History Main / SanityMeter

* ''WebVideo/CriticalRole'': Season 3 has the character of Fresh Cut Grass, an automaton Cleric with the homebrew Empathy domain. They're cheerful, helpful, and able to literally absorb the pain and suffering of others. [[spoiler: However, it turns out that there is a secret meter that tracks how much suffering F.C.G. has had to deal with... and when it hits 100, they briefly shut down, then attack Chetney when he tries to stir them. They then yell, "Why don't you shut up? Why don't you just ''shut the fuck up''?" to the rest of the party and try to attack them all, giving a brief BreakingSpeech to both Laudna and Imogen before the party manages to shut them down. It turns out this is not the first time this happened, and they pretty much murdered their entire first adventuring party.]]

* ''WebVideo/Critical Role'': Season 3 has the character of Fresh Cut Grass, an automaton Cleric with the homebrew Empathy domain. They're cheerful, helpful, and able to literally absorb the pain and suffering of others. [[spoiler: However, it turns out that there is a secret meter that tracks how much suffering F.C.G. has had to deal with... and when it hits 100, they briefly shut down, then attack Chetney when he tries to stir them. They then yell, "Why don't you shut up? Why don't you just ''shut the fuck up''?" to the rest of the party and try to attack them all, giving a brief BreakingSpeech to both Laudna and Imogen before the party manages to shut them down. It turns out this is not the first time this happened, and they pretty much murdered their entire first adventuring party.]]

** ''VideoGame/SunlessSea'', in the same setting, has your Terror meter, which measures a whole bunch of stuff, but sanity is in there somewhere. Delving into eldritch stuff, spending long periods at zee, going too close to the Dawn Machine, clicking the "Lose Your Mind" option at Kingeater's Castle and so on cause your Terror to climb, and your crew will mutiny if it gets too high.

* ''VideoGame/WorldOfHorror'': Your protagonist has a Reason stat which serves this purpose, alongside their [[HealthMeter Stamina]]. As your Reason is whittled away, the resulting SanitySlippage can lead to your character hurting themselves, developing paranoia, or even worse outcomes. Dip down to zero and it's GameOver.

* ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'': In Fortress Mode, your civilians each have their own measure of how content they are, rising and falling according to various things that trigger positive and negative thoughts. As it progresses from "Stressed" to "Haggard" to "Harrowed", they'll eventually start suffering increasingly-frequent emotional breakdowns, depending on their personality (e.g. anger-prone dwarves will throw [[TantrumThrowing temper tantrums]], which tends to result in a [[DisasterDominoes tantrum spiral]] from angry dwarves lashing out at others). If they're outright miserable long enough, they can go permanently insane, [[AngstComa in]] [[AxCrazy four]] [[DrivenToSuicide different]] [[NakedPeopleAreFunny flavors]], again in accordance to their personality. There's also a trait that tracks how [[ItGetsEasier used to tragedy]] they are, reducing the impact of negative thoughts. And as of the [=DF2014=] update there's also a Sanity Skill in the form of [[MoraleMechanic Discipline]], which reduces the odds of panicking when in combat.

* ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'': In Fortress Mode, your civilians each have their own measure of how content they are, rising and falling according to various things that trigger positive and negative thoughts. If it gets low enough, they'll eventually start throwing [[TantrumThrowing temper tantrums]], which tends to result in a [[DisasterDominoes tantrum spiral]] from angry dwarves lashing out at others (though other emotional breakdowns are not as dangerous). If they're outright miserable long enough, they can go permanently insane, [[AngstComa in]] [[AxCrazy four]] [[DrivenToSuicide different]] [[NakedPeopleAreFunny flavors]]. There's also a trait that tracks how [[ItGetsEasier used to tragedy]] they are, reducing the impact of negative thoughts. And as of the [=DF2014=] update there's also a Sanity Skill in the form of [[MoraleMechanic Discipline]], which reduces the odds of panicking when in combat.

* In ''VideoGame/SixtySeconds'', each family member can lose sanity from a variety of factors such as [[GoMadFromTheIsolation being left alone for too long]] (so no, you can't conserve food and water by not bringing any family members), not having anything to distract them from the day-to-day tedium, or [[VideoGameCrueltyPunishment doing immoral actions like raiding other people's shelters]]. Losing too much sanity will cause them to start [[MadnessMakeover looking crazed]] and potentially destroying random items in the shelter, and letting them stay in that state for too long will cause them to run out of the shelter and never be seen again.

* ''Unearthed Arcana'', the UsefulNotes/D20System rewrite of ''Dungeons and Dragons'', has sanity rules described in detail [[http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/campaigns/sanity.htm here]].

"Sanity Meter in video games causing various {{Interface Screw}}s on decrease" was, [[DisneyOwnsThisTrope by the way]], [[https://patents.google.com/patent/US6935954B2/en patented]] by Creator/{{Nintendo}}, the publishers of ''VideoGame/EternalDarkness''. However, this patent is now expired.

"Sanity Meter in video games causing various {{Interface Screw}}s on decrease" is, [[DisneyOwnsThisTrope by the way]], [[http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?patentnumber=6935954 patented]] by Creator/{{Nintendo}}, the publishers of ''VideoGame/EternalDarkness''.

* ''VideoGame/EternalDarkness'' popularized the Sanity Meter in video games. Encountering monsters drains Sanity(in particular, those aligned with the [[EldritchAbomination Ancient Xel'lotath]] specialize in draining sanity]]), and as the meter decreases, you experience hallucinations, from [[DutchAngle a canted view]], unnerving sounds, or harmless changes to the scenery, to more extreme cases like your character's head falling off and reciting Theatre/{{Hamlet}}, a healing spell backfiring and "killing" your character, or even {{Interface Screw}}s like the game switching to another video input, lowering the volume, or "deleting" your game instead of saving it. Aside from all of these "flavor" effects, if the character's sanity is at zero, any further sanity loss will instead drain health. You can restore big doses of Sanity with the right magicks and items, or smaller amounts by performing {{Finishing Move}}s on downed monsters.

* In ''VideoGame/DarkestDungeon'', the heroes' stress bars act as secondary health meters, starting at 0 and typically going up when they suffer an attack or suffer another unfortunate event. When a hero's stress reaches 100, they go insane. Typically, this results in an [[HeroicBSOD Affliction]], one of several mental disorders, which can cause them to do erratic and harmful things like skipping a turn, refuse support abilities (''especially'' healing) used on them[[note]]especially bad while camping, as the time units for respite activities are wasted[[/note]], stressing out their comrades or even outright attacking them. If they become stressed over the 200 threshold, they'll scream and have a Heart Attack, that either [[HPTo1 drops them straight into]] [[LastChanceHitPoint Death's Door]](and slightly reduce their stress, albeit to the point at which they're still vulnerable to another Heart Attack), or if they are already there, they'll flat out die; unlike dying from enemy attacks, there's NoSavingThrow. However, there's a chance their insanity is the rare and positive [[HeroicWillpower Virtuous]] type instead, reducing stress or bolstering either themselves or their teammates; additionally, they gain a shield against Heart Attacks (a Virtuous hero that reaches 200 stress loses their Virtue and all of their stress instead). The one exception to that is the Flagellant, a class that is exempt from the resolve check roulette – he always goes Rapturous, an affliction exclusive to him that makes him act slightly erratically and swaps his ability to dodge for sheer attack power. It's a valid strategy to intentionally drive him insane solely for the double-edged affliction.

* In ''VideoGame/DarkestDungeon'', the heroes' stress bars act as secondary health meters: when a hero's stress reaches 100, they go insane. Typically, this results in an [[HeroicBSOD Affliction]], one of several mental disorders, which can cause them to do erratic and harmful things like skipping a turn, refuse support abilities (''especially'' healing) used on them[[note]]especially bad while camping, as the time units for respite activities are wasted[[/note]], stressing out their comrades or even outright attacking them. If they become stressed over the 200 threshold, they'll scream and have a Heart Attack, that either [[HPTo1 drops them straight into]] [[LastChanceHitPoint Death's Door]], or if they are already there, they'll flat out die; unlike dying from enemy attacks, there's NoSavingThrow. However, there's a chance their insanity is the rare and positive [[HeroicWillpower Virtuous]] type instead, reducing stress or bolstering either themselves or their teammates; additionally, they gain a shield against Heart Attacks (a Virtuous hero that reaches 200 stress loses their Virtue and all of their stress instead). The one exception to that is the Flagellant, a class that is exempt from the resolve check roulette – he always goes Rapturous, an affliction exclusive to him that makes him act slightly erratically and swaps his ability to dodge for sheer attack power. It's a valid strategy to intentionally drive him insane solely for the double-edged affliction.

* ''VideoGame/EternalDarkness'' popularized the Sanity Meter in video games. Encountering monsters drains Sanity, and as the meter decreases, you experience hallucinations, from [[DutchAngle a canted view]], unnerving sounds, or harmless changes to the scenery, to more extreme cases like your character's head falling off and reciting Theatre/{{Hamlet}}, a healing spell backfiring and "killing" your character, or even {{Interface Screw}}s like the game switching to another video input, lowering the volume, or "deleting" your game instead of saving it. Aside from all of these "flavor" effects, if the character's sanity is at zero, any further sanity loss will instead drain health. You can restore big doses of Sanity with the right magicks and items, or smaller amounts by performing {{Finishing Move}}s on downed monsters.

* As the game is part of the ''Boyfriend to Death'' verse, ''VisualNovel/ThePriceOfFlesh'' also has a sanity meter, and it's an especially critical component to survival in Mason's route.

* Present in ''VideoGame/FearAndHunger'' and ''FearAndHungerTermina'' as a persistent challenge to deal with thanks to the highly stressful nature of both the dungeons and the Termina festival as a Mind meter, made ever more difficult by the fact it doubles as a ManaMeter for often life saving spells. Letting it hit 50 will have the protagonist [[DrivenToSuicide contemplate suicide]] ([[PressXToDie with you able to oblige at any time afterwards]]), and in the first game forces party members to stay behind ([[KilledOffscreen dying of a heart attack]] if not given a Mind restoration item). If it hits 0 for everyone, they develop a fear of everything, saddling you with a massive DamageIncreasingDebuff in combat against everything[[note]][[{{Necromancy}} Ghouls, skeletons]], [[ILoveTheDead Demon Kids]], [[CanineCompanion Moonless]], and [[TokenEvilTeammate Nas’hrah]] in the first game are exempt, and ghouls and [[JokeCharacter Black Khalev]] from the second game are exempt as well[[/note]].

* All characters in ''TabletopGame/{{Anathema}}'' have a will score, which represents their will to live. It can be raised and lowered in a variety of ways. When a human's will hits 0 they commit suicide. When a shroud's will hits 0 they suffer utter annihilation.

* And in Urobuchi's other series, ''Anime/PsychoPass'', the titular Psycho Pass is also a sanity meter.

* As the game is part of the ''Boyfriend to Death'' verse, ''VisualNovel/ThePriceOfFlesh'' has a sanity meter, and it's an especially critical component to survival in Mason's route.

* Like the above game, ''VisualNovel/ThePriceOfFlesh'' has a sanity meter, and it's an especially critical component to survival in Mason's route.

* The ''VisualNovel/ItLives'' series features one of these in the form of a "Nerve Score", which ranges from 0 to 100. Making the right choices, hanging out with friends, acquiring weapons, and so on raises your Nerve Score, while encountering monsters, making incorrect choices, and getting injured lowers it. The main character and their friends all have Nerve Scores, and anyone with a Nerve Score has the potential to die if it's too low. In the first game, the Nerve Score's main function is determining whether a character survives the FinalBattle. In the second game, each character has a "moment of truth", whereupon their success or failure is dependent on their nerve score. In Chapter 15, the group's Nerve Scores are totalled up, and if the value is too low, the person with the lowest nerve score ([[PlotArmor excluding the main character]]) will die. In the final chapter, [[spoiler: the main character is thrust into a live-or-die situation where their Nerve Score determines how much time they have to escape a DeathTrap (if their Nerve Score is ''really'' low, they aren't given a chance to escape and they will automatically die)]].

* In the Flash game ''Franchise/ScoobyDoo and the Creepy Castle'', Scooby has a fright meter shaped like a thermometer; whenever the player fails to stop the ghost in time and Scooby gets scared by him, it rises, and if it rises to a critical point, he'll run out of the castle and lose one of his three lives. Scooby Snacks, which can be found in certain places, lower it by one level.

-->-- '''[[WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw]]''', [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXuIZstyM7E Amnesia: The Dark Descent review.]]

* ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys'':
** The PlayerCharacter can hallucinate, causing messages and extreme close-ups of enemies to flicker across the screen, freaky sounds to play, posters to change, and [[spoiler:allow Golden Freddy to spawn in]]. Notably, there's nothing the player can do to prevent sanity loss: the protagonist hallucinates more and more as the week goes on, no matter how well you play.

* ''VideoGame/DrJekyllAndMrHyde'': Dr. Jekyll's Anger meter increases as he takes hits from passersby. Once the meter is full, he turns into Mr. Hyde and must kill a certain amount of enemies before reaching Jekyll's location, or else death by lightning strike ensues.

[[caption-width-right:115:[[LetsPlay/{{Markiplier}} "Yeah. This is small brain time."]]]]

* ''LightNovel/NyarukoCrawlingWithLove'', being one big love-letter to the Franchise/CthulhuMythos, references SAN points pretty often, such as when Mahiro sees Nyarko [[OverdrawnAtTheBloodBank brutally slaughter a nightgaunt]]. In fact, the opening theme for the 2013 series is underscored by a repeated chant of "SAN-chi, pinchi!" (often misheard as "sons of bitches") which means "Your SAN points are in danger!"