Pit

Mario falling into an pit in Super Mario World.

The term pit, also called abyss or bottomless pit, refers to an area in a video game where no solid ground is programmed. If a playable character falls or jumps into the pit, he or she will be affected negatively. While most games do not explain this phenomenon, in the Mushroom World, they are a natural element. Literally, these pits have no bottom, although after falling a varying distance down the pit, the person will die without hitting the bottom. This will even happen to invincible characters. Some Shaydes are tasked with cleaning pits as punishment in the Underwhere, as seen in Super Paper Mario.

Mario running across many narrow pits.

Sometimes pits are very narrow. In such cases, the player is able to run across the pits without falling down. Walking across the abyss without accelerating, however, does not work.

There are also two other types of holes easily confused with a bottomless pit. First, some pits, such as those found in Donkey Kong, are not bottomless. However, players will be taken out if they hit the bottom and are issued a penalty, such as losing a life or being warped back to a particular location. Secondly, the pits in Wario World lead to Unithorn's Lair, a subterranean cavern, similar to Super Mario Bros. 3, where there are pits that will lead Mario to a underground room. Because players can resume progress once a specific goal has been reached, these cannot be considered bottomless pits.

In Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Galaxy 2, black holes replace pits, serving almost the same purpose

Pits also appear in the Mario Kart series. They appear in some courses, such as Mushroom Gorge from Mario Kart Wii. When a character accidentally drives off of the course into an pit, the camera shows the character screaming as he/she falls into darkness, and the screen will turn black. A second later, Lakitu will lift the character up and drop him/her back onto the course.

It is not known if the pits in Super Paper Mario are bottomless because if Mario, Princess Peach, Bowser, or Luigi falls into a pit, they flip back onto solid ground and lose 1 HP.

A few pits in Super Paper Mario (on the outskirts of Flip- and Flopside) do not hurt the player, instead sending them to a secret room with a spring and a valuable item(s).