History Main / EndlessGame

--> Data: In the strictest sense, I did not win...I busted him up.

* In a very similar vein, ''VideoGame/DontStarve''. The game keeps on going until you die or use the Wooden Thing, which [[NewGamePlus takes you to a freshly-generated world with your inventory items intact]]. An official ending is currently in the works through Adventure Mode, though.

* The arcade version of ''VideoGame/{{Commando}}'', while having more unique levels than the NES version, infinitely repeats after level eight, while the NES version, with only 4 unique stages, ends after the fourth loop, with a BlindIdiotTranslation AWinnerIsYou screen.

* The original arcade ''VideoGame/SpyHunter'' and its ports.

** In the Wii game it happens for the first time in years since the original arcade games. It doesn't matter how good you are at the game; you WILL lose eventually, resulting in the game's DownerEnding. It's possible to beat "Mac's Last Stand"; but after that, it goes into "Champion" mode, in which any fighter (including Glass Joe) can knock you down with just one punch (a reference to the NES game's "Dream Fight" mode where you fight Mike Tyson/Mr. Dream). It keeps going this way until you mess up. There is no "good" ending. To add injury to insult, the file you were using is listed as "retired" afterwards. You can still access it, but you can only play the game's exhibition mode. The game's career mode can never be played again with that file. You have several save slots, but still. The only caveat is that [[spoiler:Donkey Kong]] can only be fought in this mode and the opponents are picked randomly, so if you lose without meeting him, he becomes unobtainable for that save.

* The ''VideoGame/PunchOut'' game for Wii. It doesn't matter how good you are at the game; you WILL lose eventually, resulting in the game's DownerEnding. It's possible to beat "Mac's Last Stand"; but after that, it goes into "Champion" mode, in which any fighter (including Glass Joe) can knock you down with just one punch (a reference to the NES game's "Dream Fight" mode where you fight Mike Tyson/Mr. Dream). It keeps going this way until you mess up. There is no "good" ending. To add injury to insult, the file you were using is listed as "retired" afterwards. You can still access it, but you can only play the game's exhibition mode. The game's career mode can never be played again with that file. You have several save slots, but still. The only caveat is that [[spoiler:Donkey Kong]] can only be fought in this mode and the opponents are picked randomly, so if you lose without meeting him, he becomes unobtainable for that save.

* ''VideoGame/TheBindingOfIsaac'':
** Entering BASEMENT as a seed in ''Rebirth'' will cause the Basement to loop over and over, forever. Playing it long enough will cause the player to become ''very'' powerful. ''Afterbirth'' inadvertently made the game beatable in this mode, however, as using the Sacrifice Rooms enough will warp the player to the Dark Room, which is one of the final levels
** ''Afterbirth+'' introduces the ability to perform a Victory Lap after beating The Lamb, which restarts the game with almost all of items obtained in the previous run. This can be done indefinitely, the difficulty increasing each time. Doing a Victory Lap 3 times in a row unlocks a NewGamePlus mode.

Note that this trope applies to most [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfVideoGames golden age]] arcade games because of the need for the game to be over in order for other people to play. However, specific examples follow:

* Creator/{{Sega}}'s UsefulNotes/ArcadeGame ''Quartet'' anticlimactically loops back to the starting level after Stage 32. The UsefulNotes/SegaMasterSystem version, by contrast, has a FinalBoss and an ending.

* ''VideoGame/HeiankyoAlien'', like most early arcade games, contains nothing resembling an ending, with the arcade version looping after the ninth level. The UsefulNotes/GameBoy remake, however, has an ending sequence after its twelfth level.

* [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] by a UsefulNotes/PlayStation3 commercial featuring a "completionist" asking Advertising/KevinButler about what to do when finished playing ''VideoGame/LittleBigPlanet''. As advertised, due to the absurdly vast stream of user-created levels, you are physically incapable of finishing the game.

* Every game in Nintendo's UsefulNotes/GameAndWatch line of LCD handhelds from the 80s falls into this. While some later games like ''VideoGame/DonkeyKong'' have definite endings, [[HardModeFiller they just repeat a little faster]] until you run out of lives. ''Judge'' and ''[[Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda Zelda]]'' are the only two games [[AvertedTrope that can be finished]].

* ''VideoGame/LodeRunner'' originally had 150 levels; level 151 was level 1 with faster enemies, and so on. Particularly Hang On mode in the 25th Anniversary UsefulNotes/XboxLiveArcade release.

* ''VideoGame/SmurfRescueInGargamelsCastle'' for the UsefulNotes/Atari2600 and the UsefulNotes/ColecoVision: Each time you reach Smurfette, you get sent right back to the Smurf Village to start over.

* Survival Mode in ''VideoGame/HeavyWeapon'' is like this. The PC version's survival mode ends when you lose a life, while the UsefulNotes/XBox360 remake gives you three lives.

* {{Justified|Trope}} in the UsefulNotes/{{Intellivision}} game ''VideoGame/SpaceSpartans'', in which it's actually part of the plot: "In 480 B.C. a small Spartan force held off Xerxes and the entire Persian army, in the famous Battle of Thermopylae. The Spartans chose to die defending the pass into Greece, to give their allies time to prepare for attack. SPACE SPARTANS reenacts this battle in space, in a heroic adventure that pits you against overwhelming alien odds. You are the elite force. Stop the first alien onslaught and a new alien force appears. Hold the aliens back as long as you can and give your home galaxy time to prepare for attack!"

** Zig-zagged with NES Tetris. For a very long time, level 29 was thought to be a KillScreen, due to pieces falling far too fast to move by the traditional method of holding down left or right. However, the techniques of hyper-tapping and then rolling were introduced which let players continue far beyond level 29. At the end of 2023, player [=BlueScuti=] finally reached arguably the true Kill Screen of NES Tetris, making the game crash at level 157 due to the instability of the game's code. However, it is theoretically possible to play the game, deliberately avoiding moves that will crash the game, and loop back to level 0 after 256 levels. So in that way, it may still be considered an Endless Game.

** "Kill sequence" aside, the original NES ''Tetris'' becomes impossible without slow motion at Level 29, due to the increased speed making it impossible to get a piece to the extreme left or right of the column and the comparatively slow auto-repeat for the left and right keys common in ''Tetris'' games of the day. But people playing in extreme slow-mo can continue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76DAwK3cL9w

* ''VideoGame/SpookysHouseOfJumpScares'' has this mode as DownloadableContent.

* In ''VideoGame/WarioWare'', the first time you play a character's stage, you win once you beat the first boss microgame. After that, it just continues on endlessly, getting faster and more difficult, until you lose all your lives, so all you can do is aim for the high score. Of course, there are rewards for getting a high enough score...

** Burst: As in Accel, but your special attack gauges recharge faster, and the game speed fluctuates more than in Accel. Exclusive to ''Bullet Hell Monday Finale'' and [[VersionExclusiveContent the Steam version]] of ''Bullet Hell Monday Black''.

* Every game in Nintendo's UsefulNotes/GameAndWatch line of LCD handhelds from the 80s falls into this. While some later games like ''VideoGame/DonkeyKong'' have definite endings, [[HardModeFiller they just repeat a little faster]] until you run out of lives. ''Judge'' and ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZelda Zelda]]'' are the only two games [[AvertedTrope that can be finished]].

* Certain games, like ''TabletopGame/TalesOfEquestria'', have no specific ending, but do cite a level of character power when it's best that the character retire. In ''ToE'' specifically, once the player characters are as strong and versatile as the [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic Elements of Harmony]], finding stories capable of challenging them will become increasingly difficult.

* In the arcade game based on the movie ''VideoGame/IndianaJonesAndTheTempleOfDoom'', after crossing the rope bridge, you end up in the "Challenge Round," a kind of eternal bonus room where you have to find the sacred statue. When you finally lay hand on the golden statue, you only get a lump of bonus points and the statue continuously reappears at another random location for some more bonus points. You just go around the level like this ad infinitum.

* The old, good, addictive game ''{{Prohibition}}'' used the "return to start" variant, with your [[TimedMission death timer]] going faster. If anybody ever managed to survive the second run, please say so.

** [[http://www.i-mockery.com/minimocks/pacman/ I'M GONNA BEAT PACMAN!]]

* ''VideoGame/SolomonsKeep'' will allow the player to go through "Gauntlet" mode if they finish the game on [[HarderThanHard Demigod]] difficulty without using [[NoFairCheating Kid Mode]]. Gauntlet difficulty is similar to Demigod, except that [[PermaDeath death is now permanent]], and if you beat it, you go through it again and again until you die.
** The prequel, ''Solomon's Boneyard'', is always this -- the intent is for the player to collect gold for power-ups in order to last longer and earn a higher score in the next play.

* The alien fleets in ''Videogame/{{Rymdkapsel}}'' keep coming faster and getting bigger, but your defenses are capped by the amount of minerals on the field to mine. By about round 30 you're just trying to hold out as long as possible.

[[folder:Miscellaneous Games]]
* Many of the games on ''VideoGame/Action52'' loop around to the first level upon "completion" while keeping track of your score. Most of the others, infamously, crash a few levels in. Only a few have a clearly-defined ending.
** ''Ooze'' crashes on level 3 of the more common version of the cartridge, but does have an actual ending on the rarer second version (wonder if anyone actually entered this contest).
** ''Non Human'' resets itself at a certain point in level 1 which does not look anything like the end.
** ''Spread Fire'' seems to be the only game that does this intentionally, presenting every level after the 19th as Level 1.
* ''VideoGame/MarioPaint'''s fly-swatter game.
* The third ''VideoGame/LunaGame'' does this, after a fashion. After a certain point, the only way to progress forward is to allow yourself to fall into a pit [[spoiler: and die]]. If you avoid the pits, the forest just goes on forever, simply offering pit after pit to fall into.
* ''VideoGame/{{Tutankham}}'' loops after 16 stages, most of which are HardModeFiller.
* ''JezzBall'' continues for as long as you don't die, but after level 49 (50 balls), all the rest have just 50 balls.
* Type [[{{VideoGame/Starcraft}} "Zerg Rush"]] in Website/{{Google}} and you'll get to play a game where you must defend your search results against a bunch of O's. There's too many of them, and they'll eventually defeat you.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Drol}}'', after finishing three missions, you get a victory screen accompanied by a message saying something like: [[TheEndOrIsIt "You did it! But is it really over?"]] This repeats every round until the level counter eventually rolls over.
* The Interactive Fiction game ''Endless, Nameless'' has a past InUniverse example. In this game, there are two worlds-inside the game, and outside the game-and the inside game used to called Endless Quest before the creator of it added an ending and renamed it Nameless Quest.
* ''VideoGame/WreckingCrew'' loops back to the first level after the BonusStage following the hundredth level.
* Puzzle platformer ''Steak 'n' Jake'' has thirty challenge levels, thirty "milk races" and three randomly-generated levels per named stage (a regular level, a boss level and a "balloon break" level). After it runs out of named levels, it repeats unnamed regular and boss levels, balloon breaks and two of the challenge levels for as long as you care to play.
* ''VideoGame/DuckHunt'' keeps on going until you either reach the KillScreen at Level 100, or you miss enough ducks for a GameOver and have to endure [[TheScrappy the dog]] laughing at you. Again.
* ''VideoGame/{{Conjoined}}'':The object of the game is to collect hearts from Alina to get the four items you need to separate her from Alisa, her AxCrazy twin. Once you do, the game starts over from the beginning.
[[/folder]]

* The Arcade mode of ''[[http://colourfire.nfshost.com ColourFire]]'', in the vein of classic arcade games, only ends when the player dies; enemies just get stronger and spawn more quickly as time goes on. The latter has a limit, but the former doesn't.
* ''VideoGame/LodeRunner'' originally had 150 levels; level 151 was level 1 with faster enemies, and so on. Particularly Hang On mode in the 25th Anniversary UsefulNotes/XboxLiveArcade release.
* ''VideoGame/MegaMan9'' and ''VideoGame/MegaMan10''[='=]s Endless Attack.
** {{Game Mod}}s have made similar stages for ''VideoGame/MegaMan2'', ''VideoGame/MegaMan3'', ''VideoGame/MegaMan4'', and ''VideoGame/MegaMan5''.
* In ''VideoGame/WarioWare'', the first time you play a character's stage, you win once you beat the first boss microgame. After that, it just continues on endlessly, getting faster and more difficult, until you lose all your lives, so all you can do is aim for the high score. Of course, there are rewards for getting a high enough score...
* Every game in Nintendo's UsefulNotes/GameAndWatch line of LCD handhelds from the 80s falls into this. While some later games like ''VideoGame/DonkeyKong'' have definite endings, [[HardModeFiller they just repeat a little faster]] until you run out of lives. ''Judge'' and ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZelda Zelda]]'' are the only two games [[AvertedTrope that can be finished]].

* ''Cliffed'', an iOS game where you footrace down a bottomless cliff [[AutoScrollingLevel that autoscrolls]] [[RatchetScrolling and scrolls down freely when you get to that point, but prevents you from scrolling up.]] [[OneHitKill The invisible ceiling also kills you,]] with the GameOver message saying "You got [[TitleDrop Cliffed!]]" You also can't jump.
* ''VideoGame/SmurfRescueInGargamelsCastle'' for the UsefulNotes/{{Atari 2600}} and the UsefulNotes/ColecoVision: Each time you reach Smurfette, you get sent right back to the Smurf Village to start over.
* ''VideoGame/{{Ponpoko}}'' only has 20 "patterns," and the 20th one just repeats after you beat it.

* In ''VideoGame/WoahDave'', the only way to end a game is running out of lives, and the primary goal is collecting as many pennies as possible.
* ''VideoGame/{{Germination}}'': One of the game modes.

* The ''Franchise/TouhouProject'' fangame ''Endless Alice -Crysis-'' falls into this. The game is spent chucking countless exploding dolls at endlessly spawning mushrooms (and the occasional Marisa) in horizontal-looping levels. The difficulty increases and the health restoration decreases with each stage you clear. Since the layout resets to Level 1 every dozen stages or so, there's little to do beyond just trying to survive as long as possible.

* ''VideoGame/DrMario''. Depending, of course, on the mode.
* ''VideoGame/PipeDream''. Although, sometimes a level would be impossible to win, because the start was surrounded by blocks.

* ''VideoGame/{{Meteos}}'' becomes this if no opponents are added to a game. It also has a mode called "Deluge" that is this exactly, complete with a high-score screen.
* ''VideoGame/{{Columns}}'', much like the aforementioned ''Tetris''.
* The survival mode of ''[[VideoGame/CriticalMass2011 Critical Mass]]''.
* ''VideoGame/{{Slydris}}'', in both the Survival and Infinite modes. You keep going until you hit the top of the screen and die.
* ''VideoGame/SuperHexagon'' credits you with completing a level if you survive for 60 seconds, but your high score is always simply how long you last.
* ''Cubis'' and ''Cubis 2'' each have 50 levels per level pack, but once you complete level 50, the levels repeat; level 51 is identical to level 1, but with less time on the [[TimedMission timer]], level 52 is identical to level 2, etc.
* ''Dynomite'' had this for two of its game modes. The Fossil Challenge had a defined end, and Time Trial mode gave you one level intended to be completed in the shortest time possible (and, in fact, was impossible to ''lose''), but [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Endless Mode]] kept spawning more eggs from the top of the screen until you lost, either by carelessness, bad luck, or the game becoming essentially {{Unwinnable}} due to there being too many egg colors moving at too great a speed, and Stomped mode was like the Cubis example above: there were 30 levels, but after that, level 31 was identical to level 1 except that it would take one less egg to make the level shift down, and so on.
* The Game Boy port of ''VideoGame/MarbleMadness'' for some reason lacks the final stage found in other versions, and instead loops levels 2 through 5 until time runs out.
* ''VideoGame/{{Shapez}}'' always gives you the same goals for every playthrough and the same unlocks to go along with it - up to Level 26, after which the shapes get randomly generated. With a little finesse, you can still construct your factory in such a way that you don't ever need to rebuild it, which could mark the end of your playthrough.

* The browser game ''VideoGame/CookieClicker'' has no defined end condition; one can continue playing virtually indefinitely, building more and more buildings to increase the scope of one's cookie empire. In version 1.036, there was a KillScreen when one reached 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 cookies, and said condition was effectively unreachable without hacking. Of course, as of fall 2015, the game barely starts at that point.
* ''VideoGame/GameAndWatch'':
** The extreme simplicity of a Game & Watch game meant that there's no story or a victory condition. Only an aim for the highest possible score until you failed three times.
** Averted with ''Judge'' and ''Zelda''. The former ends when one player reaches 99 points, and the latter is won once Zelda is rescued.
* ''VideoGame/GardenGnomeCarnage'': The Christmas elven army is endless and relentless. No matter how well you do, your anti-elf crusade is doomed to always end in failure, but you can be ScoringPoints for a long time, though.

** Even moreso if you count shooters that loop back to the first stage with increased difficulty, such as the ''VideoGame/{{Gradius}}'' series.

* [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] in the UsefulNotes/{{Intellivision}} game ''Space Spartans'', in which it's actually part of the plot: "In 480 B.C. a small Spartan force held off Xerxes and the entire Persian army, in the famous Battle of Thermopylae. The Spartans chose to die defending the pass into Greece, to give their allies time to prepare for attack. SPACE SPARTANS reenacts this battle in space, in a heroic adventure that pits you against overwhelming alien odds. You are the elite force. Stop the first alien onslaught and a new alien force appears. Hold the aliens back as long as you can and give your home galaxy time to prepare for attack!"

* A staple of the ''VideoGame/AnnoDomini'' games. There are also scenarios and a campaign.
* Currently it's impossible win in survival mode in ''VideoGame/DinoSystem'', one can only play until either dying or quitting. Although it's also impossible to "win" in god mode, one can't lost either so the trope doesn't apply to it.
* ''VideoGame/{{Reigns}}'' uses this as an ending in and of itself. While you have plenty of years to figure out how to achieve your main goal, it's entirely possible to run out of time, and the Spirit of the Fallen informs you of this. However, you can choose to ignore this and continue playing as long as you like, until you're ready to try it again from the top.
* ''VideoGame/MiniMetro'' keeps running until any station in your subway network stays over capacity for too long. Endless mode removes this sole defeat condition, allowing you to play as long as you want no matter your skill level, instead scoring you based on how efficiently you complete passengers' rides.
* Most games made by {{Creator/Kairosoft}} don't have a hard endpoint. They'll 'end' after several years and calculate a score based on how you've done, but after that you can keep playing the same save file indefinitely.