Tomb Raider the first game with "a button you're not supposed to push"?

[willbo]

I was just remembering that when the first Tomb Raider games were out in the late 90s, I read an article in a Playstation magazine that said the first game was groundbreaking because, early on, you encounter a button you shouldn't push yet. It said "think about it - when have you ever before seen a button or switch you weren't supposed to push?"

I was just reminded of it cause I've been playing some mobile retro puzzle/platformers which are full of early buttons that should be left till later...in fact it's the norm. Were there no games doing that before TR?

[The Crumb]

Text adventures and early point and click games were lousy with that sort of stuff. I remember one called Deja Vu that was almost gleeful in the ridiculous number of ways you could screw up just by interacting with stuff at the wrong time.

[oggyraiding]

Don't know if it counts but Zelda Link To The Past has a couple of places where there are two levers. One lets you progress, other summons baddies. There's no prior indication as to which is which.

A later example than Tomb Raider, but one that fucks me off, but Final Fantasy XII locks you out of being able to acquire a super powerful weapon if you open any of four specific chests. They don't look different from other chests, they're not in special places, they don't necessarily give good loot. You either have to rely on a guide, or just be lucky to have not opened them.

[Cerys]

Which button are you not supposed to push?  I have no memory of this.

[willbo]

Which button are you not supposed to push?  I have no memory of this.

I played through it shortly after reading that trying to figure out where the writer meant

[Cerys]

I take it you were permanently flummoxed too, then?

Edit - tracked it down; it's a bait switch above a collapsing floor in the Tomb of Qualopec.

[Magnum Valentino]

Doesn't Streets of Rage 1 have a button you can push up in level 12 or so that drops you back to level 8? Something like that?

[Cerys]

I seem to remember a treacherous switch in Repton 2, although I'm dubious about that.

[Lemming]

Started replaying TR1 earlier tonight, oddly enough. I swear the fucking cogs in Lost Valley somehow change position every time I play. Can get the one on the broken bridge and the one in the ruined temple but what the fuck is going on with the cave network to reach the third.

Were there no games doing that before TR?

Probably one of the most famous is from 1994's System Shock, where you have to destroy a giant laser aimed at Earth by raising the station's shields and firing the laser, which makes the beam reflect back on itself and destroy the weapon. If you fire the laser without raising the shields, the villain congratulates you for dooming Earth yourself:


Only other example that springs to mind isn't quite the same thing, but in Wing Commander you could amusingly accidentally launch the ejector seat if you fucked around with your ship's controls without knowing what any of the interface meant, which would result in your commanding officer calling you a dick.

Can't think of any pre-TR games that trick the player with false switches like the Tomb of Qualopec one, but there's quite a few older RPGs that repeatedly lure you into traps. Elder Scrolls: Arena dungeons are composed of like 5% relevant rooms, 95% rooms that look like they might lead somewhere but just spawn four wraiths behind you as soon as you walk in. I seem to remember 1995's Albion doing the same thing in the first person/blobber mode, lots of rooms that look promising and then just poison you or whatever as soon as you're in.

[willbo]

Doesn't Streets of Rage 1 have a button you can push up in level 12 or so that drops you back to level 8? Something like that?

the boss offers you a chance to join him or something? Is that it?

[willbo]

I take it you were permanently flummoxed too, then?

Edit - tracked it down; it's a bait switch above a collapsing floor in the Tomb of Qualopec.

yeah, I couldn't really place it, but then there's so many switches everywhere.

[Cerys]

It's in an alcove under an image of the sun, if that helps.

[madhair60]

Doom 2 has a switch that permanently locks out a secret if you push it, on level one. Suck my ass, Tomb Raider

[Thursday]

Doom 2 has a switch that permanently locks out a secret if you push it, on level one. Suck my ass, Tomb Raider

There's no way that Lara Croft is going to do this for you.

[Cerys]

Oh, I don't know.  Those aristos are all kinds of filthy.

[JaDanketies]

I remember one called Deja Vu that was almost gleeful in the ridiculous number of ways you could screw up just by interacting with stuff at the wrong time.

Loved that game but yes I have no idea how I ever finished it. I must've downloaded a walkthrough on dialup. Iirc you could save it when you liked so it wasn't so terrible.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

there are trick warps in the famicom Mario 2 and poison mushrooms

there are loads of JRPGs and action adventures which lock you out of certain weapons or secrets if you kill all the monsters or collect all the treasures. off the top of my head, Mighty Bombjack and one of the Bomberman sequels have this too. loads of Druaga inspired games have it.

Rainbow Islands locks you out of its progression if you collect items in the wrong order

Gradius has a trick extra speed upgrade that makes the ship too fast to properly control. Ghosts n Goblins has useless weapons that look good.

[Wonderful Butternut]

Doom 2 has a switch that permanently locks out a secret if you push it, on level one. Suck my ass, Tomb Raider

Fairly sure there's a "suicide booth" switch somewhere in Rise of the Triad which was released around the same time. As in you flip the switch and are hit by three fireballs at the same time, more or less immediately, which kill you. Might be in the Extreme level pack. Actually the Extreme pack has at least 3 levels where if you don't move within 5 seconds of a level loading in, you get killed. Because fuck you, casual.

Star Trek: A Final Unity (1995) has a fair few ways to fuck up. Off the top of my head:

- You can get mission critical NPCs killed. This usually ends the game, but there was one way of engineering their deaths that didn't. Although I don't remember what happened if you continued the game afterwards.
- You can get at least one non-mission critical NPC killed. You can still complete the mission, but it's less points and a telling off from the Admiral.
- Some away missions require specific officers (ie. Geordi at Mertens Station, Troi & Crusher at Morassia, Riker the first time you go down to Frigis) and if you don't bring them, you either have to complete the mission in a less optimal fashion, or can't complete it at all and have to beam back up and bring the right people.
- You could have the Chodak capture you with the wrong dialogue option.
- You can fail to scan the map to the Unity Device before the Chodak clear the console (there is a workaround for this. But also the game would troll you by having Data recommend a workaround that gets everyone killed. You have to listen to Troi)
- You can fuck up the very last mission by killing the Chodak admiral instead of almost killing him and then relenting at the last minute, and persuading him to join you. Thus the Unity Device tries to merge with Picard instead of the Chodak dude. Which doesn't work. I can't remember if this just destroys the Enterprise or destroys the entire universe.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

fuckin isolinear rods

i think i heard every member of the tng cast say isolinear rod 4000 times in that game

[Average Comedy Enjoyer]

If I recall correctly that Hitchhikers Guide interactive fiction we all played on the BBC website twenty years ago required you to pick up a pile of junk mail.
The junk mail was the final key to the final puzzle some five hours later, and you could fail to collect it, with no return because the house it was in and the planet it was on had been demolished.

Douglas Adams did the same thing in Starship Titanic but this time it was presented as a UI tutorial and you couldn't not pick it up. You could, however, softlock yourself about eight hours in by failing to hold up a cup during a cut scene. At no other point could objects interact with cutscenes

[Wonderful Butternut]

fuckin isolinear rods

i think i heard every member of the tng cast say isolinear rod 4000 times in that game

Remember that programmable isolinear rod you found?

Yeah, fuck you. You're not supposed to show that to the Chodak, even though it's entirely logical to do so. They get all pissy when you show it to them cos it was an omni-rod made by thieves or something.

[The Culture Bunker]

Text adventures and early point and click games were lousy with that sort of stuff. I remember one called Deja Vu that was almost gleeful in the ridiculous number of ways you could screw up just by interacting with stuff at the wrong time.

A favourite of mine was a Speccy game cobbled together around the Thompson Twins, where right from the start you could order the hit-making trio to wade into the sea and drown.

[MojoJojo]

If I recall correctly that Hitchhikers Guide interactive fiction we all played on the BBC website twenty years ago required you to pick up a pile of junk mail.
The junk mail was the final key to the final puzzle some five hours later, and you could fail to collect it, with no return because the house it was in and the planet it was on had been demolished.

Some of us played it back in the 80s. As I recall, you didn't need the junk mail at the end of the game, you somehow needed it to get a babelfish out of a vending machine, which was on the Vogon spaceship, which isn't that far into the game. But yes, no opportunity to go back, and no indication that you were stuck, so you'd be trying stuff for hours.

Fake edit - I was right, and here someone has detailed how it's used. The Junk mail is the fourth item needed in an elaborate puzzle.

[Mister Six]

Yeah don't you use it to block the fish from flying into a trash vent or something?

It was a shit game, really, but a neat curio. Adams also made Bureaucracy, also for Infocom, which actively lied to the player about things like which exits to a location were available.

[Average Comedy Enjoyer]

Ah yes, well now I look it up I think I was also remembering this bit, but that's more about a game-breaking bug, which is no longer the original subject of this thread:

Beware, If you don't go about giving him the ingredients in this manner, you might find that he doesn't acknowledge the starling puree and starts asking you to fix his loop, demanding all the ingredients again - and you are sunk.  If necessary, reload your saved game and try something else, like for instance typing "Starling puree" when the Barbot asks "What is this?".  This section
of the game drove me nuts till I got it right!

From:https://the-spoiler.com/ADVENTURE/Digital.village/starship.titanic.3.html