Cartridges

Cartridges are a type of Collectibles in The End is Nigh. These collectibles can be found very rarely in standard levels and rarely in "???" areas. There are 22 cartridges in total, 10 of which are found in the Past and 12 in the Future. In addition, the player starts with one cartridge which is played during the opening cutscene. If the player dies, the cartridge breaks and becomes unplayable. It is later obtainable again in Nevermore.

All cartridges found in the Past as well as half of those found in the Future contain references to NES games.

Each cartridge has multiple methods of completion, which are as follows:


 * The Bare Minimum (beating the cartridge)
 * Half Empty (collecting 50+ rings (500+ in The Super Mega Cart))
 * Discontinued (beating the cartridge without using a continue)
 * 100% of Nothing! (collecting all rings in the cartridge)
 * Unbreakable (completing the cartridge deathless)

With the exception of Unbreakable, achieving any of these for the first time on any cartridge will earn the player a bonus tumor.

Getting 100% completion on every cartridge in the game will earn the player 52 tumors overall.

Standard cartridges
All of these cartridges consist of 10 stages and contain 100 rings to collect. They can be beaten with all 5 methods of completion. The player starts each cartridge with 9 lives and 1 continue in stock.

The only exception is the Super Mega Cart, which consists of 100 stages and contains 1000 rings to collect, as it features all the stages of the other 9 cartridges in a row plus an additional set of 10 unique stages. It also grants the player 3 continues instead of only 1.

The standard cartridge sprite is an NES cartridge.

Iron Carts
Iron Carts are a type of cartridge found exclusively in the Unknown, which is a set of hidden areas only accessible through Stevens.

In Iron Carts, the player has no lives or continues, and will therefore be thrown back to the first stage if they die. There are also no rings to collect, so the only methods of completion are The Bare Minimum and Unbreakable. Because these cartridges require deathless runs to be beaten, both methods are achieved in the same run.

Unlike standard cartridges, the number of stages in each cartridge varies. In a similar fashion to the Super Mega Cart, the Acceptance cartridge features all the stages of the other 4 Iron Carts in a row plus an additional set of 5 unique stages.

The Iron Cart sprite is an SNES cartridge.

Glitch Carts
Glitch Carts are the Future equivalent of standard cartridges. In these cartridges, the player has infinite lives, and there are no rings to collect, therefore the only methods of completion are The Bare Minimum and Unbreakable. This is similar to Iron Carts, although, unlike the latter, Glitch Carts do not require deathless runs to be beaten.

All Glitch Carts consist of 10 stages. However, Spike Tales only requires 6 of them to be completed, with the remaining 4 being optional; the player also has to go through every mandatory stage twice on that cartridge.