History Main / CruelPlayerCharacterGod

* The NintendoDS game ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes: WesternAnimation/DuckAmuck'' has the player commit all kinds of mischief on poor Daffy.Though they can "win" his mini-games, it is sometimes much more satisfying to make him utterly (and painfully) fail.

** 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]].

* ''[[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.

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]]? Your sickest dreams have come true!

** 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, talk to volleyballs (no really) and [[LampshadeWearing dance with lampshades on their heads]].

* ''VivaPinata''. Yes, ''[[http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=227 Viva Pinata.]]''
* ''RollerCoasterTycoon'' allows quite a bit of this.

* Since the ''{{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 [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnHI_CkK27o "The Depressing Stick."]]
* ''{{Creatures}}'':

* ''VivaPinata''. Yes, ''[[http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=227 Viva Pinata.]]''.

* [[http://www.addictinggames.com/interactivebuddy.html Interactive Buddy]].

** This [[RealTrailerFakeMovie trailer]] for [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMXME2pm83c The Sims]] shows how [[{{Deconstruction}} horrible]] this would be in real life.

* ''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 possibly other RTS's) it is impossible to disband units. If a player wants ot 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.

* ''{{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.

A subtrope of VideoGameCrueltyPotential, this deals with games where the 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]]? Your sickest dreams have come true!

-->''"Because let's face it, puddings don't count as people. Puddings are useless subhuman blobs that exist solely to be bashed into an acceptable shape via Master Controller or eternally tormented and killed for the amusement of the sim gods looking down from on high.\\

* '[[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.

** ''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".

*** 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'''.

** ''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/SimCity 2000'' 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.

* ''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.

* Both ''VideoGame/BlackAndWhite'' and its sequel allow for a considerable amount of cruelty, as the player is a literal god. Mortals can be violently thrown, telekinetically battered, or dropped into the sea. While Fire and Bolt miracles are the most obviously violent, even Water can be used sadistically against your own mortals, or opposing factions. Many objects can be ignited and used as projectiles. Additionally, humans can be sacrificed, and torture chambers can be constructed.

*** Take a Cow as your pet demigod creature. Tie it to a tree. [[KickTheDog Thrash it mercilessly.]] Force-feed it human subjects, until it starts to like the taste of meat. Set people and trees on fire while it watches, and throw them at targets; this teaches it to do the same. You now have a firey, angry cow deathgod that eats people, chucks burning corpses at its enemies, and is scared shitless of your dark hand.

** There's also one particular villager who can't be killed, so you can throw him around to your heart's content (though you never get to permanently end his irritating existence).
*** Oh yes you can, though to do it, if you have any semblance of a heart (Which, considering half the people read this page for ideas, you don't) you'll wish you hadn't. [[spoiler: Sacrificing him to a mana altar results in his death cries and a small bonus to your mana. You jerk.]]

** In addition to the comic shown above, [[Webcomic/VGCats Leo]] [[http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=198 has "fun" playing]] ''{{Spore}}''.
* ''{{Creatures}}'' may be second only to ''VideoGame/TheSims'' in pure, unadulterated cruelty potential. For the uninitiated, it's a game where you raise and take care of a collection of cute, cuddly little creatures called Norns, Ettins, and Grendels -- fairly normal, except that said creatures have an ''extremely'' complex artificial biology. There's tons of ways to hurt them without doing deep hacking -- torment them with nasty creatures, feed them poison, drop them from a great height and watch them injure themselves, train one or two to go around smacking the daylights out of each other, and starve them/bore them to death, among others. If you're clever and/or patient enough, however, you can alter their virtual genetics, turning them into adorable little masochists who love nothing more than being tortured -- by having them receive pleasure from pain, having them feed off poison, or have deadly diseases turn them near immortal. They're fun little guys to mess around with.

* [[http://www.addictinggames.com/interactivebuddy.html This game]]. 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.

*** 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.

* ''RollerCoasterTycoon'' allows quite a bit of this. You can build roller coasters to nowhere and still run them -- causing the car to fly off the track and [[MadeOfExplodium explode spectacularly]], creating a very nice death toll. You can mess with settings to rig prebuilt rides to fail similarly. Both of the above cut into your revenues. However, another option for cruelty is both fun and profitable! Give soft drinks away for free, then charge $6 for each use of the bathrooms.

** Make tunnels, and when the guests go inside them, delete the path, which takes the tunnel with it. It shows them falling through nothingness for a moment, then they disappear completely, never to be seen or heard from again. They even disappear from your guest list.
*** This is very likely to be exactly [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer_at_the_Bat what happened to Ozzie Smith.]]

* ''VideoGame/ZooTycoon'' allows you to be cruel to both humans AND animals, satisfying all of your abusive needs. Create one of every animal and set them loose in a zoo (which has an electric fence around the entrance) full of guests. After they virtually kill all of the guests in the zoo, they start killing ''each other''. Last one left standing is the winner.

* In ''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.

** Since {{Game Mod}}ding ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'' is 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:[numlist:1]

** 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]] [[KillItWithFire 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 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 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/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 possibly other RTS's) it is impossible to disband units. If a player wants ot 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.

** This was also the case with the ''[[AmericanGirlsCollection American Girls Premiere]]'', which was developed by The Learning Company but uses the same 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's an idea that many people seem to latch onto that if we were created by some kind of God then obviously he did it because he loves us so huggy-muggy much. Never are the holes in this theory more obvious than while playing God games, because it seems when you place most people in the position of a God and give them responsibly over many tiny lesser beings then their attitude towards them is usually less about beloved children and more about target practice."''
-->--'''[[WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation Yahtzee]]'''[='=]s review of ''VideoGame/SimCity Societies''.

* The iPod Touch/iPhone game app ''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.

** ''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".

A subtrope of VideoGameCrueltyPotential, this deals with games where the 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 ForTheEvulz? Your sickest dreams have come true!

** The Wii's SimCity Creator can be like this, some of the diasters include A Giant Drill you can control, or Giant Llamas.

* In ''VideoGame/DinoSystem'', during god mode (not to be confused with [[{{God Mode}} this god]] mode as DinoSystem’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."

* In ''VideoGame/DinoSstem'' during god mode (not to be confused with [[{{God Mode}} this god]] mode as DinoSystem’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."

->''"It's an idea that many people seem to latch onto that if we were created by some kind of God was because he loves us so huggy-buggy much. There are more holes in this theory none being more obvious than playing God Games because it seems when you put most people in the position of a God and give them the responsibly of many tiring lesser beings is that attitude towards them becomes less about beloved children and more about target practice."''

* ''{{Warcraft}} II'' and ''{{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 the ''LightningWarriorRaidy'' games, losing against a floor boss will result in a scene with Raidy being sexually violated by said boss, followed by an endgame message about how she spent the rest of her life as a submissive sex slave. This being an eroge, most players will have Raidy lose at least once against each boss just to see this (and it is necessary to unlock the secret ending). Of course, if Raidy wins, ''she'' is the one who violates the boss in turn, so the player wins either way.

* ''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]].