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).
This is a container group; its children are:
| Harmful touch | Simply coming into contact with your enemies is enough to hurt or even kill you. It is most commonly seen in platform games. | 1979 / 2021 | 616 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 / 2021 | 1540 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. (too short) | 2013 / 2017 | 6 games |
| Time limit | Imposes a time limit on either the whole game or for each level. The restriction of these limits may increase as the game progresses. | 1971 / 2024 | 2567 games |