Video Game Difficulty Tropes

All about video game difficulty - how to create it, how to present it, and what happens when you fall afoul of it.

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Subcategories:

• Fake Difficulty
  • The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard
• That One Index
• Video Game Tutorial

Difficulty levels in general:

• Boss Dissonance
  A boss fight should normally be tougher than the level, but its difficulty doesn't match what's nearby.
  • Easy Levels, Hard Bosses
  • Hard Levels, Easy Bosses
• Breather Level
  A level which is much easier than those surrounding it.
• Brutal Bonus Level
  An optional level that has a much higher difficulty level than the required levels surrounding it.
• Cheese Strategy
  Tactics that will usually take all of the difficulty out of a given puzzle, enemy, or boss battle, but are seen as cheap by the community.
• Choose a Handicap
  The game forces you to select one of several disadvantages before a boss fight or similar challenge.
• Comeback Mechanic
  A feature that provides assistance to losing players or players near elimination.
• Crutch Character
  A character who has skills that make the early stages of the game easier, but relying on them too much will hurt you in the long run.
• Difficult, but Awesome
  A character or game is hard to master, but doing it yields great results.
• Difficulty by Acceleration
  The gameplay gradually goes into fast-forward as you progress.
• Difficulty by Region
  Some games are made harder or easier when released in different countries or regions.
• Difficulty Levels
  If at first you don't succeed, try it on Easy mode.
  • Unlockable Difficulty Levels: If you want the hellish difficulty, beat the game under certain conditions.
• Difficulty Spike
  One level (or level of difficulty) which is suddenly much harder than the ones that came before it.
• Dynamic Difficulty
  A game that adjusts its difficulty based on how the player is doing.
• Early Game Hell
  Game is hardest at the start, rather than the end.
• Easier Than Easy
  Do whatever you want in this mode — dying is all but impossible.
• Easy Level Trick
  When beating a level in a non-standard manner is a lot easier than beating it the expected way.
• Easy-Mode Mockery
  If you pick easy mode, the game will change things to mercilessly mock your ineptitude.
• Fake Difficulty
  The use of cheap tricks to make the game harder.
• Final Death Mode
  A difficulty level where a player only has one life, instead of having multiple lives normally.
• Hard Mode Filler
  A later level is identical to an earlier level, but harder.
• Hard Mode Mook
  Certain (most likely tougher) enemies only appear on higher difficulties.
• Hard Mode Perks
  You are rewarded for choosing harder difficulties in a gameplay-affecting way.
• Harder Than Hard
  A difficulty level above "Hard".
• Healer Signs On Early
  One of the first people in the party has healing spells.
• Healing Checkpoint
  Reaching a checkpoint or save point replenishes your health and/or supplies.
• Hints Are for Losers
  In which a game's developer will adamantly refuse to help you.
• Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels
  Difficulty levels that are given weird names.
• Last Lousy Point
  If you want to go for that last percentage point in your quest for 100% Completion, you're in for a world of hurt.
• Mercy Mode
  An Easy Mode unlocked by repeatedly, utterly failing.
• Multiplayer Difficulty Spike
  The multiplayer mode(s) are significantly more challenging than the single-player campaign.
• My Rules Are Not Your Rules
  When the computer has abilities and better versions of the stuff you could ever receive.
• Non-Indicative Difficulty
  Where "hard" mode is easier than "easy" mode.
• Nintendo Hard
  Games that are very hard.
• Numerical Hard
  Difficulty Levels that merely change some statistics of the player/enemy stats.
• Overly Generous Time Limit
  The player is given more than enough time to complete a level or other mission.
• Platform Hell
  A Platform Game which is evil and totally out to kill you any way it can.
• Rubber-Band A.I.
  The better you are at a game, the harder the game gets.
• Schizophrenic Difficulty
  A game has a difficulty curve that makes no sense.
• Sequel Difficulty Drop
  A sequel is much easier than expected compared to the game(s) before it.
• Sequel Difficulty Spike
  A sequel is much harder than expected compared to the original game.
• Skill Gate Characters
  Fighting Game characters that are a challenge to newcomers, but those with experience will easily mop the floor with them.
• Surprise Difficulty
  You thought this cute game was gonna be easy, didn't you?
• Unstable Equilibrium
  A game which gets easier when you're doing good, and harder if you're doing poorly.
• Video Game Delegation Penalty
  If you automate an in-game task or assign it to an NPC, you get a less desirable outcome.

Ways of increasing difficulty:

• Assassination Sidequest
  A type of sidequest that requires you to kill a specific target stealthily.
• Ability Required to Proceed
  An obstacle that requires a particular skill or item to pass.
• Action-Based Mission
  An action-heavy sequence in a game which for the most part eschews action, combat and direct confrontation.
• A.I. Roulette
  Random AI actions can result in extremely stupid moves by the computer or the contrary.
• Artificial Brilliance
  AI that's really good at what it does.
• Auto-Scrolling Level
  A level in a Platform Game where the screen continually scrolls and you must keep up with it.
  • Advancing Wall of Doom
    A level where you must constantly outrun a threat, or even the left side of the screen!
• Bottomless Pits
  Falling a thousand feet is fine, but falling ten feet into a bottomless pit? Instant death.
• Challenge Run
  The game suggests optional special rules, or rewards players who follow them.
• Checkpoint Starvation
  Severe lack of Check Points or Save Points.
• Chest Monster
  It looks like a treasure chest, but you don't wanna open it.
• Combat Exclusive Healing
  Just barely survived that Random Encounter? Sorry, your White Mage can't use healing spells outside of battle!
• The Computer Is a Lying Bastard
  The game gives you hints and advice that are flat-out wrong.
• Computers Are Fast
  When it comes to reacting quickly or "mashing" buttons, it's easy to make a computer better than any player.
• Continuing is Painful
  Where continuing or losing a life results in an even harder challenge.
• Deadly Gas
  Here's a hint: Don't get hit by it.
• Deadly Walls
  You're killed instantly whenever you touch a wall.
• Death Course
  A gauntlet filled with enemies and/or booby traps that the hero character has to pass through.
• Denial of Diagonal Attack
  Games that only let you shoot horizontally, and often without being able to crouch, meaning short enemies are incredibly difficult to hit.
• Diminishing Returns for Balance
  The higher a given stat already is, the harder it is to raise it even further.
• Drought Level of Doom
  A long and often brutal level with powerups and healing items being scarce to nonexistent.
• Earn Your Fun
  You get no rewards unless you jump all these hoops!
• Empty Room Until the Trap
  You thought that room had nothing in it?
• Escape Sequence
  A level where you have to constantly run away from a particular enemy.
• Escort Mission
  A mission where you have to keep another character alive while beating enemies or getting to the exit.
  • Reverse Escort Mission
    An inversion of an Escort Mission, where the non-playable character protects you.
• Fake Platform
  It looks like a platform, but try stepping on it and you're in for a shock.
• Gang Up on the Human
  In multiplayer games with several AIs but only one human, they'll all go after the human.
• Goddamned Bats
  Enemies that might not be so hard, but they just won't leave you alone.
  • Goddamned Boss
    A boss that's not very dangerous, but very annoying or frustrating to fight.
  • Demonic Spiders
    Enemies that frustrate you by killing you in unfair ways, which make them innately more dangerous than other normal enemies.
• Healing Boss
  Boss fights made more challenging because the boss has the ability to heal themselves in battle.
• Hero Must Survive
  A storyline character joins you on the battlefield as a "unit" and you must make sure that he/she doesn't die until the end of the mission.
• Hold the Line
  A mission where you have to prevent the enemy completing their objective before time runs out.
• Hostage Spirit-Link
  In Light Gun Games, accidentally shooting innocent people will damage you.
• I Can't Reach It
  The character you're controlling can't, or won't, reach or use a perfectly accessible object.
• Inconveniently-Placed Conveyor Belt
  A conveyor belt-like surface put in random places just so you can be pushed forwards or backwards.
• Increasingly Lethal Enemy
  If any enemy isn't defeated quickly, it becomes harder to defeat.
• Inescapable Ambush
  The player enters an area which is suddenly enclosed in a barrier, and the player can't leave until he defeats all enemies.
• "Instant Death" Radius
  A boss has a strong attack which hits a large melee area and which prevents you from getting anywhere near him.
• Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence
  Trivial obstacles that can't be passed even with brute force.
• Invisible Block
  It's there! You can't see it, but it's there!
• "Just Frame" Bonus
  Just think, if only you improved your timing then you wouldn't be missing out on everything this move can do!
• Kaizo Trap
  A Death Trap claims you when you thought you could put the controller down, such as at the Level Goal after the Boss Fight.
• Karl Marx Hates Your Guts
  Where it's impossible to make money because everything always costs the same, so you can never sell at a profit.
• Leap of Faith
  Are you sure there's even a platform to jump on?
• Level Grinding
  In RPGs, you gain statistics and abilities by killing monsters many times.
  • Anti-Grinding
    Found a good source to grind for experience points? It won't stay that way for long.
    • Empty Levels
      All that Level Grinding you're doing? It won't do you a lick of good.
  • Forced Level-Grinding
    A point in the game where the difficulty is high enough to force you to Level Grind to continue.
• Level of Tedious Enemies
  The level is designed not to be difficult, but enemies are placed for maximum inconvenience.
• Malevolent Architecture
  Everything is designed to make life as difficult for you as possible, even in actual structures that should have a logical layout.
  • Magical Mystery Doors
    A puzzle where a room with a set of doors leads to another room with a set of doors, and you have to find the right path.
• Manual Leader, A.I. Party
  You'd better hope that the non-human controlled allies' AI's up to scratch.
• Misbegotten Multiplayer Mode
  Games that are really designed for single-player mode, and become painful with more than one player.
• Monster Closet
  Enemies hiding in areas that shouldn't even exist and appear not to with no way for them to have got in there to begin with.
• Mook Maker
  A device or enemy who constantly spits out enemies for the player to fight.
• Mutually Exclusive Power-Ups
  The case where picking up one weapon or powerup results in losing another.
• No Fair Cheating
  A measure built into a video game to make sure the player doesn't use cheats or auto-fire control pads.
• Not Playing Fair With Resources
  AI players in Real-Time Strategy games are able to acquire resources faster than the player or don't need any resources at all.
• One-Hit Kill
  A skill or attack that instantly kills whatever it hits.
  • Instakill Mook
    A non-boss can can unleash it.
• One-Hit-Point Wonder
  A game in which the protagonist instantly dies whenever he's hit by anything.
• Pit Trap
  A hole in the ground that's hidden so as to blend into the surrounding terrain, often found in Platform Hell games.
• Pixel Hunt
  In Adventure Games, you have to move the mouse across every single pixel on the screen to find the one object you're really looking for.
• Press X to Die
  The player is given the option to perform an action that can only ever result in failure or otherwise hinder progress.
• Point of No Continues
  No continuing if you die past this point in the game.
• Protection Mission
  A mission where you have to protect a stationary object or character from incoming enemies.
• Reinventing the Wheel
  In strategy games, you need to purchase "upgrades" to capabilities in each campaign, even if your forces already had it in the last one.
• Respawning Enemies
  After you beat a room full of enemies, if you come back to the room, the enemies will be back.
• Reviving Enemy
  You didn't expect the developers to be nice enough to make that mook stay down just because you defeated it, did you?
• Save-Game Limits
  Limitations on when, where, and how often a players can save the game.
• Second Place Is for Losers
  Finishing second at the Daytona 500 is no different from finishing last in Video Game Land.
• Secret A.I. Moves
  Computer-controlled opponents use techniques inaccessible to unfortunate human players.
• Smashing Hallway Traps of Doom
  Booby Trap in which two big stone blocks or spiked walls repeatedly ram into each other in a narrow hallway.
• SNK Boss
  A Nintendo Hard boss in a Fighting Game that doesn't play by the rules. Known side effects include thrown controllers and frothing at the mouth.
• Spikes of Doom
  You touch one, you die horribly.
  • Spike Balls of Doom
    Like spikes, only more mobile.
• Spiteful A.I.
  AI characters don't seem to care if they win so long as you lose.
• Stalking Mission
  A gameplay segment in which the player is tasked with following an NPC to a designated area without being spotted.
• Stealth-Based Mission
  A mission where the player must sneak through an area infested with enemies.
• Steam Vent Obstacle
  Steam vents as obstacles.
• Strong Enemies, Low Rewards
  Powerful enemies enforcing their status as roadblocks by not being rewarding to kill.
• Suddenly-Harmful Harmless Object
  That bush wasn't doing anything before, now it's attacking you.
• Teleporting Keycard Squad
  Whenever you take something important, a slough of new enemies suddenly rushes in.
• Temporary Platform
  When you land on it, it starts crumbling away.
• That One Achievement
  The one lousy achievement or trophy that keeps you from 100% Completion.
• That One Attack
  A particular attack in an enemy's arsenal which is significantly more dangerous than the rest of its skills.
• That One Boss
  A boss who's infamous for being hard to beat.
• That One Component
  A resource which is incredibly hard to obtain, and usually very important.
• That One Level
  A level which is much harder than those surrounding it, sometimes by accident.
• That One Puzzle
  You have a handful of alien bones, a shell, and no hints.
• There Are No Tents
  You can only rest the night at a genuine inn; you can't just set up camp somewhere.
• Tide Level
  Water, Grimy Water, sand, some other substance, or lava rises and falls to keep you on your toes.
• Timed Mission
  The player has a finite amount of time to complete a goal, otherwise it's Game Over.
  • Stalked by the Bell
    Run out of time and an in-universe threat will start to harass/hunt/attack you. Can you still complete the level?
  • Time Keeps On Ticking
    When the clock keeps going, even during cutscenes, battles, and even the pause menu.
• Time Trial
  A mode that challenges the player to complete a level or race as fast as possible.
  • Racing Ghost
    A visual representation of a player/developer's record that the player is able to "challenge".
• Trial-and-Error Gameplay
  When you can only figure out the correct path by trying the incorrect ones and dying, until you get to the right one.
• Treacherous Checkpoint
  What you think is a save point or other type of safe place is actually an enemy, most often a miniboss, but also even an outright boss.
• Turns Red
  When a boss's HP gets lower, he suddenly gains power, speed, and/or uses different attacks.
• Tutorial Failure
  When a tutorial either misleads or gives outright false information to the player.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change
  Where a game suddenly changes from one gameplay genre to another for a level or area.
• Unwinnable by Design
  A gameplay design element that cripples the player so he can't win — but won't tell him about it for hours.
• Unwinnable Joke Game
  A game that presents you with a goal, but as a joke of the programmer, this goal is completely unreachable.
• We Cannot Go On Without You
  The main hero must survive, and the game ends if he ends up dying.
• Video Game Delegation Penalty
  By delegating a certain in-game task or mechanic to the AI or a NPC, you get a less desirable result than when you do it yourself.
• Wizard Needs Food Badly
  The practice of using a food resource as a time limit.
• You Require More Vespene Gas
  Strategy games make you gather resources.

Ways of making games easier:

• After-Combat Recovery
  Just got beaten to within an inch of your life in that Random Encounter? Don't worry, you're back to full health!
  • After Boss Recovery
    Same thing, but only happens after boss battles.
• Anti-Frustration Features
  The rules change in certain situations to prevent Fake Difficulty.
• Artificial Stupidity
  AI that's really bad at what it does.
• Bad Luck Mitigation Mechanic
  The game overrides a merciless Random Number God to reward persistence.
• Colorblind Mode
  Colors in a game can be altered to accommodate players' visual impairments.
• Door to Before
  Once you fight your way to the end of an area, there will be a convenient door that leads you right back to the entrance.
• Effortless Achievement
  The game gives you achievements for merely starting the game, or performing mundane actions.
• Fake Trap
  A trap that actually isn't deadly.
• Foregone Victory
  Any point in a game where you can't actually lose, even if it looks like you can.
• Gameplay Ally Immortality
  When you have an NPC with you, he/she will be impervious to damage or at least death.
• Hint System
  The game gives you hints if you can't solve a puzzle on your own.
• Mercy Invincibility
  Whenever you are hit, you have a small period of invincibility before being vulnerable again.
• Non-Lethal Bottomless Pits
  You expect instant death, but instead you just go back to the start of the area.
  • Bottomless Pit Rescue Service
    Someone or something saves the character from falling all the way down.
• Notice This
  Games will make an important item more visible (e.g. twinkles, color scheme, etc.)
• Overhead Interaction Indicator
  Characters who give quests and/or information will have something overhead signalling that you should talk to them.
• Player-Exclusive Mechanic
  Reverse of Secret A.I. Moves, this is when players can have access to things that the computer cannot have.
• Player Nudge
  If you fail, the game hints to you what to do.
• Post-Final Boss
  A relatively easy boss that is preceded by the true final boss.
• Rainbow Speak
  Important words and phrases are highlighted for your convenience in different colors.
• Story Difficulty Setting
  When a game features a difficulty mode specifically catering to players who just want to experience the story.
• Surprisingly Easy Mini-Quest
  A sidequest that seems like it'll be difficult or frustrating, but ends up being simple or easy.
• Suspiciously Cracked Wall
  The game will have an easily broken wall which conceals some sort of treat.
• Suspicious Videogame Generosity
  The game provides lots of items before a difficult fight.
• Villain Forgot to Level Grind
  Where the villain is still at the same level he was at ten hours ago, but the heroes are ten levels higher and therefore beat him handily.
• Weak Turret Gun
  A turret gun that can be easily knocked out or over.

Video game deaths:

• Cycle of Hurting
  You're caught in a Death Trap and have to watch your Hit Points slowly go down to zero.
• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist
  The penalty for death is so minor that there may as well not be one at all.
• Game Over
  You're dead.
  • Continue Countdown
    A time limit after a failure condition has been met, where the game is over after it expires.
  • Game-Over Man
    When a character appears on the game over screen, sometimes to mock you.
  • Have a Nice Death
    When the game gives you a One-Liner after finishing you off.
  • It's a Wonderful Failure
    An ending that only plays when you get a Game Over.
  • Non-Standard Game Over
    A Game Over screen that appears not after the usual Hit Point-loss, but when you've messed up something more serious or plot-worthy.
  • The Many Deaths of You
    Games that offer all sorts of ways for you to kick the bucket, rather than just losing Hit Points or falling down pits.
  • Yet Another Stupid Death
    Duhh. You died because you were dumb.
  • Press Start to Game Over
    Game Over before it really begins.
• Non-Lethal K.O.
  When HP goes to zero, you don't "die", you just get "knocked out".
  • Permadeath
    Games where, when a character dies, that character is D-E-D Dead and is just plain not coming back.
• Respawn on the Spot
  When you die, you come back to life instantly on the same location you died, or very close to it, without losing any progress.
• Single-Attempt Game
  A game that can be played only once, regardless of the outcome.
• Video-Game Lives
  How many tries a player has before a Game Over.
• We Cannot Go On Without You
  You get a Game Over when the main character is killed, regardless of how many of his companions are still alive.

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