Basic Trope: A game has a command that lets you fool superiors and coworkers into thinking that you're doing work instead of playing a game.
- Straight: If you press Ctrl+B while playing Breakout Clone #13, the game displays a fake spreadsheet.
- Exaggerated:
- Ctrl+B displays a fake spreadsheet, Ctrl+V displays a fake text document, Ctrl+F displays a fake presentation...
- Pressing Ctrl+B takes the player to a bare-bones, but functional spreadsheet program.
- Pressing Ctrl+B changes the game's theme to make it look like a spreadsheet program.
- Downplayed: Pressing Ctrl+B kills the game instantly. While it's not that useful for making people think you're working, at least you can claim that whatever program you're supposed to be using just crashed.
- Justified:
- Inverted:
- Pressing Ctrl+B while using Generic Office Suite starts an Easter Egg minigame.
- The game normally masquerades as a spreadsheet program, but pressing Ctrl+B makes it look more like a standard Breakout clone.
- Subverted: The manual tells you to press Ctrl+B if your boss is approaching. It turns out to display a screen that chews you out for playing the game at work.
- Double Subverted: However, pressing Ctrl+B again will result in the game saying "fine, have it your way". Afterwards, Ctrl+B will display a fake spreadsheet.
- Parodied:
- The spreadsheet keeps track of how much time the player has spent playing Breakout Clone #13 instead of working.
- Breakout Clone #13 is a PlayStation game.
- The "fake spreadsheet" is a terrible MS Paint drawing that won't fool anyone.
- The game instructions say, "Playing at work? Press Ctrl+B to bring up a spreadsheet for an approaching boss." The spreadsheet is full of summoning runes, which a powerful enemy emerges from then starts to close in on the player character.
- The "fake spreadsheet" is rendered in MDA text mode despite the game being made for Windows 11 computers.
- Zig Zagged:
- Averted: There is no command to display a fake spreadsheet.
- Enforced: The executives believe people are likely to play Breakout Clone #13 at work, and make the devs add a command that'll (hopefully) let them get away with it.
- Lampshaded: The instructions say "you can use Ctrl+B to fool bosses and coworkers... as long as they don't look too closely at your screen".
- Invoked:
- Ctrl+B can be mapped to bring up any file inside the game window. The instructions suggest setting it to a work document as a potential use.
- Ctrl+B is mapped to Switch Active Desktop while the game has Pause On Focus Loss.
- Exploited:
- Defied: The previous game, Breakout Clone #12, played it straight, but pressing the same keys in 13 briefly brings up the text "We're not dealing with those complaints again."
- Discussed:
- Conversed (In-Universe only): The boss says "I can tell the difference between real and fake spreadsheets, so don't even try playing Breakout Clone #13".
- Implied (In-Universe only): Alice is seen intensely focused and rapidly typing. When her boss Bob approaches, she unconvincingly grins while suddenly keeping one finger on the keyboard.
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