| Harmful touch | Simply coming into contact with your enemies is enough to hurt or even kill you. | 1981 / 2018 | 555 games |
| Instant death | The player dies from single damaging hit of any kind, the equivalent of having never more than one life/hit point. | 1978 / 2018 | 1374 games |
| Predefined controls | Offers only single configuration of controls with no options to change the button layout or anything else. | 1994 / 2016 | 50 games |
| Randomized content | Any non-specific randomized content. | 2013 / 2017 | 6 games |
| Time limit | Imposes a time limit on either the whole game or for each level. | 1971 / 2017 | 2006 games |
Artificial difficulty
Video game concept
Any tags that increase difficulty in a way that the player can not counter or work around of.
Does not include concepts that are simulation or other "intuitive/realistic" causes of hardness.
Some concepts may be conditionally artificial difficulty, usually when they're unexplained (e.g. time limit that you can increase with bonuses).
Some concepts may be conditionally artificial difficulty, usually when they're unexplained (e.g. time limit that you can increase with bonuses).