Basic Trope: The ending becomes Permanently Missable Content due to developer error or oversight.
- Straight: In the Ice Temple, once you're deep in, you get a lighter and you have to use it to get back out. However, you have a limited inventory, and if you fill it all up with cursed items (which cannot be dropped except at a holy area) then you can't take the lighter and can't escape the temple.
- Exaggerated:
- In the Ice Temple, if you go back and forth too many times along a certain route, a Game-Breaking Bug causes hundreds of duplicate items to be spawned. This can crash your game at best, destroy your savefile at worst.
- A Game-Breaking Bug causes the game to never progress past the opening cutscene.
- A Game-Breaking Bug can make the Ice Temple unwinnable in all future games.
- A Game-Breaking Bug causes the title screen to be frozen and stays that way when restarted, so you literally can't do anything in the game unless you do a system reset (or at least erase the data for that game).
- A Game-Breaking Bug is also a virus that ruins your console, so you can't even play other games or do other things on it.
- Downplayed:
- It's possible to make a level unwinnable, but that's what the reset button is for.
- Exploiting a bug that lets you walk through walls might leave you stuck in a locked room with no way out, but you'd have to go out of your way to make this happen.
- It is possible to softlock using intended gameplay. However, this can be escaped via bugs.
- The levels are randomly generated, and the developers did not make sure that it wasn't possible for an unbeatable level to spawn. In other words, the game is very rarely Unintentionally Unwinnable.
- A sidequest can be rendered unwinnable but not the main quest.
- Justified:
- You're playing a Game Within a Game filled with Stylistic Suck. It was examined much less by the designers.
- The designers didn't foresee players performing such an action.
- The game was compiled with a non-hard-breaking typo (EG penultimate level 99's end level warp is set to warp you to level 10 instead of level 100)
- Inverted:
- Unwinnable by Design
- A challenge in the game requires you to lock yourself into an unwinnable state. The game can never be made unwinnable, so this challenge cannot be completed.
- It is supposed to be Unwinnable by Design after killing plot essential characters. It is possible to win anyway by exploiting a clipping glitch thus resulting in being winnable by mistake.
- The game is supposed to be an Unwinnable Joke Game, but if you take advantage of the hidden Instant-Win Condition present in the engine the game was made with, you can win it anyways.
- Subverted:
- If you reach the lighter while your inventory is stuck, the player character comments on the misfortune of the situation, and uses the lighter to burn one of your lower-value cursed items to make room.
- The developers meant to design the game like that.
- Double Subverted: ...however, the designers also tried to be clever and ensure the player character wouldn't try to burn any items that aren't normally flammable when this happens. If you approach the lighter while your inventory is full of cursed, non-flammable items, the easter egg plays, but your inventory is still full and you don't have the lighter.
- Parodied: In a scripted cutscene, you can choose to drink regular coffee or decaf. Choosing decaf leads to an instant game crash, because the developer added the option as a joke and didn't know people actually drink decaf.
- Zig Zagged: If you get to the lighter room without any space in your inventory, lucky for you there's a Bandit Mook in the next room. And if you kill the bandit, you can just cast a spell to bring him back to life. If you cast too many spells and your Mana Meter is empty, just wait for a few minutes and your meter will be back to full. But if you have a cursed bracelet of limited mana on, THEN the game is unwinnable.
- Averted: The lighter is a key item, so it gets its own special slot in the inventory.
- Enforced:
- The designers have terrible work conditions and frequently miss unwinnable scenarios.
- Or, they simply didn't realize such a scenario could happen and neglected to fix it.
- Lampshaded: "Damn, my inventory isn't looking too well. Thankfully this will all be over once I take the lighter and get out of this temple... wait... Oh, Crap!"
- Invoked: Unwinnable by Design
- Exploited: Your rival traps you in the Ice Temple by casting a powerful "curse inventory" spell while you're in the room with the lighter.
- Defied:
- If your whole inventory is locked when you enter the lighter room, the Justified Save Point NPC inside will uncurse your items for no charge.
- Clock Roaches spawn if you reach a point lacking an essential item and are unable to backtrack. They then attempt to slay you for creating a Temporal Paradox. If you kill them, they drop the required item which forces itself into your inventory.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed ???
- Implied: Bob is playing a game and an Atomic F-Bomb is heard. The next scene shows the game's starting cutscene.
- Deconstructed: The unwinnable by mistake condition is the result of the programmers and designers either being careless or lazy. This is a rather easy situation to get into, so sales drop when players hear of how unfair it is and assume the game has it as an Unwinnable by Design state.
- Reconstructed: The unwinnable by mistake condition is embraced by a certain proportion of fans who see avoiding it or getting unstuck from it as an additional challenge.
- Played For Drama: The setting is inside a video game and the world has slowed to a crawl. Alice blames herself for the mistake, Evulz rages against the creator for denying him resolution.
Back to Unintentionally Unwinrender error please restart
