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* ''VideoGame/TheSims''. Let's put it this way: the game has [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential/TheSims an entire page]] dedicated ''just'' to VideoGameCrueltyPotential. While it's perfectly possible to play the game as the "everyday life simulator" that Will Wright intended, and many do indeed play it this way, other players delight in warping the world around their Sims in order to kill them in the most creative ways possible (wall them into a small area and watch them slowly starve, take the ladder out of a pool while they're swimming and make them tread water until they get tired and drown, etc.). [[http://www.cracked.com/blog/exploring-the-mysteries-of-the-mind-with-the-sims-3/ Still other players go for "terrifyingly insane".]]
* ''VideoGame/TheSims2'' [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] the favourite murder method of most Sims-classic players.
** The Broke family in Pleasantville is fatherless, having lost Mr. Broke to "a suspicious pool ladder accident".
** It's just fun to have Sims turn into something supernatural like vampires or werewolves, then have the virus spread.
** There's a [[http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,6720.0.html mod]] available to let [[ZombieApocalypse zombies spread]] as well.
** If you kill off all the Sims in a household, the game will [[WhatTheHellPlayer remind you]] that it it is a '''life simulator''', not a '''death simulator'''.
** This [[RealTrailerFakeMovie trailer]] for ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMXME2pm83c The Sims]]'' shows how [[{{Deconstruction}} horrible]] this would be in real life.
** Many players find the desperation actions low-aspiration Sims in ''The Sims 2'' perform to be highly amusing, and some will drive them to aspiration failure on purpose just to watch them dance with mops, [[Film/CastAway talk to volleyballs]], and [[LampshadeWearing dance with lampshades on their heads]].
* ''VideoGame/TheSimsMedieval'' sometimes plays it straight (being set in the DungAges after all) but sometimes punishes you for not caring about your kingdom. There are disadvantages imposed on Sims when the kingdom's Aspects are low, so overall you want to make sure you don't have a crappy kingdom. That said, there's quite a bit of potential for cruelty through your ''characters''. The Monarch is particularly good for it; he can deny every petition, send people to the Pit, and make some particularly cruel decisions on quests. There is even an in-game religion, the Jacobans, who specifically believe [[AGodIsYou The Watcher]] is cruel and should be feared.

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* ''VideoGame/TheSims''. ''VideoGame/TheSims''.
**
Let's put it this way: the game series has [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential/TheSims an entire page]] dedicated ''just'' to VideoGameCrueltyPotential. While it's perfectly possible to play the game as the "everyday life simulator" that Will Wright intended, and many do indeed play it this way, other players delight in warping the world around their Sims in order to kill them in the most creative ways possible (wall them into a small area and watch them slowly starve, take the ladder out of a pool while they're swimming and make them tread water until they get tired and drown, etc.). [[http://www.cracked.com/blog/exploring-the-mysteries-of-the-mind-with-the-sims-3/ Still other players go for "terrifyingly insane".]]
* ** ''VideoGame/TheSims2'' [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] the favourite murder method of most Sims-classic players.
** *** The Broke family in Pleasantville is fatherless, having lost Mr. Broke to "a suspicious pool ladder accident".
** *** It's just fun to have Sims turn into something supernatural like vampires or werewolves, then have the virus spread.
** *** There's a [[http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,6720.0.html mod]] available to let [[ZombieApocalypse zombies spread]] as well.
** *** If you kill off all the Sims in a household, the game will [[WhatTheHellPlayer remind you]] that it it is a '''life simulator''', not a '''death simulator'''.
** *** This [[RealTrailerFakeMovie trailer]] for ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMXME2pm83c The Sims]]'' shows how [[{{Deconstruction}} horrible]] this would be in real life.
** *** Many players find the desperation actions low-aspiration Sims in ''The Sims 2'' perform to be highly amusing, and some will drive them to aspiration failure on purpose just to watch them dance with mops, [[Film/CastAway talk to volleyballs]], and [[LampshadeWearing dance with lampshades on their heads]].
* ** ''VideoGame/TheSimsMedieval'' sometimes plays it straight (being set in the DungAges after all) but sometimes punishes you for not caring about your kingdom. There are disadvantages imposed on Sims when the kingdom's Aspects are low, so overall you want to make sure you don't have a crappy kingdom. That said, there's quite a bit of potential for cruelty through your ''characters''. The Monarch is particularly good for it; he can deny every petition, send people to the Pit, and make some particularly cruel decisions on quests. There is even an in-game religion, the Jacobans, who specifically believe [[AGodIsYou The Watcher]] is cruel and should be feared.
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* ''VideoGame/TheSims''. While it's perfectly possible to play the game as the "everyday life simulator" that Will Wright intended, and many do indeed play it this way, other players delight in warping the world around their Sims in order to kill them in the most creative ways possible (wall them into a small area and watch them slowly starve, take the ladder out of a pool while they're swimming and make them tread water until they get tired and drown, etc.). [[http://www.cracked.com/blog/exploring-the-mysteries-of-the-mind-with-the-sims-3/ Still other players go for "terrifyingly insane".]]

to:

* ''VideoGame/TheSims''. Let's put it this way: the game has [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential/TheSims an entire page]] dedicated ''just'' to VideoGameCrueltyPotential. While it's perfectly possible to play the game as the "everyday life simulator" that Will Wright intended, and many do indeed play it this way, other players delight in warping the world around their Sims in order to kill them in the most creative ways possible (wall them into a small area and watch them slowly starve, take the ladder out of a pool while they're swimming and make them tread water until they get tired and drown, etc.). [[http://www.cracked.com/blog/exploring-the-mysteries-of-the-mind-with-the-sims-3/ Still other players go for "terrifyingly insane".]]
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[[folder: Puzzle Games]]

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[[folder: Puzzle [[folder:Puzzle Games]]
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* ''VideoGame/WarcraftII'' and ''VideoGame/{{Starcraft}}'', by clicking on the critters enough times, you can cause a harmless explosion that consumes the critter and only the critter. Why would you do this? Well, [[ForTheEvulz why not]]? In these games, (and most other RTS's) it is impossible to disband units. If a player wants to get rid of units (most likely to free up supply), the only way to do so is to suicide the unit or attack them directly.

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* ''VideoGame/WarcraftII'' ''VideoGame/WarcraftIITidesOfDarkness'' and ''VideoGame/{{Starcraft}}'', by ''VideoGame/{{Starcraft}}'': By clicking on the critters enough times, you can cause a harmless explosion that consumes the critter and only the critter. Why would you do this? Well, [[ForTheEvulz why not]]? In these games, (and most other RTS's) it is impossible to disband units. If a player wants to get rid of units (most likely to free up supply), the only way to do so is to suicide the unit or attack them directly.
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* In ''VideoGame/DinoSystem'', during god mode (not to be confused with [[GodMode this god]] mode as Dino System's god mode is a normal part of the game, not a cheat) the player can either create a thriving peaceful ecosystem or a hostile wasteland nothing can survive in. The player can also play Zeus and create lightning strikes that can terrorize or kill dinosaurs with, as well as start forest fires. The game even encourages this by telling the player once they’ve died in survivor mode and entered god mode that they can get "revenge on nature."

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* In ''VideoGame/DinoSystem'', during god mode (not to be confused with [[GodMode this god]] mode god mode]], as Dino System's god mode is a normal part of the game, not a cheat) the player can either create a thriving peaceful ecosystem or a hostile wasteland nothing can survive in. The player can also play Zeus and create lightning strikes that can terrorize or kill dinosaurs with, as well as start forest fires. The game even encourages this by telling the player once they’ve died in survivor mode and entered god mode that they can get "revenge on nature."
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* ''WebVideo/CollegeHumor''[='=]s [[RealTrailerFakeMovie fake trailer]] for a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMXME2pm83c film adaptation]] of ''VideoGame/TheSims'', in which the idea of a player torturing their Sims is [[PlayedForHorror depicted as something out of a horror movie]] for the Sims themselves.

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* ''WebVideo/CollegeHumor''[='=]s ''Website/CollegeHumor''[='=]s [[RealTrailerFakeMovie fake trailer]] for a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMXME2pm83c film adaptation]] of ''VideoGame/TheSims'', in which the idea of a player torturing their Sims is [[PlayedForHorror depicted as something out of a horror movie]] for the Sims themselves.

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Present in ''Series/BlackMirror'': the episode "USS Callister" follows a sadistic PsychopathicManchild game designer named Robert Daly, who is an exploration of the kind of monster a person would have to be to torture '''sapient''' video game characters.

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Present in * ''Series/BlackMirror'': the The episode "USS Callister" follows a sadistic PsychopathicManchild game designer named Robert Daly, who is an exploration of the kind of monster a person would have to be to torture '''sapient''' video game characters.characters.
* ''WebVideo/CollegeHumor''[='=]s [[RealTrailerFakeMovie fake trailer]] for a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMXME2pm83c film adaptation]] of ''VideoGame/TheSims'', in which the idea of a player torturing their Sims is [[PlayedForHorror depicted as something out of a horror movie]] for the Sims themselves.
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* Worldbox is similar. You are in control of an archipelago as a god who can shape and shift it to your own will. Although [[VideoGameCaringPotential It is perfectly possible for you to play an entirely benevolent god who simply creates flourishing ecosystems, thriving societies and can even turn off things like war and hunger with a little tick of a menu box.]] a lot of the game's fun comes from the sheer cruel and chaotic things you can do [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential Such as causing a zombie apocalypse, summoning meteors and/or]] [[NukeEm Atomic Bombs]] [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential Forcing every kingdom to go to war with each other, summoning powerful beings like Dragons]] [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and naming the world's kingdoms and cities after various internet memes]].
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[[quoteright:282:[[Webcomic/VGCats https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Leo_is_a_monster_6108.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:282:[[http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=122 Leo is a cruel god.]] YouMonster]]

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[[quoteright:282:[[Webcomic/VGCats [[quoteright:275:[[Webcomic/VGCats https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Leo_is_a_monster_6108.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:282:[[http://www.[[caption-width-right:275:[[http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=122 Leo is a cruel god.]] YouMonster]]
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A subtrope of VideoGameCrueltyPotential, this deals with games where the [[AGodIsYou unseen God-like player character]] can manipulate the in-game universe in such a manner that those little digital souls suffer as much as virtually possible. Want to be TheCaligula? Like doing things ForTheLulz [[ForTheEvulz and Evulz]]? Want to prove to everyone [[AGodAmI you are the God]]? [[VillainProtagonist Your sickest dreams have come true!]] YouBastard YouMonster

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A subtrope of VideoGameCrueltyPotential, this deals with games where the [[AGodIsYou unseen God-like player character]] can manipulate the in-game universe in such a manner that those little digital souls suffer as much as virtually possible. Want to be TheCaligula? Like doing things ForTheLulz [[ForTheEvulz and Evulz]]? Want to prove to everyone [[AGodAmI you are the God]]? God? [[VillainProtagonist Your sickest dreams have come true!]] YouBastard YouMonster
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[[quoteright:283:[[Webcomic/VGCats https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Leo_is_a_monster_6108.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:283:[[http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=122 Leo is a cruel god.]] YouMonster]]

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[[quoteright:283:[[Webcomic/VGCats [[quoteright:282:[[Webcomic/VGCats https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Leo_is_a_monster_6108.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:283:[[http://www.[[caption-width-right:282:[[http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=122 Leo is a cruel god.]] YouMonster]]
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* ''[[Toys/AmericanGirlsCollection American Girls Premiere]]'', which was developed by The Learning Company but uses the Opening Night engine. What was supposed to be an edutainment game turned out to be a laugh-fest in the hands of the player, making historical characters like Felicity Merriman into cannon fodder for various parodies and crude jokes. It also doesn't help that both ''Opening Night'' and ''Premiere'' lacked a profanity filter, making it possible for the characters to say rude things.

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* ''[[Toys/AmericanGirlsCollection American Girls Premiere]]'', which was developed by The Learning Company Creator/TheLearningCompany but uses the Opening Night engine. What was supposed to be an edutainment game turned out to be a laugh-fest in the hands of the player, making historical characters like Felicity Merriman into cannon fodder for various parodies and crude jokes. It also doesn't help that both ''Opening Night'' and ''Premiere'' lacked a profanity filter, making it possible for the characters to say rude things.
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*''VideoGame/PrisonArchitect'': allows the player to run a gulag. Keep inmates locked in their cells, feed them meager meals, punish them for minor infractions, deny them visitation or parole hearings, make them stir-crazy to the point of rioting, keep armed guards on free fire mode, and a whole host of other forms of sadism. But hey, they deserve it.

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Categorizing and alphabetizing


[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Casual Games]]
* ''VideoGame/KickTheBuddy'':
** Sure, you can toss the little guy baseballs to catch, tickle him, lead him around, or squirt him with a hose. You can also toss him grenades to catch, set him on fire, make the screen randomly explode, and hit him with all manner of dangerous and painful objects.
** Pelt the buddy with a bunch of infants, set a few infants on fire. Then use Strong Gravity Vortex to light everyone on fire, while having the infants beat the crap out of your buddy. Let everyone chill for a bit, except for the buddy running around aflame. Then pull out a hose, at least wide nozzle to quickly put out the flaming buddy...only to be lit on fire by one of the flaming infants he is running over. If you time it wrong, just pull out the SGV again. Best part is, you get loads of money every time he catches on fire again!
** The programming engine you can unlock has the most potential for abuse. You can program for a certain kind of object to be constantly thrown at the dude. Cue nonstop torrent of fireballs. Oh, and did I mention Gravity Shifter (draws the buddy towards it) plus holding the stun gun in the middle equals constant tasing of the dude?
** The first time you chuck the buddy a grenade he picks it up and examines it with a ? above his head. Then it explodes in his face. Satisfying.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Edutainment Games]]
* ''[[Toys/AmericanGirlsCollection American Girls Premiere]]'', which was developed by The Learning Company but uses the Opening Night engine. What was supposed to be an edutainment game turned out to be a laugh-fest in the hands of the player, making historical characters like Felicity Merriman into cannon fodder for various parodies and crude jokes. It also doesn't help that both ''Opening Night'' and ''Premiere'' lacked a profanity filter, making it possible for the characters to say rude things.
* ''VideoGame/OpeningNight'', a game by MECC (Oregon Trail fame) in which you make your own plays. You can naturally guess what kinds of stuff you can do with it and what people probably did.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:God Games]]
* ''VideoGame/DoshinTheGiant'' gives the player character a SuperpoweredEvilSide primarily to allow the player to smash and torture the islanders to their heart's content.
* The iPod Touch/iPhone game app ''VideoGame/PocketGod'' makes you the god of a tiny group of islands. You can either give them gifts (coconuts and fish) and make them dance... ''or'' you can maim/kill them in one of a dozen or more ways: drowning, lightning electrocution, hurricane, fire ants, [[SolarPoweredMagnifyingGlass magnifying glass]], vampire attack, shark feeding, manipulating gravity, volcano eruption, meteor crush, earthquake, squid feeding, Tyrannosaurus Rex attack and more to come.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Minigame Compilations]]



* ''VideoGame/JurassicParkOperationGenesis'' is a goldmine for this trope. The player can create large parks, then unleash the dinosaurs, which will eat the tourists. The player can also prevent the park from getting shut down by turning on the emergency siren; as long as the alarm is sounded, the game does not fault you for tourist casualties. Removing the emergency shelters makes it so the tourists have no way of escaping, and [[TooDumbToLive casualties don't stop more tourists from coming]].
** SpiritualSuccessor ''VideoGame/JurassicWorldEvolution'' makes it a bit more difficult to get your dinos to run gleefully amuck, since your park rating is partly based on the number of deaths from rampaging dinosaurs, but nothing stops you from building up a massively successful park with thousands of visitors, and then "accidentally" opening the gate to the ''Indominus Rex'' paddock.
* ''VideoGame/TheSims''. While it's perfectly possible to play the game as the "everyday life simulator" that Will Wright intended, and many do indeed play it this way, other players delight in warping the world around their Sims in order to kill them in the most creative ways possible (wall them into a small area and watch them slowly starve, take the ladder out of a pool while they're swimming and make them tread water until they get tired and drown, etc.). [[http://www.cracked.com/blog/exploring-the-mysteries-of-the-mind-with-the-sims-3/ Still other players go for "terrifyingly insane".]]
* ''VideoGame/TheSims2'' [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] the favourite murder method of most Sims-classic players.
** The Broke family in Pleasantville is fatherless, having lost Mr. Broke to "a suspicious pool ladder accident".
** It's just fun to have Sims turn into something supernatural like vampires or werewolves, then have the virus spread.
** There's a [[http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,6720.0.html mod]] available to let [[ZombieApocalypse zombies spread]] as well.
** If you kill off all the Sims in a household, the game will [[WhatTheHellPlayer remind you]] that it it is a '''life simulator''', not a '''death simulator'''.
** This [[RealTrailerFakeMovie trailer]] for ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMXME2pm83c The Sims]]'' shows how [[{{Deconstruction}} horrible]] this would be in real life.
** Many players find the desperation actions low-aspiration Sims in ''The Sims 2'' perform to be highly amusing, and some will drive them to aspiration failure on purpose just to watch them dance with mops, [[Film/CastAway talk to volleyballs]], and [[LampshadeWearing dance with lampshades on their heads]].
* ''VideoGame/TheSimsMedieval'' sometimes plays it straight (being set in the DungAges after all) but sometimes punishes you for not caring about your kingdom. There are disadvantages imposed on Sims when the kingdom's Aspects are low, so overall you want to make sure you don't have a crappy kingdom. That said, there's quite a bit of potential for cruelty through your ''characters''. The Monarch is particularly good for it; he can deny every petition, send people to the Pit, and make some particularly cruel decisions on quests. There is even an in-game religion, the Jacobans, who specifically believe [[AGodIsYou The Watcher]] is cruel and should be feared.
* ''VideoGame/SimCity2000'':
** Allowed the player to toggle as many disasters as he wanted; great fun could be had by loading up a pre-made city (such as, say, New York), triggering a couple of fires, and watching a massive firestorm build up and consume all in its path. It also had a cruelty-related EasterEgg. Once you have an airport, planes and choppers will fly around the city, often punctuated with "[=SimCopter=] One reporting heavy traffic!" But by using the centering tool (which looks like a crosshair) on the chopper, the speech would change to "Mayday!" and the chopper would crash.
** In addition, ''[=SimCity 4=]'' lets you pinpoint exactly where you want the disaster to hit. ''4'' even [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] this one by putting a news bit that says "Yo, are you busy twitching your finger on the Disaster button?" every time you get way too much fires.
** Put several nuke plants in your city, make them [[GoingCritical go Chernobyl]], and watch as the entire population dies from radiation poisoning.
** The Wii's [=SimCity=] Creator can be like this, some of the disasters include A Giant Drill you can control, or Giant Llamas.
* This is one of few joys of playing ''VideoGame/SimCopter''; get an Apache helicopter (through either a cheat code or just an Air Force base) and blow up the nuclear plant, reducing most of the city to ash and ruins.

to:

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Puzzle Games]]
* ''VideoGame/JurassicParkOperationGenesis'' is a goldmine for this trope. The player can create large parks, then unleash the dinosaurs, which will eat the tourists. The player can also prevent the park from getting shut down by turning on the emergency siren; as long as the alarm is sounded, the game does not fault ''VideoGame/TheIncredibleMachine'' predates ''Toon Machine'' and allows you for tourist casualties. Removing the emergency shelters makes it so the tourists have no way of escaping, and [[TooDumbToLive casualties don't stop more tourists from coming]].
** SpiritualSuccessor ''VideoGame/JurassicWorldEvolution'' makes it a bit more difficult
to get your dinos to run gleefully amuck, since your park rating is partly based on the number of deaths from rampaging dinosaurs, but nothing stops you from building up a massively successful park torment cats with thousands of visitors, and then "accidentally" opening the gate to the ''Indominus Rex'' paddock.
* ''VideoGame/TheSims''. While it's perfectly possible to play the game as the "everyday life simulator" that Will Wright intended, and many do indeed play it this way, other players delight in warping the world around their Sims in order
rockets, destroy fish tanks to kill them in the most creative ways possible (wall them into a small area hapless fish inside, and watch them slowly starve, take the ladder out of a pool while they're swimming feed rats and make them tread water until they get tired and drown, etc.). [[http://www.cracked.com/blog/exploring-the-mysteries-of-the-mind-with-the-sims-3/ Still other players go for "terrifyingly insane".]]
* ''VideoGame/TheSims2'' [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] the favourite murder method of most Sims-classic players.
tiny people to alligators (who gladly stuff themselves with said victims ''ad inifinitum'').
** The Broke family in Pleasantville is fatherless, having lost Mr. Broke to "a suspicious pool ladder accident".
** It's just fun to have Sims turn into something supernatural like vampires or werewolves, then have the virus spread.
** There's a [[http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,6720.0.html mod]] available to let [[ZombieApocalypse zombies spread]] as well.
** If you kill off all the Sims in a household, the game will [[WhatTheHellPlayer remind you]] that it it is a '''life simulator''', not a '''death simulator'''.
** This [[RealTrailerFakeMovie trailer]] for ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMXME2pm83c The Sims]]'' shows how [[{{Deconstruction}} horrible]] this would be in real life.
** Many players find the desperation actions low-aspiration Sims in
''The Sims 2'' perform to be highly amusing, Incredible Toon Machine''. Just think of it as ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' [[ThisIsYourPremiseOnDrugs on crack]], with all the options for comedically mistreating cartoon animals you'd expect. Impaling cats and some will drive mice with needles, dropping pianos on them, barbecuing them to aspiration failure on purpose just to watch them dance with mops, [[Film/CastAway talk to volleyballs]], dragons, and [[LampshadeWearing dance with lampshades on their heads]].
* ''VideoGame/TheSimsMedieval'' sometimes plays it straight (being set in the DungAges after all) but sometimes punishes you for not caring about your kingdom. There are disadvantages imposed on Sims when the kingdom's Aspects are low,
so overall you want to make sure you don't have a crappy kingdom. That said, there's quite a bit of potential for cruelty through your ''characters''. The Monarch is particularly good for it; he can deny every petition, send people to the Pit, on, and make some particularly cruel decisions on quests. There is even an in-game religion, the Jacobans, who specifically believe [[AGodIsYou The Watcher]] is cruel and should be feared.
* ''VideoGame/SimCity2000'':
** Allowed the player to toggle as many disasters as he wanted; great fun could be had by loading up a pre-made city (such as, say, New York), triggering a couple of fires, and watching a massive firestorm build up and consume all in its path. It also had a cruelty-related EasterEgg. Once you have an airport, planes and choppers will fly around the city, often punctuated with "[=SimCopter=] One reporting heavy traffic!" But by using the centering tool (which looks like a crosshair) on the chopper, the speech would change to "Mayday!" and the chopper would crash.
** In addition, ''[=SimCity 4=]'' lets you pinpoint exactly where you want the disaster to hit. ''4'' even [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] this one by putting a news bit that says "Yo, are you busy twitching your finger on the Disaster button?" every time you get way too much fires.
** Put several nuke plants in your city, make them [[GoingCritical go Chernobyl]], and watch as the entire population dies from radiation poisoning.
** The Wii's [=SimCity=] Creator can be like this, some of the disasters include A Giant Drill you can control, or Giant Llamas.
* This is one of few joys of playing ''VideoGame/SimCopter''; get an Apache helicopter (through either a cheat code or just an Air Force base) and blow up the nuclear plant, reducing most of the city to ash and ruins.
so forth.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real-Time Strategy]]



* In ''VideoGame/SimEarth'', the player is given control over a number of ecological and biological factors, ostensibly to allow him to build the ideal world for life and, ultimately, civilization to evolve. However some people prefer to load up a preexisting world (such as the Earth 2000 scenario) and, for instance, trigger a new Ice Age or obliterate North America with cataclysmic asteroids.
* ''VideoGame/SimLife'' came with a mission where the pre-existing plant life had been hacked to look like buildings in a large city. Your stated goal? Create Franchise/{{Godzilla}}.
* ''VideoGame/SimAnt'', which lets you eat the enemy's babies (and the level editor lets you starve your ants or run them through mazes just to get food). Even better, you can feed your enemy's babies to ant lions. You can also completely surround the enemy queen with rocks and she'll slowly starve to death. There's also a setting that allows ants and the spider to talk. If you get a mob of ants to go after a spider, you can watch it freak out.
* In ''Sid Meier's VideoGame/SimGolf'', why build a nice green fairway between the tee and the hole when you could build a giant sand trap, [[https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/simgolf-ragequit_5806.gif water hazard]] or [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking celebrity housing complex]] instead? If your MalevolentArchitecture is somewhat tame, then you'll at least get some {{Bizarre And Improbable Golf Game}}s. Otherwise, [[ComedicSociopathy laugh]] as your customers all RageQuit from your fiendish designs.

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* ''VideoGame/DungeonKeeper'':
** The sheer variety of tortures you can inflict include: Slapping your creatures (and any unfortunate enemies who you've captured) with your omnipresent hand, dropping ANY creature (including captured enemies) into a torture room once you've built it (though the Mistress creature [[TooKinkyToTorture enjoys that a little too much]]) where they'll either convert to your cause or die after (presumably) long hours on a rack or electric chair, leaving creatures to rot in your prison to later rise as a skeleton, intentionally locking creatures away from food or rest, building a stone bridge over lava and then '''selling''' it out from under a creature (though this doesn't work on flyers or heat-resistant beings), and casting your damaging spells indiscriminately -- including on your own creatures.
** The game encourages 'Pour encourager les autres'. Imps working slowly? Fireflies slacking? Put them all in a room with a locked door, pick one, and ''slap it to death''. The survivors will work ever so much better.
** There is an exquisitely cruel detail in how torture works. An enemy creature is usually brought to the prison after having having had its butt owned by the player's creatures, and so being rather lacking in health. Torture will ''always'', eventually, convert enemy creatures to your side, but will slowly decrease their health during the process. Hence, if the creature has enough health it'll convert (some random time variables are thrown in), otherwise it'll die. The solution is to nurse the creatures back to health ''while torturing them'', by feeding them or healing them through magic.
** And there's ''VideoGame/EvilGenius'', ''VideoGame/DungeonKeeper'''s spy movie spoof spiritual successor. Half the furniture in your base can be used as torture devices for enemy agents or slacker workers (both of which will improve the morale of watching minions), your evil genius can one-hit kill minions to improve the morale of all within sight, and the traps... ohh, the shiny, shiny ''traps''!
* ''VideoGame/WarcraftII'' and ''VideoGame/{{Starcraft}}'', by clicking on the critters enough times, you can cause a harmless explosion that consumes the critter and only the critter. Why would you do this? Well, [[ForTheEvulz why not]]?
In ''VideoGame/SimEarth'', these games, (and most other RTS's) it is impossible to disband units. If a player wants to get rid of units (most likely to free up supply), the only way to do so is to suicide the unit or attack them directly.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Sandbox Games]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Despair}}'', a game for the classic [=MacOS=], is built around this trope; something like ''VideoGame/{{Lemmings}}'' in reverse, the game is full of little running people, but instead of giving them special abilities, you kill them in different ways.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Simulation Games]]
* ''VideoGame/ActRaiser'' requires the player to slaughter hundreds of innocents in order to achieve maximum level. When colonization of a new town begins the houses are more primitive and hold fewer people. By the time
the player is given control over a number of ecological and biological factors, ostensibly to allow him to build the ideal world for life and, ultimately, civilization to evolve. However some people prefer to load up a preexisting world (such as the Earth 2000 scenario) and, for instance, trigger a new Ice Age or obliterate North America done with cataclysmic asteroids.
* ''VideoGame/SimLife'' came with a mission where the pre-existing plant life had been hacked to look like buildings in a large city. Your stated goal? Create Franchise/{{Godzilla}}.
* ''VideoGame/SimAnt'', which lets you eat the enemy's babies (and the level editor lets you starve your ants or run them through mazes just to get food). Even better, you can feed your enemy's babies to ant lions. You can also completely surround the enemy queen with rocks and she'll slowly starve to death. There's also a setting
that allows ants town the houses are now more advanced and hold more people. The only way to maximize the spider town's population (which acts as experience points in this game) is to talk. If you get a mob of ants to go after a spider, you can watch it freak out.
* In ''Sid Meier's VideoGame/SimGolf'', why build a nice green fairway between
wipe out the tee and primitive homes to make room for the hole when you could build a giant sand trap, [[https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/simgolf-ragequit_5806.gif water hazard]] or [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking celebrity housing complex]] instead? If your MalevolentArchitecture is somewhat tame, then you'll at least get some {{Bizarre And Improbable Golf Game}}s. Otherwise, [[ComedicSociopathy laugh]] as your customers all RageQuit from your fiendish designs.best ones.



* Since the ''VideoGame/{{Spore}}'' Creature Creator's release, thousands of videos on Website/YouTube have been cropping up of horrible, useless creatures made in Spore. Such as the delightful [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnHI_CkK27o "The Depressing Stick."]]



* ''VideoGame/KickTheBuddy''
** Sure, you can toss the little guy baseballs to catch, tickle him, lead him around, or squirt him with a hose. You can also toss him grenades to catch, set him on fire, make the screen randomly explode, and hit him with all manner of dangerous and painful objects.
** Pelt the buddy with a bunch of infants, set a few infants on fire. Then use Strong Gravity Vortex to light everyone on fire, while having the infants beat the crap out of your buddy. Let everyone chill for a bit, except for the buddy running around aflame. Then pull out a hose, at least wide nozzle to quickly put out the flaming buddy...only to be lit on fire by one of the flaming infants he is running over. If you time it wrong, just pull out the SGV again. Best part is, you get loads of money every time he catches on fire again!
** The programming engine you can unlock has the most potential for abuse. You can program for a certain kind of object to be constantly thrown at the dude. Cue nonstop torrent of fireballs. Oh, and did I mention Gravity Shifter (draws the buddy towards it) plus holding the stun gun in the middle equals constant tasing of the dude?
** The first time you chuck the buddy a grenade he picks it up and examines it with a ? above his head. Then it explodes in his face. Satisfying.
* ''VideoGame/VivaPinata''. Yes, ''[[http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=227 Viva Pinata.]]''

to:

* ''VideoGame/KickTheBuddy''
In ''VideoGame/DinoSystem'', during god mode (not to be confused with [[GodMode this god]] mode as Dino System's god mode is a normal part of the game, not a cheat) the player can either create a thriving peaceful ecosystem or a hostile wasteland nothing can survive in. The player can also play Zeus and create lightning strikes that can terrorize or kill dinosaurs with, as well as start forest fires. The game even encourages this by telling the player once they’ve died in survivor mode and entered god mode that they can get "revenge on nature."
* ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'' allows you to get very creative with the dwarves' fates, including but not limited to locking them in a room with no food, drowning them, dropping them from great heights and flooding their bedrooms with lava.
** Since {{Game Mod}}ding it is also very easy (just editing some text file), and the game simulates ''lots'' of details, there are lots of bizarre (and hilarious) ways to kill your dwarfs. For example:
*** Breed up a bunch of cats to hunt down vermin.
*** Edit the game files so that cats have a body temperature more than three times the surface temperature of the Sun.
*** Watch the cats all explode into mushroom clouds of fiery death and destruction which kill all the dwarves and lay waste to the countryside.
*** You can also set the boiling point for, say, goblin fat at nearly absolute zero, causing them to explode into a cloud of pink mist the moment they walk onto the map.
** [[ScrewYouElves No one likes elves]]. [[TheScrappy No one]]. So in many cases, elven caravans arriving to trade at your depot will abruptly find that someone has inexplicably locked them in with floodgates and started filling the depot with water. And after they drown, you can steal their stuff.
** And, of course, there are the enemies.
Sure, you can toss rig the little guy baseballs outside of your fortress to catch, tickle him, lead him around, or squirt him turn invading goblins into [[ChunkySalsaRule a faint red smear]], but that's boring. Why do that when you can [[PointlessDoomsdayDevice flood the planet with magma]] and turn them into [[ManOnFire !!invading goblins!!]]? Or there's the... um, "humane" alternative: cage traps. When they go off, you will ''always'' get one nasty thing in a hose. cage, be it a goblin, kobold, rampaging zombie carp, or dragon. So what do you do with the things you can't tame? Simple -- get your dwarves to steal all the goblins' items, then dump the now-naked would-be invaders down a 46 z-level tower as a study to see how far up the walls the blood will splat. You can also toss him grenades to catch, set him on fire, make the screen randomly explode, and hit him put them in a gladiator arena with all manner of dangerous and painful objects.
** Pelt the buddy
your [[OneManArmy most badass]] champions or drop them into a deathtrap maze lined with a bunch walls of infants, set [[ChainsawGood +large serrated steel discs+]] and {{pressure plate}}s that unleash a few infants on fire. Then use Strong Gravity Vortex to light everyone on fire, while having the infants beat the crap out tsunami that washes them into a pit full of your buddy. Let everyone chill for a bit, except for the buddy running around aflame. Then pull out a hose, at least wide nozzle to quickly put out the flaming buddy...only to be lit on fire by one of the flaming infants he is running over. angry wolves. Think [[Webcomic/GirlGenius Castle Heterodyne]].
**
If you time it wrong, just pull out the SGV again. Best part is, you get loads of money every time he catches on fire again!
** The programming engine
you can unlock has think of it, there's a Dwarf Fortress player out there thinking up ways to do it. This extends from "[[VideoGameCaringPotential build a mist-generator in your main room to make your dwarves deliriously happy]]" to "[[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=25967.0 figure out a way to trap and slaughter friendly merpeople because their bones are worth a lot of money.]]" Note that last one was considered so cruel the maker of the game dropped the value of mer bones in the next patch. For those unwilling to click the link, can you say [[spoiler: "Force-breeding merfolk to slaughter their mer-babies for valuable, valuable ivory?"]]
** One of
the most potential for abuse. You desirable traits a dwarf can program for a certain have is [[TheStoic "doesn't really care about anything anymore"]] (which, in itself, speaks volumes about what kind of object to be constantly thrown at [[CrapsackWorld 'verse]] we're talking here). This is brought about by slowly pushing the dude. Cue nonstop torrent poor dorf so far past the DespairEventHorizon they simply can't be bothered to even notice if their entire family is eaten by a giant spider, they have to sleep on a cold, muddy floor, and/or the only food available is rotting goblin vomit. One of fireballs. Oh, the ways to "help" your dwarves achieve this is to drop their pet puppies and did I mention Gravity Shifter (draws kittens from a great height, causing the buddy towards it) plus holding pet to disintegrate into blood and [[LudicrousGibs body parts]] in front of the stun gun owner's eyes. For [[ForTheEvulz bonus Dwarfpoints]], have the doomed pet land in the middle equals constant tasing of your dining hall full of dwarves trying to have their lunch.
** Someone also came up with a scheme [[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=91093.0 to lock dwarven children intended for military service in a room with a wild but not overly dangerous animal, and a hole to drop food to them]]. Through years of training the dodging skill, they would earn many, many stat improvements. Thus creating a powerful but horribly scarred military force. Combine this with a bit of lava to slowly melt all
of the dude?
** The
highly flammable fat off of them, and they could become virtually fireproof, as well.
* ''VideoGame/{{Godus}}'' at
first time seems pretty simple. Create flat areas of land where people can build and then make that area nice so you chuck can get more belief (read power). You also gain access to spells to fight enemies, of course nothing is stopping you from turning these on your own people. Also the buddy easiest way to get Gems (that can be used to speed up construction or give instant resources) is leading your people to the sacrificial [[DoomyDoomsOfDoom Pit Of Doom]].
* ''VideoGame/JurassicParkOperationGenesis'' is
a grenade he picks goldmine for this trope. The player can create large parks, then unleash the dinosaurs, which will eat the tourists. The player can also prevent the park from getting shut down by turning on the emergency siren; as long as the alarm is sounded, the game does not fault you for tourist casualties. Removing the emergency shelters makes it so the tourists have no way of escaping, and [[TooDumbToLive casualties don't stop more tourists from coming]].
** SpiritualSuccessor ''VideoGame/JurassicWorldEvolution'' makes it a bit more difficult to get your dinos to run gleefully amuck, since your park rating is partly based on the number of deaths from rampaging dinosaurs, but nothing stops you from building up a massively successful park with thousands of visitors, and then "accidentally" opening the gate to the ''Indominus Rex'' paddock.
* ''VideoGame/{{Nintendogs}}'': Sure, you can feed it and walk it and love it and all that, but sometimes that gets a little old. So you spice things up by oh, say, not feeding or cleaning it for a week. Or ramming it repeatedly with a Mario Kart. Or "accidentally" tripping
it up and examines with the Jump Rope. Or scaring it with the toy military chopper (with "Flight of the Valkyries" as background music!). Or throwing a ? above his head. Then Moai Statue at it. Or ignoring it explodes in his face. Satisfying.
* ''VideoGame/VivaPinata''. Yes, ''[[http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=227 Viva Pinata.]]''
for hours on end and watching/listening to its shrill barking and whining as it wonders where you've gone to. And that's not even getting into the OTHER things you can do to it: the kind that'll change your dog's personality from a sweet-natured pup into an aggressive, snarling hellhound that bites you if you dare to pet it. Of course, the dogs won't actually turn aggressive or be harmed, as Nintendogs are immortal and are unconditionally loving, but it's the thought that counts sometimes.



* ''VideoGame/ZooTycoon''

to:

* ''VideoGame/ZooTycoon''''VideoGame/SimAnt'', which lets you eat the enemy's babies (and the level editor lets you starve your ants or run them through mazes just to get food). Even better, you can feed your enemy's babies to ant lions. You can also completely surround the enemy queen with rocks and she'll slowly starve to death. There's also a setting that allows ants and the spider to talk. If you get a mob of ants to go after a spider, you can watch it freak out.
* ''VideoGame/SimCity2000'':
** Allowed the player to toggle as many disasters as he wanted; great fun could be had by loading up a pre-made city (such as, say, New York), triggering a couple of fires, and watching a massive firestorm build up and consume all in its path. It also had a cruelty-related EasterEgg. Once you have an airport, planes and choppers will fly around the city, often punctuated with "[=SimCopter=] One reporting heavy traffic!" But by using the centering tool (which looks like a crosshair) on the chopper, the speech would change to "Mayday!" and the chopper would crash.
** In addition, ''[=SimCity 4=]'' lets you pinpoint exactly where you want the disaster to hit. ''4'' even [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] this one by putting a news bit that says "Yo, are you busy twitching your finger on the Disaster button?" every time you get way too much fires.
** Put several nuke plants in your city, make them [[GoingCritical go Chernobyl]], and watch as the entire population dies from radiation poisoning.
** The Wii's [=SimCity=] Creator can be like this, some of the disasters include A Giant Drill you can control, or Giant Llamas.
* This is one of few joys of playing ''VideoGame/SimCopter''; get an Apache helicopter (through either a cheat code or just an Air Force base) and blow up the nuclear plant, reducing most of the city to ash and ruins.
* In ''VideoGame/SimEarth'', the player is given control over a number of ecological and biological factors, ostensibly to allow him to build the ideal world for life and, ultimately, civilization to evolve. However some people prefer to load up a preexisting world (such as the Earth 2000 scenario) and, for instance, trigger a new Ice Age or obliterate North America with cataclysmic asteroids.
* In ''Sid Meier's VideoGame/SimGolf'', why build a nice green fairway between the tee and the hole when you could build a giant sand trap, [[https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/simgolf-ragequit_5806.gif water hazard]] or [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking celebrity housing complex]] instead? If your MalevolentArchitecture is somewhat tame, then you'll at least get some {{Bizarre And Improbable Golf Game}}s. Otherwise, [[ComedicSociopathy laugh]] as your customers all RageQuit from your fiendish designs.
* ''VideoGame/SimLife'' came with a mission where the pre-existing plant life had been hacked to look like buildings in a large city. Your stated goal? Create Franchise/{{Godzilla}}.
* ''VideoGame/TheSims''. While it's perfectly possible to play the game as the "everyday life simulator" that Will Wright intended, and many do indeed play it this way, other players delight in warping the world around their Sims in order to kill them in the most creative ways possible (wall them into a small area and watch them slowly starve, take the ladder out of a pool while they're swimming and make them tread water until they get tired and drown, etc.). [[http://www.cracked.com/blog/exploring-the-mysteries-of-the-mind-with-the-sims-3/ Still other players go for "terrifyingly insane".]]
* ''VideoGame/TheSims2'' [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] the favourite murder method of most Sims-classic players.
** The Broke family in Pleasantville is fatherless, having lost Mr. Broke to "a suspicious pool ladder accident".
** It's just fun to have Sims turn into something supernatural like vampires or werewolves, then have the virus spread.
** There's a [[http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,6720.0.html mod]] available to let [[ZombieApocalypse zombies spread]] as well.
** If you kill off all the Sims in a household, the game will [[WhatTheHellPlayer remind you]] that it it is a '''life simulator''', not a '''death simulator'''.
** This [[RealTrailerFakeMovie trailer]] for ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMXME2pm83c The Sims]]'' shows how [[{{Deconstruction}} horrible]] this would be in real life.
** Many players find the desperation actions low-aspiration Sims in ''The Sims 2'' perform to be highly amusing, and some will drive them to aspiration failure on purpose just to watch them dance with mops, [[Film/CastAway talk to volleyballs]], and [[LampshadeWearing dance with lampshades on their heads]].
* ''VideoGame/TheSimsMedieval'' sometimes plays it straight (being set in the DungAges after all) but sometimes punishes you for not caring about your kingdom. There are disadvantages imposed on Sims when the kingdom's Aspects are low, so overall you want to make sure you don't have a crappy kingdom. That said, there's quite a bit of potential for cruelty through your ''characters''. The Monarch is particularly good for it; he can deny every petition, send people to the Pit, and make some particularly cruel decisions on quests. There is even an in-game religion, the Jacobans, who specifically believe [[AGodIsYou The Watcher]] is cruel and should be feared.
* Since the ''VideoGame/{{Spore}}'' Creature Creator's release, thousands of videos on Website/YouTube have been cropping up of horrible, useless creatures made in Spore. Such as the delightful [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnHI_CkK27o "The Depressing Stick."]]
* ''Trainz Railroad Simulator'' is meant for railway enthusiasts to simulate managing and operating trains. However, some twisted people use the game solely for the purpose of doing things like derailing the trains, crashing the train when it crosses a turntable, and doing what [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDUOmzOrJ_4 this guy]] did and initiating a huge crash at 1000 mph.
* ''VideoGame/VivaPinata'': Yes, ''[[http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=227 Viva Pinata.]]''
* The mobile game ''VideoGame/XConstruction'' sees you building bridges out of steel girders & support cables so that trains can cross a gorge. ...Or, you can deliberately build a bridge that will snap when the train is halfway across and laugh at the screams of the passengers as the train tumbles into the pit.
* ''VideoGame/ZooTycoon'':



* ''VideoGame/DungeonKeeper'':
** The sheer variety of tortures you can inflict include: Slapping your creatures (and any unfortunate enemies who you've captured) with your omnipresent hand, dropping ANY creature (including captured enemies) into a torture room once you've built it (though the Mistress creature [[TooKinkyToTorture enjoys that a little too much]]) where they'll either convert to your cause or die after (presumably) long hours on a rack or electric chair, leaving creatures to rot in your prison to later rise as a skeleton, intentionally locking creatures away from food or rest, building a stone bridge over lava and then '''selling''' it out from under a creature (though this doesn't work on flyers or heat-resistant beings), and casting your damaging spells indiscriminately -- including on your own creatures.
** The game encourages 'Pour encourager les autres'. Imps working slowly? Fireflies slacking? Put them all in a room with a locked door, pick one, and ''slap it to death''. The survivors will work ever so much better.
** There is an exquisitely cruel detail in how torture works. An enemy creature is usually brought to the prison after having having had its butt owned by the player's creatures, and so being rather lacking in health. Torture will ''always'', eventually, convert enemy creatures to your side, but will slowly decrease their health during the process. Hence, if the creature has enough health it'll convert (some random time variables are thrown in), otherwise it'll die. The solution is to nurse the creatures back to health ''while torturing them'', by feeding them or healing them through magic.
** And there's ''VideoGame/EvilGenius'', ''VideoGame/DungeonKeeper'''s spy movie spoof spiritual successor. Half the furniture in your base can be used as torture devices for enemy agents or slacker workers (both of which will improve the morale of watching minions), your evil genius can one-hit kill minions to improve the morale of all within sight, and the traps... ohh, the shiny, shiny ''traps''!
* ''VideoGame/{{Nintendogs}}''. Sure, you can feed it and walk it and love it and all that, but sometimes that gets a little old. So you spice things up by oh, say, not feeding or cleaning it for a week. Or ramming it repeatedly with a Mario Kart. Or "accidentally" tripping it up with the Jump Rope. Or scaring it with the toy military chopper (with "Flight of the Valkyries" as background music!). Or throwing a Moai Statue at it. Or ignoring it for hours on end and watching/listening to its shrill barking and whining as it wonders where you've gone to. And that's not even getting into the OTHER things you can do to it: the kind that'll change your dog's personality from a sweet-natured pup into an aggressive, snarling hellhound that bites you if you dare to pet it. Of course, the dogs won't actually turn aggressive or be harmed, as Nintendogs are immortal and are unconditionally loving, but it's the thought that counts sometimes.
* The iPod Touch/iPhone game app ''VideoGame/PocketGod'' makes you the god of a tiny group of islands. You can either give them gifts (coconuts and fish) and make them dance... ''or'' you can maim/kill them in one of a dozen or more ways: drowning, lightning electrocution, hurricane, fire ants, [[SolarPoweredMagnifyingGlass magnifying glass]], vampire attack, shark feeding, manipulating gravity, volcano eruption, meteor crush, earthquake, squid feeding, Tyrannosaurus Rex attack and more to come.
* ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'' allows you to get very creative with the dwarves' fates, including but not limited to locking them in a room with no food, drowning them, dropping them from great heights and flooding their bedrooms with lava.
** Since {{Game Mod}}ding it is also very easy (just editing some text file), and the game simulates ''lots'' of details, there are lots of bizarre (and hilarious) ways to kill your dwarfs. For example:
*** Breed up a bunch of cats to hunt down vermin.
*** Edit the game files so that cats have a body temperature more than three times the surface temperature of the Sun.
*** Watch the cats all explode into mushroom clouds of fiery death and destruction which kill all the dwarves and lay waste to the countryside.
*** You can also set the boiling point for, say, goblin fat at nearly absolute zero, causing them to explode into a cloud of pink mist the moment they walk onto the map.
** [[ScrewYouElves No one likes elves]]. [[TheScrappy No one]]. So in many cases, elven caravans arriving to trade at your depot will abruptly find that someone has inexplicably locked them in with floodgates and started filling the depot with water. And after they drown, you can steal their stuff.
** And, of course, there are the enemies. Sure, you can rig the outside of your fortress to turn invading goblins into [[ChunkySalsaRule a faint red smear]], but that's boring. Why do that when you can [[PointlessDoomsdayDevice flood the planet with magma]] and turn them into [[ManOnFire !!invading goblins!!]]? Or there's the... um, "humane" alternative: cage traps. When they go off, you will ''always'' get one nasty thing in a cage, be it a goblin, kobold, rampaging zombie carp, or dragon. So what do you do with the things you can't tame? Simple -- get your dwarves to steal all the goblins' items, then dump the now-naked would-be invaders down a 46 z-level tower as a study to see how far up the walls the blood will splat. You can also put them in a gladiator arena with your [[OneManArmy most badass]] champions or drop them into a deathtrap maze lined with walls of [[ChainsawGood +large serrated steel discs+]] and {{pressure plate}}s that unleash a tsunami that washes them into a pit full of angry wolves. Think [[Webcomic/GirlGenius Castle Heterodyne]].
** If you can think of it, there's a Dwarf Fortress player out there thinking up ways to do it. This extends from "[[VideoGameCaringPotential build a mist-generator in your main room to make your dwarves deliriously happy]]" to "[[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=25967.0 figure out a way to trap and slaughter friendly merpeople because their bones are worth a lot of money.]]" Note that last one was considered so cruel the maker of the game dropped the value of mer bones in the next patch. For those unwilling to click the link, can you say [[spoiler: "Force-breeding merfolk to slaughter their mer-babies for valuable, valuable ivory?"]]
** One of the most desirable traits a dwarf can have is [[TheStoic "doesn't really care about anything anymore"]] (which, in itself, speaks volumes about what kind of [[CrapsackWorld 'verse]] we're talking here). This is brought about by slowly pushing the poor dorf so far past the DespairEventHorizon they simply can't be bothered to even notice if their entire family is eaten by a giant spider, they have to sleep on a cold, muddy floor, and/or the only food available is rotting goblin vomit. One of the ways to "help" your dwarves achieve this is to drop their pet puppies and kittens from a great height, causing the pet to disintegrate into blood and [[LudicrousGibs body parts]] in front of the owner's eyes. For [[ForTheEvulz bonus Dwarfpoints]], have the doomed pet land in the middle of your dining hall full of dwarves trying to have their lunch.
** Someone also came up with a scheme [[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=91093.0 to lock dwarven children intended for military service in a room with a wild but not overly dangerous animal, and a hole to drop food to them]]. Through years of training the dodging skill, they would earn many, many stat improvements. Thus creating a powerful but horribly scarred military force. Combine this with a bit of lava to slowly melt all of the highly flammable fat off of them, and they could become virtually fireproof, as well.
* ''VideoGame/TheIncredibleMachine'' predates ''Toon Machine'' and allows you to torment cats with rockets, destroy fish tanks to kill the hapless fish inside, and feed rats and tiny people to alligators (who gladly stuff themselves with said victims ''ad inifinitum'').
** ''The Incredible Toon Machine''. Just think of it as ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' [[ThisIsYourPremiseOnDrugs on crack]], with all the options for comedically mistreating cartoon animals you'd expect. Impaling cats and mice with needles, dropping pianos on them, barbecuing them with dragons, and so on, and so forth.
* ''VideoGame/WarcraftII'' and ''VideoGame/{{Starcraft}}'', by clicking on the critters enough times, you can cause a harmless explosion that consumes the critter and only the critter. Why would you do this? Well, [[ForTheEvulz why not]]? In these games, (and most other RTS's) it is impossible to disband units. If a player wants to get rid of units (most likely to free up supply), the only way to do so is to suicide the unit or attack them directly.
* ''VideoGame/OpeningNight'', a game by MECC (Oregon Trail fame) in which you make your own plays. You can naturally guess what kinds of stuff you can do with it and what people probably did.
* ''[[Toys/AmericanGirlsCollection American Girls Premiere]]'', which was developed by The Learning Company but uses the Opening Night engine. What was supposed to be an edutainment game turned out to be a laugh-fest in the hands of the player, making historical characters like Felicity Merriman into cannon fodder for various parodies and crude jokes. It also doesn't help that both ''Opening Night'' and ''Premiere'' lacked a profanity filter, making it possible for the characters to say rude things.
* ''VideoGame/DoshinTheGiant'' gives the player character a SuperpoweredEvilSide primarily to allow the player to smash and torture the islanders to their heart's content.
* The mobile game ''VideoGame/XConstruction'' sees you building bridges out of steel girders & support cables so that trains can cross a gorge. ...Or, you can deliberately build a bridge that will snap when the train is halfway across and laugh at the screams of the passengers as the train tumbles into the pit.
* ''Trainz Railroad Simulator'' is meant for railway enthusiasts to simulate managing and operating trains. However, some twisted people use the game solely for the purpose of doing things like derailing the trains, crashing the train when it crosses a turntable, and doing what [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDUOmzOrJ_4 this guy]] did and initiating a huge crash at 1000 mph.
* ''VideoGame/{{Despair}}'', a game for the classic [=MacOS=], is built around this trope; something like ''VideoGame/{{Lemmings}}'' in reverse, the game is full of little running people, but instead of giving them special abilities, you kill them in different ways.
* ''VideoGame/ActRaiser'' requires the player to slaughter hundreds of innocents in order to achieve maximum level. When colonization of a new town begins the houses are more primitive and hold fewer people. By the time the player is done with that town the houses are now more advanced and hold more people. The only way to maximize the town's population (which acts as experience points in this game) is to wipe out the primitive homes to make room for the best ones.
* In ''VideoGame/DinoSystem'', during god mode (not to be confused with [[GodMode this god]] mode as Dino System's god mode is a normal part of the game, not a cheat) the player can either create a thriving peaceful ecosystem or a hostile wasteland nothing can survive in. The player can also play Zeus and create lightning strikes that can terrorize or kill dinosaurs with, as well as start forest fires. The game even encourages this by telling the player once they’ve died in survivor mode and entered god mode that they can get "revenge on nature."
* ''VideoGame/{{Godus}}'' at first seems pretty simple. Create flat areas of land where people can build and then make that area nice so you can get more belief (read power). You also gain access to spells to fight enemies, of course nothing is stopping you from turning these on your own people. Also the easiest way to get Gems (that can be used to speed up construction or give instant resources) is leading your people to the sacrificial [[DoomyDoomsOfDoom Pit Of Doom]].
* Non-videogame example presented in ''Series/BlackMirror'', "USS Callister" follows a sadistic PsychopathicManchild game designer named Robert Daly, who is an exploration of the kind of monster a person would have to be to torture '''sapient''' video game characters.

to:

* ''VideoGame/DungeonKeeper'':
** The sheer variety of tortures you can inflict include: Slapping your creatures (and any unfortunate enemies who you've captured) with your omnipresent hand, dropping ANY creature (including captured enemies) into a torture room once you've built it (though
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Non-Video Game Examples]]
Present in ''Series/BlackMirror'':
the Mistress creature [[TooKinkyToTorture enjoys that a little too much]]) where they'll either convert to your cause or die after (presumably) long hours on a rack or electric chair, leaving creatures to rot in your prison to later rise as a skeleton, intentionally locking creatures away from food or rest, building a stone bridge over lava and then '''selling''' it out from under a creature (though this doesn't work on flyers or heat-resistant beings), and casting your damaging spells indiscriminately -- including on your own creatures.
** The game encourages 'Pour encourager les autres'. Imps working slowly? Fireflies slacking? Put them all in a room with a locked door, pick one, and ''slap it to death''. The survivors will work ever so much better.
** There is an exquisitely cruel detail in how torture works. An enemy creature is usually brought to the prison after having having had its butt owned by the player's creatures, and so being rather lacking in health. Torture will ''always'', eventually, convert enemy creatures to your side, but will slowly decrease their health during the process. Hence, if the creature has enough health it'll convert (some random time variables are thrown in), otherwise it'll die. The solution is to nurse the creatures back to health ''while torturing them'', by feeding them or healing them through magic.
** And there's ''VideoGame/EvilGenius'', ''VideoGame/DungeonKeeper'''s spy movie spoof spiritual successor. Half the furniture in your base can be used as torture devices for enemy agents or slacker workers (both of which will improve the morale of watching minions), your evil genius can one-hit kill minions to improve the morale of all within sight, and the traps... ohh, the shiny, shiny ''traps''!
* ''VideoGame/{{Nintendogs}}''. Sure, you can feed it and walk it and love it and all that, but sometimes that gets a little old. So you spice things up by oh, say, not feeding or cleaning it for a week. Or ramming it repeatedly with a Mario Kart. Or "accidentally" tripping it up with the Jump Rope. Or scaring it with the toy military chopper (with "Flight of the Valkyries" as background music!). Or throwing a Moai Statue at it. Or ignoring it for hours on end and watching/listening to its shrill barking and whining as it wonders where you've gone to. And that's not even getting into the OTHER things you can do to it: the kind that'll change your dog's personality from a sweet-natured pup into an aggressive, snarling hellhound that bites you if you dare to pet it. Of course, the dogs won't actually turn aggressive or be harmed, as Nintendogs are immortal and are unconditionally loving, but it's the thought that counts sometimes.
* The iPod Touch/iPhone game app ''VideoGame/PocketGod'' makes you the god of a tiny group of islands. You can either give them gifts (coconuts and fish) and make them dance... ''or'' you can maim/kill them in one of a dozen or more ways: drowning, lightning electrocution, hurricane, fire ants, [[SolarPoweredMagnifyingGlass magnifying glass]], vampire attack, shark feeding, manipulating gravity, volcano eruption, meteor crush, earthquake, squid feeding, Tyrannosaurus Rex attack and more to come.
* ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'' allows you to get very creative with the dwarves' fates, including but not limited to locking them in a room with no food, drowning them, dropping them from great heights and flooding their bedrooms with lava.
** Since {{Game Mod}}ding it is also very easy (just editing some text file), and the game simulates ''lots'' of details, there are lots of bizarre (and hilarious) ways to kill your dwarfs. For example:
*** Breed up a bunch of cats to hunt down vermin.
*** Edit the game files so that cats have a body temperature more than three times the surface temperature of the Sun.
*** Watch the cats all explode into mushroom clouds of fiery death and destruction which kill all the dwarves and lay waste to the countryside.
*** You can also set the boiling point for, say, goblin fat at nearly absolute zero, causing them to explode into a cloud of pink mist the moment they walk onto the map.
** [[ScrewYouElves No one likes elves]]. [[TheScrappy No one]]. So in many cases, elven caravans arriving to trade at your depot will abruptly find that someone has inexplicably locked them in with floodgates and started filling the depot with water. And after they drown, you can steal their stuff.
** And, of course, there are the enemies. Sure, you can rig the outside of your fortress to turn invading goblins into [[ChunkySalsaRule a faint red smear]], but that's boring. Why do that when you can [[PointlessDoomsdayDevice flood the planet with magma]] and turn them into [[ManOnFire !!invading goblins!!]]? Or there's the... um, "humane" alternative: cage traps. When they go off, you will ''always'' get one nasty thing in a cage, be it a goblin, kobold, rampaging zombie carp, or dragon. So what do you do with the things you can't tame? Simple -- get your dwarves to steal all the goblins' items, then dump the now-naked would-be invaders down a 46 z-level tower as a study to see how far up the walls the blood will splat. You can also put them in a gladiator arena with your [[OneManArmy most badass]] champions or drop them into a deathtrap maze lined with walls of [[ChainsawGood +large serrated steel discs+]] and {{pressure plate}}s that unleash a tsunami that washes them into a pit full of angry wolves. Think [[Webcomic/GirlGenius Castle Heterodyne]].
** If you can think of it, there's a Dwarf Fortress player out there thinking up ways to do it. This extends from "[[VideoGameCaringPotential build a mist-generator in your main room to make your dwarves deliriously happy]]" to "[[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=25967.0 figure out a way to trap and slaughter friendly merpeople because their bones are worth a lot of money.]]" Note that last one was considered so cruel the maker of the game dropped the value of mer bones in the next patch. For those unwilling to click the link, can you say [[spoiler: "Force-breeding merfolk to slaughter their mer-babies for valuable, valuable ivory?"]]
** One of the most desirable traits a dwarf can have is [[TheStoic "doesn't really care about anything anymore"]] (which, in itself, speaks volumes about what kind of [[CrapsackWorld 'verse]] we're talking here). This is brought about by slowly pushing the poor dorf so far past the DespairEventHorizon they simply can't be bothered to even notice if their entire family is eaten by a giant spider, they have to sleep on a cold, muddy floor, and/or the only food available is rotting goblin vomit. One of the ways to "help" your dwarves achieve this is to drop their pet puppies and kittens from a great height, causing the pet to disintegrate into blood and [[LudicrousGibs body parts]] in front of the owner's eyes. For [[ForTheEvulz bonus Dwarfpoints]], have the doomed pet land in the middle of your dining hall full of dwarves trying to have their lunch.
** Someone also came up with a scheme [[http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=91093.0 to lock dwarven children intended for military service in a room with a wild but not overly dangerous animal, and a hole to drop food to them]]. Through years of training the dodging skill, they would earn many, many stat improvements. Thus creating a powerful but horribly scarred military force. Combine this with a bit of lava to slowly melt all of the highly flammable fat off of them, and they could become virtually fireproof, as well.
* ''VideoGame/TheIncredibleMachine'' predates ''Toon Machine'' and allows you to torment cats with rockets, destroy fish tanks to kill the hapless fish inside, and feed rats and tiny people to alligators (who gladly stuff themselves with said victims ''ad inifinitum'').
** ''The Incredible Toon Machine''. Just think of it as ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' [[ThisIsYourPremiseOnDrugs on crack]], with all the options for comedically mistreating cartoon animals you'd expect. Impaling cats and mice with needles, dropping pianos on them, barbecuing them with dragons, and so on, and so forth.
* ''VideoGame/WarcraftII'' and ''VideoGame/{{Starcraft}}'', by clicking on the critters enough times, you can cause a harmless explosion that consumes the critter and only the critter. Why would you do this? Well, [[ForTheEvulz why not]]? In these games, (and most other RTS's) it is impossible to disband units. If a player wants to get rid of units (most likely to free up supply), the only way to do so is to suicide the unit or attack them directly.
* ''VideoGame/OpeningNight'', a game by MECC (Oregon Trail fame) in which you make your own plays. You can naturally guess what kinds of stuff you can do with it and what people probably did.
* ''[[Toys/AmericanGirlsCollection American Girls Premiere]]'', which was developed by The Learning Company but uses the Opening Night engine. What was supposed to be an edutainment game turned out to be a laugh-fest in the hands of the player, making historical characters like Felicity Merriman into cannon fodder for various parodies and crude jokes. It also doesn't help that both ''Opening Night'' and ''Premiere'' lacked a profanity filter, making it possible for the characters to say rude things.
* ''VideoGame/DoshinTheGiant'' gives the player character a SuperpoweredEvilSide primarily to allow the player to smash and torture the islanders to their heart's content.
* The mobile game ''VideoGame/XConstruction'' sees you building bridges out of steel girders & support cables so that trains can cross a gorge. ...Or, you can deliberately build a bridge that will snap when the train is halfway across and laugh at the screams of the passengers as the train tumbles into the pit.
* ''Trainz Railroad Simulator'' is meant for railway enthusiasts to simulate managing and operating trains. However, some twisted people use the game solely for the purpose of doing things like derailing the trains, crashing the train when it crosses a turntable, and doing what [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDUOmzOrJ_4 this guy]] did and initiating a huge crash at 1000 mph.
* ''VideoGame/{{Despair}}'', a game for the classic [=MacOS=], is built around this trope; something like ''VideoGame/{{Lemmings}}'' in reverse, the game is full of little running people, but instead of giving them special abilities, you kill them in different ways.
* ''VideoGame/ActRaiser'' requires the player to slaughter hundreds of innocents in order to achieve maximum level. When colonization of a new town begins the houses are more primitive and hold fewer people. By the time the player is done with that town the houses are now more advanced and hold more people. The only way to maximize the town's population (which acts as experience points in this game) is to wipe out the primitive homes to make room for the best ones.
* In ''VideoGame/DinoSystem'', during god mode (not to be confused with [[GodMode this god]] mode as Dino System's god mode is a normal part of the game, not a cheat) the player can either create a thriving peaceful ecosystem or a hostile wasteland nothing can survive in. The player can also play Zeus and create lightning strikes that can terrorize or kill dinosaurs with, as well as start forest fires. The game even encourages this by telling the player once they’ve died in survivor mode and entered god mode that they can get "revenge on nature."
* ''VideoGame/{{Godus}}'' at first seems pretty simple. Create flat areas of land where people can build and then make that area nice so you can get more belief (read power). You also gain access to spells to fight enemies, of course nothing is stopping you from turning these on your own people. Also the easiest way to get Gems (that can be used to speed up construction or give instant resources) is leading your people to the sacrificial [[DoomyDoomsOfDoom Pit Of Doom]].
* Non-videogame example presented in ''Series/BlackMirror'',
episode "USS Callister" follows a sadistic PsychopathicManchild game designer named Robert Daly, who is an exploration of the kind of monster a person would have to be to torture '''sapient''' video game characters.
[[/folder]]
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
Tut, tut. There is a difference between sentience and sapience.


* Non-videogame example presented in ''Series/BlackMirror'', "USS Callister" follows a sadistic PsychopathicManchild game designer named Robert Daly, who is an exploration of the kind of monster a person would have to be to torture '''sentient''' video game characters.

to:

* Non-videogame example presented in ''Series/BlackMirror'', "USS Callister" follows a sadistic PsychopathicManchild game designer named Robert Daly, who is an exploration of the kind of monster a person would have to be to torture '''sentient''' '''sapient''' video game characters.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None


* ''VideoGame/Despair'', a game for the classic [=MacOS=], is built around this trope; something like ''VideoGame/{{Lemmings}}'' in reverse, the game is full of little running people, but instead of giving them special abilities, you kill them in different ways.

to:

* ''VideoGame/Despair'', ''VideoGame/{{Despair}}'', a game for the classic [=MacOS=], is built around this trope; something like ''VideoGame/{{Lemmings}}'' in reverse, the game is full of little running people, but instead of giving them special abilities, you kill them in different ways.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None


* ''Opening Night'', a game by MECC (Oregon Trail fame) in which you make your own plays. You can naturally guess what kinds of stuff you can do with it and what people probably did.

to:

* ''Opening Night'', ''VideoGame/OpeningNight'', a game by MECC (Oregon Trail fame) in which you make your own plays. You can naturally guess what kinds of stuff you can do with it and what people probably did.



* The mobile game ''X Construction'' sees you building bridges out of steel girders & support cables so that trains can cross a gorge. ...Or, you can deliberately build a bridge that will snap when the train is halfway across and laugh at the screams of the passengers as the train tumbles into the pit.

to:

* The mobile game ''X Construction'' ''VideoGame/XConstruction'' sees you building bridges out of steel girders & support cables so that trains can cross a gorge. ...Or, you can deliberately build a bridge that will snap when the train is halfway across and laugh at the screams of the passengers as the train tumbles into the pit.



* ''Despair'', a game for the classic [=MacOS=], is built around this trope; something like ''Videogame/{{Lemmings}}'' in reverse, the game is full of little running people, but instead of giving them special abilities, you kill them in different ways.

to:

* ''Despair'', ''VideoGame/Despair'', a game for the classic [=MacOS=], is built around this trope; something like ''Videogame/{{Lemmings}}'' ''VideoGame/{{Lemmings}}'' in reverse, the game is full of little running people, but instead of giving them special abilities, you kill them in different ways.

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