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Tropers / Jove Hack

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"Man, remember when video games were fun to play AND look at?" - LordDrake81

Has entered overthought Wild Mass Guesses for Ico, Portal, Primal, Tomb Raider, and Harry Potter. Is kind of proud of his Squidditch: A Fraudian [sic] interpretation of Quidditch.

Has a fine rant in the Bullet Proof Vest Discussion.

A rant in the wild mass guesses for Tomb Raider discusses Lara's probable guilt complex in the recent game remakes.

Has highjacked the Primal Wiki. It currently flourishes under his Benevolent Iron Fisted Rule?.

Jove Hack has played entirely too much:

  • Beyond Good And Evil (2003) - Worth playing just to hear the soundtrack, but the game's great too.
  • Ghost Hunter (2004) - Fun Survival Horror with no blood and a sense of humor. A Ghostbusters game in all but name.
    • Neat weapons.
    • Lots of variety in settings and monsters.
    • Great graphics.
    • Useful but hard to find cover mode in first person.
    • Don't forget the astral goggles.
  • Primal (2003) - Primal Wiki.
  • Psychonauts (2005) - Tim Schafer's masterwork. I fear we'll not see its like again.
  • Ratchet And Clank - Fun. Fast. Funny.
    • The original Ratchet And Clank (2002)
    • Ratchet and Clank Wiki.
    • Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando (2003)
      • Two separate awesome arena battle areas.
      • "Cage Match!"
      • Greatest arena bosses ever, Chain Blade, B2 Brawler, Arachnoid, Megapede!
      • Swamp Monster II boss battle for the box breaker.
      • Fun space combats with upgradeable spaceship.
      • Two separate hoverbike race areas.
      • Music
      • Characters & voice acting
      • Great funny cutscenes.
      • Thugs-4-Less
      • The Thief
      • Great Skill Points
      • Meaningful special bolts for weapon upgrades. Best hiding places for special bolts.
      • Best platforming ever, the Docked Ships on Planet Smolg.
      • Finding crystals for bolts, etc. in snow and desert areas.
      • The snow and desert areas are huge, with fascinating, and frustrating, monsters.
      • Findable Nano-tech upgrades.
      • Momentum glider.
      • Best Swingshot course ever.
      • Even the Infiltrator and Electrolyzer minigames, once I wrote down the solutions.
    • The hidden Insomniac Museum has more content than some whole games.

All those games have great:

  • Art
  • Character
  • Characters
  • Creativity
  • Cutscenes
    • - individually rendered, not made up of pre-set standard movements.
  • Foreshadowing
  • Gameplay
  • Humor
  • Imagination
  • Music
    • Beyond Good And Evil and Ghosthunter have soundtracks better than most commercial music.
    • Primal actually has two. A great BAFTA-nominated orchestral soundtrack, and a combat soundtrack by machine band 16Volt.
  • Plot - How the story it told
  • Heart - Damn near undefinable.
  • Story - What happened.
  • Unity
  • Variety
  • Visuals - what you actually see.
  • Voice acting
  • Worlds

JoveHack has also played entirely too much.

He lives in the state of Sleep Depravation. [stet]I make plenty of spelling mistakes, but that wasn't one of them.

He occasionally falls off the Internet for years at a time.

YKTTW's I need to introduce:

  • Specular Highlights - A visual effect that's overused as much as Bloom, but rarely recognized. Specular Highlights

  • All There In The Trailer - Maybe Trailers Always Lie, but sometimes that's to tell a higher truth.
    • "Just a quick update to point out that everyone who hasn't already figured this out needs to go and read Jason Brownlee?s piece on how the Left 4 Dead opening movie is a passive tutorial mode for the game. Everything you see in the opening movie is a depiction of how things work in-game. It's so effective he didn't even realize he already knew how to play the game the first time he started playing."" - Run, or Shoot?
    • The trailer for Ico shows him backlit, standing on a statue base, next to a real statue of a warrior. At first they seem identical, then the differences stand out. Is Team Ico showing us that the events in Ico will eventually be remembered as a mighty warrior going into the castle in the mists intending to defeat the Queen to free the princess?

  • Really Unconscious in a Medical care facility - The player character is Exactly What It Says on the Tin. All the following games except Primal have the character spiritually journeying to the center of their minds. Associated with but separate from Journey to the Center of the Mind. Psychonauts has lots of such psychic journeys, but not this trope.
    • American McGee's Alice
    • Primal
    • Sanitarium
    • Weird Dreams
  • Vacuum Tube Worms - giant tube worms that suck down enemies like a vacuum cleaner. Seen in Ghost Hunter and Monster House.
  • Three-Phase Boss Battle
    • Ratchet And Clank
      • Chairman Drek at the end of the original game.
      • With the Protopet at the end of Ratchet And Clank: Going Commando.
      • With Dr. Nefarious at the end of Ratchet And Clank: Up Your Arsenal
    • Three waves of guards in the Boss Battle at the end of the Solum level in Primal
    • Ghost Hunter: In the junkyard the giant poltergeist monster must be defeated three times, with a bonus fourth at the lighthouse.
  • Blood From A Stone
    • Primal - Scree crushes special stones with his hands to squeeze primal energy from them.
  • The Big Switch - There are a lot of switches to activate gates, etc in your game. The problem is that flipping a tiny little switch isn't very interesting or exciting. The solution? Make it huge! A switch with a yard long handle that requires all out full-body exertion can demonstrate your character model and animations again and again.
    • In Tomb Raider: Legend and Tomb Raider: Anniversary Lara has to pull huge switches underwater. She always ends up on her back straining mightily with the long rigid shaft between her legs. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
      • In Anniversary there are switches that Lara operates on dry land that greatly resembles TheBigSwitches in Primal.
      • on the balcony in the Colosseum.
      • upper niche in the Damocles room in St. Francis' Folly.
      • In Legend there's a big switch on dry land in the control room in Kazakhstan.
    • Primal - Switches much like Tomb Raider's, except they're above ground. Usually required two characters to operate, to help justify having a two-character party.
    • Demons Souls - big switches to raise barred gates.
  • Footprints In The Snow - characters leave (temporary) footprints behind them.
    • Sometimes this is due to the nature of the surface they're walking on, such as sand or snow.
    • Sometimes it's due to something they stepped in, such as water, etc.
    • Primal - Scree leaves tracks underwater. Jen and Scree leave tracks in the snow in Solum. Both leave tracks on solid ground after stepping in a liquid.
      • These tracks fade slowly away, based solely on time since they were laid.
      • Scree doesn't leave tracks in the snow when moving slowly. Only when making real effort do the tracks show up. Not only that, but his hands and feet leave different tracks, since he helps propel himself with his hands when moving at speed.
      • Scree's hands and feet leave different tracks. If carrying a torch his hands don't leave tracks.
      • Doing It for the Art indeed.
    • Psychonauts - Raz leaves tracks in the snow.
    • Ratchet And Clank: Going Commando - Ratchet leaves tracks in the snow on the Thief's world.
  • Octagonal Ring - You need an anchor point for a rope or grapple. In Real Life this would be a small circle to equalize stress. In a videogame perfect circles are computationally expensive. If it's a small ring used many times its not worth it. Make it an octagon instead!
  • Have Your Cake And Eat It Too - aka Check Point Suicide - aka Dying To Live aka Better Off Dead. Your character is low on health and healing suppliers. There's a tough section coming up. You can burn your supplies healing your character and playing cautiously. Or you can hit a checkpoint and commit suicide. Thereby coming back to life at full health with your healing supplies intact. Lose minimal time (for Time Trials) while restoring health to maximum.
  • Acting By Shouting - An actor confuses shouting with acting, much as George Clooney confuses smirking with acting.
    • The actor playing Samwise on Mt. Doom in the Film of the Book The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. "I can't carry the ring, but I can carry you!" Quiet conviction would have been much better.
    • Towards the end of the Film of the Book, Stephen King's Needful Things.
  • Useless Useful Compass
    • Compasses tell which direction is north. By itself that's only useful for traveling to the North/South Pole. In the Real World training and a map is necessary for a compass to be useful. See "Orienteering."
      Other than that, to be useful a compass requires three other items.
      • The bearer's location.
      • The destination's location.
      • A map showing the terrain between the two.
    • Examples include Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Harry's enchanted compass to always point north is doubly useless because he doesn't know his location in the maze. Nor does he have a map of the terrain.
    • Primal
    • Beyond Good And Evil
  • Then I Suggest You Do So Quickly! - Something expected's about to happen, but preparation for it has been Put Off For Too Long. Someone protests that preparations haven't been properly made, but the one in control responds with the trope name.
    • In Primal King Herne is about to imbue Jen with Ferai energy, causing her painful transformation into a demon form. When Scree protests, "I haven't prepared her for this yet," Herne replies with the trope name, indicating Scree has scant seconds to do so.
  • Locations - Prisons, torture chambers, Iron Maidens (not the band), caves, mines
    • Cemetaries, mausoleums, ossuaries, graveyards, burial mounds, etc.
      • Primal the Necropolis in Solum.
      • Tomb Raider: Everywhere Lara went sometimes seemed like this, with corpses in walls, impaled, or hanging about.
    • Prisons are easy to set physical locales. Some cells with bars and bingo, prison! Like abandoned hospitals, abandoned prisons have their own emotional baggage built-in.
      • Primal has a prison in Solum, and prison/torture chambers in Aetha.
      • One whole level of Ghost Hunter takes place in an abandoned prison that's also haunted.
      • Ratchet is briefly in prison on the Flying Lab on planet Aranos in Going Commando.
    • Roman Coliseum
    • Egypt's Valley of the Kings
  • Metaphor Truth - someone's speaking metaphorically, but is also speaking the exact literal truth as well.
    • Terry Pratchett owns this trope.
      • "A man would have to be a natural born fool to want to be king." The professional Foole who becomes king is "natural" (i.e. illegitimately) born.
      • In Primal, "think you can hide a broken heart" when Jen has King Iblis' broken heart behind her.
      • "Life is behind you" by Abaddon when Lewis sneaking up behind Jen. A double dose because Lewis is Jen's life, as far as she's concerned..

  • Knees Apart - Action Girls will always have their knees as far apart as possible at some point in the story. See Legs In The Air Win for use of this in combat.
    • The Matrix where the Action Girl lands with one leg straight out to the right, the other underneath her with the knee out to the side.
      • This posture gets used/parodied/homaged a lot, as the next best thing to a complete leg split.
    • Beyond Good And Evil - Jade jumps up between close-set pillars and spreads her legs to brace herself there.
    • Tomb Raider: Anniversary - Lara wrapping herself around a 24" pole to climb it.
  • Legs In The Air Win - ActionGirls will always including kicking in their melee fights, the higher the better. A subtrope of Knees Apart, where Action Girls will always have their knees as far apart as possible at some point in the story.
    • Beyond Good And Evil - Jade uses high kicks to finish off the Alpha Section soldiers.
    • Galaxy Quest - Sigourney Weaver's character Gwen DeMarco is shown defeating enemies with roundhouse kicks on a monitor in the background of one scene.
    • Tomb Raider
      • Anniversary - Lara Croft defeats Larson in a cutscene with a roundhouse leg kick to the face. More notable because Lara only has melee skills in action cutscenes.
      • Underworld - Lara uses a lot of high kicks in combat.
    • Charlies Angels movie.
    • Primal - Jen can do high kicks, give the knee hard and dirty, even forward somersaults in melee combat.
    • Ratchet And Clank 3: Up Your Arsenal -
      • Courtney Gears backup dancers fight by spinning around with one leg out horizontally.
      • So does Courtney Gears at one point.

  • Breath Of Cold Air - It's cold in your videogame setting. Really, really cold. But how do you show it without having to do a lot of new movements or actual bulky clothing? Have their breath show. Exhalations that condense into fog show it's cold without having to do much else.
    • Primal - Jen, and only Jen, in Solum. Scree's a statue, so probably doesn't have warm, humid breath to begin with. But the breath of the Ferai never shows. (Jen's Ferai form shows its breath.)
    • Tomb Raider: Legend - Lara's breath shows in Nepal.
  • Back To The Wall - Video Game character can traverse narrow ledges with their backs to the wall. Also used as a stealth move. Almost Always Female, as this can show the Most Common Super Power to great advantage.
    • Jen, in Primal
    • Lazarus Jones can do this to any wall, as the Wall Hug. Pretty much completely useless ingame. Probably included only because Ghost Hunter used the same game engine as Primal and Jen could do this on narrow ledges.
    • Roddy and Rita in the videogame of Flushed Away.
    • Jade in Beyond Good And Evil.
  • Clicking Geiger Counter
    • Opening cutscene "The Awakening" of Tomb Raider: Anniversary, after the nuclear explosion.
    • One of the Quatermass movies.
    • In the Fallout series of games almost all have geiger counters. Only currentgen (Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas) games have audibly clicking geiger counters.
    • The Whiteboard.

  • Everythings Worse With Skulls, and Corpses, and Impaling. Frequently combined.
Supertrope of Nothing but Skulls and Mountain Of Skulls.
  • Coppola's Dracula shows impaled corpses, but not the way Vlad actually did it.
  • The Prophecy, starring Christopher Walken, impaled corpses are shown in the vision of the devastation the War in Heaven caused.
  • Tomb Raider: Legend and Tomb Raider: Anniversary - skulls are scattered everywhere in the tombs, frequently impaled.
  • Ghost Hunter - skulls in the Evil DeMontford Mansion.
  • Primal - Horned skulls on poles.
  • Comicbooks - the Red Skull.
  • Everythings Worse With Corpses - You want to convince the audience/players they're in a bad place. Weird architecture could just be personal whim, or cultural differences. To really bring home how bad a place is, scatter corpses around.
    • Tomb Raider: Legend - In the opening level, there are holes in the corridor walls that let Lara see the corpses inside.
    • Primal - corpses are scattered in Solum in the Malkai cave, in Jared's camp, tied up on the prison wall, visible on biers in walls in the Necropolis.
    • Tomb Raider: Anniversary: Tomb of Qualopec, cadavers of Qualopec, and his guards.
    • Tomb Raider: Underworld - hanging around in Southern Mexico.
    • Ghost Hunter - Military base, on the ship (captain and colonel), hanging from the platform high above the valley.
  • OMG, He's Still Alive! - An obvious corpse, frequently bound and apparently dead from torture, moves just enough to prove they're still alive.
    • The original Doom had mutilated bodies hanging on the wall, but still wiggling in pain.
    • Aliens - the soldiers find the corpses of Alien hosts, still bound to the wall by alien ichor. They lift up the head of one, and she opens her eyes.
    • Primal
      • The Helot scattered about Count Raum's dungeons and Manor are manacled in hideously uncomfortable positions. Move in close and you can see them moving just enough to show they're alive.
  • One Eyed Wisdom - A character, frequently a warrior-leader type, has lost the sight in one eye. By tradition this was exchanged for wisdom.
  • Only One Right Thumb - Modern videogame controllers provide a plethora of keys and buttons, frequently dual joysticks as well. Comfortably set up for different fingers to control different keys. Why do game developers make the right thumb do everything.
    • Tomb Raider - Both Anniversary and Legend the right thumb controls the camera, jumping, rolling, grapple, interact, and dual-buttons for diving. Frequently in quick sequence, requiring at least two right thumbs, and sometimes three.
    • The hoverpad racing in the original Ratchet And Clank. The right thumb had to simultaneously
      • Control the right joystick - critical for directional control.
      • Press the button for boost near constantly.
      • Press the separate button for near-constant jumping.
  • Skid To A Stop - A videogame character skids to a stop if they suddenly stop running.
  • What Did You Call Me - A character is called by a completely wrong name. No one notices. It's never repeated.
    • With the Lightnings by David Drake, the first book in the RCN series. On the first page the main character of the series, Daniel Leary, is referred to as "Cassian" in the text. Never again.
    • Jade in Beyond Good And Evil is sometimes referred to by a different name by Segundo, the AI in her S-A-C (Synthetical-Atomic-Compressor]
      • "Sybil, it's been digitalized."
  • Stock Phrases
  • Youre A Sick Man
    • Flash Point (1984)
[discussing two women]
Bobby: Which one do you want?
Ernie: The mean one.
Bobby: You're a sick man.

  • Dont Wait Up - someone's going out on a date "with intent". Don't expect them back until very, very late. Always Female, until recently, as the female decided when to sleep with someone, because Men Are Always Ready.
    • Used facetiously by Jen when going off to the masked ball in Primal.
    • Coupling, when Jane's wearing dress #3 (and there is no dress #3) under a raincoat for a date.
    • Doctor Who, "The Doctor Dances": Jack points out that the person they're going to distract is a) a friend of his and b) gay. He then volunteers to do the distracting himself, and adds, "Don't wait up."
    • The Whiteboard - Sandy and Jake adjourn to the broom closet, leaving a "Back in five minutes" note in their wake. Jake overrides that with his own: Don't Wait Up.
    • Just Watch Me - Character A tells Character B "You can't to that. It will destroy the world|ruin your reputation|mess things up real bad". Character B replies, "Just watch me." Not the same as Hold My Beer And Watch This.
      • Primal - Scree says, "You can't sacrifice a realm for one individual!" Jen replies "Just watch me."
      • The Whiteboard
      • "What ..? Here? Now?!? But... No! ... You can't!"
      • "Just watch me."
      • Aliens - When told she can't destroy the fusion reactor because the installation has a substantial dollar value, Ripley says, "They can bill me."
    • Im Working On It - Usual reply when asked for something immediately that will take some time to accomplish.
      • Primal - Jen's reply in Aquis when Scree asks what her plan is for saving the substation engineer.
    • "This X, It Could Catch On."
      • Jen in Primal. "This swimming. It could catch on."
    • "... For Far Too Long"
      • Queen Aino in Primal. "I haven't seen my beloved Aquis for far too long."
    • "I Don't know if you've noticed but X. I don't know if you''ve noticed, but Y."
    • Scree in Primal. "I don't know if you've noticed, but you're swimming."
    • Jen in reply "I don't know if you've noticed, but you are in the dog house."
    • "I've been ill." explanation for just about any changes.
      • Primal, Jen's explanation for why she's not "the size of a prize bull", like the person she's pretending to be.
    • Back Mangy Cur - Exactly What It Says on the Tin. Perhaps fallen out of fashion?
      • Scree says this the first time he faces down Malkai with a lit torch in Primal.
    • You Get The Idea - A demo fails. The demonstrator does an awkward retrieve with, "Well, you get the idea."
      • Dr. Nefarious in Ratchet And Clank 3: Up Your Arsenal. He overdoes his megalomaniac act until he's coughing uncontrollably. Finishes up with a weak "Well, you get the idea."

  • 3D model map. A way of reusing the large scale model of the game world. Shrink it down until it's can be used as a 3D map of the world by the players in it.
    • Beyond Good And Evil
    • Actually quadruple use.
      • The model map when Jade meets the IRIS network.
      • When Jade's running around a give location on foot.
      • When Jade's in the hovercraft
      • When Jade's flying around in the Beluga.
    • Metal Gear Solid - in the room with the boss fight with Psycho Mantis
    • The Wii port of Tomb Raider Anniversary there's a room with a model of one of the levels. (Much like the model map room in Raiders Of The Lost Ark
    • Psychonauts - The model of Waterloo World gets triple use, with Raz on its scale, as a giant, and with the model as a gameboard.
  • Spinning Fan Blades (aka Windmills) ( Video Game trope (subtrope of Everything's Better with Spinning). - More detail looks better, but if it doesn't move it starts feeling dead and pointlessly distracting. You want to add motion, but AI is hard for creatures. Plus the adventurer wants to kill 'em. Robotic/mechanical creatures moving about become obviously redundant quickly. So you need something that moves simply, but with a purpose. A form of Dynamic Stasis, where change always ends up zero-sum. Forms of Spinning Fan Blades
    • Ceiling Fans,
    • forced air circulation fans in underground installations.
    • Dutch windmills - pumping water from lowlands to keep them from flooding
    • Water windmills, as see in the USA farmlands. Mounted on derricks, formerly wooden derriks, now metal. Used to pump water up from wells for livestock tanks, etc.
    • Power windmills - recent.
    • No apparent purpose spinning fan blades. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2 intro cutscene.
    • Jet turbine blades - Over the entrance to Megaton in Fallout 3

    • ICO has a large windmill. Actually has something to do in the game, though, as Ico must scale it.
    • Giant windmills in the town in Beyond Good And Evil (also ceiling fans).

    • Fallout 2 has a ceiling fan in the opening cutscene.
    • Fallout 3 - Jet engine turbine blades at the entrance to Megaton
    • Fallout New Vegas has actual windmills for pumping water up from wells, metal derrick types.

    • Ratchet And Clank 2: Going Commando there's a room with spinning fan/turbine blades on the first Clank mission on Endako. Specifically, there are vertically mounted spinning blades above the transparent ceiling and below the equally transparent floor.

      • Giant windmills on the Florana jungle level of Ratchet and Clank 3: Up Your Arsenal. As it's a swamp level presumably they pump water a la Dutch windmills.

    • Jak2 - Windmills in the water, presumably pumping water out to keep structures dry.

    • Resident Evil Code: Veronica X - Ceiling fan in the early Prison House, complete with squeak.

    • Silent Hill 1.
      • Giant spinning ventilation fan in the Alternate Midwich Elementary.
      • Giant windmills in Alternate Shopping District
      • Silent Hill 4 Industrial-sized fans are a recurring motif; the last battle against the Big Bad of the fourth game takes place against the backdrop of a giant rotating death machine.
    • Star Wars: The Force Unleashed for the 360, PS 3 and PC, there are some giant spinning windmill blades stuck at seeming random in the opening cutscene.
    • Tomb Raider: Legend - Large spinning vent fans that Lara has to knock down in Kazakhistan.
    • Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell - Large spinning vent fans at the frozen base in the opening cutscene. One also appears in the opening training/tutorial scenario.
    • Vexx
      • One level has detached airplane motors, complete with paddle-like blades, forming a dynamic obstacle.
      • the Frost Blight Mill level has has an actual Dutch windmill. Unusually, the spinning blades are actually useful.
    • World of Warcraft: Cataclysm - Worgen Clip 1 has a windmill.
    • Haunting Ground has a large ventilation fan in the wall of the circular cellar.
    • The Neverhood - Claymation ceiling fan.
    • Bio Shock - wall vents with circulation fans.
    • Flower - Giant wind fans on spindly towers (power generation).
    • Portal2 - For no apparent reason, turbine-like fanblades spin around the cylindrical elevators.

  • Light My Fire - You've got a lighter or a flaming torch, carried for light. Why night light up the night? Games that let you light torches, candles, fireplaces, etc. (Games that have burning fireplaces may also count.)
    • Amnesia: The Dark Descent - Gather tinderboxes and light wall torches in wall sconces or candles in candelabra.
    • Primal - Scree can light some wall torches or oil-filled lamp-urns to light up a room/area. No practical use.
    • Primal - Scree can light wall torches and oil urns for light in Solum. In later levels lighting oil reservoirs are part of the puzzles.
    • Psychonauts - Raz can light the fireplace in the lodge, and in the two outdoor fireplaces in the camp. He can also light fires in fireplaces in the Milkman Conspiracy.
    • Resident Evil 1 - You had to light a candle in an upstairs room to light a nook to find a critical object.
    • Resident Evil 2
      • There are a couple of basement rooms where you can light oil lamps on the wall. This lets you find some ammo.
      • There's a flare launcher that can be manually activated on the terminal platform for the skyway. It shows off lighting effects, and shows a sparkle to indicate an object on the ground.
      • One puzzle requires fires to be lit on some wall spigots. Doesn't actually light up the room. Just solves a puzzle.
    • Resident Evil Code Veronica X
      • You can light a fire in a fireplace in the residence on the hill as Claire. This has no practical value.
      • As Chris in Antarctica there's a room with an oil lamp that can be lit.
    • Descent the player could fire a flare to light the way ahead. Did minimal damage. Mostly was a way of showing off lighting effects.

  • Valve Wheel - a Video Game puzzle trope. A metal wheel used to turn a valve or open a hatch.
    • Resident Evil series loves this trope
    • The online flash game The Insanity 2.
    • Online flash game Icescape.
    • Online flash game Mysteries of Time and Space.

  • The Jonah - a person who is the definition of bad luck at sea. If you ship out with The Jonah you're lucky if the ship just sinks. From Jonah in the Bible.

  • Zapping System - In a game with multiple playable characters players switch between them by "zapping".
    • Resident Evil 2 tried this with an automatic system, switching between Leon/Aida, and Claire/Sherrie during gameplay.
      • The game's two scenarios could also be played by either main character with the other character playing the second scenario. This was not that well-implemented.
    • Primal to switch between Jen and Scree

  • Who Are You And What Have You Done With -
    • In this Penny Arcade strip. "I'm playing Catan." Tycho replies "Who are you, and what have you done with Gabe?"
    • "Who are you and what have you done with Hermione Granger?" from one of the Harry Potter movies. (Half Blood Prince?)
    • A Girl Genius example. "But... how...?" "Hy used my brainz! "Who iz hyu really?"

  • Windowpane Glasses - Trope related to Nerd Glasses. Glasses that obviously have no visual effect. Glasses are corrective lenses that distort light coming through them to counteract defects in the cornea of the wearer's eyes. Windowpane Glasses are just that, glasses with the same visual effect as windowpanes. i.e. no change in the light passing through them.
    • In acting and other visual media, glasses are worn for the effect on the audience, not the wearer.
    • In this GirlGenius comic Agatha puts her glasses on, but there's no change in the appearance of her eyes.
    • Actors whose vision needs correction will usually wear contact lenses with Windowpane Glasses over them, rather than just wear their prescription lenses.
    • An interesting conclusion of this is that it's not the glasses themselves that cause a negative reaction, but the (usually obvious) visual distortion of the wearer's eyes.
  • Steam Puzzle - The character in a game must avoid being burned by jets of hot steam, either by timing, redirecting, or activating/de-activating
    • Amnesia: The Dark Descent - as Manga Minx points out (most profanely) 4 minutes into this section of her Let's Play Amnesia. "Why do all games have, like, steam puzzles?"
    • Resident Evil 3: Nemesis - Jill Valentine must manipulate steam leaks to laboriously make her way to a vital control
    • Flushed Away (the video game of the movie) Roddy and Rita must navigate past steam leaks via timing.
    • Ghost Hunter - Lazarus must use timing to get past rhythmic steam leaks.

  • Homonym Alert - a form of double meaning in dialog. Instead of the usual words that have double meanings, a pronunciation is used that can apply to more than one word
    • In one of the Black Adder episodes a horse is being interrogated on the witness stand against Black Adder on the charge of being a witch. The horse answers with a neigh. The prosecution asks whether it was a "neigh" or a "Nay." (The subtitles make this clear.)
    • In Porta Chell is told by ==Gla DOS== that "When the testing is over, you will be mist." The subtitles show "missed" instead, but the extra meaning is there in any case.
    • In Terry Pratchett's Feet of Clay the chief Herald (a vampire) tells Vimes "Pray, enter." Vimes thoughts reveal he hears it as "Prey, enter."

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