Kaizo Trap - full of dead ends

November 22, 2015 11:59 AM

Kaizo Trap is an animated story about love, determination, and overcoming nearly impossible obstacles. Mostly that last thing. It pays tribute to ultra-difficult platformers like Kaizo Mario World and the speedrunners they inspire to achieve impressive results through brutal trial and error, as well as tool-assisted speedruns that make the impossible look easy. The title "Kaizo Trap" refers to a particular trope within these unfairly difficult games. Note: the first link has a photosensitivity warning and maybe more cartoon violence than you might expect.

The "Game Over" screen and final score aren't just for show. The kaizotrap subreddit has clues to get further but is so far spoiler-free, except for the acknowledgment that there is a final ending.

posted by knuckle tattoos (18 comments total)

Whelp, that was spectacularly awesome. there is a final ending. hmmmmmm....
posted by zeek321 at 12:24 PM on November 22, 2015

I greatly enjoyed that even though I never play these types of games. I particularly appreciated how well the animation was timed against the music.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 12:30 PM on November 22, 2015 [3 favorites]

Those endless death scenes are pretty much what I look like when I play those games on regular mode. I've been repeatedly killed by the very first monster in Super Mario Brothers.
posted by jacquilynne at 12:54 PM on November 22, 2015

There is not only a final ending, but also a LONG final ending. So far.
posted by tigrrrlily at 12:55 PM on November 22, 2015 [1 favorite]

...and then something totally unexpected.
posted by tigrrrlily at 12:56 PM on November 22, 2015

that was delightful but I could almost feel the RSI settle into my hands as I watched
posted by fido~depravo at 1:09 PM on November 22, 2015

This was quite good. (However, anytime aa FPP casually links to tvtropes... I end up having a very unproductive couple hours.)
posted by Hicksu at 3:29 PM on November 22, 2015

This was fantastic -- I really loved how the music worked into the second laser boss fight.
posted by mochapickle at 4:36 PM on November 22, 2015

Masterful.
posted by bz at 5:23 PM on November 22, 2015

i really enjoyed this and want to see the alternate endings but have zero interest in solving the puzzle myself. hopefully someone puts up a spoilery guide to it soon
posted by JimBennett at 5:30 PM on November 22, 2015 [1 favorite]

Reminds me of some of the act finales from Homestuck (which I need to get caught up on, but I mean to start from the beginning, which will make it quite the undertaking).
posted by radwolf76 at 6:45 PM on November 22, 2015 [1 favorite]

I don't know about spoilery guide but hypothetically if one were to rot13 snprchapu.pbz there would be a thread with all the alternate endings spoiled.
yeah I couldn't think of a discreet way to add spoilers to the post
posted by knuckle tattoos at 8:35 PM on November 22, 2015 [1 favorite]

One way is like this, where hovering the mouse over the text reveals the spoiler in a tooltip on many browsers. It seems that it's hard to see the hidden text on mobile though. Anyway, here's how to code it:

<abbr title="Hidden text">Visible text<abbr>
posted by JHarris at 5:00 AM on November 23, 2015

I actually used the abbr tag in the post, as an Easter egg. I like the idea of tooltips for spoilers in general, but I had trouble deciding how much information should be included, obscured, or just left unsaid.
posted by knuckle tattoos at 8:24 AM on November 23, 2015

But it doesn't seem to be working? I don't see the faint underline that abbr tags get in Firefox, and none of the links have hover text either.
posted by JHarris at 10:39 AM on November 23, 2015

It's nearly invisible. To go with the theme of hidden blocks, y'know.
posted by knuckle tattoos at 11:00 AM on November 23, 2015

Aaah, there it is.
posted by JHarris at 11:14 AM on November 23, 2015

Modern love story with a great soundtrack
posted by Redhush at 7:25 PM on November 24, 2015