Ah, Sierra. During the heyday of point-and-click adventure games, Sierra was one of the leading names alongside the likes of LucasArts. What truly set them apart was less their stories and quirky humor, which were rather generic in some ways, but their apparent joy in murdering their own pixellated heroes in as many ways as possible. The true enemy for the player and their avatar was less the antagonist and more the developers themselves.
Zarf's Cruelty Scale of Interactive Fiction, as lifted (and revised) from here
, here and here, divides video game types as follows:
- Merciful: You only ever need one save file, and use that only if you want to turn the computer off and go to sleep. You never need to restore to an earlier game, because there's no way it ever becomes unwinnable.
- Say that there is a large button on the wall, with a sign above it that says 'Inorganic Vaporizer Ray'. When you try to push it, the game won't let you. Instead it says something like 'You'd better not. You'd lose that nifty pocket screwdriver'.
- Polite: You only need one save game, because if you do something fatally wrong, you won't be given a chance to overwrite it.
- There is a large button on the wall, with a sign above it that says 'Inorganic Vaporizer Ray'. When you push it, all your stuff gets vaporized, including your pacemaker, and you promptly suffer cardiac arrest. The game then mocks you for being stupid enough to press it.
- Tough: There are things you can do which you'll have to save before doing. But you'll think "Ah, I'd better save before I do this."
- There is a large button on the wall, with a sign above it that says 'Inorganic Vaporizer Ray'. When you push it, all your stuff gets vaporized, and you can't finish the game.
- Nasty: There are things you can do which you'll have to save before doing. After you do one, you'll think "Oh, bugger, I should have saved before I did that."
- There is a large button on the wall, but no sign telling you what it does. Upon pressing it, you discover that it was an Inorganic Vaporizer Ray, and are informed that your inventory is now gone.
- Cruel: There is no immediate indication that your game has become unwinnable. You think "I should have kept the save I overwrote three hours ago. Now I'll have to start over."
- There are three large buttons on the wall. Two of them do plot-important things, but you press the third and it causes a simple humming noise. Then, a while later, you need to solve a puzzle and check your inventory... "Hey, where's all my stuff?"
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Merciful examples
- In Leisure Suit Larry 6: Shape Up or Slip Out!, Larry can die just like characters in older Sierra games, including the first three Larry games, but the player is given the option to "Try Again" which resets Larry to exactly where he was just before the player did whatever caused Larry's death.
- Similarly, King's Quest VII: The Princeless Bride is the first in the series which is not unwinnable; any failure state results in a "try again" which brings you back to a point right before certain death.
- In Gabriel Knight: The Beast Within, the endgame consists of a confrontation between Gabriel and Von Glower in their werewolf forms. Mechanically, it's a timed segment where you have to navigate a gridlike area to shut doors and prevent the villain from escaping, and eventually corner him in a specific room. However, this objective is not immediately apparent and the villain's escape or cornering him in any other room will result in a game over, and it's possible to save after reaching a state where it's impossible to lure the villain into the right room. What keeps this Merciful rather than Tough is that in this game, any situation where it's possible to die or lose creates a checkpoint before it becomes unwinnable that you can load back into upon failure without the need for a specific manual save.
Polite examples
- In Gold Rush!, if you pick mules on the land route, then Indians will attack you, making your game unwinnable. However, you're directly told that this is the case.
- Also if you chose the Young Oxen they will die in the last desert.
- In Quest for Glory II, there are the bellows above Issur's shop. Destroying them with a dagger or spell will get a game over with the narrator mocking you for what you've done (noted below), as the game would be unwinnable otherwise. However, the end screen will give you a hint on what you need the bellows for (to suppress the Air Elemental later in the game).Very nicely done, Hero. You've just destroyed the only bellows in the city. Too bad there's no bellows doctor here, because these need major healing.
- In Laura Bow 2, if Laura gives her press pass to the doorman at the speakeasy, she will immediately be mugged and it's Game Over.
Tough examples
- If you wasted your love arrows on random targets on King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella, you'll might as well reload 'cause they are needed to charm the unicorn and kill Lolotte.
- In King's Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder!, you're specifically told that you need a gold coin to see Madame Mushka. If you give the golden needle instead, you can still visit her and get the magic amulet. However, since you didn't get any puzzle points, it should be an evident hint that you did something wrong and the needle is needed elsewhere.
- Similarly, you can also mess up the Chain of Deals elsewhere in Serenia (e.g. using the golden heart as currency instead of giving it to the weeping willow) and the game will become unwinnable as a result. The game does make the trades and deals fairly logical, though (what else will you do with a golden needle besides give it to the tailor?). Never mind that it is very, um, heartless to use the golden heart for anything other than returning it to its rightful owner.
- King's Quest VI:
- Alexander is thrown into a labyrinth and has to find his way out again. This requires certain inventory items, and it's possible to enter the labyrinth without them. If you do, then you can never escape. Better yet, there's no indication of which items you need until you've already entered the maze; anybody who didn't use a guide was banking on pure luck to avoid a restart there. The game is a bit merciful in this regard, because if you don't have the required items when this particular point arrives, then you'll be given time "to prepare", at which point you head back, hopeful that you have everything, and SAVE before going in. If you have everything you need, then you'll simply be taken directly to the labyrinth, and can safely save after. But you only get one chance to prepare, and you are never told what preparations you need.
- Alexander's gambit to rescue Cassima involves getting Jollo to switch Shamir's lamp with a fake. To do this, Alexander needs to visit a lamp trader in town and exchange an old lamp he finds in the labyrinth for the exact replica of Shamir's lamp. How do you tell which is the replica? By watching a cutscene. And once you trade the lamps, the trader leaves the game permanently, so if you pick the wrong lamp, you won't be able to pull off the plan, and the game is no longer winnable. (Unless you have the mint leaf in your possession, in which case it's still possible to win, you're just locked out of the Golden Ending.)
- Convincing Jollo to help with the plan to begin with requires picking up the Royal Signet in the very first map of the game and showing it to him the only time he's outside of the palace, which will make him refrain from calling the guards once you infiltrate it. You also need the signet to trade for several important items later on, but by that time Jollo will already have left and deprived you of the one chance at planning the switch.
- In the long path, you speak with the druids on the Isle of Mists. If you wait too long to pick the hot embers right after, they will cool off and you won't be able to proceed further into the game because you need them for a spell. Since you've already gotten the spellbook at this point in the game, by now you know that the hot embers are needed.
- In Quest for Glory I, if you screw up in making the Dispel Potion (with items like the Magic Acorn, which are permanently missable), the game is unwinnable.
- Leisure Suit Larry 1: In the Land of the Lounge Lizards is just as easy to mess up in as its sequels, but the penalties aren't as strict and the unwinnable situations are a little easier to see coming. The most obvious one is having Larry do the deed with a prostitute. Doing this won't render the game unwinnable as Larry simply decides that he needs a woman that would make him feel more fulfilled. However, if Larry forgets to wear a condom during this, then he gets a sexually-transmitted disease which wreaks havoc on his little Larry not a minute later. Time to reload!
- Leisure Suit Larry 2: Looking for Love (in Several Wrong Places) has some situations where incorrectly using an item will make the game unwinnable. Examples include scratching your lottery ticket and invalidating it; using the hair rejuvenator in the wrong places (or your head); or misusing the parachute. You do lose points doing these, though, indicating you did something wrong.
- In Quest for Glory II, dropping important items like the mirror and magic lamp would get you stuck later. The latter triggers a unique Easter Egg death.
- So does dropping the spare clothes when you go to Raseir. Let's just say the Hero looks good in a veil.
- If you're a fighter, you can drop your shield at any point in the game (and although the game never advises you to do so, some people prefer to fight without a shield). If you don't have a shield, you can't fight Khaveen at the very end of the game. If your fighter doesn't have sufficient magic or thieving skills, and you've dropped your shield, the game is unwinnable.
- In Quest for Glory III, you must get Venomous Vine Fruit by either saving the meerbat, or using the Fetch spell. Saving the meerbat, then eating the fruit it gifts you results in an unwinnable state. Getting the meerbat killed while not having Fetch also results in an unwinnable state. Oddly, getting the meerbat killed while having Fetch causes a vine to remain, always allowing a winnable path.
- Gabriel Knight doesn't have very many unwinnable situations, except at the very end of the game when Gabriel enters the room where Grace is held captive. (The room is behind one of three locked doors, and there is no prior indication of which one.) If he hasn't already acquired two masks and cloaks from the store room and left the radio transmitter and the snake staff in the confessional, the game is unwinnable. What makes this case Tough rather than Nasty is that the Point of No Return is past a locked door, and the things you need to do before crossing it are not.
- The Black Cauldron is a little more merciful than other Sierra titles, especially from that era. For instance if you try filling your water bottle from the river near the Horned King's castle it'll be pulled out of your hands, but you can actually follow the river downstream to get it back. If you get captured while carrying the magic sword, though, it's possible to get all your other stuff back but the sword's gone forever. Sorry. (Later versions give you a game over instead if you lose your magic sword.)
Nasty examples
- King's Quest I: Quest For The Crown has a nasty one for those attempting 100% completion. At one point, you come across a goat, and you need to take it with you in order to kill the troll. If, at any point, you attempt to go in the water, or the goat leaves the screen (unless you first locked the pen), or you simply dawdle too long in one area, the goat will abandon you and you'll have to use other means to bypass the troll. These other means (paying the troll lesser treasures) will cause you to lose points, but good luck figuring that out the first time - these other methods are non-violent and actually fulfill the "Troll Toll", which is what the game TELLS you to pay in order to continue, so you'd expect them to be the right solution!
- In King's Quest II: Romancing the Throne, giving the trident to the mermaid on the surface instead of Neptune undersea. Looks logical. But if you give the trident to the mermaid, return, give the flowers to her, and go underwater with her seahorse, you will run into the trident-wielding Neptune who will kill you. The solution is to ride there with the seahorse, trident in hand, and then give it to Neptune. Otherwise you will never get the first key, making the game unwinnable.
- In King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella, you can only use the shovel five times. Use it a sixth time will cause it to break. There's never any indication whatsoever in the game that the shovel can only be used for a limited number of times.
- In King's Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder!, in the area near the pie section (see Cruel below), you have to use your rope on an outcropping of rock to ascend it. There are two spots you can choose from - a conspicuous branch and an inconspicuous overhanging rock. If you tie the rope to the branch, then it will break and kill you. You cannot retrieve the rope after you've set it in place, and so the game can become unwinnable without warning.
- In King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow, you need to collect some water from the River Styx in the Land of the Dead for a spell. However, you can only do so in the first screen where the river appears, before Alexander rides Charon's ferry across it. If you try to collect the water from the other side of the river, the game tells you that it's out of reach. And since nearly every screen in the Land of the Dead is a Point of No Return, the only way to get back across the river is to reload a save.
- Space Quest III, despite being a Breather Episode, has two moments at the Monolith Burger with no indication. If you buy any item besides the kid's meal, you don't get the decoder ring, and can't decode the message in Astro Chicken and can't advance the plot. The only indication to buy that is the price, $7, and finding $7 in the seat of the Aluminum Mallard at the start, except you sell the Labion gem from the previous game and get $425 (if you refuse the first few offers) and can afford anything on the menu. You're also supposed to play Astro Chicken ten times, which will give a secret message, but there's no indication you're supposed to do this.
- Space Quest V had a particularly tough scenario. At the Genetix segment you are supposed to look to find an important item. If you leave without it, the game will let you know that in bold lettering just after you beam out. note If you don't pay attention, then much, much later, after having crawled through a complex and stressful series of mazes on the enemy battleship, you confront the Big Bad and realize that you're missing that very item. The Have a Nice Death message then once again tells you what you should have picked up.
- The easiest way to make Leisure Suit Larry 1: In the Land of the Lounge Lizards unwinnable is simply by running out of cash and being anywhere but right next to the casino, so you can't pay for cab fare and are basically stuck.
Cruel examples
- At the end of King's Quest I: Quest For The Crown, a condor flies you away to the final section of the game: one screen with a giant hole in the center. But if you drop into the hole without first exploring the area, you'll never find the mushroom, and you won't be able to escape.
- In King's Quest II: Romancing the Throne, there is a bridge you must cross (several times) over the chasm, and making just one extra trip across makes the game unwinnable because it will break before you can get the three magic doors opened, something that is never made clear. Later Sierra games parody this.
- King's Quest III: To Heir Is Human:
- The game is run on an internal timer. If you aren't in the right place when an event happens, then you're stuck and the game is unwinnable, and there aren't any warnings that there's a time limit for certain things, either. Even more, there is the "long timer" in which you can feed Manannan ONLY the bread, fruit, mutton, and porridge, and nothing else. Taking too long, or eating those yourself (especially the porridge) and not having the necessary food to feed Manannan when he demands it will create an unwinnable situation.
- You steal a pouch of coins from the bandits. There is just enough money to buy the necessary spell ingredients and pay the pirates to board their ship, and that is the only money you can find. If you end up short of coin for any reason (e.g. buying drinks at the bar), you cannot win the game.
- The only way to defeat Manannan is to find the porridge and poison it with a spell that will turn him into a cat when he eats it. If, when he demands food, you give him the porridge without poisoning it first, the game becomes unwinnable.
- King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella:
- You can fail to get certain items before night falls, or fail to get a certain item off an island that you can enter only once. If you didn't get them during the day, then you aren't going to get them during the night, and you're stuck as a result.
- If you picked up the diamond pouch and trade it for a fishing pole, you've pretty much lost the game without knowing itnote . In reality, you have to return the diamonds to its rightful owner first, who actually let you keep it, and then you can buy the fishing pole. Why? As a bonus, the owner will also give you a much needed lantern to navigate in a dark cave.
- The desert isle after escaping getting swallowed up by a whale. If you don't have the fish, you're stuck. Also there is a ridiculously hidden item on said island (the bridle for the unicorn), and if you miss it, you can't win the game as you can't go back.
- King's Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder!:
- The infamous mountain-climbing sequence, where the player must traverse a treacherous mountain. During the journey, Graham will get hungry, requiring the player to eat and letting the player choose between eating a pie (which can be gotten, and eaten, very early in the game) or a piece of meat (which the player could possibly not have gotten at all). There's also a starving eagle the player meets later on at the mountain, who you have to feed to survive later on in the game. What the game expects you to do is eat a piece of meat yourself, then feed the eagle the rest, as the pie is required later on. The game never specifies that the meat makes for two servings, and eating the pie, feeding it to the bird or letting the bird starve all make the game unbeatable.
- Saving the rat from a cat. This requires a boot, which is in the middle of the vast, trackless desert, making it very easy to miss. Much later in the game, you are tied up, unable to free yourself or do anything else. You can only escape if you saved the rat, because it will then return and eat through the ropes. If you didn't save it, or if you didn't even know it was there, then there's no escape. And even if you did save it, you need another item to escape the room you are in. If you don't have it, the game lets you thrash around for about a minute before abruptly crushing your hopes with a Game Over.
- Don't even think about going into the dark forest without the bottle, the amulet, and the honeycomb. Not that you would ever know that you'll need those items and only those items.
- At one point, you have to explore an ocean maze, which contains an island that you can only explore once (the next time you show up, the harpies will be waiting there to kill you). If you screw up and leave without first collecting the fishhook, you'll fail one of the last puzzles of the game, leaving you defenseless against Mordack.
- You only have a few moments to retrieve both of the items you need from the temple in the desert, after which you can never go back in. The gold coin is very easy to miss, as it is right next to a larger, more conspicuous bottle, even despite the fact that you were told that you need a gold coin much earlier in the game.
- Near the end of this game, you need to capture the wizard's cat to prevent him from telling his master that you're here. If you fail to capture him and he spots you, he says something and leaves; you don't get an immediate game over. You can continue and even save the game, but the game is now unwinnable — the wizard will appear about 15 seconds later and kill you. Save the game after failing to catch the cat? Have fun starting over from scratch. This is in the last part of this game, mind you!
- Another bit near the end: a monster will appear at random and throw you into a dungeon, which you can escape from only once, and only if you remembered to give something to an NPC earlier on. The truly absurd bit is that before leaving, you must inexplicably stick a fishing hook into a hole in the wall and pull out a piece of moldy cheese, which you'll need for another completely illogical task right before the final battle. Forgot to collect the fishing hook 20 minutes ago? Didn't think to fish for cheese in the wall? Too bad, you lose. But at least you can't eat the cheese by mistake. Probably.
- What makes this especially evil is that you have to get captured in order to progress. Most players will keep restoring the game until they kill the monster, oblivious to the fact that the dungeon contains a required item!
- If you do end up back in the dungeon, the game once again lets you wander around for a while before giving you a Game Over.
- If you failed to save Cedric from the harpies, you can continue playing for almost the rest of the game, all the way through Mordack's lair. But Cedric will not be able to fly through the window and save you at the last second.
- In King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow, you unlock the secret fifth island, the Isle of the Mists after completing the labyrinth. You get precisely one chance to explore the island and if you screw up and don't take the scythe with you before you leave, the next time you return to the island, some druids will be waiting for you and will promptly take you off to be executed and you will not have the items required for your escape.
- Conquests of Camelot has a bad one. If you failed to rescue any of the three knights, then Arthur has sin burdening him. It might not seem so bad; but once you get the Holy Grail, you'll receive some triumphant victory music... and then you'll be suddenly shocked into dust because you didn't save Gawain, Lancelot, and Galahad and are therefore deemed unworthy. Notably, Galahad asks you to let him die; Gawain says he's beyond help; and Lancelot is, well, indisposed. And they're all saved or left to die in the first half of the game. You get the Grail at the end of the game.
- Additionally, you're never required to be generous, forthright and just in your interactions with other characters, and you can get through the entire game being a jerk to people, or just putting in the minimum amount of effort. While you can miss several optional quest objectives through the game, if you miss too many, you're still judged unworthy of the Grail and killed right at the end.
- Similar to the above, once in Jerusalem, you can act like a merchant and buy and sell items to the right people, getting rich in the process. Seems pretty cool. But that is NOT what you are supposed to do. You are supposed to give away items to all the right people (only the mule is allowed to be sold, and interestingly enough, you can give her away, but that leads to death later in the game). Worse, the mule will give barely enough money to buy what you need for the next part of the game to trigger, and messing up what you can buy will still make the game unwinnable.
- Conquests of the Longbow was fairly merciful; you could screw up so much that you lost the treasure you were supposed to capture or let a major NPC die, and you would still just get a Downer Ending. However...
- On the second day, you're supposed to get a slipper from Marian, who's under attack by a Fens Monk. You can either kill the attacker, at which point she'll give you the slipper as a reward, or let her die and then take the slipper from her corpse. If she died, then you'll die the next day when you go to deliver the slipper. On the other hand, if you don't see why you need to save Maid Marian when you're playing as Robin Hood, perhaps you deserved the game over.
- At one point you can disguise yourself as a jeweler to fleece the Sheriff out of some gold. If you were in the archery contest the day before, the Sheriff's wife will recognize Robin by his distinctive blonde beard. This will get you hanged; you can rub jeweler's rouge on Robin's beard to complete the disguise. If, however, you visit the castle before disguising your beard and then visit it again afterwards, the gate guard will wonder why your beard's changed colour and he'll have you arrested.
- Quest for Glory I:
- Piss off the Healer by stealing from her. At the time, you are not warned that she'll know what you've done, but when you try to go back, she yells at you that she knows what you did and doesn't let you in the house. Even this doesn't necessarily seem all that bad, as you can buy healing, stamina and mana potions from the magic shop (at a higher price), but to finish the game with full points, you must have the Undead Unguent, which only the Healer sells, and only the Healer can make the plot-critical Dispel Potion.
- However, once you have the Undead Unguent and the Dispel Potion, feel free to steal from the Healer all you like.
- Destroying the spitting plants or attacking the white stag will result in the Dryad punishing you with a game-ending Forced Transformation, and it can theoretically be a long time between the two events.
- Piss off the Healer by stealing from her. At the time, you are not warned that she'll know what you've done, but when you try to go back, she yells at you that she knows what you did and doesn't let you in the house. Even this doesn't necessarily seem all that bad, as you can buy healing, stamina and mana potions from the magic shop (at a higher price), but to finish the game with full points, you must have the Undead Unguent, which only the Healer sells, and only the Healer can make the plot-critical Dispel Potion.
- Space Quest:
- The game at one point gives you the chance to sell a hovercraft for money, which you will need. If you refuse, then the would-be buyer will come back the next time you enter the screen and offer to throw in a jetpack as well. If you take his first (jetpack-less) offer then, a few hours of play later, you will find yourself in a situation where you need a jetpack, have no way to get one (or do much of anything besides float in space), and have no idea where you missed the chance to pick one up.
- In order to get the second offer you have to refuse his first offer, leave (probably by going to the cantina), and then come back. If you forget to take the key out of your hovercraft after you park it he steals your hovercraft when you enter the bar, making it impossible to continue.
- Just like the King's Quest II example above, Kerona has a bridge that breaks if you cross it too many times. At least it shows cracks after you cross it the first time.
- Also on Kerona, forgetting the Star Generator self-destruct code, as well as the data cartridge, in the updated version will make the game unwinnable. (If you forgot the code but still have the cartridge, you can check again once on the Deltaur. If you have the code but forgot the cartridge, you will win but with a Downer Ending.) But if you have neither one after leaving for Ulence Flats, you will get stuck.
- The game at one point gives you the chance to sell a hovercraft for money, which you will need. If you refuse, then the would-be buyer will come back the next time you enter the screen and offer to throw in a jetpack as well. If you take his first (jetpack-less) offer then, a few hours of play later, you will find yourself in a situation where you need a jetpack, have no way to get one (or do much of anything besides float in space), and have no idea where you missed the chance to pick one up.
- In Space Quest II, near the end of the game, walking into the wrong area releases a Xenomorph with red lips who, if she catches you... kisses you. Deeply, with lots of tongue, and with a large red heart appearing behind you implying she's merely amorous and that this is just a joke scene. The Chest Burster will kill you later, after you defeat the villain and make your escape, but just before you end the game. It is possible to finish the game before you get killed, but you have a very strict 15 minute timer, which means you can't screw around at all.
- Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers: Unwinnable scenarios return with a vengeance.
- Forget to write down the time code for SQXII at the start of the game? Well, too bad. Since the code is randomized at startup, you can't even look it up. Plenty of plot-crucial items are also permanently missable. And there are Guide Dang It! puzzles again.
- For those trying to get 100% completion, there's a truly evil bit with the "Unstable Ordnance". When you pick it up, the game warns you that it's dangerous, but you receive points for it. When you fall into the sewers, it goes boom. So you decide not to pick it up next time, and beat the game. You failed 100% completion. Okay, you then pick it up after you get back out of the sewers instead. You get unavoidably lasered when trying to leave the area by Schroedinger's Enemy (he doesn't show if you didn't pick it up). Okay, try again. You pick it up, then put it back. This yields a profit in points, and accounts for your missing points — but you still get zapped by the same enemy! To get 100% completion, you must pick it up and then put it back before entering the sewers. Every other choice either blocks 100% completion or makes the game unwinnable if you save after it.
- In the original Leisure Suit Larry, after cutting yourself free from the rope in the honeymoon suite, if you leave the room without taking the rope then the game becomes unwinnable since you can't go back into the room. Unusually for Leisure Suit Larry, the game gives you no warning about this, and it's easy to miss.
- Leisure Suit Larry 2: Looking for Love (in Several Wrong Places), aka Leisure Suit Larry 2, is the cruelest of the franchise. The entire game is strictly linear from start to finish, with several chokepoints where it's impossible to go back to a previous area. As an example: Larry starts the game in L.A., and later moves on to a cruise boat, where he has to escape to a lifeboat before nightfall. To survive the journey on the lifeboat, he needs to have, among other things, a giant soft drink that can only be purchased in L.A. The game needs to be started over if he didn't get one way back when.note The worst, however, is that there are two items that Larry can pick up on the cruise ship (one of them being a bowl of spinach dip) that count towards 100% Completion but must be discarded in the few seconds of interactivity you have before your lifeboat goes adrift, which many players might not even realize exist. (Larry will eat the spinach dip automatically and die of salmonella). And this whole process needs to be repeated several times during the game's other chokepoints.
- Leisure Suit Larry 3: Passionate Patti in Pursuit of the Pulsating Pectorals is not as ridiculous as the second, but there is a particularly difficult point of no return. Over halfway into the game, you'll get to play as Passionate Patti; forgetting even an insignificant piece of attire once you leave her room makes the game unwinnable. (Women have more clothing than you think.)
- Even worse than that, if you forget to visit the cocktail lounge and pick up the magic marker off of the sign board after you switch to playing Patti, which the game never even suggests you might need, you're doomed to die at the end of the game, as the marker is required to escape a trap.
- Rise of the Dragon can be Guide Dang It!. There are many ways of getting permanently stuck: locking yourself out of your home (although in this one case, there is a way to recover), leaving vital items lying around somewhere (thus losing them forever), picking the wrong dialog option and thus permanently pissing off a vital character (especially your girlfriend), or letting important events go by unnoticed because you weren't in the right place at the right time. In some cases, the game will inform you when you've screwed up or are about to so you don't hang around wondering what went wrong.
- Heart Of China suffers from this, with several situations that have very specific solutions. Most notably, after crashing in the Himalayas, you're given the option of having either Chi or Lucky trudge through the snow looking for help. If you send Chi, the game lets you do everything else right, but he dies before finding help, resulting in a game over. Even worse, if you actually realize that you need to send Lucky, but don't give the healing herbs he has to Chi before leaving, Kate will die and you'll lose five minutes later.
- Laura Bow 2:
- If you've done everything you could to outrun the murderer in Act 5, but forgot to pick up the boot before or during the chase, you've officially ran yourself into a brick wall and might as well restart because later on you will be trapped in a furnace room unable to backtrack, and you need to give the boot to Steve or else he'll step on a piece of coal and be unable to help you to move the slab hiding a secret passage to go on. This is especially annoying as said boot appears after Yvette dies, but only after you've examined her body and appears in a room you have no other reason to visit until the chase scene, in which case good luck not being freaked out enough to stop and grab it. It was so bad that some versions of the game fixed this by making the boot reappear in the furnace room beside the coal pile if you didn't grab it beforehand.
- You'll need the wire cutters before you reach the chase scene in Act 5, because without them you won't be able to cut the wire from the fallen pterodactyl model to bar the door. The wire itself, however, is surprisingly not a case of this (despite the fact every other body besides Ziggy's is unexaminable (for good reason) during the chase scene), as you have time (even without barred doors) to snip the wire if you hadn't already to properly bar the door (although not long).
- If you don't have at least a quarter of snake oil left before you take the smelling salts away from the Countess's body, the game will automatically move on and prevent you the chance to refill it before you eventually face a horde of snakes in the secret passage near the furnace. This is especially annoying as while it only takes three quarters of snake oil to move Barney into a position he can be subdued without biting Laura (that is, assuming you start with a full bottle), Laura will only make a comment indicating that Barney is safe to touch after you've used up your snake oil reserves on him. You can easily refill it in the preservation room if you've run out, but there is sometimes a chance where Wolfe will be there (a random chance of such which increases the more you fart around in other rooms), and if he is, he'll kick you out indefinitely and prevent you from getting said refill.
- The game overall is filled with "if you forgot to get or accidentally got rid of this seemingly trivial item a while ago, you won't be able to win" situations. Ate the street vendor's sandwich yourself? Gave away your press pass to the speakeasy doorman? Got caught opening the safe in Carrington's office? Didn't get the cheese from the mousetrap (which is booby-trapped with a tommy gun) in Wolf's office? Opened the trunk in the Mammalogy Lab without getting the meat first? Didn't get all the hieroglyphics from both halves of the Rosetta Stone in your notebook? Have a Nice Death, or else hope you have a salvageable save file left over when you inevitably hit a brick wall later, lest you be forced to start all over.
- And just to rub it in, the final act subverts the usual Amateur Sleuth antics by making you back up your claims with evidence. What, you forgot to find that mastodon hair on the guy covered in alcohol, or cop a feel of the murdered corpse to pilfer through his pockets? Aw...
- Gold Rush! can screw you over at any opportunity. Lethal Diseases and deadly bridges asidenote , there are several distinct ways to make the game unwinnable:
- Sold your house without entering it? You're missing two required items.
- Sold your house after looking through your album? Odds are, you missed the family picture you could get, with no prompt, rendering a very late-game puzzle impossible to complete (a later item, only available after a specific time, hints at the photo).
- Taking the Panama route? You'd better buy a mosquito net, or you're dead. The game over screen only tells you that you died of disease.
- Taking the Cape Horn route? Better buy some fruit, or you'll die. The game over screen makes it clear that scurvy was the reason, at least.
- Mistime the departure on the land route? You won't make it. Guaranteed (either your stagecoach gets stuck in the mud early on, or, after several puzzles, you'll be caught in the same snowstorm that almost killed the Donners).
- Lose your mule? Can't reach your brother's shacknote .
- Drop down into the outhouse without the items necessary to open the door? You can't get out again, game unwinnable.
- Choose the young oxen on the land route? They die very late into the journey with no warning until it happens.
- The worst part about the above is that there's only a few walkthroughs out there, and NONE of them are perfectly accurate short of a video walkthrough - following any of them religiously will produce a game over.
- There's also an Urban Legend of Zelda that's placed under this, but isn't actually the case. Namely, that dying to an aforementioned Lethal Disease or deadly bridge is determined upon starting a game. It's not, and you can just load a save and potentially get past it without any trouble.
- The game is generous enough to give multiple solutions to puzzles, which was unheard of at the time with Sierra games, but only the optimal solution gives full points. Examples include:
- If you fail to close your desk at home and get your bank statement with your account number, you can ask the bank manager to help you out (he's an old family friend and knows you well).
- If you don't grab your family photo before selling your house, you'll find that it's never required: Jake is very surprised when you find him in the mine at the end of the game, as he had no idea Jerrod had travelled to California, but all you miss out on is points and a helpful hint.
- If you don't get on the boat before the Gold Rush is announced, the overland route remains available. It's more expensive, but money doesn't matter at this point of the game. This applies even if you sell your house late and get a terrible price for it.
- If you forget to find a lantern before you go into a dark location, then you can "feel along the walls" to get an absolutely terrible, but usable, way to navigate. Expect to die a lot, though.
- Codename: ICEMAN has some unbelievable examples:
- Most notably, a CIA guard will ask for your ID and give you the wrong one back, even though you're the only one present. If you don't check the ID and notice the mistake immediately, you'll lose much later.
- When unexpectedly becoming Captain of a submarine due to an injury, you have to perform duties that real captains leave to their crew. This is doubly annoying because your character wouldn't be expected to know the ship better than its own NCOs. If you don't do them, there will be failures at critical moments.
- The worst example is also the most infamous: you're playing a game of Yahtzee for a plot-critical item, which is a Luck-Based Mission that you can't do anything to tip the odds in your favour for. You can only save and reload a select number of times before the character you're gambling against realizes what you're doing and leaves permanently, with no way to get the item you need to complete the game. And no, this is not one of the first things you do in the game.
