Automatic progression, commonly referred as automatic scrolling is an element in computer and video games that forces a player to work at a fixed pace. In a lot of cases, if the player cannot keep up with this pace, the player ends up losing. This is primarily used in the shoot 'em up genre, commonly associated in the platform genre, and can be used elsewhere.

Platformers

When levels use automatic progression, instead of the player's progression panning the scene, the scene automatically pans, which requires the player to keep up instead of going at his or her own pace. Normally the speed of the panning is slow enough that the player can keep up with ease. This type of gameplay element is infamously used in levels where most of the level contains a bottomless pit, and that the player must time jumps from one platform to the other. Other times, it's used in maze-like levels, where a wrong turn will spell certain death due to "crushing" (a player getting caught between a wall and a side of the screen). This adds pressure to the already hard nature of such levels. There is also at least one case of a hybrid, in the 1991 Gameboy game The Amazing Spider-Man. the third level of that game takes place on top of a subway train, and the game will automatically scroll to the right. The player, however, may move right to speed up the pace, but the speed of the train is the slowest that the level will scroll, and being pushed off the screen by a piece of ceiling will result in instant death.

With the advent of 3D gaming, automatic scrolling in a 3D platformer is rather impractical to implement unless the game is 2.5D platform game. However, there are many ways for developers to force players to work at a fixed pace. This is shown many times in the Tomb Raider series, where traps force the player to keep moving.

Shooting games

In Shoot 'em up games such as Raiden, this is used to automatically progress the player as he or she controls an airplane. In many cases, there's no real chance of losing a life through crushing. Though if the shooter is akin to Gradius, then there's the danger (which again may pressure the player). While there are exceptions (such as in a later level of Kingdom Grand Prix), overhead view games are usually "above it all", and thus there is no danger to hitting something, whereas side-scrolling games commonly feature walls as an additional threat to the player. Usually hitting a wall, floor or ceiling is instant death.