Basic Trope: A fake game over is used to Mind Screw or fool the player.
- Straight:
- Alice ends up swimming around in circles after a ship wreck. Eventually her stamina meter runs out and she drowns. The usual game over seen of her in Fluffy Cloud Heaven appears. Wait a bit and Michael hands her the sword of light and tells her that it's not yet her time. Cue to her washed up on a beach holding the sword of light.
- After getting all the stuff and finishing all of the missions, the ending shows Alice being sent to an execution room... until she breaks out and is shown to live Happily Ever After.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice dies, the player is given an error message saying that their save file is corrupted and they're taken back to the start screen. If they don't turn off the console in a rage then they get to continue as normal.
- The player gets not just a game over screen, but a full on bad ending sequence showing how the world is doomed without Alice... but then it's revealed to be an Imagine Spot, and the game continues.
- Downplayed:
- The game over screen doesn't actually appear but it really appears as though it will until she's handed the sword of light.
- It isn't technically a game over but still something likely to provoke a Rage Quit or load of a saved game like Bob and Carol declaring her actions unforgivable and the game annouces that both are no longer companions and are now foes like they do if you engage in gratuitous slaughter and/or bottom out your karma meter. Before the next battle both come back and apologize.
- Justified:
- Alice is being preyed upon by a Reality Warper but manages to break free of its grasp.
- Alice is narrating the events of the game to a friend, and the friend points out that she couldn't have died since she clearly lived to tell the story.
- (for Straight #2) The first part of the ending where Alice was executed was All Just a Dream, and Alice was given karmic retribution for the good deeds and justice she did.
- Alice suffered a Disney Death.
- Inverted:
- Kaizo Trap; when you win a level, you die and the game doesn't count the victory.
- The player seemingly defeats a boss. However, a cutscene plays revealing the boss to be Not Quite Dead, and the boss fight continues.
- Subverted: If Alice gets severely wounded in an explosion, she sees the game over screen distorted. It wears off, then she dies for real.
- Double Subverted: ...And then, after about fifteen seconds of a black screen, Alice opens her eyes again, and she's in the hospital and cured of her wounds.
- Parodied: The evil but not so bright attempt to fool Alice into giving up via a fake projection of the game over screen. Except theirs is badly drawn, misspelled, and has atrocious grammar. Alice immediately wonders who they are trying to fool.
- Zig Zagged: Alice's demise comes. Or not. It was just a fake screen of death, and you can continue with the game. Or, wait, you chose "continue", and it lead you to the start screen? Okay, you can just press "load game", and start where you continued... only to lead you to a cutscene that continued your false death. What.
- Averted: There are no fake game overs nor fake Downer Endings.
- Enforced: ANY time the character is killed a fake game over ensues, with possible justification in the vein of "the hero can't die before they win, now, can they?"
- Lampshaded: Alice breaks the Fourth Wall and says to the player "Heh. You thought I had gone down for real, didn't you?"
- Invoked: Alice is being pursued by her enemies, and the player is given the option to fake death to throw off pursuit or fight it out.
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: Alice has a fake game-over screen displayed as part of faking death. Evulz isn't taking any chances and shoots her in the head while she is faking death making the game over real.
- Discussed: "Well, that's it, she's dead. No wait- she's still alive! Was that a fake death?"
- Conversed: "So I'm playing this game and I get a game over screen, but then it continues the plot anyway. Why? All it does is confuse me."
- Deconstructed: Alice was mortally wounded on a battle, and now is slowly dying. Everything goes black, and she passes out. When she wakes up, she's in a hospital, and she's slowly, very slowly, recovering herself, through medications and surgery. She may recover movement and her motor abilities in a long time. During this time, she's informed of her mission. She hadn't completely failed, but almost getting herself killed almost risked it all. By the end of her recovery, she'll get some quick training, and she will be back on the mission...
- Reconstructed: ... however, Alice now learned a lot about her mission, what with almost dying, she knows of the dangers on the field, and she now has a more careful attitude, maybe coupled with a stronger will to end her mission. She thought she died, but it wasn't the case, and now, with the quick training, and her new knowledge about the Big Bad and his Mooks will help her along the way.
- Plot Foundation: The Fission Mailed occurs in a set of trials the hero of legend is meant to pass; this particular trial isn't meant to test Alice, but rather, the player. Passing grants Alice the Sword of Plot Advancement, while failure (a Rage Quit) is essentially a traditional Game Over.
Report Siht is dead. Reload or return to Fission Mailed.
