A game with tons of mechanics might only reveal some of them at the start of the game, and leave some for later, as to not overwhelm the player. This trope is when the later revealed mechanics are resources whose usage needs to be managed, Mana points for example.
Tracking such resources adds a constant mental load on the player, unlike just needing to use a new mechanic when prompted by a situation, a.k.a Ability Required to Proceed, though the new resource may also be required to use new mechanics.
Getting the new resource might be a Money Sink, especially if the money cap is low enough that it has to be spent often to prevent being stuck at the cap. Global Currency Exception also plays into the money sink idea because currency exchange is a real world concept that games can use.
Sometimes games might present the value of the resource as "0" from the start of the game, as an Interface Spoiler that there's something to find later, which can be avoided if the resource is stored in an inventory where new items make their own slots, so new ammo isn't revealed early.
Compare and contrast Infinite Use Upgrade and No-Gear Level, removing the need to think about the value of a resource by making it either a "constant" infinity or removing the resource entirely.
Introducing One Bullet Left mechanics is also related, boosting the strength of the last bullet in a gun's clip. That's raising the importance of a preexisting resource, "bullets-left-in-clip", where this trope needs a new resource, which might not be important. Ammunition weaponry being a midgame item would mean Counting Bullets overlapping with a new resource.
Reset Milestones is one trope that can be used to produce a new resource, resetting the game and getting something new from it.
Examples:
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Video Game examples:
4X
- Civilization:
- Starting with Civilization III, strategic resources get revealed based on newly obtained technologies, and these resources enable construction of units or buildings.
- In Civilization VI's Gathering Storm expansion, once you reach the Industrial Era, two new resources come into play: Power, which is generated by certain buildings or terrain improvements, and consumed by other buildings to increase their yields; and CO₂, which is generated by buildings and units that consume certain resources, and contributes to climate change. If the city-state Cardiff is in the game, whose suzerain bonus allows Harbor buildings to generate Power, you can potentially start generating Power as early as the Classical Era even if you can't do anything with it at that point.
- Millennia: Town inhabitants start by merely needing Food; in further eras, they get newer needs such as Faith, Media and Culture. Similarly, resources appear and are made obsolete according to technological progress.
- Stellaris: Like many Paradox games, Stellaris has a complex system of resources that players have to carefully manage. The game starts out with basic resources like Energy Credits which provides power to buildings and ships while also acting as currency, Food and Consumer Goods for managing the happiness of your populations, Minerals for constructing buildings and technology, and Alloys which are converted from Minerals to construct ships. As civilizations progress to the mid and late games, additional resources known as Strategic Resources become available to exploit once the proper technology is researched. These resources are important for allowing the usage of certain advanced technologies like Terraforming or for constructing advanced buildings and ship components. Some of these Strategic Resources are somewhat common and mining deposits can be found rather easily, such as Exotic Gases and Volatile Motes, while other Strategic Resources are much rarer and thus harder to find and mine such as Zro and Dark Matter. However, even after finding the deposits, players still need to carefully manage how much of these resources are being used since most of the deposits offer very little income per month and there are very few deposits on the map overall. note
- Victoria: An Empire Under The Sun: The game and its sequels are set during the Industrial Revolution, so many goods (both raw materials and finished products) become available as the game progresses. The games typically start with basic goods like Grain, Coal or Steel and end up with more advanced ones like Oil, Automobiles and Telephones becoming available.
Idle Games
- The 64 Layers Tree: The qrestigenot a typo layer that has four milestones meant to make the prestige layer faster by keeping completed challenges, letting you buy max qrestige qoints, and keeping prestige upgrades.
- Cookie Clicker:
- Sugar Lumps are rare resources that only start spawning after you've baked one billion cookies. They take a long time to mature, but when collected, they can be used to permanently upgrade a building type, often by unlocking or expanding a minigame.
- Heavenly Chips are awarded after ascending with an increasing amount of cookies baked, and are used to unlock some of the most powerful upgrades in the game.
- Grass Cutting Incremental: Grasshops are available after reaching level 201 in the normal realm. After doing galactic, You can Grass skip for the same amount of levels in the Anti-realm. Breaking the ring grants you planetary tiers, and reaching planetary tier 3 unlocks Grassjumps in the unatural realm. These all do various things from boosting currencies to unlocking new game mechanics.
- Gun Range Idle: Grand Prestige resets stars, boosts, and iron, and rewards the player with prestige points which can be spent on upgrades.
- Idle Monster TD: There's a Prestige mechanic which resets tower levels, gold and wave progress and gives prestige points which can be spent on upgrades.
- Incremental Adventures: There are several prestige layers. Prestiging on one layer resets all the upgrades on the lower layers. Prestiging on each layer gives upgrade points which allow the player to buy upgrades.
- Incremental Epic Hero 2: The heroes can rebirth. Currently there are 3 tiers of rebirth, with 3 more planned for future updates. Tier 1 resets quests and hero's level. Tier 2, in addition to that, resets skill levels. Tier 3 also resets equipment levels. Each rebirth tier gives points which can be spent on upgrades. There' another type of reset, the World Ascension, for which there's one tier and another 2 planned for the future. World ascension resets more things, and some of them can be kept by doing accomplishments.
- Law Of The Cat God: You can get favor by resetting cat upgrades and karma, which can be spent on other upgrades.
- Lit (2021): There are six milestones that unlock colors once you have reached a specific light threshold (light is granted for gathering enough energy to reset for it) and one at 69 (original) / 300 (+) that makes you win the game.
- The Milestone Tree: The first layer is called Milestones and adds one milestone every time you reset it once you have enough points. Later on, you can reset for meta-milestones based on milestones and extra-milestones based on meta-milestones, with those providing their own boosts and automation.
- Realm Grinder: Every ascension replaces the current type of coin with a new one (emerald, amethyst, etc.) to adjust for the fact that there's a computational limit to the numbers that can be generated. This also makes the previous ascensions' upgrades free to purchase.
- Sandcastle Builder starts with sand and castles. Once the player has 80M sand, Glass is introduced. Later, the player will encounter Goats, Blackprints, Flux Crystals, Logicat Levels, Bonemeal, Vacuums, Mustard, Mysterious Maps, and so on. The game is chaotic in determining when a resource is first obtained, and when it may first be spent.
- Zombidle: Defeating the Wizard of a Kingdom (which you can only battle by resetting after clearing all the Kingdom's areas) grants you a Black Orb, which gives a huge bonus to White Orbs multiplier, and with certain items will also boost your other stats to make subsequent runs easier.
Real-Time Strategy
- Empire Earth II:
- The game uses several special resources that are discovered and then made obsolete as you progress through Technology Levels: Tin (for bronze), Iron, Saltpeter (for gunpowder), Oil, and Uranium. When changing epochs it's best to sell off all of the now-obsolete resource as citizen won't mine it any more and deposits only take up space.
- The Maasai campaign adds behrium deposits, which are only used to trade with a MegaCorp for upgrades.
- Rise of Nations starts with Food, Timber and Wealth as the only resources available in the Ancient Age to all civilizations. Knowledge and Metal become available in the next age, the Classical Age, while Oil becomes available in the Industrial Age four ages later. In addition, several Rare Resources become available later in the game, such as Sulphur in the Gunpowder Age and Uranium, Rubber, Aluminum, Coal and Titanium in the Industrial Age.
- SpellForce: The player begins the game with one race in their faction the humans, and the ability to harvest the basic resources wood, stone, iron and food. As the game progresses they gain the ability to harvest aria once the humans gain the ability to recruit clerics, lenya plants once they add elves to the faction, and moonsilver once they add dwarves to the faction.
Role-Playing Games
- Ara Fell: Ultimate abilities are revealed in the first battle after Seri Kesu joins the party, because Seri is the first bearer of such a skill. Ultimate charge is a "violet bar on the bottom of the battle screen".
- Diablo III: Reaper of Souls: A gambling system was introduced that has a high chance of yielding legendaries. Since most players have millions of gold by the time they start gambling the trader instead demands Blood Shards, a special currency that can only be gathered in small amounts from end-game activities on high difficulty levels.
- Divinity: Original Sin II: The characters in the player's party begin the game unable to use abilities fuelled by Source Points, as they've been captured by The Magisters and fitted with anti-magic collars. They need to get their collars removed and find a place in the world where they can learn Source Magic in order to use these skills.
- Final Fantasy VI: Downplayed with MP. Terra and Celes as the party's initial magic users have access to it from the moment they join the party, but the rest of the party only gains their MP stat once the first Espers are unlocked.
- The Horizon series: Added by Downloadable Content:
- Horizon Zero Dawn: The Frozen Wilds DLC adds Bluegleam, used to buy the DLC's new weapons and treasure boxes- there's exactly 100 pieces of it to be found, which is the same amount as you need to buy all the new stuff. Thankfully, there are also merchants who sell maps that show all locations of Bluegleam deposits, making collecting it significantly faster and easier.
- Horizon Forbidden West: The Burning Shores DLC adds Brimshine, a new substance that's found in various locations around the map and is needed to purchase the new high-level weapons and armor as well as upgrade them. Fortunately, it's all over the place so you can find it fairly readily.
- Neverwinter Nights 2:
- Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer: The Spirit Energy bar is unlocked at the end of Act 1, requiring you to manage the spirit-eater curse.
- Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir: Trade bars, as part of the trade management system, are unlocked in Act 2 after Sa'Sani's trading company relocates to the Sword Coast.
- Pokémon Red and Blue: The Rocket Game Corner is in Celadon City, where the fourth of the game's 8 gyms is, and progressing with the plot introduces the Game Corner's own Coin currency, won from its slot machines or exchanged from the global currency, and used to buy Game Corner products.
- Weird and Unfortunate Things Are Happening: Miriam, the second party member, gets Psychic Powers and therefore a Mana count that's not 0, after one of the boss fights beyond the first, but before that, she's stuck with just guns, while the initial protagonist, Alicia, does have psychic powers.
Other genres
- The Battle Cats: NP, which is used to unlock talent abilities on certain cats, is unlocked after clearing Into the Future in its entirety.
- Cities: Skylines: Initially all citizens need is power and water. Subsequent milestones introduce new needs, such as garbage and education.
- Crash Arena Turbo Stars: regular mode allows players to reset all their coins and vehicle parts upon reaching the last stage in exchange of increasing their Prestige count (unlocking items exclusive to later Prestiges), skill points, gems, and cash for the Ultimate League.
- Crash Bash: Upon reaching the fourth Warp Room, Relics begin appearing as a fourth collectible for completed games and are retroactively added to the options of the rooms before; their challenges being Harder Than Hard marathons against Perfect Play A.I. (and another set of Relics after the story's beaten and Mallet Mash's Trophy is obtained). Relics serve to unlock two minigames in the final Warp Room and are Bragging Rights Rewards from then on.
- One NPC in Dubloon is eager to sell you his goods, except he only accepts Farquaads. After beating the final boss and returning you will find an exchange service which will eagerly give you the necessary 1 million Farquaads... for 1 dubloon. The game doesn't even ask for confirmation.
- Dragon Age: Inquisition: Focus abilities and by extension, the Focus meter only become available after the Inquisition arrives at Skyhold at the start of the second act of the game.
- Fallout 2: The game does attempt to have something like this with a Global Currency Exception in Redding - the owners of the mines issue pay scrips instead of cash to employees. The thing is, they can be bartered off for full price when trading with anyone.
- Frog Fractions: The upgrade screen has several upgrades that require "Zorkminds", a currency you will not get until late in the experience.
- Hogwarts Legacy: After the Jackdaw's Rest quest, Talent options and the points to purchase them are made visible to be activated, Double Unlock because they were hidden but the options are still technically earned if the level thresholds are passed before the quest finishes.
- Iji: The "cracking" mechanic, which disables enemies and opens certain doors if you win a brief minigame, isn't introduced until the second level. Likewise, you can't upgrade your crack skill in level one. However, if you hit the crack button, Iji will still play the appropriate animation and you'll get the standard "skill not high enough to crack this" error.
- In I Was a Teenage Exocolonist, the Strange Device collectible can only be found in the Ridge, which can only be accessed after the game's midpoint. In addition of being necessary to activate some of the technology left behind by the Convergent Domain, it's a preferred gift for two of the romance options.
- Kingdom of Loathing: During the Mysterious Island Quest, the Hippy/Frat Boy War only takes dimes (dime bags, get it?) and quarters (as in the drinking game) respectively for their shops (these are also untradeable between players, and are not carried over into a new ascension, and the stores are where dimes and quarters are obtained, exclusively through trading loot from the area.
- In Little Big Adventure 2, once the player reaches Zeelich, they will find out all the money acquired on Twinsen ("Kashes") is worthless, since the Zeelichians use their own coin ("Zlitos"), which can only be acquired in Zeelich. Afterwards, the player will encounter a ferryman who will only accept gems as currency, which are found in Zeelich only.
- Marauders: When a player reaches level 50, they can choose to Prestige, which entails a complete wipe of the player's inventory stash, trader reputation, their main questline progression and of course, their level back to literal zero. In return, they can receive one Prestige point per wipe which can buy them permanent upgrades like extra stash space and special outfits that carries on to the next prestige.
- Marvel Avengers Academy has special currency for every special event in order to keep the decorations and characters obtainable there separate from the mainline characters.
- Peng Wars: Golden Fish, a currency used to purchase new Pengs from the shop, is only unlocked after clearing chapter 1.
- Raid Heroes: Total War and Sword and Magic: When the "New Raid" button is pressed, the raid, the gold-producing buildings and the heroes' upgrades are reset. You get stars depeding on the number of raid levels you completed.
- This can happen during games of Railroad Tycoon, as new industries are founded and new resources discovered (such as oil in the mid-1800s, or uranium in 1959). In addition, some industries change what kind of resource they need over time (for example, tool and die plants go from accepting iron ore to requiring steel, or canneries change from using steel to using aluminum).
- Roots of Pacha: Although you can randomly find gems when breaking rocks in the Caves, it's only starting in the Monkey stage (the second Totem stage between Owl and Bear) when you can collect them directly from rocks with gems on them. That's when you unlock Magical Accessories from Vuak, which need gems for them to be bought or upgraded.
- Shantae: Half-Genie Hero: Beach Mode is an Arrange Mode where Shantae's Mana Meter is replaced with a sunscreen meter that depletes over time. Running out means death, and is refilled by finding sunscreen that only appears in this mode.
- In Tales of Eternia, there's a hidden town that you have to search the sea floor in a submarine just to get to, which nonetheless is somehow a popular resort town for the whole world. Their currency can be converted at exorbitant prices, and then used in slot machines to actually get enough to put in an auction for a chance at winning a nice item which may or may not actually be up for auction when you finally get enough. Most players don't bother, since you'd have to Level Grind a long time before you ran out of better uses for your gald.
- Touhou Lost Branch Of Legend: Marisa's the only character that can start with the Charge/Burst/Overdrive mechanic, where Charge can be charged up to 8, where upon it Bursts into 3 jewels of Philosopher's Mana and doubles the damage of all spells, or can be used up by Overcharge effects. For every other character, they have to get access to Marisa's cards first, which most likely happens after the first boss.
- Valheim: Every biome has new resources that can be used to craft a new tier of weapons and armor: animal hides in the Meadows, copper and tin for bronze in the Black Forest, iron in the Swamps, silver in the Mountains, carapace and eitr in the Mistlands, and flametal in the Ashlands.
- In Warframe, completing "The Second Dream" quest allows players to install Focus lenses on their equipment to collect Focus points, a form of Experience Points used to learn and improve passive bonuses activated through Transcendence, and Transference skills that become available partway through "The War Within".
- Almost everywhere in Wynncraft uses emeralds for currency, with three exceptions:
- Rymek's merchants deal solely in gold ingots, which are dropped from nearby Dead Prospectors. Additionally, a converter merchant at the bank will swap emeralds for gold and vice versa.
- The vendors of Zhight Island only accept Zhight Money, a special currency unique to the island. Emeralds can be converted into them at very high rates, which are used for buying exclusive Zhight wares, such as Potions of Wisdom.
Non-Video-Game examples:
Literature
- A Budding Scientist In A Fantasy World: Magical energy is a resource that unlocks for people after they get/forced into a very risky event where their bodies are flooded with mana, usually done by teens or adults, called a "mana baptism", with survival chances under 10%, if they're not born with the Magic stat.
- Numbers Continually Going Upward: The assessment stage of the magical evaluation system that's connected to the end of the world, gives people more statistics as they're evaluated over the course of approximately a day, such as taking a deep breath to try and calm themself, unlocking the Calm resource, which other people might not have access to so while it's basically a starting resource for the protagonist, it might be new for someone more experienced:
Resource opened : Calm. Reserves run deep and strong. Calm rated at 2/14
- Princesses of the Pizza Parlor: Hero Points, used for temporarily improving the capabilities of a player character, or other such heroic feats, are revealed in the players' third game session.
- Syl A Slime Monster Evolution Lit RPG: Syl's status menu always had a Class section, but its levels and the Skill Points that come from raising Class levels were unknown to Syl until chapter 51 when they get their first class. They only knew about skill points before that point because they were lucky enough to get something that rewards Skill Points in Chapter 23, albeit at a very slow rate due to the rare conditions required.
Tabletop Games
- Gloomhaven: Characters that fulfill their personal quest must retire at the end of the scenario. In exchange, the city gains prosperity (influencing starting level). Prosperity can only be increased otherwise by donating money to the town, at 10 as the only available donation value, for one point, and only can donate once per visit.
