Playing Spelunky a day or two ago, I got all the way to the Temple (a rarity for me), laden with jetpack, spiked shoes, Kapala, Ankh, shotgun, and other stuff. (I believe this was also the run where I had more than 90 bombs. ...Hey, something spooked the shopkeepers while I was in the Black Market, and I was able to survive, so I took full advantage!)
I can't remember the specifics of what I was trying to do -- it was all a blur even a couple minutes later, let alone now -- but I wound up getting crushed by a previously unseen crushing block (which blew up my jetpack, the explosion of which thankfully at least took out the crush block).
I was resurrected by the Ankh at the level entrance, and went back to see if my shotgun had survived my crushing intact; it had. I figured I should try to retrieve it, since I didn't really fancy facing the rest of the temple with sticky bombs as my only weapons. I took a jump up in the air to make my way over to the platform where the shotgun lay...and unceremoniously plummeted straight into a lava pool below. It wasn't even close -- I came nowhere near the edge of the platform I was trying to jump to. I was already staring at my shiny new journal entry for death by lava by the time it dawned on me what had gone wrong: I had behaved as though I still had my jetpack (tried to fire my nonexistent thrusters in midair), even though I was quite conscious of the fact that it had died with me moments earlier. DX< Apparently, I got too used to having it for the last five or more levels.

On the plus side, I think that run set a new personal best for most money collected, and It's almost certainly the most bombs I've ever had at once.

Two more in Torneko: The Last Hope.

1. In the More Magical Dungeon (this is the traditional 99 floor dungeon that doesn't let you bring anything in, and which almost everything is unidentified), I find myself low on HP after stepping on spikes. Seeing that I had basically no chance of survival otherwise, I eat an unidentified herb. It turns out to be a Berserker herb, causing me to lose control of Torneko, and he steps on spikes and dies. (This *did* get me the "killed while Berserk" adventure log entry, however.)

2. In the Ordeal Mansion (dungeon that lets you take 20 items in, but has incredibly strong monsters, including one that can hit you from anywhere on the floor), playing as a mage. At this point, I was at full health (or nearly so) and still had one World Leaf. I run into one of those Metal Hunter type enemies, get into melee range (not a good idea as a mage), and accidentally take a step instead of facing the enemy. The enemy attacks, kills me in one hit (causing me to be revived by the World Leaf), and then attacks *again* (because this particular enemy can attack twice), and kills me again. I guess having just one World Leaf isn't completely safe for a mage in this dungeon. (If I had turned to face the enemy, I could have just cast Beat (costs 75 HP, and I had over 180 or so) and killed the enemy instantly.)

I believe there is no more-glorious cause-of-death to have written on your tombstone than "choked on a dragon".

NetHack?

Personally, one of my favorite death messages in nethack is "quit while on Charon's boat", something that most players would not see.

I also like the whole "cloud nine" death, as well as the "went to heaven prematurely" death. There's also death from teleporting to Nowhere. (Many of these I have encountered while playing around on wizard mode, which allows me to cheat and level teleport whenever I want.)

Yeah FTL, came first to my mind, it's truly a good game for glorious deaths :D

Here's one I remember pretty well:
After barely beating an enemy there were a couple leaks to fix, a.o. the O²-room was fully fucked up.
And my crew was damaged too of course... So I had to heal them in the Medic bay first (with two or three bars upgraded > pretty quick healing) before sending them to repair anywhat. This damn O²-room leakage... The priority was clear what to fix first. The ship grew slowly red. I sent two mates after their healing was completed. They started to fix the leak and maybe to the half it was closed but I had to send them back into medic bay while I sent the third and last member to O²-room. He wasn't able to fix much > medic bay. The two others, fully healed back to O²-room... Yes, they made it! > Quick back to medic bay! The leak was closed, but this damn O²-generator had to be repaired too ... The whole ship was red now. I sent them all back and forth between the two rooms, but it was impossible to repair the generator before I had to send them back for healing. In the end there was only one matey left and I was trapped in a fucking infinite loop.

PS: Maybe I should have rotate them before the ship was fullyout of air, in order to fix that damn generator hmm... Next time I've to try that if I come in that situation again.

PPS: It would be good if one could decide if to repair a leakage or the engine! In any other room it doesn't matter (except Shield room). But in the O²-room that fucking generator has to be top priority!
Is this possible in Advanced Ed.? I played FTL only vanilla so far. :)

No, unfortunately leaks and fire always take precedence.
You can have a cloning room instead of med bay, so you don't need to be so careful with your crew when making repairs like that (though if the whole ship goes red your more likely to lose as you can't have a safe spot where people are getting healed to counter act the lack of air) and you can also get a couple of races that are less susceptible (or immune) to suffocating who are better suited for making those repairs.

I never got past the Medusa level on NetHack. I got there twice. Both times I was pulled underwater by a tentacle and drowned.

Hey, at least blowing out the fire at first makes pretty sense! :) Nobody likes dialogues like the following while in space:

Crewmember A: "Hey B could you take care of the generators in ... you know... in the burning room?"
Crewmember B: "Is it still burning? I thought C blew out that damn fire?!?!"
A: "Errr no... Didn't you hear? C has vanished since the ship he boarded jumped away. We thought we freezed their FTL but no. Pretty bad luck."
B: "So the room is still burning..."
A: "Yep."
B: "And now I shall repair that generators."
A: "Err yes I can't because I'm busy. I have to maintain the errr... locks, the airlocks.... They' re jammed again."
B: "Oh yeah, sure! With those fires burnin' around? You can count me out."
A: "Then we'll die by suffocation. Again"
...
Repair-Bot: "I'll go. I mean, I'm the only one qualified to repair the engines anyway."
B: "Yeah right, man, Repair-Bot should go. Good idea."
Bot: "Believe me, I'd prefer not to. I may be synthetic, but I've no fireproof arse."

Another one from Torneko: The Last Hope.

So, I was able to get an Earner staff (steals 75% of enemy's HP) on a run of the More Magical Dungeon (I also got a Chance scroll, which is fun to play around with), so I decide to have some fun. I enter the Ordeal Mansion as a Mage with the following:
1 Earner Staff (99 charges) (I *love* item duplication)
1 Itemizer Staff (65 charges) (turns enemy into an item, to reliably get rid of problem enemies immediately)
1 Thunder Staff (96 charges) (does 25 damage)
3 blank scrolls
3 spellbooks (can write spells in them to get around the RNG involved with learning them)
1 Trap-X ring (nullifies traps)

Anyway I make it to the 10th floor, and then die. (There was actually an earlier death, but Farewell (which I got lucky enough to learn) revived me.) The cause of the death:

I was down to 40 HP, and there was an enemy next to me. Since letting an enemy attack you when you're a Mage is not a good idea, especially in the Ordeal Mansion, I use the Itemizer staff to turn the enemy into an item. I then try to pick up the item.

Bad idea!

It was a Cannibox (stronger form of Mimic), which immediately attacked me for 42 damage.

By the way, I did make one self-imposed rule for this run: No casting of Sacrifice (kills either you or every enemy on the floor).

This was fun! Maybe I'll continue trying, and see if I can survive with this strategy if I start on the 11th floor and still disallow Sacrifice.

Here's another one from Torneko: The Last Hope. I *almost* managed to beat the Ordeal Mansion by Chance, only to be killed by an arrow on the 50th floor.

What happened is that I happened to learn Chance this run, so I decided to have fun with it. After reaching 20F, I started to cast the spell, using a Heal pot for healing. (It did run out, but it didn't stay used up because Chance would sometimes restore it.) Every now and then, the spell would take me 5 floors deeper, which is how I reached 50F. I appeared in the room with the staircase, but unfortunately, after I used my Earner staff on the nearby enemy, it shot me with an arrow and killed me instantly. So close!

At least it was fun seeing what that spell could do. I actually found a SureHit blade after it itemized all the enemies on the floor, but since I had already found one, I didn't see a reason to try and save it.

It's too bad you can't write Chance in a spellbook, because it is fun (and you *can* write the Chance scroll, which combined with item duplication can give you the same result, but without the HP cost).

You little kids and your noisy graphics-based roguelikes...

Back in my DOS days, we played the heck out of Wizard's Lair 1 with just medieval-like font for atmosphere. And we liked it that way, because the maticore would kill your entire party regardless :-D

*Though the games dungeons weren't exactly random, if my memory is right...*

*bows down and lifts his hat respectfully before another gamer veteran (and also a GOG veteran!)* :-)

Another one from Torneko: The Last Hope.

I decide I want to learn the Tractor skill, so I go into the Odd Field with 5 Tractor Arrows (pulls the enemy next to you and confuses it) and my good sword. (You can only take 2 items into this dungeon, so the shield gets left behind.) After using up the 5th tractor arrow, I learn the skill.

I decide I want to have some fun, and rather than leave the dungeon with my new skill, I decide to try comboing Tractor (pulls enemy next to you and confuses it, just like the arrow) and Itemize (turns adjacent enemy into an item). That works really well...

...until one of the items turns out to be a Mimic and kills me in one hit (remember, I have no shield, and my levels are low because the enemies in this dungeon (the first one in the game) are weak).

Hence, I have to choose between losing my good sword (but keeping the skill), or reloading and losing the skill I just learned (but keeping the sword). I chose the latter.

I then duplicated my sword and shield, and then went overkill duping my tractor arrows for another attempt. It was overkill because I learned it after the second arrow this time.

(By the way, item duping is clearly intentional in this game; you just need to acquire a Clone pot to do so.)

Had a go at Brogue today after a while. Just died on level 4. Broke through the ceiling from the level above, due to hitting a bloat that caused the floor to give away, damaged myself falling.

Then encountered a wart toad that causes hallucinations on hit, my rapier of mercy (15% chance of healing 50% of enemy HP on hit, cursed - can't be dropped) didn't help on top. Threw a potion of incineration in my last moments out of sheer desperation (besides being super-high on toad slime), caught on fire myself right before that stinking reptile finished me off.