A timed escort mission in a sewer level. Getting through the level requires you to solve jumping puzzles from a first person perspective. Falling into or touching the water results in instant death for you or the NPC you’re escorting. Death of the escorted NPC results in instant mission failure.
Mission failure results in a loading sequence followed by an unskippable cutscene before you reappear at the beginning of the level.
… in order to complete the level, you must have pushed in a button, which is a 3 by 4 pixel square that is about 5% lighter than the surrounding wall, in the opening room. Failure to push the button will result in you walking into a deathtrap about 75% of the way through the level.
After you’ve gotten past a series of obstacles that can be overcome by various skills or knowledge there should be some obstacle controlled by a completely random event. (Ex. A die is rolled. If it comes up a one, you survive and move onward. Any other number and you die without any chance to save yourself.)
As a variant: A long unskippable credits scene before you even start playing, or have an option to load a saved game. I’m looking at YOU, Secret of Monkey Island.
Platformer style game like Mario, where the level is completely, uniformly yellow. The platforms are scattered at various heights and with various sizes. Every few seconds (the interval changes randomly) the screen flashes bright white and for a split second after the white flash, the platforms are revealed in a color other than yellow. After that split second the entire level goes to yellow again.
Each new flash of color changes the sizes and positions of the platforms.
And the sound track is a baby crying over the sound of a fire alarm.
After the hour-long boss fight which you beat on your twentieth try, you are tricked into dying for some stupid reason, within sight of the save point. Next time you’ll know not to open that treasure chest with three hit points left!
Of course, there has to be a save point halfway through the level. And it’s in an easily-accessible side corridor. Which fills up with lava two seconds after you go through it. And the save point saves the state of the lava, too.
You also should spend hours trying to access a lever or control panel in a seemingly inaccessible area and finally, triumphantly, get to it, and discover that is non-functional. But just almost functional enough that in the next level when you hit that locked gate you will wonder if you need to slog back and try it again.
Looks like cake compared to I Wanna Be the Guy: The Movie: The Game. I wore out a lightly-used controller and got blisters on my thumbs playing that game, and still only made it about halfway through.
What’s the point of having a thread if you did all the work already?
That sounds like the worst level of any video game ever. Of course, the fact that it more or less exists in a few games is just proof that some game designers are morons.