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Frustration Simulator - TV Tropes

  • ️Fri Jun 14 2024

What happens when Some Dexterity Required becomes the core focus of the game experience? You get the Frustration Simulator. These games focus either on intentionally difficult controls, or are deliberately programmed to hinder progress, and what little plot there usually is often takes backseat to the experience of frustration in just trying to complete it.

Games of this type usually follow these general guidelines:

  • The challenge itself is the main part, so there is often little to no plot or advanced mechanics.
  • It's difficult to progress even if you know what you're doing due to game design inherently demanding high level precision. You're in danger any time you move.
  • It's easy to fail, most of the time by Trial-and-Error Gameplay and situations that the player would have no way of knowing until they're hit by it.
  • Checkpoint Starvation means a single mistake can lead to effectively restarting the game and makes Save Scumming near impossible.

Another common trait is the ability to interact with objects in ways that don't necessarily relate to gameplay, usually in the form of rampant destruction caused by you flailing around trying to play the game.

These games usually end up being hilariously stupid and nothing like the thing being simulated, deliberately. Often (but not always) a Deconstruction Game. Likely to be considered Better as a Let's Play among players not so keen on tormenting themselves; indeed, said games are often made with the intention of having some folks play them and post their attempts online just for others to laugh at their attempts and/or their eventual Rage Quit. Getting through such games may require some Autopilot Artistry.

Compare to Stylistic Suck, where the crappiness is a design choice. Also compare to Nintendo Hard.

Examples:

Video Games

  • 50K Racewalker: Subverted. It looks like a Some Dexterity Required game, but after about a minute you realize it's deconstructing Fake Longevity instead. Moving your character requires pressing the left and right keys to move your legs, but trying to move too quickly results in a penalty that forces you to pause for a moment before you can continue again. It punishes you for trying to go too fast.
  • Alt-F4: A knight going through a Death Course highly influenced by the level designs and interface aethetics of Dark Souls, with save points you can only load from once (assuming you managed to activate them in the first place), difficult jumps and death every corner.
  • A Difficult Game About Climbing: This Bennett Foddy Clone sees you take control of a rock climber who has nothing more than his two arms to make his way up the mountain. Much like Getting Over It, missing a grab point can result in you losing most or all of your progress. At least there's a lake at the bottom to catch your fall.
  • Double Hitler is a Black Comedy indie game based on the premise that Adolf Hitler was actually two small boys made up with a false mustache and a large trenchcoat to look like an adult, and has the player controlling them as they bumble their way through various aspects of Hitler's life without losing their balance.
  • The Game Of Sisyphus: Sisyphus must push his boulder up the mountain. Keeping control of the boulder is actually pretty realistic (in that it's not easy to hold onto). You have to push the boulder up through numerous traps and hazards such as explosive barrels, moving fans, slippery ice, and other hazards that can easily send you back down to the bottom. If you're lucky, your boulder will catch at one of the seldom checkpoints, but it's up to you to make sure you don't lose any further progress from there.
  • Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy: This game doesn't hide what it is: The frustration of making your way up a mountain with nothing but a hammer required to grab onto ledges and propel you across gaps is the experience, and Bennett Foddy (creator of QWOP) monitoring your progress and spurring you on with anecdotes and quotes of wisdom along the way. The game's popularity would bring about a series of "Bennett Foddy Clones," and "Foddy-esque" is a term that has been used to describe similar games.
  • I Am Bread: You are bread. Your goal is to make your way into the toaster so you can be consumed, but you have only the four corners of your slice to make your way over to it. You must avoid getting dirty along the way.
  • I Am Fish, the Creator-Driven Successor to I Am Bread, averts this with the default control style, but you can switch to the "Bossa-style" controls if you want a true, hair-tearing experience in the style of Bossa Studios other games.
  • Jump King: Ascend to the top with only jumps, and a missed jump leads to a long way down. The game does have a couple "floors" where falling down by accident is improbable, but those are few and far between.
  • Probably Archery: Per the game's description: "Manipulate your wrists, elbows and shoulders to get the arrow to the bow, draw it, aim and fire!"
  • The Impossible Quiz: Insane Troll Logic is the entire point of this series of games. Questions usually don't have an obvious answer, and in some cases are deliberately a Luck-Based Mission in that there is no logic to the question at all.
  • Manual Samuel: An Upper-Class Twit dies and makes a Deal with the Devil. In return for returning to the land of the living, he loses all autonomous actions, such as blinking and breathing. Oh, and his car is now a stick shift.
  • Octodad: You're a boneless sea creature who's trying to avoid suspicion from your wife, family, and neighbors from thinking you're anying more than a normal human. You have to manually switch between "feet mode" for moving and "hand mode" for interacting with objects, among other things, and you mostly end up flailing all over the place.
  • Only Up!: Hailed as a Spiritual Successor to Getting Over It, your goal is to continue climbing up. The game used various art assets (that changed every few days) which changes up the treacherous path upward, where falling will almost guarantee starting back at the ground.
  • QWOP: QWOP along with related games GRIP and CLOP all serve as the Trope Codifier. QWOP has you controlling a man's thighs and calves individually by pressing the Q, W, O, and P keys in an attempt to run... or, most of the time, just limp awkwardly along for the sake of getting as far as you can in your olympic event. The humor comes from "Chariots of Fire" playing whenever you make progress.
  • Receiver: You have to manually keep track of all the actions involved with using a gun. You have to manually count how many bullets are in your clip, check that the safety isn't on, manually cock the hammer, pull the slide back, manually load a clip bullet by individual bullet, among other actions while trying not to accidentally shoot yourself in the process.
  • Receiver 2: The same tedious gunplay mechanics from the first game are still in effect, even if the game's own mechanics are improved. There's a much larger variety of guns from the first game, which adds more tedium to learning how to use them effectively. At least a Hub Level allows you to practice at a shooting range.
  • Sexy Hiking: You play as a figure who can only move by swinging his hammer around. It is very easy to swing at the surface at the wrong moment, sending the character in unwanted places.
  • Speaking Simulator: A game where you play as a robot who tries to blend in as a human by controlling his mouth movements whenever he talks, hilariously breaking apart with every mistake he makes.
  • Surgeon Simulator 2013: You control of an (alleged) surgeon's hand and fingers. Imagine doing surgery while your hands are numb from anesthetics and you get an idea of how much motor control you have.
  • Tabletop Simulator: Instead of the actual games, you're given the relevant game pieces to use properly, screw around with, steal, and throw at your friends as you see fit. There's still some abstraction on some actions, though — you shake a stack of cards to shuffle it, just throwing a coin will flip it, and Flipping the Table just requires a button press.
  • Twilight Vs. Walking, a My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic Fan Game based on CLOP, where you control Twilight Sparkle by her four legs per button to navigate her home — including going down a flight of stairs, with all the struggle that entails.

Non-Video Game Examples

  • The Demon Girl Next Door: Invoked in chapter 88.5 (a non-canon bonus story), Shamiko wakes up on the roof of her apartment building and learns her town has been transformed into a rage game: "The kind of game where you'll die at the slightest misstep." Lilith tells her that if she tries to hop down like normal, she'll kill herself. Shamiko is forced to precariously clamber down the side of the building while wailing for her friend Momo's help.

    Lilith: To unlock calling Momo, you have to complete an 8 hour tutorial.

    Shamiko: That's way too meaty!

  • VTuber Legend:
    • In volume 1, when Yuki is livestreaming as her VTuber persona Awayuki Kokorone, she plays a thinly-veiled version of the one and only Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy. It's so infuriating it shatters her façade of being seiso (wholesome and pure) when she lets out an F-bomb.
    • On the series' official Youtube channel, another fictional VTuber from the same agency, Mishiron, plays the real thing, though she mostly gets discouraged and disappointed rather than actually frustrated.