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"to reduce the risk of epilepsy [...] take a 15 minute break each hour"
"Complete the Endless Setlist 2 without pausing or failing."
—Bladder of Steel Achievement, Rock Band 2 (NB: Endless Setlist 2 is EVERY SONG ON THE ROCK BAND 2 DISC. That's 84 songs.)
Any game that forces the player to disregard its own manual, and their own common sense, in terms of breaks from gameplay.
There are many types of games out there. Some are designed to be picked up and played for minutes at a time. Others encourage longer sessions by spreading out Save Points or forcing the player to grind. But even if you're not at the next save point, you can always leave, right? Just pause the game and carry on later. Sure, it's a total waste of power when a suspend option could have been built into the game, but at least that shiny disc doesn't have dictatorial control over your life.
Wrong.
There are a few games which have challenges where the simple act of pausing is forbidden, and you need to play for a considerable length of time. And you thought TV Tropes would ruin your life.
Note that the only examples that should be posted here are ones where pausing is disabled. If it allows pausing, but has a lousy save system, see Save Game Limits.
With modern systems, the pause feature is hard-coded into the system, such as with the Wii (Press the house button), and the DS (Close the lid), but it's possible to deny a prize when this feature is used (as is the case with the Trope Namer).
Not related to Bottomless Bladder.
Examples:
- A Real life example-A woman died from drinking too much water in a "Hold your Wii for a Wii" radio contest.
- Rock Band 2 has the Trope Namer in the form of an achievement (or trophy): beat all the songs in the game, in a row, without pausing or failing. We're talking 6.25 hours, non-stop. And it's worth gamerpoints to boot. bassists and vocalists are the only ones that get a few spots where they can feasibly use the restroom (the ending for "Nine in the Afternoon" isn't -quite- long enough for the lead guitarist)
- The achievement was probably thrown in there in response to people pausing in Rock Band 1's endless setlist, despite a couple ideal spots to actually use the restroom without pausing (most notably in The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again" - the game actually tells you how long the break is in one of the loading messages and mentions that it might be a good spot to use said facilities)
- Some individual songs can even be this if your group isn't prepared. Never say "I'll go after the next song" when someone has just picked "Camera Eye" by Rush.
- Considering the achievement doesn't actually require playing with a band, you can instead start a solo game and take turns with your friends for a much more comfortable experience.
- in MMOs, pausing is generally either not possible or disadvantageous. Extreme examples of this trope include:
- The Pandemonium Warden
 in Final Fantasy XI. Even after the patch, it has a 2 hour time limit.
- For a substantial time after release, attempting to finish the Fight Caves challenge in Rune Scape had no possible way of leaving your computer, save for getting lucky and trapping the last enemy of a round behind a wall (which still was limited by the 90 second inactivity log-out). The Fight Caves, with the equipment available at it's release, took an average of 1 1/2 to 2 hours to complete. Luckily, you can now save what wave of the challenge you're on by trying to log out, which will send you back into the cave at the same wave the next time you log in.
- The final area in zOMG! takes a minimum of two hours to complete. And that's just if you have a competent crew. You have to make your way through Shallow Seas, the Robofish cave, and Sealab Compound just for a chance to fight the Chapter 1 boss. And it's an instance, meaning that if you exit the game for whatever reason, you have to start over from the beginning. Casual MMO, my eye!
- Most older arcade games have this potentially, but the devs didn't really expect anyone to play for that long on one quarter. Pac Man is known for a trick to avert this in which you can "park" Pac-Man in a certain location and be guaranteed that the monsters will never attack him.
- There are Asteroids players who stock up 99 lives, take breaks, then resume play.
- Combat Arms' Fireteam mode has a map called cabin fever, Where a group of 8 defend a small cabin from highly resistant infected- for 45 minutes on the extreme difficulty
- Lego Rock Raiders had levels that couldn't be saved, played for up to an hour, and had no pause option, making them highly frustrating both for the (usually young) player and their parents.
- Desert Bus. To quote The Other Wiki, "The objective of the game is to drive a bus from Tucson, Arizona to Las Vegas, Nevada in real time at a maximum speed of 45mph, a feat that would take the player 8 hours of continuous play to complete, as the game cannot be paused." It would be easy to bullshit this, if the bus didn't gently veer to the right on its own.
- As a matter of fact, Canadian sketch-comedy group Loading Ready Run ran a 'Desert Bus for Hope' campaign, playing the 'game' continuously (and broadcasting it on a webcam) for almost four days to raise money for charity. They used alternating drivers, but they would have had to use the facilities during at least one person's shift.
- One of the videos in the ''Metal Gear Solid' series is over an hour long, and cannot be paused, namely the one that plays between the RAY fight and the final boss fight of MGS2. MGS4 has some that are longer, but it's possible to pause all videos in that game.
- Mega Man 9 has the "Gamer's Day" challenge wherein you must beat the games 5 times in one day. Pausing and saving are allowed, but it meets the trope qualifications in spirit.
- It doesn't actually mean that you need to beat the game from the beginning to the end 5 times in 1 day: you only need to beat Wily's castle 5 times, which is far easier if you keep a savefile handy.
- Ghostbusters II on the NES doesn't have a pause function. To quote The AVGN:
I mean, if you have to answer the phone, or take a shit, it's like, 'Tough shit you gotta take a shit!' [...] What a selfish game.
- A non-video game example would be any long motion picture on the big screen. Not only will going to the bathroom force you to miss a few minutes of the movie (which could be the best part of the movie for all you know), but you have to shuffle past everybody else to get to the aisle. There's not much that can be done about it since an intermission would prompt everybody to go at once, so the only defense is to go the bathroom just before and hope for the best. Oh yeah, and the 2 gallon Coke costs 10 cents more than the small.
- There's literally a whole website devoted to helping people deal with this problem.
- This website lost all credibility when they suggested, for The Dark Knight, the ferry scene as a time to go to the bathroom. And for the 2009 Star Trek film, the scene where Kirk gets Spock angry enough that he relieves himself of command.
- And when the suggested the climax of New Moon.
- [EASY JOKE EXPUNGED]
- In the words of the controls for Stinkoman 20X6, "No Pausing!!!"
- This is just one of the many, MANY problems with Star Trek: New Worlds.
- The titular The Games We Played for Stepmania is 16 minutes long, although it feels like an eternity at some points since the average BPM is rather low.
- Similarly, the DDR Endless Modes don't let you pause, but at least you get a break every few songs.
- Disgaea 3 has the "Consult Your Physician" trophy: play for 10 hours without stopping. As a turn-based game you can still pause, just not quit.
- EVE Online: just read this.
- Due to the one-server nature of Eve, it's possible for enemies in different timezones to schedule their assaults of player-owned structures so that the defenders will have to play at inconvenient times or accept their losses. However, the reinforced mode system alleviates this problem somewhat: If the enemy succeeds in assaulting a player-owned structure, it becomes invulnerable for a certain number of hours, which can be adjusted by the owner beforehand. If the defender correctly estimated the time of the attack, the structure will exit reinforced mode at a time when the defender can organize an effective defense.
- The reality being that it actually gets a ticking timer until it comes out of reinforced. Expect a large battle at that time if the attackers and defenders are both serious, otherwise...
- The now-abolished honor ranking system in World Of Warcraft awarded points according to the relative lethality of the character among their respective faction: The most-lethal character received the lion's share of the points, the next-best got half of that and so on. If you had points above a certain threshold, you attained the next rank. Unfortunately, the point requirements went up exponentially. In practice, attaining the highest ranks of Grand Marshal (Alliance) and High Warlord (Horde), you had to fight almost nonstop for several months. To make this even remotely tolerable, many players opted to play the same character in shifts, even if account-sharing was against the rules. And to make things worse, you lost a portion of your already-accumulated points each week, so not playing for a while could negate weeks of effort. In the earliest incarnations of the system, losing a rank also made your hard-earned gear unusable, making it necessary to maintain the breakneck pace.
- WoW has a more straightforward example with its instances, especially those in the original pre-expansion game. Some, like the Dwarf city (forgot its name), take a good eight hours to complete. They all offer breaks in the action where players can say "BRB" and go relieve themselves, refill their Mountain Dew, tend to any whining children, etc. Thankfully, the newer instances are about an hour tops.
- That would be Blackrock Spire, Which consisted of no less then FIVE (Though two are raids)"separate" zones. Though you can move from one to the next with only having to leave the instance once, from the dwarven/elemental area to the dragon/orc one. Before the newest expansion there was an Escort Mission in the Dwarven area that was at the very LEAST a half hour long in and of itself, with the potential for the escortee, Marshal Winsdor, to die, causing you to have to RESTART THE DAMNED THING. BRD gave many a player Grey hair and Cross Popping Veins. A full clear of the mountain, not counting the two raids, at the proper levels (54-60) would take about 10 hours or more. The raids themselves, Molten Core and Blackwing Lair, would take about the same amount of time each when they were considered end game.
- Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune 2 hands out special titles for continuing 10, 20, 30, or 40 times in a row. You'll need to have at least as many plays left on your card as you need continues to get the desired title, as card expiration will break your continue chain.
- Any online shooter pretty much causes this. Especially if you're on a team, although you can still usually spectate, or there are enough players that disappearing for a couple of minutes will not ruin the entire game.
- There's a COD4 server (and maybe other games) called "20 seconds to POOP".
- VS mode in Left 4 Dead doesn't allow you to make your character go idle, thus if you really need to go away for a while, you either need to suck it up and play the whole game through, or leave the game and come back to start all over.
- There's relief in sight! If you can convince all the survivors to stay in the safe room at the start of a map (without opening the door), the infected can't attack and you can take a break.
- You get about 3 minutes though, before the door automatically opens and the Infected get instant respawns.
- Call Of Duty World at War's Nazi Zombies requires four players to play from the start of the game until their inevitable end, and if one player leaves for more than a couple seconds, it could put every player at risk of quick defeat because a choke point is left undefended. Depending on how well a game goes, it can be between one or two hours before the players finally die, allowing for a quick bathroom break before a rematch.
- Demons Souls lacks the ability to pause for any reason; accessing inventory? Sorry, game is still rolling. Need a break during a particularly long and insanely hard boss fight? Nope, tough luck. Checking PSN trophies? Still completely vulnerable to enemies attacks. Also thanks to a online PVP system, even parking your avatar in a corner can quickly and easily lead to a bloody end.
- However, the game saves your exact position when you quit, so, pretty much any time you aren't in combat you can stop playing without consequence just fine.
- Still more of a hassle than just pressing Start.
- The Myst clone D or D No Shokutaku is based on a real-world 3-hour time limit, with no pause function or saving. This does accomplish the goal of adding a genuine sense of urgency to the proceedings... but it also penalizes you for having to step away for any reason.
- The Mortal Kombat games for the earlier systems lacked pause features, since pressing Start was to block. Same with Street Fighter on the 3-button Genesis controller, where pressing Start switched from punching to kicking (the 6-button controller did let you pause).
- In order to unlock Pong in Mortal Kombat II, you need to have 250 consecutive wins in a row. In a game without a pause function and automatic progression between screens, giving you a maximum of 98 seconds before having to inflict damage to your idle player 2 in order to avoid a draw.
- Early Slackware Linux distributions installed with some text games by default. One of these was ATC, the air traffic control game. It ran in real time, and with no pause. The man page said something to the effect of: "Deal with it, Real Life air traffic controllers can't pause the airplanes either".
- This is part of the "bsdgames" package that is available on various open source operating systems.
- Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot has three larger challenges that each involve completing 20 rounds of 5 waves of enemies each, with the enemies getting harder each round and more modifiers being added (like enemies with stronger shields, enemies only take damage from criticals, players being restricted to a certain weapon, etc). If you're doing it solo, you can pause, but with other people you can't, although after each round you do get a screen that will stay up until one person presses OK, so you can take your breaks there.
- The Genesis / MegaDrive port of Grind Stormer / V-V allows you to disable pausing in the options menu.
- Crews on Puzzle Pirates sometimes go on several-hour-long raids (some crews go out for 12 hours, some have even done 24 and beyond). This involves repeatedly attacking ships on the high seas, and stopping at port only to offload loot, resupply, and sail right back out. Expect the crew's captain and senior officers to remain on duty for hours on end. Junior officers seeking promotion will also try to stay active as long as possible. Due to the way that individual player actions influence the effectiveness of the ship they're on, a single crewmate "hopping off for a quick whiz" can cost the crew an hour's work, so Steel Bladders are practically required. Fortunately, during port resupply, most crewmates can run to the loo. Not so for the captain, who has to run to the store and pick up more cannonballs. Some captains have been known to fall asleep at the wheel during the later stages of a long raid. It is yet unknown how many have spontaneously exploded due to rising internal urine pressure.
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