Traps have been a part of gaming all the way back to its pen and paper roots. Baiting players with riches, an advantage, or even just the possibility of safety is a powerful tool in any game designer’s kit, preventing players from getting bored by keeping them on their toes.
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Most of the time, tricks and traps can be found out by players with some intuition and a little bit of luck and even if they fall into the snare, it’s just a nice scare or a minor setback. These traps are not those. These traps are devious, annoying, and just plain unfair– likely to waste both your time and patience. Watch your step because these are some of the most frustrating traps in gaming.
InDead By Daylight, Survivors have to repair five of seven generators and open the exit gates to escape from the Killer. Conversely, the Killer is trying to stop them. Given all the Killers and perks in the game, how this plays out can vary.
The three gen is one variation that the Killer can plan for the Survivors to stumble into. If the Killer ensures that the last three generators are near each other and easily defensible, then at best Survivors are in for a protracted battle and at worst, an unwinnable one.
The thing is, inexperienced Survivors will walk into this setup not knowing what they’re in for. They’ll be doing generators without interruption while the noose tightens and they find the escape part to be difficult — if not impossible — especially if the Killer brings insome strong perks.
6Save Point? (Final Fantasy 12)
Save points are arguably sacred in the realm of gaming. They’re a place not only for you to save your progress, but in many games, also a place to rejuvenate. Some save points will heal you, and even in games where they don’t, like Resident Evil, they are explicitly safe havens.
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Which is why it is so infuriating to encounter a Crystalbug for the first time inFinal Fantasy 12. These crystalline deceivers look like and can be interacted with like the various beneficial crystals you interact with in the game. But when you touch them, they attack, buffeting you with strong elemental magicks that could batter an already weakened party seeking a reprieve. But the worst part of encountering them? You’ll always doubt other save crystals just a little bit.
5Shotgun-Baited Sandwich Maker (Resident Evil)
The originalResident Evil(and its remake) puts the holy grail of zombie-slaying in seemingly easy reach. You find the Shotgun in an unlocked room, just hanging there waiting for you to take it. Unfortunately, this is a ruse, and doing so will lock the door and lower the ceiling, crushing you.
The inattentive might end up killed by this, but you’re given plenty of time to put the weapon back, disengaging the trap. What makes this so frustrating is not the death, but having the weapon in hand, only to have to give it up until way later.
If you’re playing as Chris, you won’t get the boomstick until you find the Broken Shotgun to replace it with. If you’re Jill, however, you can actually forgo the whole puzzle. Unless you screw it up, of course. If you find the Broken Shotgun first or encounter Barry in the lobby before going to this room, Barry won’t be there to stop you from being a Jill Sandwich.
As the penultimate boss fight ofNo More Heroes, Bad Girl is as tough as you’d expect. She’s a fierce opponent with a relentless offense, a strong defense, and the ability to launch strangely loyal BDSM-clad dudes at you.
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However, one trick in her arsenal truly earns her the moniker of “Bad Girl.” In the second stage of her fight, she’ll fall over and start crying. While you think this might be the opportunity you need to land some cheeky damage, approaching her initiates an instant kill move on you. Even if you don’t intend to hit a girl while she’s down, getting too close will earn you the same fate.
However, here’s the tricky part: she’s not always faking and you can actually land some clean hits in those instances. The trick is to watch her hands. If she’s got one hand on her bat, it’s a ploy. If she’s got both hands up, go nuts.
3Mimics (Souls Series)
Now, Soulsborne gamers might know enough nowadays to suspect everythingas being gleefully able to murder them and to always be wary of what’s around the corner, but there was a time before FromSoftware’s winning formula was ubiquitous.
Imagine a time when these games were new and you’ve fought through some gnarly enemies, avoided some ridiculous stage hazards, and finally, you see something that isn’t trying to kill you: a humble treasure chest. Except, when you try to open it, you end up eaten and now you gotta trek through all those enemies. If you should get to your souls again, you’ll need to fight a seven-foot-tall monstrosity disguised as a treasure chest. Nothing will ever be trustworthy again.
2The Princess Trap (Karateka)
Karateka is a classic game initially launched for the Apple II. By today’s standards, it’s primitive, but it was arguably ahead of its time. It’s a mix of a platformer and a fighting game where you avoid obstacles and beat bad guys, one at a time.
It also has perhaps one of the most frustrating traps in all of gaming, and worse yet, it probably wasn’t even on purpose. For context, there are two stances in the game, a normal running stance and a fighting stance for when you’re fighting bad guys. At the end of the game, you’ll finally find the Princess you were trying to save throughout your journey. However, if you approach her in the fighting stance, she’ll kill you instantly, sending you back to the beginning regardless of how much health you had left.
1I Wanna Be The Guy, Full Stop
I Wanna Be The Guy is a game that would be a love letter to the 8-bit and 16-bit eras of platforming were it not for the sheer sadism that suffuses it. The game is an exercise in frustration and dealing with the most BS traps in possibly all of gaming.
Not only do you need precise platforming skills to make it through, but an iron fortitude to be able to keep going when you die unfair deaths repeatedly while the game mocks you. In the opening section, you’re punished for thinking fruits are power ups (a common thought in video games), when in fact touching them explodes you. Even if you can dodge them as they fall from trees, you’ll still get exploded when one of them actually falls up to kill you. The whole game is like this.
If you fancy yourself a skilled gamer (or you’re a masochist) and think you have the patience and skill for the game, you may get it for thelow, low price of free.
