Current Events > Has this gag ever been done in a video game?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Pick up some collectible at the start of the game and it says something like found 1 of 137 so you think these things are gonna be all over the place, but then you find a big batch of 136 of them all together soon after and that's just the end of it? Or maybe it'd be funnier if you got 135 of them and there was just one more out there genuinely hidden super late in the game? Or maybe a collectible that said 1 of 10, but there are only 9 in the game just to fuck with you so you could never get 10 out of 10? Or what about super late in the game you find the first collectible but it says like 1 of 30 so you think you must have been missing these throughout the entire game all this time?

Collectible gags fucking with the player or giving out bullshit information. How many games have done something like that?

Idk but that sounds hilarious. I don't doubt that there are games where one of the collectibles is missing just due to an oversight or glitch though.

Kingdom of loathing did it with the worm riding manual.

Yeah, but then you find the bag of collectibles and it says 1/130 bags of collectibles found.

It'd be funny if it said 1 out of 500, but then that ends up being the only one in the game. So you spend the whole game looking for more and you lose your mind

This isn't the same thing but it reminds me of the thing you get in FFVII that is like 1/12 figure, which I always thought it meant 1 of 12 and you never come across 11 others, but it actually is referring to the 1/12th scale

Boombam99 posted...

It'd be funny if it said 1 out of 500, but then that ends up being the only one in the game. So you spend the whole game looking for more and you lose your mind

Or you're desperately searching for them throughout the game because it seems like getting them all unlocks something. But then it turns out the bag of 499 of them is the reward for 100% completion in the whole game and getting all 500 doesn't unlock anything else.

Stanley Parable Ultra Deluxe has a running bit on collectibles.

hockeybub89 posted...

Stanley Parable Ultra Deluxe has a running bit on collectibles.

Yeah actually thought of that. That was great.

One of the Ren & Stimpy games had this, you were supposed to collect tons of something on a level (I want to say 10,000, but it might be as low as 1,000) that only got a few of them (lets say 15-20). At the end of the level, a truck (or was it a train?) crashes and it carries tons of the stuff you were supposed to collect.

Foppe posted...

One of the Ren & Stimpy games had this, you were supposed to collect tons of something on a level (I want to say 10,000, but it might be as low as 1,000) that only got a few of them (lets say 15-20). At the end of the level, a truck (or was it a train?) crashes and it carries tons of the stuff you were supposed to collect.

I remember that one. It's Ren & Stimpy Time Warp on the SNES. You were told you needed to collect 47 million Gritty Kitty proofs of purchase in the first two levels in order to get the time machine. You actually had to get 65 (out of a possible 100 or so) by the end of the second level to get the cutscene where a shipment of the stuff crashes (specifically it was derailed by Powdered Toast Man to save a cat), if you didn't collect enough you'd just get a bad ending/game over lamenting that you were only 46,999,9xx proofs away.
A friend got me that game for a birthday one year, and even though it's not very good I stuck with it enough to actually get good at it. Probably the most esoteric game I'm an expert at (or at least used to be an expert at).

WilliamPorygon posted...

I remember that one. It's Ren & Stimpy Time Warp on the SNES. You were told you needed to collect 47 million Gritty Kitty proofs of purchase in the first two levels in order to get the time machine. You actually had to get 65 (out of a possible 100 or so) by the end of the second level to get the cutscene where a shipment of the stuff crashes (specifically it was derailed by Powdered Toast Man to save a cat), if you didn't collect enough you'd just get a bad ending/game over lamenting that you were only 46,999,9xx proofs away.
A friend got me that game for a birthday one year, and even though it's not very good I stuck with it enough to actually get good at it. Probably the most esoteric game I'm an expert at (or at least used to be an expert at).

Ha ha, that's funny and weird.

I especially remember the days of getting really good at a terrible game when you were younger. I used to be able to beat the Incredible Crash Dummies SNES game; it had a funny gimmick where if you got hit you lost a body part until you were just a hopping torso. Other than that clever idea it was mostly a frustrating platformer with weird level design and poor hit detection.

It's not quite the same thing, but there's a WoW: Legion quest called Shard Times. Khadgar tells you to collect 2500 Nethershards which a special currency used in that content patch. When you turn them in, he sheepishly tells you that he got a little carried away and he really only needs one. He gives the rest back to you.

Id of forgot about that first collectible and never thought of it again until finding the others.

I played through all of The Order 1886 without using bullet time because I took a bathroom break after learning it and forgot it was a thing. It was only after immediately restarting for some reason and being retaught, that I remembered. I played on Hard too. It was pretty funny.

warlock7735 posted...

Kingdom of loathing did it with the worm riding manual.

They changed it, and it's less funny now.

I swear I've seen this in some other game, but I can't recall.

Unintentional but I thought the "1/35 Soldier" item in FF7 meant that there were 35 of them lol

Kim_Seong-a posted...

Unintentional but I thought the "1/35 Soldier" item in FF7 meant that there were 35 of them lol

Ha! Absolutely same.

It sounds like something that could have been done in a Family Guy, Simpsons or South Park game. In the Simpsons game for the 360 they gave you an achievement simply for starting the game ('Press START to Play').

GameGodOfAll posted...

Ha! Absolutely same.

If I hadn't built 1/144 models before then I'd have assumed the same

Kim_Seong-a posted...

Unintentional but I thought the "1/35 Soldier" item in FF7 meant that there were 35 of them lol

Not only that, I thought that you could build a Soldier with all 35 parts that could join your team >_>

Red Dead Redemption 2 has the non-existent legendary catfish.

Not quite the same but I'm reminded of how in Far Cry 5 you had to climb the one tower at the start, then the game cracks a joke about not having to climb more seeing as Ubisoft games were infamous for it at the time.

AlCalavicci posted...

This isn't the same thing but it reminds me of the thing you get in FFVII that is like 1/12 figure, which I always thought it meant 1 of 12 and you never come across 11 others, but it actually is referring to the 1/12th scale

lol, this is exactly me.

AlCalavicci posted...

This isn't the same thing but it reminds me of the thing you get in FFVII that is like 1/12 figure, which I always thought it meant 1 of 12 and you never come across 11 others, but it actually is referring to the 1/12th scale

I fell for this too, and tried to collect all 12 of them (though I think it was 1/35th scale, which was that much more maddening). As a young teen I was absolutely convinced that there was some secret way to canonically revive Aeris, and every little weird collectible item was some piece of the puzzle.

I blame Symphony of the Night for this mentality: the trail of breadcrumbs that lead to the Reverse Castle convinced me that all games of that era probably had some great secret with massive payoff if you were willing to unravel the clues.

900 seeds to get a literal pile of poo in botw will always be the best collectible troll

Lordgold666 posted...

900 seeds to get a literal pile of poo in botw will always be the best collectible troll

Dev 1: 'Okay, so, what's the best way to implement collectibles in this game so that people can find them organically without the need of a guide?'

Dev 2: 'I mean...you could always put in a ridiculous amount of them, but the player only needs, like, a third of them to max out the gameplay rewards. That way they'll find as many as they need through the normal course of exploration.'

Dev 1: 'C'mon, you know there's plenty of completionists who will completely miss the point of that and still hunt down every single on of them.'

Dev 2: 'Oh, don't worry, I have the perfect reward in mind for them...'

Rayman 2 had a funny collectible gag imo. It shows that you gotta collect 1000 bugs and shows 0/1000. But then the bad guy takes a bug and crushes it, and the number changes to 0/999 lol

It's not quite that extreme, but in Beyond Good and Evil, they have these orbs that are basically your stars in your 3D Marios. Collecting each one feels like a mild accomplishment. But then towards the later part of the game, there are these areas that dump like 10 on you at a time. Their only use is to purchase essential equipment, so I don't know why they didn't just lower the cost of the items you have to buy. It creates a weird pacing issue with the game, where you think you have a lot longer to go, but then you find out you don't.

Some levels in Mario maker do this with red coins

warlock7735 posted...

Kingdom of loathing did it with the worm riding manual.

I feel like playing Kingdom of Loathing again.

GameGodOfAll posted...

Or maybe a collectible that said 1 of 10, but there are only 9 in the game just to fuck with you so you could never get 10 out of 10?

Stuff like this has happened, mostly due to glitches but is still there

itachi15243 posted...

Stuff like this has happened, mostly due to glitches but is still there

I know of two examples.
Impossible Mission on the Atari 7800 unlocks doors when you collect keycards. The last keycard is behind the last locked door...
Space Station Silicon Valley got collectable trophies. One will never register, you will just walk through it, which prevents you from getting 100% and unlocking a bonus aftergame level.

That is hilarious, I feel like I've seen this in a game before and I remember laughing but nothing comes to mind.

Bully kinda does something like that. During the Halloween night mission you can go searching for pumpkins to smash. I think there were 30. If you don't find them all the ones left over are in the basement during a later mission so you can get them then

Hambo posted...

Idk but that sounds hilarious. I don't doubt that there are games where one of the collectibles is missing just due to an oversight or glitch though.

DK64 iirc

There was a game series called Deathspank, they made 3 of them, this sounds like something they would have done. A lot of side missions and character interactions made the games great and unique. I don't recall something like this exactly though.

VigorouslySwish posted...

DK64 iirc

I'm pretty sure none of the collectibles are missing, but there is one Golden Banana that becomes nearly impossible to complete if you progress too far in the game. In the Gloomy Galleon stage, there's a big metal fish that you have to get inside. Once you're in, you can kill it by shooting its "heart" which is a pretty basic timed target shooting minigame where the targets are blocked by a propeller fan. You can't hit the targets at all when it's spinning, so you have to wait for it to stop.

The issue with the scope is that with the way they created the zoom-in effect, it creates a lot of lag even if you aren't zoomed. The lag makes the fan desync from the timer, so you don't have as many opportunities to hit the targets.

pegusus123456 posted...

I'm pretty sure none of the collectibles are missing, but there is one Golden Banana that becomes nearly impossible to complete if you progress too far in the game. In the Gloomy Galleon stage, there's a big metal fish that you have to get inside. Once you're in, you can kill it by shooting its "heart" which is a pretty basic timed target shooting minigame where the targets are blocked by a propeller fan. You can't hit the targets at all when it's spinning, so you have to wait for it to stop.

The issue with the scope is that with the way they created the zoom-in effect, it creates a lot of lag even if you aren't zoomed. The lag makes the fan desync from the timer, so you don't have as many opportunities to hit the targets.

Yeah maybe thats what im thinking of. Idk, I was pretty sure I remember reading it was impossible to 100% the game, but that was a long time ago I read that