Need tag for the ability to fail your task in non-standard manner, especially cases where you aid the opposition somehow. Unfortunately I don't know any examples for this besides System Shock where you can fire the mining laser at Earth. A literal case would be where you try to save someone but cause their death instead. Death traps are a sub-type or alternate for this as these can be noticed beforehand if you pay attention.
There's also probably some games where you can challenge the end boss prematurely (or try to do something similar finale stuff too early), though I only know one game for that too and I'm not too certain it's a real instance of it: Shadow Man. Essentially anything that allows you to go to the finale before you've acquired something mandatory for beating it.
Alternate failures & premature challenge [Solved]
concept is not *that* rare
Dragon Warrior lets you join the Dragon Lord
Several games of the Ultima series allow you spectacularly fail by various means, including casting Armageddon or assassinating Lord British
Heroes of the Lance allows you to defeat the big boss yet easily fail to retrieve Disks of Mishakal (which was the main point of the quest) and then the game ends in failure.
And, as I have mentioned before, the point of some games is to fail (such as Missile Command).
Dragon Warrior lets you join the Dragon Lord
Several games of the Ultima series allow you spectacularly fail by various means, including casting Armageddon or assassinating Lord British
Heroes of the Lance allows you to defeat the big boss yet easily fail to retrieve Disks of Mishakal (which was the main point of the quest) and then the game ends in failure.
And, as I have mentioned before, the point of some games is to fail (such as Missile Command).
Related: tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NonstandardGameOver (type B and C)
Lack of victory condition shouldn't count for this. And Missile Command is purely score based game so the point is to get highest score, not to lose.
Since this has been lingering here for some time with no ideas, I'm going with straightforward solution: prematurechallenge & alternatefailures
Also verified that Shadow Man is not a case of premature challenge. Although you can challenge the final boss "prematurely", he's still beatable by same tactic you use later on, it's just going to take a lot longer because of your weak weapons, but since you can completely avoid the boss' attacks, this hardly matters except for the time it takes.
Also verified that Shadow Man is not a case of premature challenge. Although you can challenge the final boss "prematurely", he's still beatable by same tactic you use later on, it's just going to take a lot longer because of your weak weapons, but since you can completely avoid the boss' attacks, this hardly matters except for the time it takes.
Lack of victory condition shouldn't count for this. And Missile Command is purely score based game so the point is to get highest score, not to lose.
Actually the creator has said more than once that the point of Missile Command is to lose, "Nuclear ware has no victors".