A time limit is a phrase in video game terminology that is used to make gameplay faster on the threat of losing a life

Health (gaming)

Health is a game mechanic used in role-playing, computer and video games to give value to characters, enemies, NPCs, and related objects. This value can either be numerical, semi-numerical as in hit/health points, or arbitrary as in a life bar....

. A typical time limit can range from a single second to multiple amount of minutes. Although it is possible to have a Super Mario World

Super Mario World

, subtitled Super Mario Bros. 4 for its original Japanese release, is a platform video game developed and published by Nintendo as a pack-in launch title for the Super Famicom/Super Nintendo Entertainment System , and is the fourth game in the Super Mario series...

level with zero seconds on the timer (unlike the other games in the Super Mario Bros. series), it will result in a glitch where it will say that the time is up right after Mario or Luigi loses a life by any means.

Summary

All the video games in the Super Mario Bros.

Super Mario Bros.

is a 1985 platform video game developed by Nintendo, published for the Nintendo Entertainment System as a sequel to the 1983 game Mario Bros. In Super Mario Bros., the player controls Mario as he travels through the Mushroom Kingdom in order to rescue Princess Toadstool from the antagonist...

series (except for Super Mario Bros. 2

Super Mario Bros. 2

Super Mario Bros. 2, often abbreviated SMB2, is a platform game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Entertainment System as a sequel to the 1985 game Super Mario Bros. The game was also remade as part of the Super Mario All-Stars collection for the Super Nintendo Entertainment...

) has a time limit of some capacity. These limits usually start large and are used to keep players moving instead of waiting for enemies to fall down pit

Pit

Pit or PIT may refer to:* Armpit, a body part* Ball pit, a recreation structure* Casino pit, that part of a casino which holds gaming tables* Trapping pit, pits used for hunting* Pit, one of many indentations used to store data on a Compact Disc...

s. Faster music appears when the time limit is about to be breached. Any amount of time left over is multiplied by a certain amount and added into the overall score. Time limits also appear in video games like Bébé's Kids

Bébé's Kids (video game)

Bébé's Kids is an action-oriented Super NES video game that is loosely based on the movie of the same name. The video game enjoyed a North America-exclusive release...

 and Timecop

Timecop (video game)

is a Super Nintendo Entertainment System video game that is based on the movie of the same name. Intending to be a semi-sequel, this game offers many stages not shown in the major motion picture...

; both for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System

Super Nintendo Entertainment System

The Super Nintendo Entertainment System is a 16-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America, Europe, Australasia , and South America between 1990 and 1993. In Japan and Southeast Asia, the system is called the , or SFC for short...

. Other games that have time limits for various systems include: Mario Party

Mario Party

is a party video game for the Nintendo 64 game console, developed by Hudson Soft and published by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on December 14, 1998, in North America on February 8, 1999, and in Europe on March 9, 1999...

(to determine when a mini-game ends), Street Fighter

Street Fighter

, commonly abbreviated as SF, is a series of Fighting Games developed in Japan in which the players pit the video games' competitive fighters from around the world, each with his or her own unique fighting style, against one another...

(to show how much time remains in a round), in addition to Tekken

Tekken

is an arcade fighting game franchise created and developed by Namco. Beginning with the original Tekken arcade game released in 1994, the series has received several sequels, as well as various home conversions and spin-off titles released for consoles...

.

Many video games use a time limit feature with console systems ranging from the Intellivision

Intellivision

The Intellivision is a video game console released by Mattel in 1979. Development of the console began in 1978, less than a year after the introduction of its main competitor, the Atari 2600. The word intellivision is a portmanteau of "intelligent television"...

 to the PlayStation 3

PlayStation 3

The is the third home video game console produced by Sony Computer Entertainment and the successor to the PlayStation 2 as part of the PlayStation series. The PlayStation 3 competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...

. A time limit can have several aliases associated with it: countdown timer (used mostly for continue

Continue (video gaming)

Continue is a common term in video games for the option to continue the game after all of the player's lives have been lost, rather than ending the game and restarting from the very beginning.-Arcade games:...

s), race timer (appearing in arcade racing games), minigame timer, round timer, mission timer (used in action games where players have to escape from a fatal situation), sports timer (appears in sports games like ice hockey

Ice hockey

Ice hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...

 and American football

American football

American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...

), and pre-race countdown timer (appears in most racing games).