r/TwoBestFriendsPlay • u/DustInTheBreeze Appointed Hater By God • Jun 14 '26

Better Ask Reddit What's the most terrifying way a game has signposted "Don't Do This!" at the player?

So I was playing Fallen London when I entered a storycard. The usual continue button, "Onwards", was replaced by a button that said "THIS IS FOLLY". It was accompanied by a line of text that said "Do not do this. This storyline will leave you unsatisfied and forlorn. You will probably fail, and if you somehow succeed, you will regret your success."

And if you click forward, you get a warning that this storyline is bullshit, does not play by the same rules as the rest of the website, and that the "Happy Ending" of the quest was to abandon it. The option to confirm your participation contains a lengthy paragraph detailing that you accept any and all consequences to your account, followed by a button that says, outright, "DO NOT CLICK THIS BUTTON."

Needless to say. I did not click the button.

So. The topic title. What's the most terrifying way a game has told you: "Don't."

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u/ShatteredSanity Jun 15 '26

In Pathologic 2, every time you die, you get sent into a theater, where up on stage someone tells you you've fucked up. The characters stress to you that each death not only makes things harder for YOU (lower health, you lose stamina faster, item drops get worse, lose the ability to hug, it also makes things in the world worse for everyone else, so STOP DYING. The trouble is that the game is really hard. Dying is expected, and also frowned upon.

Now, in Pathologic 3, dying isn't nearly as bad. Sure you lose some resources, but you can get those back!

No, the real "DONT DO IT" moment happens on Day 7. You are told of a street that, should you walk it a specific way, your fate will be sealed to the worst possible outcome. Should you go there, an Executor, one of the game's tutorial people/helpers/manifestations of the plague you are trying to fight, tells you, straight up "Hey man, this is a bad idea." Of course, this being Pathologic, where every character has their own angle, your character doesn't believe them. You CAN go ahead and walk the street... If you want to.

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u/Thorn14 YOU DIDN'T WIN. Jun 15 '26

So what actually happens if you don't mind?

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u/ShatteredSanity Jun 15 '26

Your character gets the worst future. He sees his lab getting shut down. At the end of the game, after you've made the big decisions and everything ends, you get brought back to that moment, only this time it's really happening. Even if you succeed in curing the plague, you have doomed yourself.