History Main / GameBreaker

** Checkers may be the most popular [[http://www.sciencemag.org/content/317/5844/1518.abstract solved game]]. The game has 500 billion possible states. No human can comprehend all that. From a sufficiently advanced computer's point of view, Checkers is as trivial as Tic-Tac-Toe. Perfect play results in a draw. Because humans lack this perspective, we cannot play Checkers perfectly and don't grow bored of it like we do Tic-Tac-Toe.

[[caption-width-right:230: En garde, ''[[ThisIsForEmphasisBitch bitch]]!'']]

*** ''GameBreaker/DragonAgeOrigins''
*** ''GameBreaker/DragonAgeII''

* GameBreaker/AdventureGames

Compare DiscOneNuke and SequenceBreaking. A LethalJokeCharacter may be one of these, as will the OneManParty if the game's balance is easily skewed. {{Lightning Bruiser}}s are also common candidates. Some BoringButPractical moves/tactics may border on this, as may some AwesomeYetPractical ones too. ThatOneAttack, when available un-nerfed to players, usually becomes this, as will any particularly powerful MinMaxersDelight. Contrast TheComputerIsACheatingBastard, as well as SkillGateCharacters that appear this way to newbies but can be taken apart by experts.

[[caption-width-right:230: En garde, ''[[ThisIsForEmphasisBitch bitch]]!''No fair I forget my Grenade Launcher at ho-*BANG* ]]

[[caption-width-right:230: En garde, ''[[ThisIsForEmphasisBitch bitch]]!'']]

** ''GameBreaker/{{Yu-Gi-Oh Card Game}}''

A controversial element of gameplay that unexpectedly trumps all others. It is not cheating, depending on who you ask. A Game Breaker is a legitimate element of the game used in an unintended way. The MetaGame revolves around who can get the Game Breaker (or use it on the other) first, resulting in GameplayDerailment.

A controversial element of gameplay that unexpectedly trumps all others. It is not cheating, depending on who you ask. A Game Breaker is a legitimate element of the game used in an unintended way, resulting in GameplayDerailment. Contests are decided less by a player's skill and strategy, and more by whether they use the Game Breaker in question.

Compare DiscOneNuke and SequenceBreaking. A LethalJokeCharacter may be one of these, as will the OneManParty if the game's balance is easily skewed. {{Lightning Bruiser}}s are also common candidates. Some BoringButPractical moves/tactics may border on this, as may some AwesomeYetPractical ones too. ThatOneAttack, when available un-nerfed to players, usually becomes this, as will any particularly powerful MinMaxersDelight. Contrast TheComputerIsACheatingBastard, as well as SkillGateCharacters that appear this way to newbies but can be taken apart by experts. The dramatic equivalent is StoryBreakerPower. For how Game Breaking spells/items are usually treated if in limited supply, see TooAwesomeToUse. When something looks like a Game Breaker, but is actually required to complete the game, it may be PurposelyOverpowered.

A powerup that would be a game breaker, except that it only appears when the game is essentially over, is an InfinityPlusOneSword or a BraggingRightsReward -- note that most examples of these tend to be single-player affairs, where there are no other opponents to become offended over it. For stats that, once boosted to a high enough degree, make the character into a Game Breaker, see OneStatToRuleThemAll.

** ''GameBreaker/TheElderScrolls''
** ''GameBreaker/{{Magicka}}''

** ''{{GameBreaker/X-COM}}''

*** ''GameBreaker/FireEmblemAwakening'' [[UpToEleven Yep it has its own page.]]

[[caption-width-right:230: En garde, [[ThisIsForEmphasisBitch bitch]].]]

** ''{{GameBreaker/Borderlands}}''

* Any game with a finite number of states and which does not make use of randomness may be [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solved_game mathematically solved]], resulting in a guaranteed win or draw ("[[PerfectPlayAI perfect play]]") for whomever has the correct starting conditions. "Perfect play" does not mean "good play," such as top-level human players might execute. It means having god-like knowledge of every state of the game and choosing the absolute best move at each point. Thus, there really is only one way to play these games "perfectly," except when choices are pretty much equivalent. Once a strategy for perfect play is discovered, the game can be considered completely broken, unless played by naive players. The most well-known example of this is Tic-Tac-Toe, which any skilled player can play perfectly [[spoiler: to a draw]]. Connect Four and Checkers have also been solved, though in these cases, the correct strategy was found by computers and is far too complex for most humans to memorize.
** Checkers may be the most popular [[http://www.sciencemag.org/content/317/5844/1518.abstract solved game]]. The game has 500 billion possible states. No human can comprehend all that. From a sufficiently advanced computer's point of view, Checkers is as trivial as Tic-Tac-Toe. Perfect play results in [[spoiler: a draw]]. Because humans lack this perspective, we cannot play Checkers perfectly and don't grow bored of it like we do Tic-Tac-Toe.

** Checkers may be the most popular [[http://www.sciencemag.org/content/317/5844/1518.abstract solved game]]. The game has 500 billion billion possible states. No human can comprehend all that. From a sufficiently advanced computer's point of view, Checkers is as trivial as Tic-Tac-Toe. Perfect play results in [[spoiler: a draw]]. Because humans lack this perspective, we cannot play Checkers perfectly and don't grow bored of it like we do Tic-Tac-Toe.

* ''GameBreaker/TowerDefense''

Not to be confused with GameBreakingBug, for when you can literally "break" the game by crashing the underlying software or leaving your saved game in an {{Unwinnable}} state, or GameChanger.

Compare DiscOneNuke and SequenceBreaking. A LethalJokeCharacter may be one of these, as will the OneManParty if the game's balance is easily skewed. {{Lightning Bruiser}}s are also common candidates. Some BoringButPractical moves/tactics may border on this, as may some AwesomeYetPractical ones too. ThatOneAttack, when available un-nerfed to players, usually becomes this, as will any particularly powerful MinMaxersDelight. Contrast TheComputerIsACheatingBastard, as well as SkillGateCharacters that appear this way to newbies but can be taken apart by experts. The dramatic equivalent is StoryBreakerPower. For how Game Breaking spells/items are usually treated if in limited supply, see TooAwesomeToUse. When something looks like a Game Breaker, but is actually required to complete the game, it may be PurposefullyOverpowered.

** Chess and Go, [[SmartPeoplePlayChess the quintessential games for geniuses]], are both theoretically solvable for a sufficiently advanced computer, as both games have a finite board and no random elements -- though a computer powerful enough to perform the necessary calculations would be many orders of magnitude better than anything available with our current level of technology (the high branching factor in Go makes it intractable to analyze with the methods used for Chess, since you rapidly get too many options to explore via lookahead in any reasonable timeframe, with no obvious way of pruning 'bad' choices quickly). For a hypothetical intelligence far beyond our capacities, Chess and Go are as trivial as Tic-Tac-Toe, but no human creation as of 2013 - not even Deep Blue - is even close to having such a level of computational power.