Bottomless pit

"Be careful not to fall off here!"

- Sonic the Hedgehog

A bottomless pit, or simply pit, is a hole that causes a loss of a Life for the playable character if they fall through it. Bottomless pits are common in platforming games, such as the Sonic ​the Hedgehog series. Bottomless pits are often found as holes in the lower sections of a level. That is, a player character dies when they reach the bottom of the playable area. The player has to avoid these pits by jumping, using gimmicks or other abilities.

Description


Bottomless Pits can be found almost every platforming title in the Sonic the Hedgehog series and are always be found at lower sections of the zones, action stages, adventure fields, boss stages or special stages. These pits are not featured in every level, but become more general from level to level as the player progresses during the game. By falling into the pit, the player will either lose a life and start from the beginning of the stage or the latest check point, or get a Game Over if no lives remain. There are also complete acts or zones, that have balancing platforming, while the bottomless pit has been below as a threat to the player.

There have been different forms of pits and some of have different methods as well. In most levels that featured anti-gravity as gimmick, the player would be able to fall to the empty area at the highest point of level, as it identifies as bottomless pit. One of the most well known pits are also ones with full of spikes, where the player is able to get out without losing life, but instead of losing rings or shield. Lava pits work in a similar way as well and the lava lakes can sometimes rise and increase (for example in Hill Top Zone and Lava Reef Zone). Also oil at Oil Ocean Zone is endless at the lowest part of the zone and characters is able sink to the death. For small mud pits at Marble Garden Zone characters are able to sink the player to death as well, although the player can still jump out of oil and mud pits easily. Several quicksand sections at Sandopolis Zone in Sonic & Knuckles will cause characters to fall to the pit, even through some of quicksand sections lead to the secret passages of the zone.

Bottomless pits in 3D games have become even more common, as the player can mostly fall to the dark hole, ocean/lake or quicksand sections of the level and thus lose a life. In recent games, the players have been warned before entering section with bottomless pits with signs of exclamation mark, as it is first seen in Sonic Unleashed and Sonic Colors. Since Sonic Generations, there can be seen dark orange and black colored, floating warning signs, featuring render of Sonic with death pose from earlier games. They also exist with the same design as sonic generations in Sonic The Hedgehog 4: Episode 2.