History Main / SolveTheSoupCans

* At one point in the early UsefulNotes/PlayStation RPG ''VideoGame/BeyondTheBeyond'', you are being pursued, and hide behind a church, where you are confronted with a [[{{Klotski}} sliding tile puzzle]]. Trying to leave the screen except through the exit unlocked by the puzzle results in the BigBad showing up and ''killing you''.

* ''VisualNovel/HotelDuskRoom215'': You have to solve a matchstick puzzle and a TwelveCoinsPuzzle before you can get vital information from one character. Not because the character cares about the problems --because you're in the bar, and the character hasn't shown up yet, and playing with the puzzle games in the bar is the only way to make time pass so that the vital character shows and is there to talk to you. And for some reason you have to actually solve them, not just play with them.

* In ''VisualNovel/HotelDuskRoom215'', you have to solve a matchstick puzzle and a coin puzzle before you can get vital information from one character. Not because the character cares about the problems - because you're in the bar, and the character hasn't shown up yet, and playing with the puzzle games in the bar is the only way to make time pass so that the vital character shows and is there to talk to you. And for some reason you have to actually solve them, not just play with them.

* The ''Core'' series of Flash games. In the installment "Tower Core" this is especially JustForFun/{{egregious}} because the framing device is that you have to power up the defense system to fend off an impending meteor strike, or something like that. Since this appears to be the only purpose of the titular towers, one would expect actual human security to be the better option, instead of wasting time trying to solve random puzzles.

* Escape rooms rely on contrived situations to some degree. A combo lock may be placed somewhere unexpected, like a dollhouse. The digits needed to unlock this combo lock might be written on various objects scattered around, with no apparent reason except that it's fun to search for hidden things. The correct sequence for a series of buttons might be revealed by solving a sudoku. Some rooms will concoct an in-story justification for its puzzle barriers in an effort to avoid this trope, but many don't bother since [[PlayTheGameSkipTheStory playing the escape room game is why most people are there in the first place]].

* ''VideoGame/TheDig'' has two Soup Can puzzles:

** [[HandWave Hand-Waved]] in several of the games, but most explicitly in ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword Skyward Sword]]''. Since the dungeons are a test of the hero's worth placed by the goddesses, the puzzles may not make any sense, but they are still part of the test.

** Tesshi-e's ''[[http://www.mildescape.com/escape27.html Escape from the Living Room.]]'' A key you need is hidden under a couch, all the way back against the wall. A sensible person would move the couch away from the wall. Here, on the other hand, you have to [[spoiler: combine a cell phone, a straw and stick you've cut in half, some corks, some tape, and a piece of string to make a little car that you can roll at the key so that the tape sticks to it, then pull back with the string.]] Nothing at the game even remotely hints at this being either the solution[[note]]and the only hint that this is even doable is the fact that many of Tesshi-e's games feature similar construction projects[[/note]]... mostly because the game, like so many higher-quality room escapes, is entirely in Japanese.

*** The game forces you to contend with Lucas Baker's traps and puzzles, one of which involves solving a series of puzzles in order to get a lit candle onto a birthday cake. Lucas, being a PsychopathicManChild who wasn't right in the head even ''before'' becoming infected, gets his rocks off forcing people into elaborate Film/{{Saw}} like traps. [[spoiler:His cake puzzle is even rigged to murder the person who solved it, as the cake explodes upon inserting the candle and ignites the oil that is spilled during the course of the puzzle]].

* ''VideoGame/{{Shivers}}'':