Arcade Games
A level is eventually reached where the game no longer provides enough time for a player to finish.
After completing Wave 102, the game will crash and reset.
During each loop, the chasing dinosaur gets faster, and eventually the player is no longer able to outrun it. On Loop 6, the cage room, the only way to get past the dinosaur is to use a glitch - otherwise that would be a kill screen. But this means that Loop 7, either screen 6 or 7, is now a kill screen. Screen 6 can be passed with use of the bonus to skip a screen, but that only means 7 is the kill screen.
The 256th screen spawns with a glitched layout, monsters in the dirt, no starting tunnels, and a monster spawns right on top of the player - resulting in instant death upon level start.
At the beginning of loop 5, the game crashes completely.
The 22nd level contains a bug that kills Mario after a short amount of time, preventing a player from reaching the top of the girder screen.
The kill screen in Galaga functions differently per difficulty level. On Rank A, the game crashes on level 256. On Ranks B and C, level 256 is shown as "Stage 0", which remains on screen and no enemies ever come out. On Rank D, the game loops back to Stage 1 and the player can proceed.
On level 146, the maze is not drawn correctly, leaving the play area completely blank, and the player cannot proceed.
Ms. Pac-Man does have a specific kill screen. After clearing level 133, depending on various unclear factors, a player may get from 1-8 more levels, before running into the kill screen. The kill screen will draw the maze upside down, and upon dying the game will crash and restart.
The 256th level is drawn with the entire right-hand side of the screen covered in garbage. While the level can be played, there aren't enough dots drawn to trigger moving on to the next level.
Retro Game Mechanics Explained has dedicated
an entire video to explaining what happens on this level.
The 256th level is the kill screen.
Console Games
