History ThatOneLevel / Adventure

* Naturally, {{Sierra}} games are full of these:

** Also worth mentioning: the Age of Edanna from the third game, ''Exile''. Puzzles that offer only the slightest connection to [[MoonLogicPuzzle sanity]], [[YouFailBiologyForever biology]], or [[FollowThePlottedLine each other]], paths that in the worst of cases are [[PixelHunt indistinguishable from the walls that surround them]], and a conclusion that is more terrifying than exhilarating. Also, [[CrueltyIsTheOnlyOption cruelty to animals]] is never a plus.

** Made worse by the fact that the instant win code, in DOS, had this knack for NOT WORKING PROPERLY and screwing you out of an item. oh, and there's only 3 of one specific type of enemy which holds an item required to progress, and if you used the cheat, you'd not only [[LostForever fail to get the item]] but [[{{Unwinnable}} be unable to cross a destroyed bridge]].

*** Fortunately, most people that play DOS-Era games today do so with {{DOSBox}}, which allows you to specify a CPU speed. How people did it on the old machines is probably a bigger guide-dang-it than the puzzle itself.

* Any of the bike fights in ''FullThrottle''. They weren't well programmed to begin with, but they're actually unwinnable using [=ScummVM=] if you don't just cheat and use the instant win code.

** In the original version of ''VideoGame/SpaceQuestITheSarienEncounter'', you have to escape the Arcada before it explodes. Yet you are not explained ANYTHING about this other than "the Arcada was boarded by unknown assailants".

** In the original version of ''SpaceQuest I'', you have to escape the Arcada before it explodes. Yet you are not explained ANYTHING about this other than "the Arcada was boarded by unknown assailants".

** In ''Space Quest II'', there was a maze that was a non-cursor version of a pixel hunt. If you touched the (pixel thick) walls with your (pixel sized) foot, that's it. Boom, dead, game over. Back in the day of playing on 512k floppies, this maze represented one of the most tedious things in the world. The maze isn't difficult - you can see the whole thing from the outside the whole time - but navigating it is incredibly tedious and frustrating. And then, having achieved all this herculean task... you have to do it all over again. Backwards.

*** The Zero-Gravity Skating sequence in ''Space Quest IV''... even on a system slow enough to work at the right speed, it's still damn near impossible.
*** Rescuing Cliffy in ''Space Quest V''... really a LuckBasedMission, but the odds of your fuel running out are really ''really'' against you.
*** Curse you, Astro-Chicken. You are the one thing standing in the way of ''Space Quest III'' being the best of the series. Sure, it's not required to beat the game, but anybody who cares about the plot enough wouldn't allow themselves to search for the Two Guys without playing it first. Otherwise, why are you even going to Pestulon in the first place?

* TorinsPassage had the Slippery Slope: a steep slope with few viable handholds, which were totally invisible and only detectable when you moused over it and the talking grass gave an affirmative. A variant of the PixelHunt.
* Runaway: A Road Adventure. Chapter One, Scene One. "Hmm, I should write over this board so that the killer after Gina mistakes her for someone else and leaves. Hey, I have a marker, but it's dry ! Hey, I have some alcohol ! But I'd need something pointy to refill it... a pointy container... in a hospital..." Well, good luck finding the 2-pixel-wide zone holding the freaking syringe now. Perfectly logical and sensible puzzle killed by PixelHunt again.
* 7 Days a Skeptic of the Chzo Mythos games was particularly painful when the player was being chased about the space station and died if the enemy got within a few pixels of him (in a small windowed game). While the chasing was not TOO bad if you played things safe, the worst parts were the puzzles to defeat said assailant, usually involving doing things that were much more elaborate than would realistically be necessary.

* ''ZackAndWiki'': Barbosa's Island starts by making you pull a trap door that will kill you unless you grab a grate in a split-second (after getting the pointer on screen which was hidden during the previous sequence of course), and goes downhill from there. Especially frustrating is fighting the skeletons with a sword, and the controls are ''terrible''. And the level ends with [[spoiler: a minigame where you need to pull a rope just before Barbaros reaches you ... and yes, failing this minigame does count as death]].

* The parlor in ''DreamChronicles'', where you have to find seven pictures, some of which are ridiculously well-hidden. Then you have to put each of them in the correct spot on the wall, causing the piano to play a melody of varying length, during which you can't do anything. THEN you have to click on each picture and play back the melody on the piano. Oh, and did I mention that after you successfully play back the melody, it plays it back AGAIN and you can't do anything?

* ''VideoGame/StrongBadsCoolGameForAttractivePeople'' has a few toughies. There's the Maps and Minions minigame at the end of ''Strong Badia the Free'', and the final puzzle of ''Baddest of the Bands'', where you have to mess around with both the stage fixtures and Strong Bad's bandmates in order to reveal Strong Bad's much-vaunted "ultimate stage prop".

* Chapter 9 in ''VideoGame/GhostTrick''. EscortMission. Lights switched off. Enough said.

* ''VideoGame/TheWalkingDead'': Episode 2 has one. Near the end, when [[spoiler: Brenda is holding Katjaa hostage,]] you have to advance on her very slowly and stop immediantly when she points her gun at you, then talk to her. However, you must stop on a dime when she does, or she shoots you on the spot. And you have to do this THREE TIMES.

* Microscope Puzzle in ''TheSeventhGuest''. Probably 90% of the people who will tell you that they didn't have to skip this puzzle with the hint book are filthy liars. [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard And for good reason]].

*** Fortunately, most people that play DOS-Era games today do so with DOSBOX, which allows you to specify a CPU speed. How people did it on the old machines is probably a bigger guide-dang-it than the puzzle itself.

* ''[[VideoGame/TheWalkingDead]]'': Episode 2 has one. Near the end, when [[spoiler: Brenda is holding Katjaa hostage,]] you have to advance on her very slowly and stop immediantly when she points her gun at you, then talk to her. However, you must stop on a dime when she does, or she shoots you on the spot. And you have to do this THREE TIMES.

* Anyone who has ever played VideoGame/AmnesiaTheDarkDescent remembers and utterly loathes the Cellar Archives (also known as [[FanNickname the Water Part]]). Not because it's a particularly difficult puzzle compared to others in the game (though it's certainly not easy), but because it's [[NightmareFuel INSANELY, PANTS-CRAPPINGLY TERRIFYING.]] In a game known for possibly being the most terrifying ever made, this section is the one most often singled out for being the scariest part.

* Anyone who has ever played [[VideoGame/AmnesiaTheDarkDescent]] remembers and utterly loathes the Cellar Archives (also known as [[FanNickname the Water Part]]). Not because it's a particularly difficult puzzle compared to others in the game (though it's certainly not easy), but because it's [[NightmareFuel INSANELY, PANTS-CRAPPINGLY TERRIFYING.]] In a game known for possibly being the most terrifying ever made, this section is the one most often singled out for being the scariest part.

* In episode 3 of ''VideoGame/StrongBadsCoolGameForAttractivePeople'', we have the aggravating and confusing final puzzle.
* In ''[[VideoGame/SamAndMaxFreelancePolice Sam and Max Hit the Road]]'', there's a magnifying glass hidden very well in one of the tents at the carnival, it's hidden so well that you will mistake it as part of the background. Then when you have all of the equipment to modify the binoculars at the World's Largest Ball of Twine ''except'' for the magnifying glass, and try everything in your inventory, you will no doubtedly rage.
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** The Troll Cave in ''VideoGame/KingsQuestIV''. You have to navigate a series of screens [[LuckBasedMission with a Troll that may or not show up to eat you]]. There's also [[BottomlessPits a crevice you have to watch out for]]. Oh and you have to cross the cave in the dark with only a lantern with poor light radius. Did I mentioned need to navigate the cave twice?

** The stupid cliff climbing section in KingsQuestIII -- you have to inch Gwydion down a cliff with no indication as to which pixels are the very, very small minority which will not send you plummeting to your death.
** Climbing the whale's tongue in KingsQuestIV. Need I say more?
** The desert in ''KingsQuestV''. Finding the oases and the bandit camp (and a certain item that you need to complete the game lest it becomes {{Unwinnable}}) is trial-and-error, unless you have a [[GuideDangIt map]]. And even after getting past that one, there's the catacombs of Mordack's dungeon late in the game, with a ''very'' confusing map system.

** KingsQuestVI has the Labyrinth, which comes close to V's desert in sheer frustration. The maze is littered with instant-kill dead ends, has an infuriatingly annoying tile puzzle, and getting to the second floor requires you to [[StupidityIsTheOnlyOption do something that got you killed every other time you tried it.]] Most of this was done for the sake of CopyProtection (the manual had solutions for the tile puzzle, for example)...but then there are a couple of items you need to get, or you're locked out of the [[MultipleEndings good ending]], [[UnwinnableByDesign and if you enter without the right items, you can't leave to go get them.]] Fortunately, you're offered the option to return and search the place again, this time having an easier exit. Also it didn't have the perspective skew [=KQ5=] did.

** Unfortunately, the AI isn't random in the least--if you do the exact same movements every time, [[ArtificialStupidity the computer will do the same moves every time]], depending on your PC specifications. Even attempting to mimic a YouTube solution video will cause you to lose if your PC is faster or slower.

* 7 Days a Skeptic of the Chzo Mythos games was particularly painful when the player was being chased about the space station and died if the enemy got within a few pixels of him (in a small windowed game). While the chasing was not TOO bad if you played things safe, the worst parts were the puzzles to defeat said assailant, usually involving doing things that were much more elaborate than would realistically be necessary.

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