Bottomless pit (game mechanism)

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Bottomless pits, known by a large variety of names, are a common hazard in many computer games and video games. If a player falls into a bottomless pit, the character is instantly killed/loses a life, suffers a health penalty/takes damage, is forced to restart from his or her last checkpoint/continue point/save point, or a combination of the above penalties, among others. Bottomless pits also ignore invincibility or any other protection the player may have. In 2-D side-scrolling video games, bottomless pits are always found at the bottom of the screen (unless gravity can change direction in the game or stage in question, in which case bottomless pits can be found at any boundary line of the playing field.) This is similar in 3-D video games (or 2-D games that do not side-scroll,) except that bottomless pits are found at the bottom of the playing field (or edges if gravity changes direction), regardless of the camera angle. If the game has a top-down camera angle, then any "hole" in the play area may be a bottomless pit. In some games (in specific areas,) enviornmental hazards like water, lava, quicksand, insect hordes, and lethal laser beams may stand in for bottomless pits.