History Main / PlayerNudge

** In ''[[Videogame/CastlevaniaChroniclesOfSorrow Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow]]'', if you do not equip a certain piece of equipment prior to entering a certain room, the DownerEnding ensues. Afterwards, a short scene appears with Julius and Genya outside the castle. Genya laments, saying: "I had assumed he would have equipped the talisman from Mina..." Cue FacePalm by the player.

** In ''VideoGame/{{Deltarune}}'', Susie will initially not listen to Kris' commands and fight every enemy she encounters, often resulting in one-hit KO's and getting you a less favorable ending if she does it even just once. However, this can be avoided if you warn your opponents about her so they can dodge her attacks, something that Ralsei tells Kris about during the party's first few fights together.

* When you get to the Bloodshot Stronghold in ''VideoGame/Borderlands2'', the first two [=ECHOs=] you can find are canned advertisements from Marcus encouraging Roland/the Bloodshots to buy new weapons from his store. These [=ECHOs=] are the game warning you about this mission's upcoming DifficultySpike and advising you to backtrack out of the mission and upgrade your gear before continuing. It's easy to miss because you already know Marcus is a sleazy [[TheScrooge Scrooge]] and the [=ECHOs=] are on-brand with the ''Borderlands'' style of humor the player's accustomed to by that point.

* In ''VideoGame/LoveAndPies'', if you don't make a move in a few seconds, the game will hint on which items to match or store in the fridge.

* In ''VideoGame/LoveAndPies'', if you don't make a move in a few seconds, the game will hint on which items to match or store fridge.

!!Examples
* In ''VideoGame/DevilSurvivor'', if you pick [[DownerEnding Yuzu's Route]], you end up fighting [[spoiler:Loki]], who chastises you for picking the "easy route" and not taking into account Naoya's suggestions to open up to the other people inside the lockdown. This is done so that lazier players realise that to open up the other MultipleEndings, they need to stop and talk to the other characters instead of simply zooming through the game. And if you [[spoiler:let Haru die the one time the game doesn't instantly give you a Game Over for it]] despite the forewarning, the game ''does not stop'' reminding you that this was a bad idea.

* In ''VideoGame/PrinceOfPersiaTheTwoThrones'', the [[SuperpoweredEvilSide Dark Prince]] gives the player nudges during boss battles.

* There's one mission early in ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyModernWarfare2'' where you are supposed to jump into a humvee in a convoy. If you don't catch the none-too-subtle hint (the humvee pulls up in front of you and the Afghan trooper inside opens the door for you), you get sniped as you try to run across the bridge, and the NonstandardGameOver will tell you that it'll be safer if you stay with the convoy.
* ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamAsylum'': Every time you die, you get a game over screen with a hint about the section you died in.
* If you get stuck for a while in Telltale's ''VideoGame/SamAndMax'' games, someone (usually Max) will mutter a vague hint or two about your next move.
** In another of Telltale's games, ''VideoGame/TalesOfMonkeyIsland'', Guybrush will occasionally say something about what the player should be doing if you take too long.
** Another Telltale game, ''VideoGame/StrongBadsCoolGameForAttractivePeople'', hanging around for a while will cause Strong Bad to drop a hint as to what the player should be doing. It's actually possible to adjust the frequency/blatancy of the hints in the options menu.
* If you die in ''VisualNovel/{{Tsukihime}}'', you'll get a little lesson from Ciel giving you a hint about how to do it right the next time.
* ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'' has the Tiger Dojo, which gives you a hint about how to do it right the next time.
* If you're having trouble with one of the battles in ''VideoGame/ShadowOfTheColossus'', the VoiceOfTheLegion starts to drop cryptic hints. If the fight continues to drag on, the tips get less cryptic and more blunt.
* ''VideoGame/MetalGear'' series features [=NPCs=] giving hints via the codec if a boss battle starts to drag on.
* There's a sequence in the first ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'' where you're trapped in a prison cell, and can escape by one of three ways. If you don't think to hide under the bed when the guard leaves for a little bit, [[TheLancer Otacon]] sneaks in and gives you some food supplies that include [[ABloodyMess ketchup]]. Fail to escape by either of these means for even longer and [[spoiler:[[TheRival Gray Fox]]]] just busts the door open for you.

* ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure2'':
** The game has [[AnnoyingVideoGameHelper Omochao]] giving more and more obvious hints every time you respawn against a boss. Sega [[DevelopersForesight did their homework]], and let you [[TakeThatScrappy throw it at the boss]] for massive damage.
** In Knuckles and Rouge's stages, hint monitors will display clues to the Master Emerald shards. The third clue to any particular shard will typically spell out exactly where to look, although you will earn fewer bonus points for finding shards the more hints you need.

* The ''Descent'' series had a lot of these. Usually they were subtle, the devs might put e.g. a Smart Missile in a place where using it would be a good idea. This worked best when the player was already full on Smarts. A good example was level 22 of the original game, in the shaft leading to the red key.
* In ''VisualNovel/HotelDuskRoom215'' and its sequel ''VisualNovel/LastWindow'', if you get a GameOver, usually Kyle will flash back to the conversation that triggered failure, unless it's an interrogation scene. There's also a subtle hint during interrogations: if you are asking questions that will lead to a game over, the character will have a red shadow slide over them. You get the choice of either continuing to press them or to backtrack.
* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIVTheAfterYears'', there's a late game boss fight that turns out to be {{hopeless|BossFight}} unless you have a certain character in your party - a character which any sane player would have kept out of their party. So the average player will fight the boss, lose, and get a GameOver. But right before the game ends, they'll get a brief hint about what party member they need to bring, once they reload an old save. But wait! We're not done yet! There's another required character for this fight, though at least in this case, it's one of the better characters, so many players might have them anyway. But if not, they'll face another GameOver and get another nudge to bring this character along as well. At this point, the boss fight finally becomes winnable. But even after all this, in a straight GuideDangIt that's hinted at nowhere in the game, the only way complete the boss fight without [[spoiler:Golbez suffering a PlotlineDeath]] is to bring yet two more characters along for the fight. (If you're curious, bring along [[spoiler:Cecil and Golbez]] to complete the fight, and also [[spoiler:Ceodore and Rosa]] for the best outcome.)
* ''VideoGame/RadiantHistoria'' handles this reasonably well: After getting a bad end (and you will), the children in Historia explain your mistake and offer some advice to improve your odds. Incidientally, a DownerEnding does not mean GameOver, and in most cases the way to proceed either involves picking the other option in the most recent DialogueTree and/or hopping over to the other timeline until you figure out what you need to do to proceed in the current one.

* ''VideoGame/HotelMario'' loved this trope:
-->"It's hard to see through those clouds! I hope we can get rid of them! Get the hint?"
* On ''Series/WheelOfFortune'', host Pat Sajak will sometimes do this.
** The most frequent variant is if a contestant asks to buy a vowel and still has enough money to buy another, at which point he will say "You can buy another" if the puzzle still has at least one vowel unrevealed. (Relatedly, contestants are notified if the puzzle has no more vowels left to buy, or has ''only'' vowels left; if the latter is true, then the contestant must solve or buy a vowel.)
** If a player calls a correct consonant on the highest dollar amount and is holding a Wild Card, he will often remind them that they can use the card to call a second consonant for the same amount.
* Two examples on ''Series/{{Jeopardy}}'':
** If a contestant hits a Daily Double, the host may say "You have $x more/less than your opponents" to give a hint as to how much they should wager on it if they feel confident enough in doing so (particularly if they want to go "True Daily Double" and wager all their winnings). These types of hints may also be given leading into Final Jeopardy! This is as much to prompt large wagers and therefore more drama as it is to help the contestants.
** Sometimes categories may have themes that require that each response meets a certain criterion (e.g., having a certain amount of letters, or beginning/ending with a certain letter). If a contestant gives a response that does not fit the criterion and the other contestants fail to give a response, they will be reminded of the category's theme before resuming.

* The ''VideoGame/TalesOf'' games sometimes use the skits to give hints either on what the player should do next (or outright tell you) or about any sidequest they have the opportunity to do at that moment. In ''VideoGame/TalesOfTheAbyss'', if you die on a boss, you get an extra option on the GameOver screen that lets them view a skit where the characters lament over their failure and then try to think of a strategy for when the player tries again. You don't need to fight the boss this way, but it helps a lot.
* In ''VideoGame/DemonsSouls'', the Storm King is a gigantic, gigantic flying manta ray. If the player is smart, they would be armed with either magic or arrows to beat it and its spawn. If they are melee-only, there will be developer-placed messages on the ground pointing to a specific sword (the Stormruler) that has exactly the kind of power required to beat the boss.
* During the between-night minigames in ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys3'', the West Hall will contain a hint as to what you need to do during the next night for the good ending.
* ''VideoGame/AdvanceWars'' (and some of its sequels) will give you an outline of a strategy to beat a map if you surrender on it. (Later games in the series made this a menu option instead, complete with amusing and often [[BreakingTheFourthWall fourth-wall-breaking]] dialogue.)
* ''VideoGame/BlazBlueContinuumShift'' has this twice - a line of dialog usually during the game which hints at a choice or action the player has to make or a special segment that plays after each character's bad endings called 'Help Me, Professor Kokonoe' which breaks the Fourth Wall and give even more blatant hints on getting the True End of the route, although she often just hints at what you have to do (telling Ragna that he should listen to Rachel and [[spoiler: win the battle against her]] or telling Makoto to avoid [[spoiler: fighting [[MindRape Relius]]]]). She also blatantly tells the player that, unlike the last game, [[GuideDangIt they don't need to intentionally lose in some fights to get the good ending]].

* ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigi'':
** If you die in battle in ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiDreamTeam'' and then retry, a Hint Block will be added to your rotation for the battle, which will give hints about the enemy's attacks and how to counter them. Reading it doesn't take up any turns, so it's useful for learning the best strategies for defeating the enemy.
** Dying to a boss in ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiPaperJam'' and retrying will also add a Hint Block to the brothers' battle menu, which will give hints on how to counter the boss's attacks. This also doesn't take up a turn.
* In ''String Theory 2'', if you're taking too long on a level, one of the characters will say something casually like "I feel like we have to do this in the right order" or "If only there was a way to stop me from rolling" to clue you in on how to solve it.
* In one of the motorcycle levels in ''VideoGame/CrashBandicootNSaneTrilogy'', you can see [[MeaningfulBackgroundEvent a bird fly into a road sign.]] Hitting said road sign ''yourself'' is how the player enters the secret level, Hot Coco.
* Near the end of ''VideoGame/DanganronpaAnotherEpisodeUltraDespairGirls'', the player has to choose a door that Monaca is hiding behind. One will advance the game, the other two kill you. If you get it wrong, upon choosing to retry, Komaru and Toko will have a conversation that results in a flashback that drops an obvious hint as to which door is correct.
* At the end of the cutscenes that follow a very tough boss battle in the fangame ''VideoGame/PokemonUranium'', you're standing next to a Ranger who praises you thus:
-->"I can't believe it... you SAVED the day. I knew that you could SAVE us. ...Why am I shouting SAVE, you ask? Well... I just think it's good to SAVE things!"\\
Subtle.
** Doubly amusing if you have autosave turned on; depending on how frequent you set them to be, odds are the game autosaved after that anyway, making this blatant hint pointless.
* This is actually one of Blue's roles in ''VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue''. In most encounters you have with him, he either tells the player something they ''should'' be doing (Not going to the Pokémon League without badges, visiting Bill, getting Cut, catching Pokémon, going to the Pokémon League), or ''could'' be doing (Looking around the Pokémon Tower for a Cubone, a rare Pokémon)
* Done with camera angles in both ''VideoGame/LifeIsStrange'' and its prequel, ''[[VideoGame/LifeIsStrangeBeforeTheStorm Before The Storm]]''. When the player attempts something that doesn't work, a different possible solution will often be in the shot showing the player that it didn't work. For example, a shot showing that Chloe failed to open the hood of the wheel-clamped truck in the junkyard during ''Before The Storm'' Chapter 2 is framed to show Chloe, the still-closed hood and the hood release button in the trucks' interior.
* In Act 3 of ''VisualNovel/DokiDokiLiteratureClub'', [[spoiler:Monika describes how easy it was to delete the other girls' .chr files, detailing exactly the steps one would follow to do so (which vary slightly depending on what platform you're playing the game on). The intent being to encourage the player (who may or may not be especially computer-savvy) to see what happens if they try deleting the one remaining .chr file themselves...]]
* After defeating the final boss in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioOdyssey'', Cappy will start commenting whenever the player enters a bonus room they've been to before, letting them know if there are still [[PlotCoupon power moons]] or [[GlobalCurrencyException regional coins]] to be found or if they place has been cleaned out, saving the player from having to do some fruitless searching.
* In ''VideoGame/TwentyXX'', several of the Glory Room setups require you to use a power's secondary effect, and fill all your power slots with that power to force you to figure that secondary effect out. "Lock the Blocks" challenges require you to figure out how to use the Shadespur to solidify disappearing platforms; "Disable Traps" may require you to short out lasers with the Force Nova or shut down fireball devices with the Splinterfrost; and "Destroy" challenges straight-up demand that you blow up Death Lotus's mortar buds with the weapon that does bonus damage to Death Lotus. Some boss fights also have a "?" pop up next to damage dealt by the weapon that counters them but in an indirect way - Vera will get question marks when fired at Kur, because the point of the gun is to fire it at Kur's Quint Laser projectiles to deflect them back into him.

* ''VideoGame/DarkSun'', open world games from early 1990s, had a trader Notaku, whose {{Fetch Quest}}s sent players in the required direction. Don't know where to go next to advance the main plot? Ask Notaku where are the ingredients he wants or the client waiting for the delivery.
* In the ''Franchise/AceAttorney'' games, pressing on certain parts of a witness's testimony will have the player character note that there's something odd about the person's statement, which hints the player that the statement could contain a contradiction they can point out.
* After the first fight in the Magic Cave in ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'', Frog will comment on the party's ability to use magic (even if they didn't actually use it); this is followed by a message to the effect of, "Hey, maybe you should go to the End of Time and teach Frog magic". Considering the DiscOneFinalDungeon that follows [[RequiredPartyMember locks Frog into the party]] and is reliant on exploiting elemental weaknesses...
* In ''VideoGame/PaperMarioColorSplash'', facing a boss causes the characters to start dropping increasingly unsubtle hints about the Thing card you need to win, and you get further hints if you die to the boss. In addition, if you flee from a boss fight due to not having the proper Thing or using them improperly, then return with the Things needed, Huey will explain to you when to use them.
* ''VideoGame/ExponentialIdle'': Tapping the acceleration button ten times in a row makes the game give you the "Hold, Not Tap" achievement, making it clear that it should be held to be used properly.
* ''VideoGame/BulletAudyssey'' always gives you some line before a level that's a hint on how to win it, like "USE SLOW", "WATCH YOUR SIDES" etc.
* When you get to the Bloodshot Stronghold in ''VideoGame/Borderlands2'', the first two [=ECHOs=] you can find are canned advertisements from Marcus encouraging Roland/the Bloodshots to buy new weapons from his store. These [=ECHOs=] are the game warning you about this mission's upcoming DifficultySpike and advising you to backtrack out of the mission and upgrade your gear before continuing. It's easy to miss because you already know Marcus is a sleazy [[TheScrooge Scrooge]] and the [=ECHOs=] are on-brand with the ''Borderlands'' style of humor the player's accustomed to by that point.
* The ''Franchise/{{Hitman}}'' World of Assassination trilogy (''VideoGame/Hitman2016, VideoGame/Hitman2, VideoGame/Hitman3'') has Mission Stories (or Opportunities as the first game called them), subplots within a level that tend to set up your targets for convenient eliminations. The intensity of the nudge can be adjusted, from in-world objective markers to just objective hints to no mission guidance at all, at which point the nudge is basically just an environmental hint. They're also not foolproof, as early as the first real mission, certain Opportunities will require neutralizing an inconvenient witness before setting things in motion.
* ''VideoGame/FarCry5'' has a downplayed version. After completing the tutorial missions on Dutch's island, he'll send you a message about Deputy Hudson being tortured by John Seed, and recommends that you head to Holland Valley to deal with him. Holland Valley is considered the easiest of the three regions with its wide open fields and even terrain, when compared to the extremely forested Henbane River or the vertically challenging Whitetail Mountains. However, as this is an open world game, nothing stops the player from going in a different direction, and it's quite easy to save John for last.
* In ''VideoGame/HollowKnight'', if you advance far enough in the Fungal Wastes as to see the [[BeefGate Mantis Lords]] but have not yet defeated them, RecurringTraveller Quirrel will appear in Mantis Village near its entrance and tell you that it's better to visit the Blacksmith in the nearby city before challenging them (whether or not you already attempted it and died). Though even one Nail upgrade does help shorten the fight, it's by no means required to make an end of it.

** ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime'''s hint system basically highlights the room you should be heading towards if you take too long to reach it, usually with a clumsy GameplayAndStoryIntegration computer analysis.

* ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure2'' has [[AnnoyingVideoGameHelper Omochao]] giving more and more obvious hints every time you respawn against a boss. Sega [[DevelopersForesight did their homework]], and let you [[TakeThatScrappy throw it at the boss]] for massive damage.

** In ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaOrderOfEcclesia'', if you don't rescue all the villagers, you get the bad ending halfway through the game. This bad ending pans over all the villagers you failed to rescue, although since only the room they're in is shown and some of them are in hidden rooms behind breakable walls, it's largely up to player to remember where exactly they ran into rooms with such a design.

* If you die to a boss in ''VideoGame/{{Iji}}'' and choose to retry, you'll generally get some sort of hint message in the dialogue right before the fight starts again.

* In ''VideoGame/HollowKnight'', if you advance far enough in the Fungal Wastes as to see the [[BeefGate Mantis Lords]] but have not yet defeated them, RecurringTraveller Quirrel will appear in Mantis Village near its entrance and tell you that it's better to visit the Blacksmith in the nearby city before challenging them (whether or not you already did so). Though even one Nail upgrade does help shorten the fight, it's by no means required to make an end of it.

* In ''VideoGame/HollowKnight'', if you advance far enough in the Fungal Wastes as to see the [[BeefGate Mantis Lords]] but have not yet defeated them, RecurringTraveller Quirrel will appear in Mantis Village near its entrance and tell you that it's better to visit the Blacksmith in the nearby city before challenging them (whether or not you actually did so). Though even one Nail upgrade does help shorten the fight, it's by no means required to make an end of it.

** If a contestant hits a Daily Double, host Creator/AlexTrebek will usually say "You have $x more/less than your opponents" to give a hint as to how much they should wager on it if they feel confident enough in doing so (particularly if they want to go "True Daily Double" and wager all their winnings). He also drops similar hints leading into Final Jeopardy! This is as much to prompt large wagers and therefore more drama as it is to help the contestants, and Alex will sometimes subvert it for laughs by jokingly prompting a contestant with a commanding lead to go all-in.
** Sometimes categories may have themes that require that each response meets a certain criterion (e.g., having a certain amount of letters, or beginning/ending with a certain letter). If a contestant gives a response that does not fit the criterion and the other contestants fail to give a response, Alex will usually remind them of the category's theme before resuming.

** In ''VideoGame/{{Deltarune}}'', Susie will initially not listen to Kris' commands and fight every enemy she encounters, often resulting in one-hit KO's and getting you a less favorable ending if she does it too many times. However, this can be avoided if you warn your opponents about her so they can dodge her attacks, something that Ralsei tells Kris about during the party's first few fights together.

** If you keep getting hit by Undyne's first attack during the battle against her, she'll explain more clearly about what she means by "face danger head on".

* Not so much after a Game Over, but if you fall off the platform when fighting Ganon in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast'', you see a telepathic tile telling you that you need Silver Arrows to defeat him; it's possible to not even ''have'' Silver Arrows yet.
* One of the more infamous puzzles in the [[ThatOneLevel Water Temple]] in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime'' involved jumping down a gap that you can only see during a cutscene, which many players missed and got frustrated over. In the 3DS remake, said cutscene now makes that gap glaringly obvious so players didn't miss it again.

* In ''VideoGame/HotelDuskRoom215'' and its sequel ''VideoGame/LastWindow'', if you get a GameOver, usually Kyle will flash back to the conversation that triggered failure, unless it's an interrogation scene. There's also a subtle hint during interrogations: if you are asking questions that will lead to a game over, the character will have a red shadow slide over them. You get the choice of either continuing to press them or to backtrack.

** In ''VideoGame/{{Deltarune}}, Susie will initially not listen to Kris' commands and fight every enemy she encounters, often resulting in one-hit KO's and getting you a less favorable ending if she does it too many times. However, this can be avoided if you warn your opponents about her so they can dodge her attacks, something that Ralsei tells Kris about during the party's first few fights together.