipped for 255 battles.
330* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'' has the Tent, an item that normally restores the party's HP and MP to full when used at a save point or on the world map. Tents can also be used in battle for a single character, but there's a random chance that the character will be bit by a snake inside the tent, causing Poison. Blind, and Silence on them. However, [[ViolationOfCommonSense you can also use the Tent on enemies and hope they also get hit by the status ailments, including boss characters.]]
331* A sidequest in ''VideoGame/LightningReturnsFinalFantasyXIII'' has you testing experimental potions for an alchemist, requiring Lightning to get herself afflicted with status effects. The second Nektar you're given not only fails to cure any status, ''it inflicts Slow on you''.
332* In ''VideoGame/Mother3'', there's an item called Fresh Milk that will restore 80 HP, but after only about a minute it turns into Spoiled Milk, which barely recovers anything. However, after about ten or fifteen minutes the Spoiled Milk will turn into Yogurt, restoring the 80 HP-recovery ability. The game also gives you Eggs, which are okay healing items. Hop into a hot spring with an egg and it becomes a Fried Egg, which is even better. But if you don't, Eggs will eventually hatch into useless Chicks, which grow up into useless Chickens (though at least Chickens can be sold for more than Eggs are worth.)
333** Played for NightmareFuel on Tanetane Island in Chapter 7. [[spoiler:Upon arrival, a Save Frog alerts you that your party is in critical condition, and they are--everyone is down to 1 HP. Also, all of your items are gone. Only way to heal? Go a little bit into the island and eat some suspicious-looking mushrooms. The result? Your party is fully healed...but now [[MushroomSamba you're hallucinating like nobody's business]].]]
334* ''VideoGame/BraveFencerMusashi'' features food items that spoil over time -- including milk that will go bad and then turn into yogurt. In this case, though, the yogurt is only about half as potent as the milk.
335* In the ''VideoGame/BaldursGate'' series:
336** ''VideoGame/BaldursGate'' and ''VideoGame/BaldursGateII'':
337*** Half the unidentified items are actually cursed items. A bottle that looks like a Potion of Mirror Eyes (which protects against petrification) may instead turn you into stone. An obviously magical sword could put the character in a permanent Berserker state. Then there's the boots of double-speed, which are faster than speed boots, but cause fatigue and render the user unable to attack. However, the programmers unintentionally gave a way for savvy players to know what unidentified items are cursed (hint: even Bards with High Lore can't identify them on the spot). This is a continuation of the classical cursed items from ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' such as the Boots of Dancing, or a Dagger of Lycanthrope Sympathy (instead of killing Werewolves well, it attracts them well). Classic cursed items in ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' also include weapons and armor that give AC and to-hit-and-damage ''penalties'' instead of bonuses, such as a -1 sword or a suit of -2 armor. Naturally, once you equip them, you can't take them off or otherwise be rid of them until a mage or cleric can cast a Remove Curse spell on you.
338*** The Vampire's Revenge sword from the first game is an especially nasty example. Not only is it cursed, it also does the exact opposite of what a sword is supposed to do. It drains its wielder's health and heals its target. Just to add insult to injury, getting the sword is a case of GuideDangIt which involves fighting a Doomguard, one of the most powerful non-boss enemies in the game, going through one of the most annoying dungeons in the game which is chock-full of respawning Kobold Commandoes packing fire arrows, and forgoing a valuable reward of 1500 exp. Pouring salt into the wound, the sword's flavor text ''mocks'' you for going through all of that trouble to get a piece of cursed junk like this.
339*** The Girdle of [[GenderBender Gender Change]]. The in-game effects of this are minimal.
340*** The murky potions. They have the same names as their good counterparts but they differ in color and are always described as "murky" or simply "off". These never work as advertised and inflict the player with debuffs if drank.
341** ''VideoGame/BaldursGateIII'': The Suspicious Poison is a flask that looks like a standard [[HealingPotion Potion of Healing]], but poisons any character who drinks it. It can be automatically added to the hotbar when collected (just like regular healing potions), risking mix-ups for inattentive players.
342* ''VideoGame/TheWorldEndsWithYou'' brings us the Red Skull pin, which slows down Neku's movement in battle. What the hell is the point of this pin, and why can't we sell it? Well, one mission revolves around [[spoiler:making this pin the next big thing, and to make it so you have to wear it in battle until the Gatito brand becomes #1 on the Scramble Crossing trend charts.]] And then plot-wise, this pin has a much worse effect: [[spoiler:during Kitaniji's [[AssimilationPlot super happy fun brainwashing time]], anyone wearing it but not the black Player Pin goes into [[MadnessMantra "To right the countless wrongs of our day"]] mode.]] It also has an unintentional amusing GoodBadBug use: by equipping it and then getting swarmed by tadpole enemies that also slow you down, Neku's speed loops around to negative, causing him moonwalk backwards away from where you point the stylus.
343* ''VideoGame/{{Ys}}'':
344** In ''Book I and II'', you find an Evil Ring in Darm Tower, which drains your health (or kills you instantly in non-TGCD versions) if you equip it and don't also have the Blue Necklace equipped. It is in fact required to rescue Lair later in the tower. Somewhat of a GuideDangIt.
345** In ''Ys VI'', the Galba Armor inflicts [[UniversalPoison poison]] [[StatusEffects status]] unless you equip the Silver Armlet first.
346* ''VideoGame/Persona3'' has the Cursed Cards in the post-battle Shuffle minigame. Sure, you get to keep whatever the Card yields like any other time... but [[TheGrimReaper Death]] is summoned to your side almost immediately.
347* ''VideoGame/Persona4'' has fake chests that, upon opening, "punch" you and drain your HP or SP. Pretty scary if you're not expecting it. These chests are not present in [[UpdatedRerelease the Vita remake]].
348* The Black Potion in ''VideoGame/LightCrusader'' poisons your character, which in this game [[InterfaceScrew flip-flops the controls]] rather than draining health.
349* In ''VideoGame/BatenKaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean'', many item magnus undergo spoilage, resulting in what are usually very poor attack magnus. One particularly devious example, which you might not even see if you go straight to the end of the game as quickly as possible, is Yesterday's Wine. Deluxe Red Wine is a fairly decent healing item (though it gets outclassed later in the game), but after 24 hours (yes, of playing), it becomes Yesterday's Wine, which just gives you a Headache. And you ''need' to get each and every one of these for HundredPercentCompletion. Be careful not to use them by mistake.
350* ''VideoGame/GoldenSun'' has many items of cursed equipment; they are often quite powerful, but have the disadvantage that they cannot be removed without visiting a Sanctum, and may randomly cause the wearer to become paralyzed for the duration of a battle (although the latter effect can be mitigated by equipping a rare item).
351* The chests left by defeated enemies in ''VideoGame/SecretOfMana'' may hold helpful supplies and other goodies. Then again they may only contain a booby trap, which can really mess you up. When you get a 'fake chest' which [[OneHitKill splatters]] the Girl and the Sprite and sends the Hero screaming like a little girl all the way to the nearest inn, you may decide to stop opening those things. There is a way to avoid this - the Identify spell (on the Girl's list of Jinn spells) disarms all traps. Of course, [[GuideDangIt it's only mentioned in one obscure spot]].
352* A recurring trope in the ''VideoGame/DragonQuest'' series.
353** Some weapons and armor the later half of the game found in chests are cursed. They usually appear quite powerful, but in reality, they give you lousy stats and cannot be unequipped unless you remove the curse. You can guess the item is cursed by its appearance and the description warning you not to equip it.
354** The Cursed Belt and the Death Necklace from ''VideoGame/DragonQuestI''. Being cursed by these adversely affects your stats and prevents you from returning to Tantegel until you see a certain guy in the nearby town to remove the curse. However, as long as you don't equip them, they do fetch a good price when sold.
355** Subverted in ''VideoGame/DragonQuestVIII''. [[spoiler: The protagonist can equip cursed items due to his Dragonian linage (he is unaffected by curses except those of his own race).]]
356* The Platform/{{Mac}} RPG ''VideoGame/TaskMaker'' has the Skeleton Scroll and Depressions scroll, both of which temporarily deplete some of the player's stats. Devil's Scroll even goes so far as to decrease the overall value of each stat.
357* The [[IncredibleShrinkingMan Shrinking Potion]] in ''VideoGame/TheImmortal'' also poisons you, and you must find a cure after the shrinking effect wears off.
358* Late in ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'', you can fight a rematch with [[QuirkyMinibossSquad Ozzie, Flea, and Slash]]. You can steal some decent equipment from Flea and Slash, but Ozzie yields the Ozzie Pants, which are inexplicably worn on your head. They provide great defense, but put you in Confusion status at the start of every battle.
359* The original ''VideoGame/{{Diablo}}'' has cursed armor, adding a bit of a gamble when you identify magical items. Cursed armor reduces attributes and doesn't sell for much money.
360* Consuming Datura root in ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas: Honest Hearts'' causes poison status for 30 seconds, which means you are screwed if you don't have Datura Antivenom.
361* ''VideoGame/EccoTheDolphin'' has health-sapping clams disguised as healing clams.
362* ''VideoGame/Fallout3'':
363** The DLC ''Mothership Zeta'' has the Alien Biogel, which restores 24 HP with the side effect of "Biochemical Anomalies"([[StatusEffects random status effects]]). Elliot Tercorien can convert it into Adapted Biogel, which restores a lot more HP, but still has the side effects.
364** In ''Broken Steel'', if you infected Project Purity with the Modified FEV, consuming Aqua Pura will cause stat debuffs and ultimately death.
365* Due to the way Alchemy works in ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim'', an inattentive player can ''[[HoistByHisOwnPetard make their own]]'' Poison Mushrooms. Alchemy ingredients have four effects each, and mixing them will make a potion which includes any effects which any two of the ingredients share with each other. If the ingredients share both a positive and negative effect (say, they both cause Restore Stamina and they both cause Damage Health) the potion will do ''both'' those things, but only be named after the most prominent effect, potentially producing a "Potion of Stamina" whose [[ReadTheFinePrint Small Print]] reminds you that it also drains your health. Fortunately, such potions' value increases with each effect, even if they cancel each other out.
366* ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' has several holdable items which do nothing but harm the user. However, they can actually be surprisingly useful if combined with the right strategy and Ability. The Flame Orb and Toxic Orb inflict burn and bad poison on the user, but they can be useful in combination with the Guts or Quick Feet Abilities, which require the user to suffer from a status ailment to take effect. Black Sludge hurts the holder each turn... unless it's a Poison-type, in which case it heals a little bit of HP each turn. The Iron Ball cuts the holder's Speed in half and if the holder is airborne it'll force the holder to the ground, but Gyro Ball (which becomes stronger if the user is slower) becomes more powerful and using Fling will deal a ''130''-base damage attack. The Ring Target removes immunities, the Sticky Barb damages holders but can transfer to those without items, and the Lagging Tail forces the holder to move last. The moves Trick and Switcheroo can be useful because it can transfer these items to those who really don't want them and hurt them.
367* The Memoryhead in ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'' create a consumable called Bad Memory if you perform the "Item" Act option. It hurts for 1HP if used, although it fills up your HP if it's critical.
368* The Dusk Robe from ''VideoGame/RomancingSaga3'' seems to be the best armor in the game with a defensive power of 42 against both physical and magical attack. The catch? It actually makes the wearer weak against all kinds of physical attacks (pierce, slash, blunt and projectile) and really weak against elemental magic, particularly fire as well as raising the chances of being inflicted with ailments. Note this armor is different from [[FriendlyNeighborhoodVampire Earl Leonid]]'s Dusk Robe that, while keeping the weakness against fire abilities, also grants total protection against ailments and fatal attacks as well as a Regen-esque buff that recovers HP every turn. This armor cannot be removed from the Earl.
369* In the ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter'' series, prior to starting a quest in a zone, the player character can eat a combo of meals available in the village or city they're currently in. Most of the combos give special benefits, such as higher defense, higher attack power, and more health and/or stamina. But some combos can also leave the hunter tipsy, which in turn will activate an unfavorable effect known as "Unlucky Cat". It reduces drastically the Stamina capacity and also takes away 90% of the HP upon the start of the accepted quest. The joke will be on the game if you also have "Felyne Heroic" (food) or "Adrenaline" (armor/charm), however - those skills greatly increase your attack and defense when your health is critically low, so just fix your Stamina in that case.
370* ''VideoGame/LastScenario'' has equipment that grants various bonus at the price of being saddled with status ailments that cannot be healed, such as the Plague Mask (poison) and the Berserker Mail (berserk, natch).
371* In the web game ''VideoGame/EnchantedForest'', one of the treasure types is a "treasure eater", which has a ''negative'' value and thus takes away some of your money (equivalent to score). If you find a monster guarding one of these, you'll normally want to run away, but if you fail to run away and end up killing the monster instead, you're forced to pick up the "treasure eater".
372* ''VideoGame/OctopathTraveler'': There are several battle-only items that hurt your party members, such as giving them a negative status effect. Why you would want to use these is anyone's guess, but you can.
373* ''VideoGame/DivinityOriginalSinII'': ItemCrafting allows players to {{Invoke|dTrope}} this by dyeing [[TechnicolorToxin poison]] vials red to look like {{Health Potion}}s.
374* A lot of loot in the 1974 [=PLATO=] game ''VideoGame/{{dnd}}'' has a random chance of being trapped and damaging you:
375** Some of the magical potions you can get as loot are just poison and damage you when you drnk them. It is impossible to distinguish the hugely beneficial magical potions from the poison ones without examining them by sight or by magic, which can fail anyway.
376** Certain magical weapons and armors are booby-trapped and can kill you upon being equipped.
377** Some spellbooks in the game only come eqipped with one spell: explosive runes, which explode in your face and kill you. Of the books that don't kill you, some will remove some of your experience points.
378* In the infamous [[SoBadItsGood "kusoge"]] ''VideoGame/HoshiWoMiruHito'', the Ray Gun is this by virtue of being a weapon which turns out to be a straight stat downgrade compared to using your bare fists. This is an especially nasty example considering it's the cheapest and earliest weapon available for purchase, but the fact [[GuideDangIt stores in the game don't inform you of stats of any items for sale]] ''and'' you're unable to equip any weapons until it's replaced with something else means that buying it is dooming your save file to be an even bigger uphill battle than it already is.
379* In the ''VideoGame/TrailsSeries'', cooking sometimes results in "Peculiar dishes" which have unusual effects if used. Some of these, such as the Headsman's Noodles, offer effects such as either restoring your CP by 100 (enough to perform an [[LimitBreak S-Craft]], or putting the character in near-death status.
380* ''VideoGame/BugFables'':
381** Cooking incompatible items will give a Mistake, which poisons whoever eats it. It has the "benefit" of giving 1 TP, but even the basic and cheap Honey Drop recovers more with no downside. Cooking a Mistake produces a ''Big'' Mistake, with poisons the consumer and reduces their health to one.
382** Mystery Berries found in the endgame could either heal or damage the consumer for 8 HP. As a party member's HP is generally in the lower double digits, this is a large amount of health by the game's standards, making its use a major gamble.
383* Mushrooms found in ''VideoGame/RuneFactory5'' do not return any information on the items menu as to what their effects will be upon consumption, stating that the only way to find out is to eat them. While they do all restore HP and RP when eaten, the amount restored can vary greatly, and may also inflict a status effect such as poison, paralysis, or sleep. Additionally, unlike the mushrooms, the player is explicitly informed that certain cooking ingredients will induce a specific status effect if eaten (whether on their own or as part of a cooked meal), such as poisoning from rainbow trout and sealing from lamp squid.
384[[/folder]]
385
386[[folder:Shoot 'em Up]]
387* ''VideoGame/SoldnerX: Himmelssturmer'' has a bonus icon which instantly destroys your ship. In a game already NintendoHard and with sharply limited extra lives, [[FakeDifficulty its presence is most unwelcome.]]
388* An old N64 game called ''Chopper Attack'' features different bonuses if you blow up a certain base. These bonuses are random, sometimes giving health or ammo. Or other times it's a black box that jumps up and explodes in front of you.
389* ''VideoGame/{{Parodius}}'' features an ''!?/OH ('''MY GOD''')!'' "powerup" on the power meter, which nullifies every powerup you have. Well, "[[AllThereInTheManual It's hardly worth being called a power up]]." Normally, it's simple to avoid; just don't power up when it's highlighted. But throw in the "powerup roulette" feature that activates by random (though actually specific) power pods, and you'll see its [[ScrappyMechanic true purpose]]. Thankfully, ''[[UpdatedReRelease Jikkyo Oshaberi Parodius: Forever With Me]]'' features an option to change the ''!?'' into a slot machine roulette, which not only reduces greatly the chances of getting that dreadful powerup, but also rewards you with upgraded versions of the bell powerups in the game, and also extra lives.
390* ''Warblade'' has a number of them:
391** Skull powerups occur in red, green, and blue. They downgrade your weapon, as well as your speed, bullet count, and time stats. There are positive effects too, which lower the number of further bad powerups. The red, green, and blue varieties are all the same, except that if you collect a certain number you get a benefit:
392*** Money thieves occur from time to time. If you get three blue ones, the money thieves explode into even more money when killed than they normally do.
393*** Three green ones cause a multiplier to spawn at the beginning of meteor storms, one of the more common bonus rounds.
394*** Three red skulls will cause a gem counter to be added to the interface. You can make it permanent by playing 5000 levels total, though that may be overkill for such a minor detail.
395*** A red, then green, then blue, in order, drastically upgrades your speed, and will also upgrade your weapon to super triple if it's lower than that.
396** Far worse than skulls are weapon powerups, which can change your weapon to either single(you will lose if you pick up this one past level [=XX25=] (they cycle, every 100th level is the same but a bit faster), double, triple (the normal kind, not super triple) or quadruple (this one's kind of rare, and doesn't suck so much). There isn't much of a problem on undeveloped accounts (in this game, achievements unlock significant, permanent bonuses), but on higher levels and/or highly developed accounts, this can suck because your weapons are far better than those. Heck, some achievements allow you to START OUT with quadruple or super triple.
397** Less detrimental here, but if you pick up a money doubler if you have more than around 450000 dollars, you get red text saying "money doubler malfunction"
398* Some shmups, such as SNK's ''Alpha Mission'', have "power down" items, in this game, the item's letter was reversed.
399* The Platform/{{MSX}} version of ''VideoGame/TwinBee'' has a black bell that will kill you if you try to collect it. Most later ''[=TwinBee=]'' games use the black bell as a Speed Down.
400* ''VideoGame/KingsKnight'' has up arrows that act as health restoration items. The landscape is also littered with down arrows, which ''decrease'' your life force, and grabbing one while your health is low will kill you.
401* ''VideoGame/The3DBattlesOfWorldRunner'' has literal poison mushrooms. Items can be made to drop by bumping into columns, and mushrooms are the one bad kind of item.
402* ''VideoGame/{{Battlemania}}''[=/=]''Trouble Shooter'' on the Genesis has a Speed Down item. They usually appear in levels where slower speed is necessary for survival, though.
403* ''VideoGame/SARSearchAndRescue'' grants you a colourful variety of pickups and weapons you can use against aliens and robots. However, there's a pickup that turns whatever useful gun you're using back to your default gun.
404* In ''[[VideoGame/StarSoldier Star Parodier]]'', the powerups to avoid are the orbs with "suka" written on them.
405* ''VideoGame/{{Enigmata}}'' has a number of them, marked with an "X" (except one). These usually cause InterfaceScrew such as money loss, taking damage, jamming your weapons or making you unable to move (or move in the opposite direction). Many of these can be negated/nullified with the right skills and equipment, and you can also decrease the chances of negative powerups occuring. Then there's the "Bonus Killer", marked with a "Z". There's an item that makes your bonus weapons permanent, and a skill that locks your bonus weapon to avert PowerUpLetdown. The bonus killer on the other hand bypasses this- it turns your weapon back to the starting weapon, severely dampening your firepower. Worst of all, not even the negative effect nullifier will protect against it.
406[[/folder]]
407
408[[folder:Simulation Game]]
409* ''VideoGame/FreddyFazbearsPizzeriaSimulator'' gives us Lefty, a heavy animatronic available in the Rare Finds Auction for a paltry $5, who gives a 9 for entertainment but also a 9 for ''liability''. Many players were suckered in by this assuming it was a DifficultButAwesome high risk / high reward deal where you could make a profit greatly off such a cheap animatronic if you were good or lucky enough to manage the high liability. [[spoiler:Not only does buying him unleash him into the restaurant during the night phase, making that portion ''much more difficult'', but Lefty is salvagable on Night 5 for a potential $5000 only if you ''don't'' buy him. [[SarcasmMode Hopefully paying $4995 to make the game much harder was worth it!]]]]
410* In ''VideoGame/LostInBlue'', there are eight different kinds of mushrooms that you can find. Their effects differ from game to game; some will burn your throat and thus make your thirst meter go down faster, some will keep your energy meter from going down, some will induce stomachaches, and some will do nothing.
411[[/folder]]
412
413[[folder:Sports Game]]
414* ''VideoGame/ScoobyDooBigAir'': Three snack items that show up in ''2'''s arcade mode hinder you. These include Invisibility (makes you invisible, but you can still control your jump), Explosion (stops any vertical momentum you had and fires you downwards) and Freeze (freezes your character and removes control for a bit).
415[[/folder]]
416
417[[folder:Stealth-Based Game]]
418* ''VideoGame/MetalGear'':
419** In the original ''VideoGame/MetalGear1'':
420*** [[DrugsAreBad The cigarettes kill you]]. Unless you use them at the end of the game, which somehow increases the TimedMission timer.
421*** When you recover your inventory after being captured, there is a Transmitter slipped in that will instantly alert all enemies on every screen until you dispose of it.
422** The snake that eats your rations in ''VideoGame/MetalGear2SolidSnake''.
423** ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'': As a CallBack to the first ''Metal Gear'', when you recover your inventory after being tortured, it has a TimeBomb in it that you must discard before it explodes. Another bomb can be picked up while searching for the keycard in the drainage ditch.
424** ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater'':
425*** The game has poisonous food items. These have one beneficial use: if The Fear is damaged enough, he will retreat from attacking you to find any Rations or Food around the battlefield, to heal himself. If you collect all of them and plant a Poisonous item, he will eat it without a second thought, further hurting his Stamina. Excellent for those trying to do Stamina-defeats on the bosses.
426*** One gag plays with this in a very literal way: whenever Snake captures wildlife or plants to eat, he can call [[TheMedic Para-Medic]] of MissionControl to give him an overview of his catch, if and how it can be consumed or otherwise applied, [[RunningGag and how good it tastes]]. Her reports are reliable 99% of the time, but the sole exception is with the "Ural Luminescent" mushroom -- Para-Medic claims it's safe, but eating it will poison Snake. Call her back, and Snake will chew her out on giving him incorrect information, which she excuses as a misprint in her reference material.
427*** ''Snake Eater'' also has a tracking device get planted on you during the torture segment. Not removing it in the cure screen causes [[EliteMooks Ocelot Soldiers]] to show up while escaping along the riverside, but leads to a [[EasterEgg bonus scene]].
428* ''VideoGame/RiseOfTheKasai'' features an inversion of this trope. [[DarkActionGirl Tati]] can find literal poison mushroom pick ups and use them as weapons by planting them on the ground as mine traps for her enemies to step on, causing them to explode into a cloud of poison gas. It is played a bit straight though, as these mushrooms can prove lethal to the player and their AI partner, being the only player controlled weapon that can do so.
429[[/folder]]
430
431[[folder:Survival Horror]]
432* ''VideoGame/AloneInTheDark'':
433** [[TomeOfEldritchLore "Fragments from the Book of Abdul" and "De Vermis Mysteriis"]] in the first game. The first book drains your health, the second kills you immediately [[spoiler:unless you read them while standing on a very specific spot in a secret room]].
434** The Whiskey in the second game will mess you up big time if you drink it. Instead, you have to give it to a certain guy to obtain a Santa Suit, which is critical for entering the house without arousing suspicion (GuideDangIt).
435* Some cabinets in ''VideoGame/ThePersistence'' look just like the ones that heal you or give you new weapons, only for their retinal scanner to turn blood-red and explode in your face.
436* The Rotten Egg in ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil5'' takes off a large amount of health, but [[LethalJokeItem throwing it]] deals a OneHitKill to Majini.
437* In ''VideoGame/SilentHill4'', don't take the Shabby Doll from Walter, or it will cause extra hauntings in the apartment which block the ''item box'' and force you to waste your (limited) supply of Saint Medallions and Holy Candles to get rid of them.
438* In ''VideoGame/SpookysJumpScareMansion'', the titular ghost "rewards" you with infinite stamina in Room 750, when what she actually does is disable your ability to run ([[ExactWords technically your stamina doesn't go down]]). It's unavoidable, but thankfully goes away after a few rooms.
439* In ''VideoGame/DeadByDaylight'', certain killer perks, called "hex" perks, are tied to a physical object on the map. Cleansing these hex totems disables the associated perk. The exception is Hex: Haunted Ground, which does nothing while the totem is intact, but inflicts a DamageIncreasingDebuff on all survivors when broken.
440[[/folder]]
441
442[[folder:Third-Person Shooter]]
443* In the third-person shooter ''VideoGame/WildGuns'' there's the Mystery Power-Up (a bullet with a "?" next to it). While you can still get every gun in the game (Shot Gun, Grenade Gun and Machine Gun), woe onto you if you get the dreadful ''Pea Shooter'', which doesn't do ''any'' harm to your enemies and which you must discharge completely before you can switch back to your standard infinite-ammoed gun.
444[[/folder]]
445
446[[folder:Turn-Based Strategy]]
447* ''VideoGame/HeroesOfMightAndMagic 2'' has the Tax Lien (makes you lose gold every day), the Hideous Mask (monsters will never join you), and the Fizbin of Misfortune (ruins your morale). You can see them on the map and avoid them, but sometimes you'll find them in treasure chests with no warning. The Fizbin is at least as old as ''VideoGame/MightAndMagic 3'' (not the "Heroes of" strategy series, but the [=RPGs=]), where it doubles shop prices. It also eradicates you in the Slithercult Saloon if you have it in your inventory and try one of the slot machines. However, with it you can take a treasure hoard you can't otherwise.
448* Some of the relics your dwarf miners can find in ''VideoGame/DelveDeeper'' are "bogus" relics that are either worthless or actually take points ''away'' from your score.
449* The Devil Axe in ''Franchise/FireEmblem'' tends to be this. Great stats, equippable by anyone with an Axe rank, good for training said Axe rank, [[BreadEggsMilkSquick and also has a random chance of damaging the wielder instead of the enemy]] (especially when the user was about to score a critical).
450* In ''VideoGame/{{Miitopia}}'', there is a potential event in which the party will set up camp and have a barbecue. During the event, one of the party members will find a mushroom and suggest that they grill it, then you get to choose which of them eats it. There are two possible outcomes. The mushroom will either be a good one, restoring the Mii's HP, or it will be a bad one, depleting their HP.
451[[/folder]]
452
453[[folder:Wide Open Sandbox]]
454* In the game ''VideoGame/WayOfTheSamurai 2'', the rice ball restores 200 HP, the ''rotten'' rice ball costs you 200 (it can't kill you, but it does come very unpleasant in the middle of a heated battle). The difference? Color and description, but who would read it in a battle? Furthermore, most thugs drop this and the real variety. The safer alternative is to just go for better health item, such as the (so-described non-perishable) dried fish, yum.
455* ''VideoGame/WayOfTheSamurai4'' also has Rotten rice balls as a healing item. In this game, they do restore some vitality, but will temporarily make it deplete faster, making your character more vulnerable in battle. Another item fitting this trope is the aptly named Poison Mushroom. Normal mushrooms regenerate your Spring Harvest bar, which allows you to temporarily enter a SuperMode. Poison Mushrooms do regenerate this bar a little bit, but will temporarily halt any further regeneration of this stat. These items do have some use outside battle, as their debuffs only matter in combat, meaning you can freely use them for their regeneration.
456* ''VideoGame/{{Bully}}'' features a game-within-a-game called ''Consumo'', where the character attempts to become larger by eating the random food objects that fly across the screen. Eating rotten food objects such as spoiled rice, fish bones, or apple cores will cause the character to become sick and lose health or even lives.
457* ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoViceCity'' allows you to take drugs (large floating discs similar to health pickups and bribes, except bearing an image of a pill), which temporarily slow you down until you get into a vehicle or go to a different area. In some cases, you might take corrosive damage and most likely die.
458* ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIV'' allows you to get drunk, impairing your driving ability just like in real life.
459* The 2005 remake of ''VideoGame/{{NARC}}'' also has a few somewhat useless drugs. Ludes reveals which persons are enemies and which ones aren't, another drug just zooms in and shows you close-ups of enemies for a few seconds, and Weed just slows you down. Your character will get addictions from all of them, though they're less severe than the addictions you get form the more useful drugs like Crack and Ecstasy.
460* The racing game ''VideoGame/ReVolt'' has a "bomb" powerup; if you're unlucky enough to pick this up, your RC car turns black, its antenna becomes a fuse and it explodes after a few seconds (not destroying it, but sending it flying). Touching another car "gives" the bomb to them, though, so it's a lot like a game of "hot potato".
461* You can buy drinks at the bar in ''VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption''. Virtually every other item you have to pay for is in some way beneficial--ammunition for your guns, medicine to recover health, apples for your horse, and so on. Booze? It gives no actual in game benefit (and the game never tells you this; it is all too glad to let you keep buying). It just makes you a slightly poorer drunk with [[InterfaceScrew no ability to walk a remotely straight line]]. You can blow $20 in one sitting on whiskey and then pass out in the street. Humorous, but a great way to wake up in jail.
462* In ''VideoGame/RetroCityRampage'', drinking Milky's sour milk will cause the Player to get [[InterfaceScrew drunk]] and lose health. There is also a quack herbalist selling literal mushrooms with various harmful effects.
463[[/folder]]
464
465!!Non-video game examples:
466
467[[folder:Card Games]]
468* ''TabletopGame/YuGiOh'':
469** "Parasite Paracide," which gets inserted into the opponent's deck, face-up. When they draw it, they take damage.
470** Lava Golem and Volcanic Queen as well. Both of them have high ATK and are played on your opponents field rather than yours, but inflict 1000 damage to the controller on their standby and end phase, respectively. They do have a plus-side for your opponent, though. Despite the negative effects, they are still 3000 ATK and 2500 ATK monsters respectively. There also exists a monster called Ameba that causes 2000 points of damage if you use another card such as Creature Swap to give control of it to your opponent. There also is an equip card called Vengeful Servant that gives any monster equipped with it a similar effect. Even better is Number 30: Acid Golem of Destruction, which has 3000 attack and is extremely easy to summon at the cost of only being able to attack for a few turns, making you take 2000 damage per turn after that, and making you unable to special summon, so a good way to use it is to give control of it to the opponent with another card after the turns it can attack run out, making it play a similar role as Lava Golem, but worse. Lava Golem's main advantage over this is that you sacrifice your opponent's monsters to summon it instead of your own.
471** Ojama Trio and Nightmare Archfiends both give token monsters to you opponent that damage them when they are destroyed, and they can also block your opponent from summoning monsters by filling up all their monster zones.
472** The Duston playstyle revolves around using "House Duston" to Special Summon members of the archetype to either side of the field, ideally Special Summoning ones with negative effects to your opponent's side of the field and ones with positive effects to your side of the field. This reflects how dust can spread in real life.
473** Another strategy that uses this trope centers around the cards [[http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Nurse_Reficule_the_Fallen_One Nurse Reficule the Fallen One]] and [[http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Bad_Reaction_to_Simochi Bad Reaction to Simochi.]] When either of these two cards are on your side of the field, any effect that would otherwise heal the opponent's life points will damage them instead, so you can pack your deck with cards that heal your opponent and use them to rapidly burn your opponent's life points.
474** Some cards are explicitly designed in such a way that you have to either use them in a combo or they end up as this. [[http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Burning_Algae Burning Algae]] is a card that gives your ''opponent'' a small lifepoint boost when it dies. This is on top of its craptacular stats. The most obvious use of this card is to combine it with Bad Reaction to Simochi above or use it in conjunction with another card that requires you to have lower life points, such as Megamorph, but on its own, it's a Poison Mushroom through and through.
475* In ''TabletopGame/{{Fluxx}}'', some expansions (the first being ''Zombie Fluxx'') have "Creeper" cards. These are like the negative version of "Keeper" cards - they have to be immediately played, and they prevent the holder from winning the game even if they otherwise meet the conditions for winning (unless the goal specifically allows it or calls for a Creeper).
476* The ''[[TabletopGame/{{Pokemon}} Pokémon Trading Card Game]]'' contains a promo card called Imakuni?, which confuses your active Pokémon upon use. That's all it does. The card itself was [[NoExportForYou only available in Japan]] [[note]]It was reprinted in a much later set that was released outside of Japan.[[/note]], but it also appears in the card game's video game adaptation.
477[[/folder]]
478
479[[folder:Gamebooks]]
480* ''Literature/LoneWolf'':
481** The hero can gather quite a few items; some useful, others not so much. And then there are the items that will make Lone Wolf's adventure harder down the line (or outright ''kill'' him) if he picks them up. These items ''usually'' have very ''evil'' sounding names to warn the player that they're better off leaving them alone.
482** The Glowing Crystal from ''The Caverns of Kalte'', [[spoiler:in fact a Doomstone. If Lone Wolf keeps it on his person for too long, its radiation will kill him.]]
483** The golden bracelets worn by Ice Barbarians in the same book. [[spoiler:They are {{Hypno Trinket}}s allowing Vonotar to control them, and if Lone Wolf don one it can lead to a PsychicAssistedSuicide.]]
484** The Black Crystal Cube from ''Shadow on the Sand''. It's not until later in the book that you learn [[spoiler:a) it attracts your enemies to your location, and b) it is going to explode in your hand if you don't throw it away fast enough]]. A similar one can be found in ''The Masters of Darkness'', and [[spoiler:if you keep it too long, it just kills you outright when exploding]].
485* ''Literature/NintendoAdventureBooks'':
486** The Anchor in ''Leaping Lizards''. While it served a purpose in both ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros3'' and the previous book, in this story all it does is drag Luigi down and cause him to drown if he falls into a body of water.
487** In an archery contest in ''The Shadow Prince'', Link can either use a normal blue arrow, or a magic green arrow, or a Red Darknut Arrow. The former two will have him barely lose and be suspicious of his opponent's cheating, but the latter will kill him.
488[[/folder]]
489
490[[folder:Game Shows]]
491* ''Series/{{Taskmaster}}'':
492** Series 4 featured the task "Transfer the water from fishbowl A to fishbowl B" where you are given a baguette, rubber glove, balloon, egg, tape, clingfilm, chocolate, plate, and an air pump and tasked with moving as much water as possible from one fishbowl to another in five minutes. Not only is the chocolate ''completely'' useless, even when compared to the other "tools", there is a hidden rule on the back of the instructions: "If you eat any of the chocolate you will be docked five points." Mel Giedroyc and Joe Lycett both eat some chocolate, and end up with -4 and 0 points respectively -- Joe would have ''won'' if not for this poison mushroom.
493** Discussed during series 15 in "Exit the caravan exactly 20 minutes after you entered the caravan", where you must do that after writing and saying 40 words, with each word being either the same length or shorter than the previous word. Hidden on the roof of the caravan was a broken clock which tricked Mae into relying entirely on it rather than trying to track time on their own, but then they learned ''the clock didn't work''. Greg assumed it was this but Alex pointed out [[NotMeThisTime it wasn't him this time]] and was accidental, as it worked as intended during Ivo's attempt.
494---> '''Greg:''' How's it make you feel that Alex would put a clock that doesn't work on the roof of the caravan?
495---> '''Alex:''' I need to point out here the clock ''was'' working, but it rained during Mae's attempt and then it stopped working.
496---> '''Greg:''' Ahhhh. I thought it was one of your sneaky things that makes you all fizzy under your duvet.
497[[/folder]]
498
499[[folder:Literature]]
500* ''Literature/MistbornTheOriginalTrilogy'': Aluminium. Technically one of the sixteen Allomantic metals, but its only power is to erase all your other metal reserves upon burning. Also, burning an impure Allomantic metal will make you very sick, and trying to burn something that isn't an Allomantic metal at all will kill you.
501* ''Literature/HarryPotter'': Bertie Botts' Every Flavour Beans can be every flavour imaginable and they do mean ''[[NotHyperbole every flavour]]''. You could be lucky and get something normal like strawberry... or you could get something like [[IAteWhat earwax or even worse]].
502[[/folder]]
503
504[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
505* ''Series/KamenRiderExAid'' is a video game medical drama where the Riders derive their powers from video games. During battles, the Game Areas projected by their {{Transformation Trinket}}s spawn Energy Items that function like a video game PowerUp. One of the Energy Items is Confuse, in the spirit of this trope. The protagonist—being an expert gamer—is able to make use of ConfusionFu when this is inflicted on himself.
506[[/folder]]
507
508[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
509* ''TabletopGame/{{Abyss}}'': The Anglerfish promo adds the titular harmful card to the exploration deck. If you draw it, you have to either waste your turn on fighting it for no reward, or pay a cost to continue exploring.
510* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' & ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'':
511** Several campaigns feature poison found in a treasure haul, in addition to your regular potions. Characters that drink it suffer anything from hit point damage to outright death if they fail their saving throw.
512** Classic cursed items in ''D&D'' include weapons and armor that gave AC and to-hit-and-damage ''penalties'' instead of bonuses, such as a -1 sword or a suit of -2 armor. Naturally, once you equip them, you can't take them off or otherwise be rid of them until a mage or cleric can cast a Remove Curse, Dispel Evil or other such spell on you. Not to speak of the various other major cursed items you can run across. As D&D and Pathfinder allow much more player agency than video games, players naturally find ways to use those cursed items. For example, the Necklace of Strangulation appears to be a beneficial magical necklace, but when you put it on, it tries to strangle you to death and is very hard to stop. It would seem like a perfectly fiendish Poison Mushroom until players start offering it to their enemies as a bribe, pretending to be friendly to someone they need to defeat and offering it as a gift, or even compelling enemies to put it on. The "gift" type can be especially funny in Pathfinder as there is a spell, Beguiling Gift, that makes your poison mushroom irresistible to someone else, who has to use it. Even if they're in combat.
513** The ''Deck of Many Things'', a minor Artifact whose random effects have been known to [[OffTheRails derail]] or even [[RocksFallEveryoneDies crash]] entire campaigns. Effects go from awesomely beneficial (major boost to Diplomacy skill plus a small keep, tens of thousands of experience points, riches, a powerful magic item, ''Wish'' spells...) to potentially catastrophic (all your magic items disappear forever, loss of all wealth and property, having your body or soul imprisoned in an unknown location in TheMultiverse, having an ally immediately become an enemy (and you won't necessarily know who), CharacterAlignment change, or having to face an incarnation of TheGrimReaper in a one-on-one duel, which irreversibly destroys you if you lose). And since players have a bad habit of TemptingFate, it has a reputation as the ultimate SchmuckBait.
514* ''TabletopGame/MiceAndMystics'': The Search deck mostly contains useful items and events for the player characters, but also includes Treachery cards that trigger as soon as they're drawn and inflict some penalty on the PC, another PC, or the entire party.
515* ''TabletopGame/{{Monopoly}}'':
516** Any ''Chance'' or ''Community Centre'' cards that force you to pay money into the bank. The worst one of them is the "Assessment" card which forces you to pay money depending on how many houses or hotels you have.
517** Any Chance card that forces you to move to a space (other than Jail or Go). Especially if said space is owned by someone else. And there is a Hotel on it. The "Boardwalk" card can be an especially fatal OneHitKill.
518** The Railway cards are even more annoying if someone owns all four. You have to pay double the rate, or $400, which is a large chunk of change.
519** The ''Go To Jail'' cards play this straight early on, then are considered to be subverted later in the game (especially when houses and hotels come into play, as it delays the possibilities of you running into a fully developed property). Unless someone owns two of the three areas immediately after the Jail square (in which it is played straight again).
520* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'': In the 6th edition, there are mysterious objectives which can contain a shield, AntiAir: They can also be ''booby trapped'', thus damaging your troops. Worse, these objectives can cause damage multiple times. There also are mysterious forests, which usually have fairly helpful effects, but they can also contain a nest of psychic-eating killer bugs which attack absolutely every psychic model on the field. The Grey Knights, an army entirely composed of psychics, can reasonably count to lose half its troops just due to this one mishap. That's the reason why these things were removed in the next edition.
521[[/folder]]
522
523[[folder:Webcomics]]
524* ''Webcomic/DarthsAndDroids'': When Chewbacca and R2-D2 play a tabletop game and the latter's character [[InTheBack betrays the former's]] for loot, he gets saddled with a CursedItem that Chewbacca had left as a trap, anticipating his ChronicBackstabbingDisorder.
525-->'''R2-D2:''' You put a cursed item in your ''own'' coin purse?! What sort of deviant would do that?!\
526'''Chewbacca:''' Let's discuss how you're going to pay for my resurrection, shall we?
527* ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'': When John uses his Alchemiter to combine a pack of gushers with Nannasprite's {{Ectoplasm}}, he gets a pack of Hellacious Blue Phlegm Aneurysm Gushers that act as a healing item. Combining these further with a bottle of ink creates a pack of Bodacious Black Liquid Sorrow Gushers, whose healing properties are reversed to make them pure poison.
528[[/folder]]
529
530[[folder:Real Life]]
531* The "caramel onion" prank. It looks like a delicious caramel apple... but it's actually a nasty raw onion covered in caramel.
532* People trapping food products and leaving them in innocuous places for fun, profit, or to teach a greedy roommate not to swipe their food. Imagine sitting down before a bowl of chili and discovering after a bite that it's full of dog food, or biting down into a brownie and later learning it was made with ''laxatives''. Other examples are the infamous Nair in the shampoo gag, lye in the socks, and even [[{{Squick}} a razor blade in the bar of soap]].
533* In the world of computing:
534** [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeypot_(computing) The Honeypot]]. It consists of a block of data, files, or even an entire server in a computing system that is unused, isolated, and monitored, and designed to look valuable. The idea is should someone gain unauthorized access they'll go for the Honeypot, and since nobody else uses the Honeypot anyone accessing it will immediately [[TabletopGame/YuGiOh trigger the owner's trap card]] and get caught.
535** [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_horse_(computing) The Trojan Horse]]. It works by tricking a user into thinking it is a legitimate item such as a file they are attempting to download, an attachment on an e-mail, etc, and plants malware, ransomware, or any such payload into the victim's computer. Such things tend to ''only'' spread this way, and it is rare for a Trojan Horse to also attempt to spread itself the way a worm or computer virus will.
536** The use of social engineering to trick people into thinking something has happened to them (e.g., they've won an expensive item or they have a transaction waiting for them) and clicking on the link sends you to a fake website that either steals any information you submit or sends you down a rabbit hole of websites that do everything they can to multiply or stop you from closing the page.
537* Jelly Belly has the [[https://www.jellybelly.com/beanboozled-challenge Beanboozled Challenge]]: a box of jelly beans that could be either delicious... or unspeakably disgusting. Both kinds look identical. Buttered popcorn or rotten egg? Chocolate pudding or canned dog food? Peach or '''vomit?''' Worse yet, the "bad" flavors are described as being ''disturbingly'' accurate.
538* In 2019, Skittles put out a special edition "Zombie Skittles" candy during the Halloween season. While the bag had plenty of ''desirable'' flavors, like black cherry and blood orange, every so often someone could encounter the infamous "rotten zombie" flavor, a taste that has been described as a combination of a rotten tomato and a raw onion dipped in garlic and leaves the consumer with a temporary foul breath that could be smelled from ''across the room''. It made a comeback the following year before being discontinued in 2021.
539* Of course, literal poison mushrooms that look like and can be mistaken for edible ones (such as the above mentioned Destroying Angels) are TruthInTelevision, making this OlderThanDirt.
540* A number of animals take advantage of this concept, such as the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_cleanerfish false cleanerfish]] that hangs around [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleaning_station cleaning stations]] and mimics the much more friendly [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluestreak_cleaner_wrasse bluestreak cleaner wrasse]]. Any larger fish dumb enough to fall for it and stand by expecting it to eat parasites and dead tissue from themselves will instead lose a chunk of a fin to the little bugger.
541[[/folder]]

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