With One Hand Behind My Back - Self-imposed limitations in games

klemming

Just wondering what self-imposed challenges people come up with for games?

I think these have gotten a higher profile with Achievements/Trophies, as a lot of the more obscure ones are things like 'Complete the game only using the pistol'.
I've done a few of these including the Orange Box ones (Episode One with just Rockets/Gravity gun, and taking the Gnome all the way through Episode Two). I'm guessing the Episode One one must have been started by fans well before Valve ever thought to add achievements for it, though.

It was oddly satisfying to do them, even if they did get frustrating (considering they had to have known they were putting the Gnome one in there from the start, they could have given us a box on the car to put it in, or something).
I also got most of the way through the Half Life 2 carrying Dog's ball, but I ended up abandoning that run when some new games distracted me.

I've also just started a run-through of Fallout 3, limiting myself to unarmed weapons only.

Anyone else have some interesting examples/suggestions?

ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha

Kick Me Sign

No Roulettes, no God Hand, Good Luck.

PeregrineFalcon

The entire tourneyfag culture is based on crippling all "unfair" aspects of a game, which happen to intersect with self-imposed limitations, so there's a good place to start looking for examples.

I generally don't bother unless it will increase the amount of fun I have, or I'm drunk and doing W+M1 pyro literally.

SovietMudkipz

While playing Prototype, when disguised as a Blackwatch soldier, I prefer to behave as they would. Meaning no completely inhuman sprinting, no soaring like a flying squirrel and no lifting a car above my head.

It makes it feel more like what the stealth element should have been. How the hell do they not know it's me when I RUN UP WALLS?!

Slicer

Low level challenges in some RPGs can be pretty fun.

Final Fantasy 6 is actually well designed about that, for example. Boss fights don't give you experience and there's very few forced battles that do give experience. It's possible to beat the game with almost everyone under level 10.

Lucascraft

One of the oldest challenges I can remember is "The Three Heart Challenge" from Ocarina of Time. Can you beat Zelda without ever upgrading your life bar?

"Iron Man challenge" of Diablo 1 was a mode I was fond of. The rules for this were that you were not allowed to go to town. You had to just keep descending deeper into the game, living entirely off whatever you managed to find.

Strikerkc

Most limitations I've placed are to force me to play another way to see how things change. Big examples for me would be playing bioshock with different weapons and plasmids than I would naturaly turn to, and without that camelion tonic.

Witchsight

Lately ive been playing Fight Night 3 at least a few weight classes lower than my friends. Its more fun when i actually have to work for it and use counters to win.
Last night i beat my pal playing Ali, while i was some featherweight.... My friends are terrible at games.

guar

Ghosting in the Thief games. I'm sure there's a specific definition somewhere, but mine is basically avoid all possible detection. Most people would just prefer to blackjack everything and get on with their life.

Dirty

Yeah, three-heart runs on Zelda games are pretty popular. Though I heard that in Twilight Princess, the game basically gives you double defense until you get your first heart container, meaning its more like having 6 hearts, making a 4-heart run slightly more difficult. I have a hard time avoiding HP pieces, because there are so many of them, even in dungeon chests.

When I play Twin Snakes, I try to limit myself to what MGS1 Snake could do.

gjaustin

I'm a big fan of self-imposed limitations on RPGs.

For example, I've beaten Final Fantasy (I) with an all Red Mage party.
I've beaten Final Fantasy VII without casting a single healing spell.
I've beaten Super Mario RPG without using Timed Hits.
I'm up to Rose Town on a Mallow only runthrough of Super Mario RPG.
I'm up to Threed on a Ness only runthrough of Earthbound.
One day I intend to do a Yuna + Summons only runthrough of FFX


Some of the other fun limitations I've done:
100% on Super Mario World without using Yoshi
100% on Super Mario World without using the cape (Nearly - a few secret exits are impossible)
Ocarina of Time without picking up Heart Containers
Beating various Goldeneye levels exclusively with Throwing Knives or without ever getting shot at.


Once, I won a race in Mario Kart 64 playing with my feet.

Impersonator

Lucascraft wrote: »

"Iron Man challenge" of Diablo 1 was a mode I was fond of. The rules for this were that you were not allowed to go to town. You had to just keep descending deeper into the game, living entirely off whatever you managed to find.

That actually sounds like a nice challenge.

VeritasVR

Play FF6 without utilizing Espers or items that teach magic.

It feels so much more natural and balanced.

guar wrote: »

Ghosting in the Thief games. I'm sure there's a specific definition somewhere, but mine is basically avoid all possible detection. Most people would just prefer to blackjack everything and get on with their life.

Also this.

JustinSane07

PeregrineFalcon wrote: »

The entire tourneyfag culture is based on crippling all "unfair" aspects of a game, which happen to intersect with self-imposed limitations, so there's a good place to start looking for examples.

I generally don't bother unless it will increase the amount of fun I have, or I'm drunk and doing W+M1 pyro literally.

I'm glad someone else agrees with me about the tournament culture being fucking retarded sometimes. One of my friends, when playing GoW online, would go into games and tell them they should set the server to MLG rules, because those are the "official" rules. I would inform him that he's being a jackass.

Self imposed rules on myself? I don't really do this, to be honest. I mean, I'll sometimes avoid a weapon or an ability in a game that will trivialize the game, but for the most part I won't restrict myself. Aside from game breaking stuff, the only times I really try to "restrict" myself is when I've beaten a game 1-2 times and I'm looking for a new challenge.

Lucascraft

JustinSane07 wrote: »

PeregrineFalcon wrote: »

The entire tourneyfag culture is based on crippling all "unfair" aspects of a game, which happen to intersect with self-imposed limitations, so there's a good place to start looking for examples.

I generally don't bother unless it will increase the amount of fun I have, or I'm drunk and doing W+M1 pyro literally.

I'm glad someone else agrees with me about the tournament culture being fucking retarded sometimes. One of my friends, when playing GoW online, would go into games and tell them they should set the server to MLG rules, because those are the "official" rules. I would inform him that he's being a jackass.

Self imposed rules on myself? I don't really do this, to be honest. I mean, I'll sometimes avoid a weapon or an ability in a game that will trivialize the game, but for the most part I won't restrict myself. Aside from game breaking stuff, the only times I really try to "restrict" myself is when I've beaten a game 1-2 times and I'm looking for a new challenge.

This is the key right here. Extra limitations for a game play-through are generally done by people who have mastered a game using all aspects of the game as it was intended. They are looking for extra challenge.

Take my Ocarina of Time challenge as an example. Back when the 64 was the current gen, people played the hell out of OoT. As a way of squeezing more life out of the game, the Three Heart Challenge was born. Sure you can beat the game with a bunch of extra hearts. But can you do it with the bare minimum and nothing more?

Self-Imposed challenges are a way of adding extra replay value to a game that you would otherwise abandon because you've already completed it.

Karl

I'm not sure if this counts but i flat out refuse to play any game on easy.

lesserbeing

My friends and I used to run ikaruga while someone with an airsoft gun stood behind the players and shot them whenever they died.

Visti

I remember turning the stats way down in the THPS series when I just wanted to muck about.. To sort of reel in the whole crazy approach they had to skating. Now I have Skate, though.

Duffel

Now when I play FF6 I usually only teach Espers/Magic to characters that can use it "naturally" (implying Terra, Celes, Strago and Relm), and only do so on the Veldt so they don't get the stat bonuses (Veldt fights give magic EXP but no regular EXP). I enjoy it quite a bit more because it gives me more reason to use those characters instead of just teaching all the magic to Sabin and pumping up his magic stats, and the lack of stat-enhancing Espers means that all the characters stay variable (Locke never becomes a physical powerhouse, for instance).

Also, even though hardly ANYBODY seems to have played this game - in Rockstar's Bully you got health bonuses by getting better in Art class and making out with girls; the better your Art score the higher your health bonus. Now when I play it I never go beyond Art 3, because after that the health bonus just makes the game way too easy.

Henroid

Whenever I go back to playing Revenge of Shinobi it must be done on hard or very hard mode with the shuriken count set to 0 to start. Sometimes I'll toss in the Game Genie code that makes shuriken pickups amount to 0.

PeregrineFalcon

JustinSane07 wrote: »

I'm glad someone else agrees with me about the tournament culture being fucking retarded sometimes. One of my friends, when playing GoW online, would go into games and tell them they should set the server to MLG rules, because those are the "official" rules. I would inform him that he's being a jackass.

I'm pretty sure there's way more people who would argue along the lines of "tournament rules" being retarded most of the time rather than some of the time.

BTW: no bold, no quoting, text only, Final Destination

Self imposed rules on myself? I don't really do this, to be honest. I mean, I'll sometimes avoid a weapon or an ability in a game that will trivialize the game, but for the most part I won't restrict myself. Aside from game breaking stuff, the only times I really try to "restrict" myself is when I've beaten a game 1-2 times and I'm looking for a new challenge.

I did this with Deus Ex - various combinations of melee only, no killing anyone, no augs, no upgrades, just to challenge myself.

guar

Visti wrote: »

I remember turning the stats way down in the THPS series when I just wanted to muck about.. To sort of reel in the whole crazy approach they had to skating. Now I have Skate, though.

I did this in THPS2. Sort of anyway; I spent my money buying decks and that was it. It wasn't until I unlocked Stud mode (maxes stats) that I was able to complete the game with every skater (save for one I guess, I haven't completed the gap checklist yet).

Delzhand

This desire basically gave birth to the speedrun culture starting with Super Metroid.

I've done the FF Tactics Solo Ramza game, the Symphony of the Night naked game, and min-item Metroid games.

cj iwakura

I've played Alpha 3 AC one handed before, but that was because I'd cleared it so many times that I had to try something different. (Got to Bison using Karin, almost beat him too.)

Doobh

I still need to do a run of Deus Ex where the only weapon I use is the crowbar.

Sanius

guar wrote: »

Ghosting in the Thief games. I'm sure there's a specific definition somewhere, but mine is basically avoid all possible detection. Most people would just prefer to blackjack everything and get on with their life.

This was a biggie for me in splinter cell, all of them.

I went through all of them on every level trying to not get detected once. You get a huge rush going through without a single "what was that?"

SkutSkut

I've done the bare minimum Super Metroid, 1% Fusion, beat RE4 normal pistol/knife only with no upgrades, Resident Evil 2 same thing.

Drake

I like to occasionally go through Doom levels with only the shotgun. That's about all I can think of though.

edit: Oh yeah, no mouse either. Old timey keyboard only controls.

theantipop

One of my favorites is minimum world's beaten in Super Mario World to get to Bowser (if I remember it's somewhere around 13 and requires one ridiculous cape move to fly into a tiny gap with key exit normally gotten to with blue ! blocks). Another was pistol only Half Life + expansions.

These days I suck too much and have too little patience. I just start up games on default difficulty and have at them.

Taramoor

FFX - No Sphere Grid.

One of the most challenging things I've ever managed to complete.

Also, Nethack - No Wishes.

DemonStacey

All I have done are playing Guitar Hero In funny positions... Like sitting upside down with the guitar behind my back.

Lord Yod

Playing Mount & Blade at the head of a Nord army of infantry, with no horse yourself, is incredibly fun. Also wicked hard.

Asiina

I never used any sort of Healing Touch in any of the Trauma Centre games. It just seemed silly and I enjoyed the games a lot more without it.

I'll periodically pull out ActRaiser and play it without ever dying.

Sometimes I'll put +forward and/or +attack on in TF2 and run around, or melee only rounds.

Left4Dead has all kinda of meta-games. Race4Dead where you pick up an autoshotty and just haul ass. Whoever gets to the end first wins. Expert+ which a couple of people created that makes mobs 3 times bigger, twice as fast, ups the health on all the boss infected, and makes friendly fire do a ridiculous amount of damage. A game mode we named but I can't remember now, that's basically pistols and walking only.

gjaustin

Asiina wrote: »

I never used any sort of Healing Touch in any of the Trauma Centre games. It just seemed silly and I enjoyed the games a lot more without it.

On the Wii version, sometimes I think that would make it easier. Drawing that stupid star is nearly impossible.

Pata

Slicer wrote: »

Low level challenges in some RPGs can be pretty fun.

Kingdom Hearts 2 becomes tons more fun when you do a low level challenge.

CarbonFire

Dead Space on Impossible with only the Pulse Rifle & Flamethrower. My kingdom for some ammo!

Feral

I will rock your shit on any version of Tekken with my left hand.

Dunxco

I'm a big fan of Resident Evil trial runs. My favourite was an RE4 "Flashback" run, where I could only use the Matilda handgun, the original shotgun (because it kind of looks like Leon's custom shotgun in RE2), and the Killer7 (because without the scope it looks like the vanilla magnum in RE2). No grenades, two rocket launcher uses (the one in RE2 has two rockets, that's my justification). And naturally, Leon in his R.P.D. uniform, on professional mode.

TrippyJing

Iron Man runs in rpgs is the first thing I can think of. I've never managed to successfully complete one though.

TheScruple

Rock band hard/expert drums, one hand + foot pedal only. The other hand throws up the horns. \m/

Dunxco

TheScruple wrote: »

Rock band hard/expert drums, one hand + foot pedal only. The other hand throws up the horns. \m/

We call that the Rick Allen achievement round here.