History Main / ICantReachIt

* Taken to deliberately ridiculous extremes in the ''VideoGame/HitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'' text adventure, which, in addition to many straight examples of the trope, at one point tells you you can't enter the engine room because you've decided it's a bad idea. The solution? [[spoiler: Just keep saying you want to go south until the game gives up and lets you. It will then pretend there's nothing there for a bit]]. Creator/DouglasAdams claimed the game went beyond "user friendly" by being "user hostile".

->''"Have you ever had a video game character talk back to you and say, 'No! I'm not going to do that.'"''
-->-- '''The Nerd''', ''WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd''

** Nobody can ignore the "STAIRS OUT OF ORDER" sign in the library

* ''Franchise/MassEffect'': want to send your squaddies on ahead of you, but there's a waist-high box, corner of a wall, or ''one side of a doorway'' between you and the location you order them to? Steel yourself for a barrage of [[MostAnnoyingSound "I can't get there!" "Not without an airlift!" "Can't make it!"]]

* Early on, the hero of ''VideoGame/{{Phantasmagoria 2}}'' cannot reach his wallet, which has ended up under his sofa, so you have to get his pet rat to retrieve it. Fair enough, in a SolveTheSoupCans kind of way, except for the fact that despite heroic attempts by the actor to convince you otherwise, he can quite clearly reach the wallet himself.
* VideoGame/MetalGearSolid features a cutscene in disguise. You're watching through the scope of your rocket launcher as the Cyborg Ninja distracts Metal Gear, so you can shoot it. You can control the camera just fine, but if you attempt to pull the trigger, Snake's response is [[ButThouMust "It's no good... I can't do it."]]

* Early in ''Videogame/RuleOfRose'' you must get scissors hanging from a rope just out of your reach. The only way to get to them is to find a crank in a locked room to lower the said rope, never mind that the room contains, among other things, a rubbish bin you could stand on to get your hands on them.

** Unless you used up all your ammo prior, in which case it's a morally gray [[WhatTheHellHero "It's no good, I'm out of missiles!"]]

** Parodied brilliantly with an EasterEgg that triggers if the player messes with any objects without a specific ICantReachItResponse. If you direct Sam to pick them up he says "I can't pick that up" do it again "Really, I can't pick that up" again... "I would like to pick that up, but I cannot pick that up" do it over and over he eventually breaks down sobbing. In which Max threatens the player "If I was real and not just a lovable computer game character I would totally come out of the monitor and rip your lungs out!". If you do it any more, Sam simply whimpers with Max saying "Don't worry Sam, maybe they'll go away"

[[folder:Lucas Arts]]

** Used brilliantly, there is one item in the game, which this could be considered an Easter Egg. If you direct Sam to pick it up he says "I can't pick that up" do it again "Really, I can't pick that up" again... "I would like to pick that up, but I cannot pick that up" do it over and over he eventually breaks down sobbing. In which Max threatens the player "If I was real and not just a lovable computer game character I would totally come out of the monitor and rip your lungs out!". If you do it any more, Sam simply whimpers with Max saying "Don't worry Sam, maybe they'll go away"

* In ''VideoGame/GabrielKnight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned'', Gabriel doesn't want to pick up a red cap in a "lost and found" box in a museum because he finds it unattractive. And yet, the player is supposed to pick it up later - this time Gabriel agreeing - for a disguise.

* In ''VideoGame/LeisureSuitLarry 7: Love For Sail'', Larry cannot do a lot of things just because the ''narrator doesn't want him to''.

** Also, in Thy Dungeonman 1&2, along with ''VideoGame/StrongBadsCoolGameForAttractivePeople'', YouCantGetYeFlask.

* Early on, the hero of ''VideoGame/{{Phantasmagoria 2}}'' cannot reach his wallet, which has ended up under his sofa, so you have to get his pet rat to retrieve it.

This trope can overlap with MoonLogicPuzzle, SolveTheSoupCans, and AlphabetSoupCans, where a player cannot advance until a particular puzzle is solved. There is no [[TakeAThirdOption taking a third option]]. The player must solve the problem as the developers intended or simply go somewhere else.

* ''{{Gobliiins}}'' game series:

* In ''WoodruffAndTheSchnibbleOfAzimuth'', the main character (Woodruff) has to go past an acid liquid river but is barefoot. If he has one boot (which is acid-resistant), he says that he can cross it by hopping on one leg. But not being the sharpest pencil in the drawer, he hops in the acid with his bare foot and is forced to go back. He could simply try again and hop on the booted foot this time, learning from his mistake (even an idiot can think this), but no, he will repeat the same mistake again and again. The player is meant to find another boot so he can cross the river full-booted every time. But then, Woodruff is an IdiotHero.

* In ''QuestForGloryIV'', the Thief can find a mug in one of the houses he can rob, but the game won't let you steal it because 1) it's the ugliest mug you've ever seen, and 2) there's nothing you can do with it anyway.

* In ''LauraBow: The Colonel's Bequest'', Laura cannot reach the rope that rings a bell inside a belltower. Instead of just jumping, she is supposed to use a cane to do it. That fire poker that could serve the same purpose with its hard curved tip? Nope. Ain't gonna do it.

[[quoteright:312:[[VideoGame/KingsQuestVII http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/cant_reach_it.jpg]]]]

** Used brilliantly, there is one item in the game, which this could be considered an Easter Egg. If you direct Sam to pick it up he says "I can't pick that up" do it again "Really, I can't pick that up" again... "I would like to pick that up, but I cannot pick that up" do it over and over he eventually breaks down sobbing. In which Max threatens the player "If I was real and not just a lovable computer game character I would totally come out of the monitor and rip your lungs out!" going it any more, Sam simply whimpers with Max saying "Don't worry Sam, maybe they'll go away"

* ''[[VideoGame/DarkSeed Dark Seed 2]]'' has many of these moments, but the worst is when Mike Dawson won't move an anvil on an ice-box that has life-saving medicine in it, even though the person who needs the medicine is close to dying. The anvil is too heavy for Mike to lift, but he doesn't even attempt to push it or jimmy it off. Hell, even breaking the table's legs so that the anvil and medicine box fall down would have made more sense. Somebody ended up ''dying'' because Mike wouldn't even attempt to move the bloody anvil.[[note]]It's later revealed that the ice box's DarkWorld equivalent is the container that holds the BigBad, thus making it quite possible that removing the anvil would cause a NonStandardGameOver that the developer's just didn't feel like programming into the game.[[/note]]

The [[JustForFun/{{Troperithmetic}} combination]] of InsurmountableWaistHeightFence and ICantUseTheseThingsTogether, found primarily in puzzle/{{Adventure Game}}s. A character is incapable of doing something which would theoretically be possible in the real world for somebody in the same situation. Common manifestations of this occur while reaching for and taking objects, or while attempting to use non-useable objects.

-->'''{{JonTron}}''': Nightshade's hard to impress, you take him to a museum and tell him, "Look at that giant bronze horse from the B.C. times," and he's like, "Nuthin unusual here." You take him to a ''future'' history museum and say, "Hey, look at that giant hologram horse from the distant C.E. times," and he's like ''(points with robotic arm)'' "Nightshade can't do dat!"

* Early on, the hero of ''{{Phantasmagoria 2}}'' cannot reach his wallet, which has ended up under his sofa, so you have to get his pet rat to retrieve it.

* The point and click adventure game ''BlazingDragons'' was filled with this. Generally Flicker's objection to doing something not intended was; "No, that's not safe."

* ''[[VideoGame/DarkSeed Dark Seed 2]]'' has many of these moments, but the worst is when Mike Dawson won't move an anvil on an ice-box that has life-saving medicine in it, even though the person who needs the medicine is close to dying. The anvil is too heavy for Mike to lift, but he doesn't even attempt to push it or jimmy it off. Hell, even breaking the table's legs so that the anvil and medicine box fall down would have made more sense. Somebody ended up ''dying'' because Mike wouldn't even attempt to move the bloody anvil.

* ''SamAndMaxHitTheRoad'' has an amusing example: while trying to get a book from a shelf that's just barely out of reach, Sam says that he ''could'' just about reach it if he felt like exerting himself. Which he doesn't.