Time Limit
A Time Limit (or simply Time) is instituted in almost every platformer game, and its basic purpose is to notify the player of how much time is allotted to complete a level or task. It is a prominent element in the Mario platformer games. While the player is in a level, the time limit decreases at a steady rate until it reaches zero. If the player does not finish the level when time is up, his or her character automatically loses a life and has to start the level over. Once the player finishes a level, the remaining time is multiplied by a number and then added to the player's score (or coin total in Super Mario 3D Land). With few exceptions (e.g. in Super Mario 3D Land), it is impossible to increase a level's time limit. When the time limit is under 100 seconds, the hurry up theme plays to warn the player that he's/she's low on time. After that, the level's music plays slightly faster.
Games in the Super Mario series
Those are the games which contains the time limit below:
- Super Mario Bros.
- Super Mario Bros. 3
- Super Mario World
- New Super Mario Bros.
- New Super Mario Bros. Wii
- Super Mario 3D Land
- New Super Mario Bros. 2
- New Super Mario Bros. U
- Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon (in a few cases only, such as ScareScraper and certain missions)
Trivia
- In many Mario platformers, the time limit doesn't count in seconds but in six-tenths or seven-tenths of a second. In Super Mario Bros., every 10 game seconds is about 4 seconds.
