This article is about a video game concept. For a game show bonus round, see Bonus round.
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Bonus stage" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR(July 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this message)
A bonus stage (also known as a bonus level, bonus round, or special stage) is a special level within a video game designed to reward the player or players, and typically allows the player to collect extra points or power-ups. Bonus stage either have no enemies or hazards, or replace the normal penalties for being struck by enemies or hazards with simply being thrown out of the bonus stage. Many bonus stages need to be activated or discovered in some manner, or certain conditions must be satisfied to access them. Otherwise, they may appear after the player has completed a certain number of regular stages.[1] They are often much shorter than regular stages.
Unlike most regular stages, a bonus stage does not normally have to be completed to move on. While a regular stage must be replayed until completion, possibly using up lives or continues upon failures, when a player begins a bonus stage they have one chance at it. Some bonus stages do contain an end location or condition to reach, but regardless of whether the player succeeds or fails, game play resumes at the next regular stage after one attempt. Other bonus stages have no end to reach, the player must simply survive as long as they can before inevitably failing at some point. Some bonus stages have a short time limit, where the player must either complete the stage before the time runs out, or simply survive until the clock runs down to zero. As bonus stages are often shorter and over in one attempt, players cannot as easily practice and perfect their play through of them in the same way as regular stages that permit or demand more attempts upon failure.
Namco's 1980 arcade game Rally-X was one of the first to feature a bonus stage.[2] In some games, bonus stages have an interface and game paradigm that is completely different from the rest of the game, as in the slot machine bonus stage of Super Mario Bros. 2. Other bonus stages use the same gaming paradigm as the rest of the game, as in the car smashing bonus stage of Street Fighter II, or the bonus stages in Super Monkey Ball, where players collect bananas to earn extra points and lives.
^"The Next Generation 1996 Lexicon A to Z". Next Generation. No. 15. Imagine Media. March 1996. p. 30. Typically, bonus levels are either hidden and require discovery or appear after a certain number of regular levels have been completed.
A bonusstage (also known as a bonus level, bonus round, or special stage) is a special level within a video game designed to reward the player or players...
overall time limit, and each stage completion adds bonus time to that time limit. Both the starting time limit and the bonus time can be adjusted. In the...
every vegetable collected. Finally, a bonus score is rewarded if a player manages to climb to the top of the bonusstage and jump up and grab the Condor. The...
same name as the album is called the title track. A bonus track (also known as a bonus cut or bonus) is a piece of music which has been included as an...
stage ends. The "Blue Sphere" special stages from Sonic the Hedgehog 3 also return, repurposed as bonusstages that are accessed by entering a portal...
interrupted, leading to him joining Fubuki to play cooperatively in X. In the bonusstage of X, he was defeated by Mister 20. After the tournament ended, he wears...
ride minecarts and animals, defeat enemies and bosses, and find secret bonusstages. In multiplayer modes, two players work cooperatively or race each other...
At stage 1 and every 10th stage thereafter, the enemies do not fire on the player when entering the screen. After completing Earth's bonusstage, the...
Currently, there is a bonus of €405 ($475) for every child in Lithuania. Luxembourg's baby bonus system is split into three stages, known as allocation...
re-released on September 20, 2005, and included three previously unreleased bonus tracks. The album introduces the husband and wife characters Coheed and...
Ladislao Bonus (June 27, 1854 – March 28, 1908) was a Filipino composer, conductor, contrabass player, and teacher. His pioneering work on musical drama...
intended that bonus rounds such as the car-smashing stage from earlier Street Fighter games would return. Ono later stated that the bonusstages would not...
chests that will have the player searching the stage for items in order to access a special bonusstage. It ran on the Namco Libble Rabble hardware, one...
projectiles and diving down at a faster rate. The third stage and every fourth thereafter is a bonusstage, where the aliens fly in a preset formation without...
target costs one life until the game ends. After every second round, a bonusstage has ducks flying out of the grass with the hunting dog occasionally jumping...
publisher, as it was "a better fit" for the game and game's message. BonusStage gave the game a positive review, praising the gameplay, story, and message...
construction site from his boss battle features as one of the stages. The car-vandalizing bonusstage was later used in early versions of Street Fighter II....
in 2021. On 7 April 2022, a full version of the game was published by BonusStage Publishing for Steam and the Xbox Games Store. The full version of the...
Global Information