1. There's a boss at the end of this tunnel.
2. You can't hurt him with your weapons.
3. To kill him, you have to burn the rope above.
— You Have To Burn The Rope
You Have to Burn the Rope is a parody of Puzzle Bosses, Platform Games, and possibly video games in general, created by "Mazapan." It may also be considered to be the Mirror Universe version of I Wanna Be the Guy.
Saying anything more would ruin the experience, so just play it here
or here. It's free, though due to the discontinuation of Adobe Flash, an external plugin is needed to play it. And if you want to listen to/download the end credits song, here's the link, but don't do so until AFTER you finish the game or it'll spoil the experience.
Oh and... um, you have to burn the rope. Just sayin'...
Has no relation to the similar-sounding games Cut the Rope and Burn The Rope, other than the fact that ropes are involved.
You Have To Add The Trope:
- Achilles' Heel: The Grinning Colossus is defeated by a chandelier.
- Affectionate Parody: Of Puzzle Bosses.
- Anti-Climax Boss: Invoked. The Grinning Colossus gets a One-Hit Kill from a chandelier.
- Awesome, but Impractical: The axes. You can't kill the Grinning Colossus with them, and they can't cut the rope.
- Battle Theme Music: The Grinning Colossus has this.
- Benevolent Architecture: Lampshaded, just like nearly every other trope on here.
- Big Bad: The Grinning Colossus, apparently. Though we never find out his motivations or if he even has any in the first place.
- Blank White Eyes: The player character.
- Boss-Arena Idiocy: Why does the Grinning Colossus even have a chandelier that can kill him if it fell on him, as well as fire that can be used to burn the rope holding said chandelier up?
- Boss Corridor: The game has this before the Boss Room.
- Boss-Only Level: The only level.
- Boss Room: The only room in the game.
- Bottomless Magazines: You have axes galore in your Hammerspace, but they are completely useless now. You have to burn the rope.
- Chekhov's Gun: The torch you pick up halfway through the game plays a vital role in defeating the final boss.
- Collision Damage: Subverted in that while the protagonist does react to running into the Grinning Colossus, he can't really die. It does however get rid of his torch, forcing him to get another one.
- The Computer Is a Lying Bastard: While the instructions claim that you cannot hurt the Grinning Colossus with your weapons, it is in fact possible. Unfortunately, the Colossus's Healing Factor means even getting it down to no health will not kill it in this manner. You really have to burn the rope.
- Closing Credits: They play at the end of the game.
- Credits Gag: The credits includes the phrase "Special thanks to Umami".
- Credits Montage: The end credits show a montage of the events of the game.
- Deconstruction Game: Of Puzzle Bosses.
- Developer's Foresight: You actually can deplete the boss's health with the axes through a hack, but the game will still keep the boss alive.
- Easter Egg: After you read the instructions, right-click.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The title of the game is also the goal of the game.
- Exact Words: You have to burn the rope, you can't cut it with your axes.
- Excuse Plot: Taken to the point that there barely even is a plot.
- Expository Theme Tune: A rather strange version of this is seen in "Now You're a Hero," the end credits song. It doesn't explain anything; rather, it just reviews the entirety of the game. Then it asks you So What Do We Do Now? that you beat the game.
- Eye Beams: The Grinning Colossus's signature attack.
- Falling Chandelier of Doom: What happens when you burn the rope.
- Final Boss: The Grinning Colossus. Then again, he's the only boss.
- Flechette Storm: The main character can do this if you type fast enough.
- Floating Platforms: You have to go across some of these in order to get to the rope that must be burned.
- Foregone Conclusion: The very title already gives away that the protagonist defeats the Grinning Colossus by burning the rope.
- Foregone Victory: Defeating the colossus is the only thing to do in the game in the first place. Your character is also invincible, meaning the boss cannot harm them.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation: For some reason, you cannot simply cut the rope with the infinite axes the player character carries around.
- Ghost Butler: A wall appears at the end of the tunnel as soon as you enter the Boss Room.
- Girly Run: The protagonist moves this way.
- Gratuitous Panning: In the end credits.
- Hammerspace: You can pull an infinite number of axes out of nowhere.
- Healing Factor: The Grinning Colossus will take damage from your axes, but regenerates faster than you can keep up damage. By hacking the game it is possible to deplete the entire HP bar using only axes, but the Grinning Colossus still won't die.
- Improvised Weapon: The chandelier.
- Invincible Hero: Played for Laughs. Nothing can kill you. Not the Eye Beams, not touching the boss, not falling from the top floor. Your character cannot be killed.
- Jump Physics: The protagonist can jump very high.
- Life Meter: The boss has a certain amount of health, but the player has infinite health.
- Lord British Postulate: The game makes it apparent many times that the boss is unkillable without burning the rope. This has not stopped people from trying to kill it without burning the rope regardless.
- Mercy Invincibility: You have this.
- Minimalist Cast: It's just you and the Grinning Colossus.
- Necro Non Sequitur: Well, sort of. Would you honestly have expected the boss to be killed by burning the rope supporting a chandelier?
- No "Arc" in "Archery": Averted, though with thrown axes.
- No Name Given: The protagonist.
- Non-Indicative Name: The Grinning Colossus never grins or even smiles.
- One-Hit Kill: The chandelier instantly kills the boss.
- Parody: The game parodies many stock tropes of classic video games, most notably the Puzzle Boss.
- Point of No Return: The Boss Room has the hall seal as soon as you get to the end. In addition, at the end of the hall there is a drop from which you cannot jump back up.
- Precision F-Strike: "You've managed to beat the whole damn ga-ame"
- Puzzle Boss: The Grinning Colossus regenerates his health too quickly to be killed with standard attacks, so the protagonist must instead pick up the fire from either side of the screen and use it to burn the rope supporting the chandelier hanging above the boss.
- Rule of Three: At the start, there are three instructions printed below the floor. There's a hidden fourth one, though.
- Saving the World: In the expository theme ("Now you're a hero, you burned the rope and saved us a-all"). This seems to be the only place in the game where this particular plot-point is mentioned, however. Interesting that the boss was a threat to the world, given that he's too tall to get out of his headquarters.
- Shoot the Rope: Averted; your normal weapons will have no effect as you have to burn the rope.
- Shout-Out: The ending song seems to shout out to the ending credits tune from Portal, Still Alive. The lyrics actually scan to the Same tune.
- Signpost Tutorial: The game's only instructions are written on the wall in the background.
- So What Do We Do Now?: The end of the credit song.
- Spoiler Title: The title pretty much gives away how to defeat the Grinning Colossus.
- Strategy Guide: The game's site links directly to the official strategy guide.
- Storming the Castle: The entire game.
- Stuff Blowing Up: How the Grinning Colossus dies after you drop the chandelier on him.
- That's All, Folks!: After the credits.
- Title Drop: "3. To kill him, you have to burn the rope."
- Useless Item: The axes serve no purpose at all. Done intentionally.
- Variable Mix: The music changes the further down the tunnel you go. When you get past the Point of No Return between the third sign and the boss, the music is reduced to a low rumble.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: Jump Indy Kirby into the Eye Beams! Jump Indy Kirby into the creature! Jump Indy Kirby into the ceiling! It's got less Ludicrous Gibs than IWBTG, but also far less punishment.
- Viewers Are Morons: The entire game can be viewed as a parody of this.
- Too Dumb to Live: The Grinning Colossus tracks your horizontal movement. Meaning it will be under the chandeler by default when you cut it down.
- Waddling Head: The protagonist.
- Weaksauce Weakness: A boss you can't harm with infinite axes without healing is killed by a falling chandelier.
- Zero-Effort Boss: The Grinning Colossus. It cannot do any damage to you, and it dies as soon as you burn the rope. The most it can do is make your torch disappear by attacking you, forcing you to get another one.
By the way, if you'd just clicked the link at the beginning instead of reading all this, you'd have finished the game a few times over by now.
