Complaining: Cardboard Obstacle

I tagged this complaining because that seems to be the biggest problem with this page, but it is hardly the only one.

First of all, the actual complaining: The description itself smells strongly of the Nostalgia Filter. It also contains such sentences as "The developers think it's funny, but you can only groan." The examples include phrases like "What is especially annoying." Overall, the entire thing seems like it is Missing Supertrope (Destructible Obstacle), but Done Poorly.

Second of all, there is the description itself. Even outside of the complaining, it seems to go on forever, and it is all over the place. I'm not entirely sure what it is talking about half of the time.

Next, quite a few of the examples seem to be talking about things that are very different from what is in the description. Quite a few of the examples are just "worthless videogame items." While the description isn't exactly clear, I'm pretty sure that isn't what it is talking about. In addition, several of the examples seem to be the Missing Supertrope described above rather than the "trope" described on the page.

Finally, the page only has nineteen wicks, and nine inbounds.

What should we do with this mess?

The laconic says: "Getting past this obstacle becomes boring and repetitive." This sounds more like "obstacle that's ridiculously easy to cross", and matches the trope name. The description deserves a cut, and a total rewrite. Also, this should be renamed, and Cardboard Prison should be a subtrope. Or, just make it an index.

edited 13th May '12 4:52:21 PM by spacemarine50

That's the thing. Cardboard prison has nothing to do with this trope, although it may have been the inspiration for the name. This is a video game trope relating to obstacles that require a certain item to get past. I think a rename might be needed on top of everything else.

The way I see it, options are either re-purpose it as its missing supertrope, change the name, re-write the description, and clean up the examples; try to find some way to fix it while still keeping it what it is (not easy); or just saying screw it and cutting the thing

Trope's page is all over the place in what it's describing, plus it's a Wall of Text. What is this about? Laconic isn't helping.

Okay. Say there are spiderwebs (or ice blocks, rocks, trees, holes, whatever) that block your path in certain areas, and in order to pass them, you need the torch. This means that certain areas will be inaccessible to you until you reach the part of the game where the torch is available, after which point you can go back, burn the webs, and explore a new location.

However, sometimes the area beyond the spiderweb has even more spiderwebs. That's this trope. Cardboard Obstacle is about how the extra spiderwebs (or ice blocks, rocks, tree, holes, whatever) after the first one are essentially pointless—they will never actually block your path because you won't ever see them unless you're carrying the item that lets you pass by them.

Does that clear things up?

To be less complainy, perhaps the description could be broadened a bit to include non-bad usages of the same basic idea. To wit: once you've gotten used to using fire arrows to burn webs that conspicuously block passages, you have to hit one that's stuck on the underside of an otherwise unmarked platform while hanging from a swinging pendulum. It's the same mechanic, but this time using it takes a little skill.

So what I'm getting is that maybe the best thing to do here is to re-write the description, give the trope a more descriptive name, like maybe Redundant Obstacle, then maybe run the missing super-trope (some sort of "you need this item to pass") trope through YKTTW as an example-less page (because it's rather omnipresent), and then of course clean the examples. Does that sound good?

@7: Might make it a subtrope of McGuffin or Plot Coupon. I think another trope (keep the name) for a obstacle that's a lot easier to get through than it seems. No Plot Coupon required.

edited 14th May '12 7:41:47 PM by spacemarine50

edited 14th May '12 8:49:29 PM by Stratadrake

Reading the description, there are several definitions.

• It can be an item that's essentially used as a Plot Coupon for the dungeon you're in, and not relevant for the rest of the game.
• It can be an excessive use of an obstacle just so you get to use an item.
• It can be complaining about obstacles you're sure to have the item for getting past them.

The overall feeling of the trope I get is basically just Obstacle Removing Items Done Badly.

There's absolutely no consideration for if it takes skill to use the item. Do you need to aim accurately? Do you need any timing?

There's also no consideration for whether it gives the developers the freedom to design a greater variety of levels, or the opposite if they need to restrain the design so that the player can't just skip everything.

So does Obstacle Removing Items Done Badly count as a People Sit On Chairs But With Complaining? Because in that case we definitely have a problem.

edited 15th May '12 12:31:36 AM by EnragedFilia

Well, we have Power-Up, but does that include items that essentially acts as power-ups, such as high-jump boots, or is it just for temporary power-up you lose if you die?

But this is just complaining.

I can see a trope for Dungeon Specific Power Up, where an item or power-up you get in a dungeon or right before it only has a use within it. Once you get past it, there may at most be a token place to use it, but other than that, you'll never use the item again.

From what I've gathered something needs to be done about this trope. We seem to be in agreement that it has serious problems, but do we try to fix it, or do we just cut it?

If you're looking for a trope for the items removing these, that's Video Game Tools.

I agree this page is pure complaining.

Notice the "three main ways" include both cases where the obstacles continue appearing after you're guaranteed to have the removal item and cases where they stop appearing after that. Both are bad, of course. And bonus points if there's a lot of them in one place. I'm thinking whoever wrote this must really like Wide-Open Sandbox games, because the only way not to hit one of those is to never have a point where the player is guaranteed to have the item.

I don't get why this is bad. It's a matter of going with some internal logic in the game world rather than making every element blatantly revolve around its status as a game. Is there some particular in-universe reason why spiderwebs should only appear in areas where someone might not have a torch?

My interpretation of this: Any obstacle that seems impenetrable, but is actually easy to get through. Kinda like an inverted Insurmountable Waist-High Fence. What do you think?

I don't think that's supported anywhere in the current trope.

If you strip all the complaining, it's "an obstacle removable with a specific item or ability."

If you strip away the complaining, you get several tropes. First, the one I described in this post, which is not inherently negative. Second, there is a trope where the obstacles will be found only in the area where you first get the ability to pass them, and nowhere else in the game ever again. Also not inherently negative. Third, the trope where a room will be completely filled with that obstacle.

None of them are inherently negative, and I don't see "an obstacle removable with a specific item or ability" anywhere. In fact, it declares rather forcefully that This Is Not That Trope.

edited 22nd May '12 2:07:30 PM by troacctid

Tropes I see from this trope:

• McGuffin and/or Plot Coupon and/or Plot Coupon That Does Something
• Pandemic Obstacle (where a barricade appears a lot more often than makes sense)
• Obstacle Zone (an obstacle is only in a certain area/everywhere but a certain area)

edited 22nd May '12 2:56:05 PM by spacemarine50

"An obstacle removable with a specific item or ability" is the very beginning of the description. That's the trope, before it starts complaining about how "Between then and now, something went horribly wrong."

Objects in a video game can be placed for reasons other than to add challenge to the player. Going on about how "pointless" such objects are is inherently negative. So is complaining about how some type of object only appears in a specific area.

I think you're misreading the page. It specifically says the trope is not that.

edited 24th May '12 12:30:35 PM by troacctid

Maybe you should point out where it says so, because I certainly haven't seen it.

The way I see it, the first two paragraphs are trope (removeable obstacles) and the rest is whining about how game designers dare put them in all the wrong places.

Look at The Scrappy for comparison. It starts out by saying "Popular characters have fandoms." If you were to stop there you would conclude that The Scrappy is about how popular characters grow fandoms. I think you're doing something similar here.

We currently don't have a trope for the trope the description starts out by trying to relate this trope to, so the description for this trope describes that trope from scratch to establish context for this trope, which is a subtrope to that one that we don't have. But it should be pretty clear by the third paragraph that this trope is not supposed to be that trope, since it makes a point of drawing specific contrasts distinguishing this trope from that one, and even shifting verb tense and everything.

edited 25th May '12 7:10:40 PM by troacctid

Maybe it should, but the only thing the third paragraph makes clear is that whoever wrote it really doesn't like the placement of removable obstacles in modern games.