Fallout

A Fallout, also known as a Fall Out or an Out of Bounds, is one of two ways to fail a stage in the Main Game, the other being the Time over. A fallout occurs whenever the game detects that the player's monkey has crossed a fallout boundary. Typically, this occurs when falling off the stage, with no solid ground beneath the player, but can occur in other ways as well.

Possible fallout methods

In Monkey Ball and Super Monkey Ball, a fallout can only occur by falling too far below the stage, as fallout boundaries were only placed below the stage (in some cases, immediately below the stage, such as in Twin Cross).

Starting in Super Monkey Ball 2, fallouts became possible by being launched too far away from the stage horizontally, even before falling below the height of the stage. This is because horizontal fallout boundaries a certain distance away from each stage were introduced. This ensures the player won't have to wait too long when being launched off the stage to die, as depending on how much height they get, it may take a while to reach the lower fallout boundary.

Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania introduced one final way to fall out; by going too far above the stage, due to the introduction of upper fallout boundaries. This is only practically possible on specific stages, such as the Challenge Mode version of Launchers, but upper fallout boundaries exist on all stages. Confusingly, this means it is possible to "fall out" despite there being safe, solid ground beneath the player that they can easily land on upon descending again.

A fallout cannot occur after entering a Goal, even if the player crosses a fallout boundary after crossing the goal.

Effects

Triggering a fallout fails the stage. This causes the following:

• If playing in Challenge Mode, the player will lose one life. If no lives remain, the player will be offered a chance to Continue, or will receive a game over if none remain or if the player chooses not to use a continue.
  • If playing in Challenge Mode in Banana Mania, the fallout count for that attempt will increase by one instead.
• If playing in Story Mode, the player will be asked if they want to try again or quit the stage.
• An instant replay will play in most games, and a replay can be saved at this point.
• Either way, the player will have to restart the stage from the beginning, with the stage and time limit being reset, and (in most games) the bananas being reset as well.