History Main / UnwinnableJokeGame

---> [[LampshadeHanging "Oh, my life is a joke!"]]

* In ''VideoGame/{{EZ2|DJ}}ON REBOOT : R'', "Sudden Death" is a song in which the gimmick is that the song has the same quantity of 144 notes on each difficulty, ''but'' each difficulty has unusually strict timing windows and lifebars, the latter of which also punish any hit judgement below "KOOL". Its Hard and Super Hard charts notably have zero leaderboard entries (ranking in not only requires a score, but also to clear the chart), and playing them reveals why: Whereas the Easy and Normal charts have difficult but doable timing windows of ±10 and ±8 milliseconds, respectively, for a KOOL, that timing window shrinks down to ±4 ms for Hard and [[https://namu.wiki/w/Sudden%20Death(EZ2ON)#s-2.2 just plus-or-minus TWO milliseconds]] on Super Hard, and the lifebar damage for a non-KOOL is increased accordingly, to the point where on Super Hard, a single non-KOOL hit takes away ''99%'' of the lifebar. There isn't anything mechanical that makes the Hard and SHD charts unwinnable, it's just that they are engineered to require far more accuracy and precision than what a human being can muster. The developers admitted in a stream that the point of these charts' leaderboards is to catch cheaters.

* In ''VideoGame/{{EZ2|DJ}}ON REBOOT : R'', "Sudden Death" is a song in which the gimmick is that the game has unusually strict timing windows and lifebars, the latter of which punish any hit judgement below "KOOL". Its Hard and Super Hard charts notably have zero leaderboard entries (ranking in not only requires a score, but also to clear the chart), and playing them reveals why: Whereas the Easy and Normal charts have difficult but doable timing windows of ±10 and ±8 milliseconds, respectively, for a KOOL, that timing window shrinks down to ±4 ms for Hard and [[https://namu.wiki/w/Sudden%20Death(EZ2ON)#s-2.2 just plus-or-minus TWO milliseconds]] on Super Hard, and the lifebar damage for a non-KOOL is increased accordingly, to the point where on Super Hard, a single non-KOOL hit takes away ''99%'' of the lifebar. There isn't anything mechanical that makes the Hard and SHD charts unwinnable, it's just that they are engineered to require far more accuracy and precision than what a human being can muster. The developers admitted in a stream that the point of these charts' leaderboards is to catch cheaters.

* In ''VideoGame/{{EZ2|DJ}}ON REBOOT : R'', "Sudden Death" is a song in which the gimmick is that the game has unusually strict timing windows and lifebars, the latter of which punish any hit judgement below "KOOL". Its Hard and Super Hard charts notably have zero leaderboard entries (ranking in not only requires a score, but also to clear the chart), and playing them reveals why: Whereas the Easy and Normal charts have difficult but doable timing windows of ±10 and ±8 milliseconds, respectively, for a KOOL, that timing window shrinks down to ±4 ms for Hard and ±'''2''' ms on Super Hard, and the lifebar damage for a non-KOOL is increased accordingly, to the point where on Super Hard, a single non-KOOL hit takes away ''99%'' of the lifebar. There isn't anything mechanical that makes the Hard and SHD charts unwinnable, it's just that they are engineered to require far more accuracy and precision than what a human being can muster. The developers admitted in a stream that the point of these charts' leaderboards is to catch cheaters.

* Rhythm game ''Rotaeno'' has the April Fool's 2023 notechart for "RUSH E", which is a comically absurd but still sensible flood of notes that makes it impossible to sightread. It's even jokingly rated at "Level E". That didn't stop players from trying to score decently at the chart regardless. Watch it [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR_66MxYCD4 here]] if you want to witness the insanity.
* The [=PSP=]/[=PS3=] Minis puzzle game ''Shift Extended'' rewards you for completing every stage with a final obstacle where you can do nothing except grab a powerup that removes the floor you were standing on and drops you into a pit of instant-death spikes, followed by a snarky message about readying the next test subject. It would be a cute little gag if you hadn't just finished ''120'' puzzles of increasing length and difficulty, but instead it feels more like [[{{Troll}} a giant middle finger to the player for bothering to spend their money and time on the game]].

* ''VisualNovel/HatePlus'' has an achievement that is absolutely impossible to achieve: [[spoiler:[[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII Level Four Revive Materia.]] According to the description, you must finish the game with ONLY the version of *Mute that you started with. However, *Mute is DrivenToSuicide at the end of Day 2, and the rest of the game is spent with the older version of *Mute that you restore, and there is no way around this. Note that using the Harem version, while allowing *Mute to survive, doesn't fulfill the conditions. As, it said only.]] There isn't even any code to activate the achievement, even if you could somehow avert the suicide.

* The French equivalent of ''Website/TheOnion'', called ''Le Gorafi'', hyped Twitter about a mini-game, ''Super Gorafi News Turbo'' where the player could experiment the day of a journalist working there by collecting microphones and verified sources and beating some bosses at the end of the levels. Several screenshots were even published on the Twitter account of the satirical website and it was announced that the game would contain a dozen of levels. When the game was released, it appeared that [[spoiler:it was impossible to jump over the first hole of the first level. Hacking the source code in order to pass these holes revealed that the level consisted basically of these two holes and then, nothing. Worst of all, some people on Twitter [[BandwagonTechnique jumped into the bandwagon by bragging how killing some bosses was hard.]] and were even ''retweeted'' from ''Le Gorafi''! Considering that the game was made by a professional graphic designer, why the hell would he put any effort to code a full-fledged game if he couldn't get any income from it?]]

* ''VideoGame/{{Iji}}'' has a hidden difficulty "reallyjoel's Dad". Supposedly, you have two minutes to kill all the enemies and get to the exit or you explode. Not only is killing all the enemies in two minutes completely impossible, but the source code reveals that the laser barrier blocking the exit won't open even if you do. Unless, of course, you're [[MemeticBadass reallyjoel's Dad]].

* [[https://youtu.be/MmGYPNlPLrI Super Releasio Brothers]] is a fanmade sequel to the above hack, and much like it, it's completely unbeatable under normal means as Mario (who has the top part of his head replaced with a mushroom) will speed up far too fast with the inability to slow down at all. [[Main/GameBreakingBug He even runs so fast that the game glitches up because Mario's not supposed to go that fast,]] which causes part of the levels to loop over, can put him in solid objects, run right into a pit or an enemy, etc. However, you can still go fairly slow and try not to intentionally speed up. You could beat the game like this... [[TimedMission if it weren't for the fact that the timer wasn't removed,]] so you wouldn't reach the end of the level by doing that unless you froze the timer or went at the normal (for Releasio) speed. It didn't help that in the original version, [[GameBreakingBug level 7-4 was actually impossible to beat,]] as the game couldn't tell if Mario went through the right path or not due to how quick he was going, causing the level to loop endlessly. There's also even its own version of ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBrosTheLostLevels'' called [[https://youtu.be/QTPVEzFnWTo Super Releasio Bros: The Lost Toads,]] making NintendoHard into Nintendo Almost Impossible. Much like before, Made For Releasio Toad has played, observed the physics and made tool assisted runs of both games, which you can see [[https://youtu.be/z01Lkt1AYRk here]] and [[https://youtu.be/RRPdRt3d9D4 here.]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}}'' episode "Ice Cream Mountain", Stu, Drew, and company go to a miniature golf course, and are promised free games if they get a hole-in-one on the final hole, the titular Ice Cream Mountain. Problem is, the golf course owner Earl Skaggs had deliberately rigged the mountain so it would ''literally be impossible for any player to get a hole-in-one'', as unintentionally revealed by the kids, who sneak into the inside of Ice Cream Mountain (under the impression that it's literally made of ice cream) and remove the paper cover that blocks balls going into the mountain from exiting through the chute that results in a hole-in-one. As a result, they end up accidentally [[ForegoneVictory inverting this trope]], causing every player's ball to go into the hole for holes-in-one, much to the dismay of Skaggs.

* ''Webcomic/{{xkcd}}'' has [[http://xkcd.com/724/ a strip]] about ''VideoGame/{{Tetris}}''. Predictably, someone on the internet [[http://www.kongregate.com/games/banthar/hell-tetris made a game]] like that. And some managed [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reFPscApObs to score]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_giTK__WVOw lines in it.]]

* ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'': In response to claims that [[ItsEasySoItSucks "Ultra-Violence is too easy!"]], id added a "Nightmare!" difficulty in v1.2. In it, monsters have zero reaction time, extreme aggression, and they respawn at random; your only boon is doubled the collected ammo in pickups. By John Romero's own admission, it was added as a joke, and he himself can't get past the third level. [[SubvertedTrope Nonetheless]], a number of players have come to embrace it as a playstyle and even a {{speedrun}} category.

* The [=PSP=]/[=PS3=] Minis puzzle game ''Shift Extended'' rewards you for completing every stage with a final obstacle where you can do nothing except grab a powerup that removes the floor you were standing on and drops you into a pit of instant-death spikes, followed by a snarky message about readying the next test subject. It would be a cute little gag if you hadn't just finished ''120'' puzzles of increasing length and difficulty, but instead it feels more like a giant middle finger to the player for spending their money and time on the game.

* The [=PSP=]/[=PS3=] Minis puzzle game ''Shift Extended'' rewards you for completing every stage with a final obstacle where you can do nothing except grab a powerup that removes the floor you were standing on and drops you into a pit of instant-death spikes and a final snarky message about readying the next test subject. It would be a cute little gag if you hadn't just finished ''120'' puzzles of increasing length and difficulty, but instead it feels more like a giant middle finger to the player for spending their money and time on the game.

* The [=PSP=]/[=PS3=] Minis puzzle game ''Shift Extended'' rewards you for completing every stage with a final obstacle where you can do nothing except grab a powerup that removes the floor you were standing on and drops you into a pit of instant-death spikes and a final snarky message about readying the next test subject. It would be a cute little gag if you hadn't just finished ''120'' puzzles of increasing length and difficulty, but instead it just feels like a giant middle finger to the player for spending their money and time on the game.

* The [=PSP=]/[=PS3=] Minis puzzle game ''Shift Extended'' rewards you for completing every stage with a final obstacle where you can do nothing except grab a powerup that removes the floor you were standing on and drops you into a pit of instant-death spikes and a final snarky message about readying the next test subject. It would be a cute little gag if you hadn't just completed ''120'' puzzles of increasingly length and difficulty, but instead it just feels like a giant middle finger to the player for spending their money and time on the game.

* ''VideoGame/Fallout4'' has a small version of this with the Port-A-Diner machines scattered throughout the Commonwealth. The player's chance of success is based off of factors like their Luck stat and the number of times they've tried in the past, ranging from a 1/50 chance at best to 1/1000 at worst. And your "prize" for winning is a piece of pie that's somehow been perfectly preserved for 200 years.

* Creating one of these in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioMaker'' is deliberately meant to be impossible, with Nintendo instituting a few layers of DevelopersForesight - you have to be able to complete the level yourself, and the jump-boosting randomly-spawning Weird Mushroom is disabled while you try. Nonetheless, a few players find workarounds, such as making a level that is only winnable if you ''don't'' have a Weird Mushroom and then spawning hundreds of potential Weird Mushrooms at you, or installing the game at its ObviousBeta launch state, completing a level through some long-patched bug, and then updating the game and uploading the level.

* ''[[VideoGame/WarioWare WarioWare Twisted]]'' includes several bonus mini-games based on table hockey, one of which is entitled "Eternal Wario Hockey". Wario is your opponent, and he will ''never'' fail to deflect the puck from his side, no matter how well you play.

* Some {{Creepypasta}} style games are intentionally impossible to beat. ''VideoGame/SonicExe'' for example has you playing as Tails, Knuckles and Dr. Eggman retrospectively, but no matter what you do, you'll always end up being killed by Sonic.exe himself at the end of each level.

* Website/IMockery's [[http://www.i-mockery.com/minimocks/tetris-charity/ Tetris: Charity Edition]].

* ''[[https://qntm.org/files/hatetris/hatetris.html Hatetris]]'', a variant of ''VideoGame/{{Tetris}}'' that is programmed to always provide you with the worst possible pieces. Most of the time, this means handing you an endless stream of S and Z blocks, but crucially not enough S and Z blocks to actually start clearing lines with them. Like many unwinnable variants, it is actually possible to clear lines in it.

* Sam Reich did this to [[spoiler: Brennan Lee Mulligan]] in one episode of Game Changer. The setup of the game was that Sam asked one question repeatedly the entire episode: yes, or no, after which Reich would dole out points according to a rule only he knew, and victory was granted to whoever could figure out the rule. After twenty minutes of gags, acapella singing, at least one guest, and a rather epic rant, the rule was figured out: [[spoiler: No matter what happens, Brennan couldn't win]].

* ''[[http://www.homestarrunner.com/kingio.swf Super Kingio Bros]]'' on ''WebAnimation/HomestarRunner'' is a version of ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros'' with the King of Town replacing Mario. Unfortunately, he can't jump high enough to pass the first [[TheGoomba Goomba]], so it's probably just as well that you don't actually get the three lives shown.

* ''[[https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/630744 Mond Cards]]'' is presented as unwinnable. The game is to draw three symbolic cards and pick one, is explained as who's cards come out on top as the winner for the round, and the result is having the cards moved around seemingly arbitrarily. The opponent declaring himself the victor at each of the three rounds. [[spoiler:Subverted at the end because of a glowing speck.]]

* The ''VideoGame/RiddleSchool'' series' fourth game is like this. You try to do anything and you promptly die. [[spoiler:Which is actually the point.]]

* In the DOS ''VideoGame/MissileCommand'' clone ''Anti Ballistic Missile'', the highest difficulty is called "Mission - Impossible", and is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin. The enemy missiles come in too fast for your sluggish keyboard-controlled crosshair to keep up(being released in 1982, there was no mouse or trackball support), and [[PressStartToGameOver can wipe out all of your cities with the first volley]].

* Shortly after Brazil was trampled 7-1 by Germany in the 2014 UsefulNotes/{{FIFA World Cup}}, a Brazilian programmer decided to enhance the SelfDeprecation with [[http://www.clickjogos.com.br/jogos/gol-da-alemanha-simulator "Gol da Alemanha]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh6nN_KbyTM Simulator."]] There the player controls a Brazilian attacker, when one of the other players is a traffic cone, the other nine filled to the brim with ArtificialStupidity, and the opposing German team actually knows what is doing.

* ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'': In response to claims that [[ItsEasySoItSucks "Ultra-Violence is too easy!"]], id added a "Nightmare!" difficulty in v1.2. In it, monsters have zero reaction time, extreme aggression, and they respawn at random; your only boon is doubled the collected ammo in pickups. By John Romero's own admission, it was added as a joke, and he himself can't get past the third level. Nonetheless, a number of players have come to embrace it as a playstyle and even a {{speedrun}} category.

!!For example:

* ''[[https://rawcdn.githack.com/omsi6/IvarK.github.io/e4cb536d88a362fa059c8d449b8f1ae9d04a777d/index.html Antimatter Dimensions NG Very Minus]]'' is a mod for ''VideoGame/AntimatterDimensions'' that starts you off with 9 antimatter but none of it is being generated per second, so you can't even buy the first dimension and progress.