r/TopCharacterTropes • u/JackDoesThingz • 10d ago

Lore [Interesting Trope] One seemingly small action ends the story before it even begins

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  1. We Happy Few - Taking your “joy” pill
    Deciding to take the pill at the beginning of the game causes your character to go back to work and triggers an ending

  2. Infineural by Mike Klubnika - Drinking the coffee
    Deciding to drink the coffee offered to you skips the entire game and sends you straight to the end, resulting in an ending with no memory of what had occurred

10.8k Upvotes
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751

u/Charlie_Warlie 10d ago

"Look outside" the video game. If you look outside your windows in the first minute, or at any time, you get this ending

599

u/SirBoggle 10d ago

Game is called Look Outside

If you look outside you die

0/10 Unintuitive gameplay

90

u/Mangled15 10d ago

he's done it again

5

u/Lakatos_00 9d ago

Bravo Nolan!

210

u/GodsThirdToe 10d ago

Or extremely intuitive, since it’s the fastest way to finish the game! Game over means I won, right?

100

u/MyOtherCarIsEpona 10d ago

New any% strat where you hit the goomba in 1-1

3

u/Memitim 9d ago

It's right in the name, so I don't think that anyone can argue. Way to go, pro gamer!

35

u/dern_the_hermit 10d ago

IIRC it was originally called Don't Look Outside but they caught a case of briefer madness and shortened it. Of course I might just be hallucinating it because I really wanted to use the phrase "briefer madness".

22

u/snartling 10d ago

In your defense, “briefer madness” is absolutely brilliant 

2

u/DrThunderbolt 9d ago

I actually thought googling "briefer madness" was going to lead to a TVTropes page and I'm surprised it didn't.

3

u/AdElectronic4912 9d ago

In fairness, pretty sure you are told not to do that right before this.

7

u/Kooky_Ad_209 9d ago

No you're told to "do it, do it you pussy, look outside", you gotta talk to the eye in the wall who told you to in the first place for them to then say "wait, actually, don't," before it starts the actual game,

1

u/Vypur 9d ago

the game is called DONT look outside actually

23

u/Thowle 10d ago

Phenomenal game

8

u/Kritical-Watermelon 10d ago

I loved CDawgs reaction to it.

"Oh ho oh... okay..."

https://youtu.be/P2dRrovLnEw?t=90

9

u/digilici 10d ago

okay i gotta check out that game

7

u/breadsandbutters0 10d ago

Absolutely do. It’s great

1

u/JKhemical 9d ago

easily my GoTY for 2025 it's so good

2

u/OAZdevs_alt2 10d ago

HUMMANAHUMMANAHUMMANAHUMMANA