History Main / Cap

** The {{UsefulNotes/NES}} and UsefulNotes/GameBoy versions of ''VideoGame/{{Tetris}}'' cap score at 999,999 points. The former has no caps on anything else, really. If you clear 1,000 lines, it will be displayed as A00, then B00, etc. Past "Z99" lines will make the game start using random symbols for the hundreds digit. Same goes with the counters for each piece. These counters will loop back around to 000 after clearing 25,600 lines or getting that many of a piece. The level counter will start to cycle through a pseudo-random sequences of two hexadecimal digits after level 30. The game also starts to break pretty horribly after that, requiring you to pause and resume to keep the game going. The level counter will go back to 00 after 256 levels.

* ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarI'', being an 8-bit UsefulNotes/SegaMasterSystem game, had some classic ones.
** Meseta (money) capped at 65,535, easy enough to achieve late in the game when there is [[MoneyForNothing nothing left to buy]] except some occasional healing.

** Also, no monster had more than 255 HP, the final battle is actually implemented as [[ActuallyFourMooks two monsters]] but their HP isn't shown.
* ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarIV'' had a glitch that served as a rather brutal Level Cap: starting from level 97 onwards, gaining additional levels either ''decreased'' your stats, increased stats for characters who couldn't make use of them or reduced the maximum number of uses for their abilities to 0, making them permanently unuseable. This was thankfully fixed in the Virtual Console rerelease.

* In the original UsefulNotes/PC88 version of ''VideoGame/YsIAncientYsVanishedOmen'', and its Windows PC remake, your level cap was Level 24 at 65,535 EXP, resulting in the battle with Dark Fact being very long and hard. ''Ys I and [[VideoGame/YsIIAncientYsVanishedTheFinalChapter II]]'' for the UsefulNotes/TurboGrafx16 had a different leveling scale and was capped at 99,999, making the Fact battle much easier if you level-ground enough. The [=TurboGrafx16=] game still caps the purse at 65,535 gold.

* ''Desert Falcon'', another UsefulNotes/Atari2600 game, had a score counter that went back to zero, but had the side-effect of making the score climb more quickly, so it took less time to break the cap again, which made the score climb even faster, etc.

* ''VideoGame/MushihimeSama Futari'' versions 1.01 and 1.5 have a score cap of 3,999,999,999 points. The Black Label version averts this. However, the UsefulNotes/Xbox360 port once again has one; it is possible to reach 9,999,999,999 points in ArrangeMode.

* The UsefulNotes/TurboGrafx16 pinball game ''VideoGame/AlienCrush'' has a score cap of 999,999,900 points. If you manage to max it out, the entire table explodes and you are given the message [[AWinnerIsYou "Congratulations !! You are the greatest player"]]. After that, the game immediately takes you to the high score list for you to enter your initials.

* 32-bit time variables on Unix-like systems will roll over in a few decades unless they are changed to 64-bit variables. They store the current date and time as seconds since January 1, 1970 at midnight. The number of seconds will go over [[UsefulNotes/PowersOfTwoMinusOne 2³¹-1]] on January 19, 2038. Older UsefulNotes/AppleMacintosh systems store the date and time as an unsigned 32-bit integer counting the number of seconds since January 1, 1904; this will go over 2^32-1 at February 6, 2040. (Fortunately, it's relatively easily fixed for good. Moving all our time fields into 64 bit variables won't be trivial, but once we have the next rollover will happen on December 4, ''292,277,026,596''. For those keeping score at home, [[TimeAbyss at that point the universe will be over 21 times its current age]] and we will probably not be using Unix anymore.)

* Each game in the ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' series has various caps, but SPECIAL stats always cap at 10:

* ''VideoGame/TokyoXtremeRacer Zero'' caps your speed at 263 mph. ''Tokyo Xtreme Racer 3'' caps your money at 99,999,990 credits. Then there's a boss that, thanks to the developers not adjusting its money requirement for the US version, requires more money than this cap, making her [[GameBreakingBug impossible to challenge]]. Since she, along with the rest of the first 599 opponents, must be defeated to face the GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere FinalBoss, the game is [[UnintentionallyUnwinnable Unwinnable]] without cheating.

* ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4'' - Out of all the enemies, exactly ''one'' type has a damage cap: the chainsaw wielding enemies, with their horrific one-hit kill. No more than about 6 damage can be done to them with any one hit. This leads to players wasting magnum (up to 50 damage) and rifle (up to 30 damage) shots on the strangely protected enemies. Without the damage cap, a single 50 damage magnum shot would easily take out Dr. Salvadore's 40+ HitPoints. It's also disconcerting to the player using the magnum, since it takes about eight shots to put down Dr. Salvadore for good, adding to his monstrous reputation.

See also: ScratchDamage and PinballScoring. Overflows can easily be GoodBadBugs.

* ''VideoGame/TheGuardianLegend'' has an extreme example of this. Older versions of the game will '''crash''' if you max out the score. This is especially bad, since the game gives you [[EveryTenThousandPoints life-increase bonuses when you reach certain plateaus.]]

** In the first act of ''[[VideoGame/Sonic3AndKnuckles Sonic the Hedgehog 3]]'''s Launch Base Zone, there is a way to summon an infinite series of robots and destroy them almost instantly. Do this until you run out of time several times, and you will have the maximum score and a LOT of lives (more than 200). Here's how to do it: [[spoiler:There's an alarm near the beginning of a level that summons a flying robot. If you do a power up for a spin dash and don't release down, the robot will fly into you and be destroyed--and another will be summoned. When you destroy several monsters in succession, the score you gain goes up: 100 for the first, 200, then 500, then 1,000. After about a 14 monsters, the score goes up to a cap of 10,000 and you get a new life [[EveryTenThousandPoints every 50,000 points]]). There is a life cap and a score cap, and eventually you'll reach one of them.]]

* ''VideoGame/{{Galaga}}'' can only display 6 digits for the first player, but can display 7 digits on the second player's side. Either will roll over when it exceeds its limit. For this reason, very skilled players will play on the 2P side so they don't have to keep track of the millions. Also, for whatever reason, [[EveryTenThousandPoints extra lives]] stop being given after 1,000,000 points.

* ''VideoGame/FZero GX'' has a record time cap: if you get a low enough time on a course, it will not have an internet ranking password for it; i.e., Big Blue Ordeal won't give you a password if your time is under 1'20". How are such times possible? You [[GameBreaker exploit hidden checkpoints to trick the game into thinking you're going all the way around the course when in fact you're just going circles around the finish line.]]

** In ''VideoGame/PokemonSleep'', the Pokémon level cap depends on your current Research Level, which increases until Lv. 100.

** In ''VideoGame/PokemonSleep'', Pokémon levels cap at your current Research Level, which increases until Lv. 100.

* ''VideoGame/PrayerOfTheFaithless'': The party can only hold ten of each consumable. At the end of the game, the cap gets raised to twenty because both parties' inventories are combined.

* In the old ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'' games, the time is capped at 9 minutes and 59 seconds, with the added caveat that you die if you reach that time.

* The DS ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'' games have hard modes that will let you set a cap on how high your max level will reach. ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaOrderOfEcclesia'' is the only one that actually lets you increase it up to 255...but only after you [[BraggingRightsReward beat the game on Hard with a level cap of 1]] or [[OldSaveBonus link the game with]] ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaJudgment''.

* A man has essentially ''[[http://www.joystiq.com/2010/04/30/man-beats-bejeweled-2-after-playing-for-3-years/ beaten Bejeweled 2]]'' by exceeding [[UsefulNotes/PowersOfTwoMinusOne 2,147,483,647 (2^31-1)]] points, causing the score display to go blank.

* 32-bit time variables on Unix-like systems will roll over in a few decades unless they are changed to 64-bit variables. They store the current date and time as seconds since January 1, 1970 at midnight. The number of seconds will go over [[UsefulNotes/PowersOfTwoMinusOne 2^31-1]] on January 19, 2038. Older UsefulNotes/AppleMacintosh systems store the date and time as an unsigned 32-bit integer counting the number of seconds since January 1, 1904; this will go over 2^32-1 at February 6, 2040. (Fortunately, it's relatively easily fixed for good. Moving all our time fields into 64 bit variables won't be trivial, but once we have the next rollover will happen on December 4, ''292,277,026,596''. For those keeping score at home, [[TimeAbyss at that point the universe will be over 21 times its current age]] and we will probably not be using Unix anymore.)

* ''VideoGame/TheCompactTree'': Dust that can be owned at once is capped based on compactors.

%%
%%
%% This list of examples has been alphabetized. Please add your example in the proper place. Thanks!
%%
%%

%%
%%
%% This list of examples has been alphabetized. Please add your example in the proper place. Thanks!
%%
%%

%%
%%
%% This list of examples has been alphabetized. Please add your example in the proper place. Thanks!
%%
%%

%%
%%
%% This list of examples has been alphabetized. Please add your example in the proper place. Thanks!
%%
%%

%%
%%
%% This list of examples has been alphabetized. Please add your example in the proper place. Thanks!
%%
%%

%%
%%
%% This list of examples has been alphabetized. Please add your example in the proper place. Thanks!
%%
%%

* The ''VideoGame/TetrisTheGrandMaster'' series has a unique kind of level cap. You gain 1 level every time you drop a piece or clear a line, but once you are one level below a multiple of 100 or level 999 (the last level), your level stops increasing until you clear a line. This seems useful at first, but causes you to waste time if you're going for a time-sensitive rank, or if the mode you're in has a ''torikan'' (a checkpoint that, if reached too slowly, yields a NonstandardGameOver).
* The ''Panel De Pon''/''Tetris Attack''/''Puzzle League'' games allow you to actually ''set'' the cap, at either 99,999 or 999,999 points.
** The original only had the 99,999-point cap. Hitting it in Endless mode gave you different music on the results screen.
*** There is also a sort of cap on chains in the first game; chains are handled properly up to x13, but after that, additional hits are displayed as x? and don't award points. Similarly, combos are only displayed properly up to 30, with larger combos simply displayed as 30.
* ''VideoGame/{{Tetris}} Friends'' in Arena Mode caps players' ratings at 19,999. The reason for this strange number seems to stem from the game's ratings-based ranks. A new rank is awarded every 1,000 points (so players with a 0-999 rating are "Newbies", 1,000-1,999 are "Novices", etc.), and it appears they simply ran out of rank names. Of course, the ratings are moot anyways since the entire Top 100 leaderboard is tied at 19,999, due to the ability to prevent ratings decreases entirely via BribingYourWayToVictory.
* The {{UsefulNotes/NES}} and UsefulNotes/GameBoy versions of ''VideoGame/{{Tetris}}'' cap score at 999,999 points. The former has no caps on anything else, really. If you clear 1,000 lines, it will be displayed as A00, then B00, etc. Past "Z99" lines will make the game start using random symbols for the hundreds digit. Same goes with the counters for each piece. These counters will loop back around to 000 after clearing 25,600 lines or getting that many of a piece. The level counter will start to cycle through a pseudo-random sequences of two hexadecimal digits after level 30. The game also starts to break pretty horribly after that, requiring you to pause and resume to keep the game going. The level counter will go back to 00 after 256 levels.
** ''Tetris DX'' (the GBC version) caps score at 9,999,999 points.
* ''Tetris DS'' can display a maximum of 99,999,999 points. If you exceed this amount, it will display that maximum, but your score won't be saved.
** The line and level counters will cap at 999; you'll reach the cap on those a very long time before you reach the score cap.
* The max score in ''{{VideoGame/Bookworm}}'' is 2.14 billion according to Creator/PopCap.

* The second ''VideoGame/{{Warcraft}}'' game had a unit editor. The maximum damage dealt by a unit and hit points possessed by a unit were 255 and 65,535, respectively.
* ''VideoGame/PopulousTheBeginning'' had a tribe size limit of 200 (or more often 199) pushing it to far above this (using an the hypnotism spell exploit) would make the game unstable.

* ''VideoGame/TheAncientArtOfWar'' had a cap to how many units total could be visible on the map at any time, ''total'' - not per side. You could group troops into units. This allowed for a strategy of making many weak units to force the computer to create stronger units - but fewer and thus easier for the player to avoid.

* Many of the Endless modes in the console versions of ''VideoGame/DanceDanceRevolution'' have caps that can be reached in a "reasonable" amount of play. In particular, the system used in X and X2 caps at 9,999,999,999,999,999 (one less than ten quadrillion) points, at which point the player's run ends. In 4thMIX the cap is at 10^32 - 1, while in 3rdMIX the cap is 10^72 - 1.
** Furthermore, it has been observed that clearing the song where the player reached the score cap in 3rdMIX Endless, causes Endless mode to actually end, with a "Congratulations!!" message.

%%
%%
%% This list of examples has been alphabetized. Please add your example in the proper place. Thanks!
%%
%%

%%
%%
%% This list of examples has been alphabetized. Please add your example in the proper place. Thanks!
%%
%%

* ''VideoGame/{{Parameters}}'': Multiple things are capped:
** The log count time in deciseconds as its lowest number: min:secs:ds, and caps at 99:99:99.
** The multiple armor and attack upgrade squares are capped at 9 uses.

* The original version of ''[[VideoGame/DonPachi DoDonPachi Daifukkatsu]]'' capped score at 99,999,999,999 points. This could be reached by many players on the first loop of a [[NewGamePlus two-loop game]]. Version 1.5 which came out about a month later added two digits to the score counter.
* ''VideoGame/MushihimeSama Futari'' versions 1.01 and 1.5 have a score cap of 3,999,999,999 points. The Black Label version averts this. However, the UsefulNotes/Xbox360 port once again has one; it is possible to reach 9,999,999,999 points in ArrangeMode.
* ''VideoGame/{{Guwange}}'' has a score cap of 99,999,999 points, which has been reached.
** The Xbox 360 port [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCFw8hSQkpg&feature=related adds an extra digit, though]] (start at 5:23)
* ''VideoGame/{{Galaga}}'' can only display 6 digits for the first player, but can display 7 digits on the second player's side. Either will roll over when it exceeds its limit. For this reason, very skilled players will play on the 2P side so they don't have to keep track of the millions. Also, for whatever reason, [[EveryTenThousandPoints extra lives]] stop being given after 1,000,000 points.
* ''VideoGame/FantasyZone'' caps score at 99,999,990 points, which can only be reached by looping the game ''many'' times. The stage counter also stops at 99, which can be reached on the 13th loop. However, the game's NintendoHard; not many gamers can clear the game even once.
* Creator/DataEast shmup ''Battle Wings'' will automatically increase your score to 9,999,999 points if you clear the game. If you go over 10 million points before the end, your score will increase to 99,999,999 points.
* ''[[VideoGame/DonPachi DoDonPachi Saidaioujou]]'' appears to store your combo bonus counter in fixed-point format (similar to the Disgaea series, see below) due to the addition of non-integral multipliers, resulting in a cap of 21,474,836 after any active multipliers are applied. However, for whatever strange reason, if this counter overflows, it displays 999,999,999 in narrower-than-usual digits (note that the font usually doesn't change at all; when the counter hits 8 digits, the 8th digit simply runs into the "+" next to the counter) and adds a ridiculous amount of points to your score. [[http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm19892408 These]] [[http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm18383861 videos]] (Website/NicoNicoDouga, free registration and login required) show players exploiting it to earn over a ''trillion'' points in under a minute. At least CAVE seems to have learned their lesson about unexpectedly high scores, since the score counter gracefully shows 13 digits this time around.
* ''VideoGame/RiverRaid'' actually [[KillScreen ends]] when you reach the score cap. The counter shows six digits, and when you score what would be 1,000,000, the counter changes to "!!!!!!" and your plane explodes.
* ''Desert Falcon'', another UsefulNotes/Atari2600 game, had a score counter that went back to zero, but had the side-effect of making the score climb more quickly, so it took less time to break the cap again, which made the score climb even faster, etc.
* ''VideoGame/{{Hellsinker}}'' takes this and turns it into one of the games main scoring mechanics. You extra lives are capped depending on difficulty selected with less lives on higher ones. However hitting the life cap actually makes it so that you get an Immortality bonus whenever you get an extra life that starts scaling with each successful one.
* In ''VideoGame/DangunFeveron'', the bonus multiplier maxes out at 999.

* The original ''VideoGame/EscapeVelocity'' game had a cap on the amount of ships in a star system; this meant that, if you filled that number up with your own escorts and fighters, you could then command tribute from planets - who, not being able to send out any of their defense fleet, were forced to surrender. All you had to do was ask twice.
** The sequels still had caps on how many ships could be present in a star system, but fixed the exploit by mandating that a planet's defense fleet had to be ''destroyed'' for them to surrender. Of course, if you had enough escorts and fighters to almost hit the cap, the planet would send out waves of a ''single'' ship...

* ''Videogame/TraumaCenter: Under the Knife'' had a cap for the amount of lacerations that the Kyriaki [[FunWithAcronyms GUILT]] strain could inflict on a patient. After 9 or 10 cuts, it would stop slicing the patient's organs apart so you were free to kill it pretty easily as long as you can keep rubbing them with antibiotic gel and jabbing needles into the patient. Strangely enough, this only seemed to affect the Kyriaki because other GUILT strains could inflict countless lacerations on the patients.
* One ridiculous example of this is ''VideoGame/HarvestMoonDS'', which features several mines that go deeper and deeper. The second mine has 255 levels. The third has 999. The fourth ''has 65,535 levels''.

* In ''VideoGame/CodeNameSteam'', the highest score attainable at the end of a mission is 9,999 medals.

* ''VideoGame/{{Fairyside}}'':
** Attack can only be raised with credits to 5.
** Knockback can only be raised with credits to 6.
* ''VideoGame/GoingUnder'': Debt can't be deeper than -100 before it stops letting you go more in debt.
* Similar to the ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto'' series, earlier ''VideoGame/{{Driver}}'' games have a limit of four police cars chasing you. But given their [[LemmingCops kamikaze tendencies]] of [[RammingAlwaysWorks ramming into you at full speed]], four of them are easily enough to give you a lot of headaches.

* Pretty much any Data East or Sega game has a cap of 9,999,999,990 - but your score merely stops increasing, as opposed to rolling over.

* ''Psycho Pinball'', in common with most pinball games, had the capacity for astronomical scores; unfortunately, the scoreboard only registered nine digits, so you had to track the number of billions manually. (I have reached three and a half billion a couple of times.)
* Early versions of ''[[Pinball/CaptainFantastic Capt. Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy]]'' only had five digit reels to display players' scores; when a player rolled over the score, the message "Over the Top" would light up on the backglass. Later versions added a sixth digit to the display instead.
* Done intentionally in ''[[VideoGame/ProPinballBigRaceUSA Pro Pinball: Big Race USA]]'', as your fare meter cannot go over $1,000,000. If this happens, you're supposed to go to Jay's Junk and buy the "Million Dollar Madness" WizardMode.
* ''Pinball/TalesOfTheArabianNights'' rolls the score over at a billion points, even though there's no technical reason to do so. Since the game averts PinballScoring, even reaching 100 million points is a remarkable achievement.

* The Mansion Rooms in ''Pinball/TheAddamsFamily'' provide a predetermined award (which the player is notified of in advance), and demonstrates why caps exist: The game will let you enter as many Mansion Rooms as you're able to, and the number will keep going up and up. The issue is that the machine was programmed only up to the [[UsefulNotes/PowersOfTwoMinusOne 255th]] Mansion Room. After that, the machine starts looking for award data in game code not meant for the Mansion Rooms, causing a lot of weird glitches and bugs. Most of these are bugs though, with the glitched awards mostly being ludicrously large (but random-looking) amounts of points.
* Prior to ''Pinball/GameOfThrones'' which needed to (and does) handle scores over 10 billion, many modern-era Stern games roll over at 2^32 (4,294,967,296). When this happens, the game will insert a '4' into the ones' digit of your score (presumably since it's trying to subtract 2^32 from your score), and if it happens again, it becomes an '8'. Unfortunately, the high score table also does not track the actual score.

* The TabletopGame RPG based off of the ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' series even has a damage cap (of 999), simulating the cap of the console games.

* ''TabletopGame/HcSvntDracones'': Traits range from 1 to 5 dice, Mind and Body traits can't get past 3 without augmentations, and the surgeries that enable higher traits can only be used to raise traits from 4 to 5 three times. Proficiencies range from 0 to 4 dots, the number of 3-dot skills that a character can have is limited by their Mind:Strength stat and achieving 4 dots in a proficiency requires a special quest. And the number of Focus abilities is limited by the number of proficiencies at 3 dots or higher.
* ''TabletopGame/RedMarkets'' has "potentials" in place of ability scores, which limit the max level of a related skill. A character's potentials can be raised in-game, but it's expensive.
* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' has an unofficial limit of models having a maximum of 10 [[HitPoints wounds]], which is not coincidentally also the highest damage that can be done with the most powerful weapons that use a 10-sided die to roll damage. Although the system is perfectly capable of handling any numbers you care to choose, no models have been released that exceed these; since the only models that tough are greater demons, avatars of gods and the like, none are likely to.

* ''Webcomic/KidRadd'' plays with this trope, making sloppy programming of damage cap calculation a [[http://www.bgreco.net/kidradd/comic335.htm major plot point.]]

* Fanfiction.net stores the wordcount as an unsigned 24-bit integer. Fanfic/TheLoudHouseRevamped was the first fanfic to hit this cap, and as a result, nobody knows how long this {{Doorstopper}} is.

* The current highest possible one-day score on ''Series/{{Jeopardy}}'' is $566,400. This is only obtainable under if ALL of the following conditions are met:
** One player has to respond to all clues correctly, completely shutting out the other two contestants.
** The first round's Daily Double has to be in the $200 slot (the current lowest value per clue).
** The second round's two Daily Doubles have to be in the $400 position in two different categories.
** The Daily Doubles MUST be the last clues selected in their respective rounds.
** The contestant must go double-or-nothing on all three Daily Doubles and respond correctly to each.
** The contestant must also go double-or-nothing on the Final Jeopardy clue and, once again, respond correctly.
* ''Series/WheelOfFortune'' ran into this when they got a contestant who won more than $100,000 (this was when the show had returning champions). Only the last 5 digits fit on the electronic board, prompting the production team to draw a "1" on a piece of paper and hand it to Sajak so he could hold it up next to the other digits.
* ''Series/PressYourLuck'''s score displays for the contestants could only fit six characters: one for the dollar sign and five for the digits. When Michael Larson broke the $100,000 barrier in his infamous performance, the score display just showed the number without the dollar sign, i.e., "110237" instead of "$110237".
* ''Series/ThePriceIsRight'' also had a cap on the display board for the one bid games. There was only enough room for a dollar sign and 4 digits, which wasn't a problem until some contestants wanted to gain attention by making bids in the tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions. When the display boards were upgraded to run with more current technology, contestants that make ridiculous bids can have their bids fit on the board.
** So far, there has actually been one ''serious'' use case of allowing five-digit bids: one of the One Bid items in a 2017 "Dream Car Week" episode was... a car!
* ''[[Series/DoubleDare1986 Family Double Dare]]'' originally used the three-digit scoreboards in the upfront game but one family dominated with a $1,050 blowout win. The display could only read "050" leading to Marc claiming they broke the scoreboard.
* When ''Nadia Comaneci'' scored the world's first perfect 10 at an Olympic gymnastics event, the scoreboard could not correctly display the result, so some brief confusion occured when it showed "1.0" instead.
* Baseball stadium scoreboards have frequently been subject to caps, depending on the type of scoreboard used. Manually operated scoreboards usually only hold ten innings' worth of information, and are often limited to showing up to nine runs per inning; if ten runs or more score in an inning, it's usually displayed only with the last digit. Digital (non high-definition) scoreboards also tend to have caps that can only count up to nineteen runs and/or innings per team per game. An modern example of a capped digital scoreboard can be seen in [[https://youtu.be/N5oqi9zruyQ Chase Field in Phoenix, Arizona,]] where the New York Yankees beat the Atlanta Braves 20-6, but it looks like "0-6" due to the lack of that first "2".

* In the ''VideoGame/{{SaGa|RPG}}'' series:
** Characters in ''VideoGame/TheFinalFantasyLegend'' have a visible HP cap of 999. However, human characters don't get HP from levels or other internal stats; they get them from buying HP-increasing items. The items themselves are at least partially capped in their effectiveness (use enough and even the most powerful variety only adds 1 HP) -- but can increase the value well over 999.
** In the [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyLegendII second game]], Humans and Mutants have a chance of their stats increasing at the end of battle, with that chance going up if they happened to use that particular stat in that battle (casting spells for Magic or taking damage for HP, for instance). They can't gain attributes past the cap of 999 HP or 99 Strength, Agility, Magic, or Defense, but a naked Human or Mutant could level to the cap and then put on armor or use rare stat-boosting items to break it. Robots don't level up permanently but can also break the displayed stat cap by wearing multiple copies of powerful equipment. ([[spoiler:Or by using a bug to give them potentially infinite amounts of agility.]]) However, stats will loop around to 0 if they go over 255. And for whatever strange reason, some calculations involving agility only use the last two digits of it, so a character with 100 agility is slow as molasses. Meanwhile, ''damage'' caps are completely absent here; you can do five-digit damage long before it was possible in most {{Role Playing Game}}s if you have enough strength, agility, and the game's InfinityPlusOneSword.
** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyLegendIII'' just does away with trying to cap your HP (displayed as 999 if exceeded) and core stats (which still actually cap at 255 but only display as 99 if you have more). You can see someone's actual max HP if you revive them in battle; the amount of HP recovery will be displayed in full. A level 99 human or mutant will have max HP in the 2,000s ([[AbsurdlyHighLevelCap though realistically the game can comfortably be completed with levels in the 40s]] and the display cap would barely be an issue). Robots can just go nuts; they get stronger in the same way humans did in the first game.
*** The DS remake completely overhauls the level system with a StatGrinding system like the other ''[=SaGa=]'' games and uses your base stats as a human as the standard, with a cap of 1999 for HP and 99 for other stats. Other classes' stats are calculated as percentages of your human stats. For example, Beasts have 120% the HP of humans, so their HP can go up to 2,399. They have 90% strength, so their max strength would be 89. These are only the base stat caps; they can be exceeded with equipment bonuses.
*** The ability "Swallow" might actually cause an overflow glitch - only one boss (Dahak) can experience this. If he manages to use Swallow on the entire party, he recovers health in accordance to the damage dealt. However, if this exceeds his max HP, it will go into the negative value and the battle is considered "over".
* In the first two ''VideoGame/StarOcean'' games, the PlayerCharacter health cap is 9,999 HP, as is the damage cap. Monster health is by no means so capped. So while your mages do ''less'' damage per second compared to your fighters, and eventually lose hope of one-shotting late-game enemies even when hitting the damage cap, your mages were still important in preventing enemies from getting ''their'' spells off. After all, if your mage hits cap then the enemy's still standing, but if their spell hits the cap your party is wiped...

* ''VideoGame/TheForceUnleashed'' has its own currency for upgrading force powers, stats and learning new attacks. If you manage to buy every upgrade and still play until you get around 80/90 points (it differs from player to player) you enter a mode that rewards you with unlimited health and unlimited force energy to do even more insane actions.

* ''VideoGame/BattleGaregga'' rolls over oddly: the score counter has 7 digits, and when you achieve what is supposed to be 10,000,000 points, instead of the score counter simply maxing out at 9,999,990, it instead continues rising... but now the millions digit is a letter instead of a number, so a score of 10,000,000 will read as "A,000,000," 11 million is "B,000,000," and so on. The world record is somewhere around "K" million[[note]]20,000,000[[/note]] points.
** [[https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/0001_6757.png Ditto with its]] SpiritualSuccessor ''VideoGame/ArmedPoliceBatrider''
* UrbanLegendOfZelda time: the early ''VideoGame/{{Asteroids}}'' arcade machine would apparently progressively slow down and grind to a halt if you collected enough lives, as the computer drew a little ship in the corner of the screen for each life you had, and would naturally take longer to draw more of them.
** Apparently there was also a limit of 30 asteroids on the screen at once ([[UsefulNotes/PowersOfTwoMinusOne 32 objects]], minus one for the player ship, minus one for the enemy ship?), so if you started with enough and shot them in the right order, some of the larger ones would only leave one smaller one behind instead of the usual two.
* Even though [[PinballScoring the scores can get ridiculous]] in ''VideoGame/GigaWing'', the cap on score is in no danger of being hit (the world record of 294,631,625,840,450 points is still a far cry from the cap of 9,999,999,999,999,990 points). However, the cap on your score multiplier is 49,999,999, which can very well be reached by a skilled enough player.

* ''VideoGame/{{Espgaluda}} II'' also has a score cap of 3,999,999,999 although the world record is under a billion; the cap has only ever been hit by exploiting a bug in the [=iOS=] port. The ArrangeMode in the Xbox 360 version lifts this cap, although if you have the detailed score display turned on, that display glitches when trying to show a number above 9,999,999,999; the first two digits get replaced by characters after the digit '9' in ASCII (so 10 billion would be ":000000000", 11 billion is ";000000000", 12 billion is "<000000000", and so on).

* ''VideoGame/BattleBakraid'' originally capped the score at 63,999,990, which was a bit too easy to reach. On the Unlimited Version, which removed this limit, expert players have scored nearly twice as many points.

* ''VideoGame/CubeColossus'': A level cap of 99 for:
** Weapon Proficiency
** Shield
** Energy
** Attack
* ''VideoGame/{{Parameters}}'': Multiple things are capped:
** The log count time in deciseconds as its lowest number: min:secs:ds, and caps at 99:99:99.
** The multiple armor and attack upgrade squares are capped at 9 uses.

* ''VideoGame/{{Boktai}}'' infamously had very high item caps. You could carry 99 of each individual type of item, and having 8 different kinds of health-replenishing apples ''alone'' that were handed out in ludicrous quantities for good ratings in levels (often as many as ''20'' apples at a time), it meant it was almost impossible to die (it was ''difficult'' to reach even Sol City without apples in the high 80s). Later games amended this by having not only limited inventory space but also items that could spoil in time to prevent hoarding the good ones.

* In the often forgotten port of ''VideoGame/NinjaGaiden'' for the Master System your counter for specials maxes out at 999 but once you hit this cap it doesn't decrease, which would make it a GameBreaker if it wasn't NintendoHard by the latter levels.

%%
%%
%% This list of examples has been alphabetized. Please add your example in the proper place. Thanks!
%%
%%

%%
%%
%%
%% This list of examples has been alphabetized. Please add your example in the proper place. Thanks!
%%
%%
%%

%%
%%
%%
%% This list of examples has been alphabetized. Please add your example in the proper place. Thanks!
%%
%%
%%

%%
%%
%%
%% This list of examples has been alphabetized. Please add your example in the proper place. Thanks!
%%
%%
%%

%%
%%
%%
%% This list of examples has been alphabetized. Please add your example in the proper place. Thanks!
%%
%%
%%

* For Free-to-Play players of ''VideoGame/TheLordOfTheRingsOnline'', the cap on currency is 2 gold pieces (most items in this game cost silver, and 1 gold = 1,000 silver). Buying a quest pack makes one a premium player and raises the cap to 5 gold. Removing the currency cap entirely (either by buying the privilege with Turbine Points or getting a subscription) brings the cap to 9,999 gold, 999 silver and 99 copper.

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' had most items stack at a maximum of 99. If you gained more of the same item, it would start a new stack, thus taking up more space in your inventory. Patch 4.2 changed the item stacking cap to 999, with the exception of ShopFodder which remains at 99. Damage caps out at 99,990, but that's only achieved by boss characters whenever you fail a mechanic or let the boss hit its enrage. Later patches would have bosses deal 9,999,999 damage to ensure players that are supposed to die ''will'' die since player HP being can reach six digits.

* ''VideoGame/StarFoxAdventures'' has an inventory cap on a few items:
** The cap on Scarabs (the currency) that increases three times over the course of the game, from 10, to 50, to 100, to 200.
** Tricky has 5 [=GrubTubs'=] worth of energy, and Fox can carry up to 15 around with him to feed Tricky as needed, for a total of... 19 (because even though it only consumes one [=GrubTub=] of energy for him to perform a skill, he needs at least two within him to perform.
** Fox can carry up to 7 Bomb Spores.
** He may only carry 1 [=BaFomDad=] (read: OneUp) until he buys a holder which increases the capacity to 10. Instead of pseudo-collection like with most capped items, however, he just passes through it when he can't carry any more. He may collect it later as needed... [[MeaninglessLives if that situation ever arises.]]
* In the old ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'' games, the time is capped at 9 minutes and 59 seconds, with the added caveat that you die if you reach that time.
** In the first act of ''[[VideoGame/Sonic3AndKnuckles Sonic the Hedgehog 3]]'''s Launch Base Zone, there is a way to summon an infinite series of robots and destroy them almost instantly. Do this until you run out of time several times, and you will have the maximum score and a LOT of lives (more than 200). Here's how to do it: [[spoiler:There's an alarm near the beginning of a level that summons a flying robot. If you do a power up for a spin dash and don't release down, the robot will fly into you and be destroyed--and another will be summoned. When you destroy several monsters in succession, the score you gain goes up: 100 for the first, 200, then 500, then 1,000. After about a 14 monsters, the score goes up to a cap of 10,000 and you get a new life [[EveryTenThousandPoints every 50,000 points]]). There is a life cap and a score cap, and eventually you'll reach one of them.]]
** In ''VideoGame/Sonic3DFlickiesIsland'', you cannot have more than 9 lives at a time. The VideoGame/SonicAdvanceTrilogy has a variation of this, as the life counter only displays "9", though you can get more than 9 lives.
*** The Game Gear version of ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog1'' and the original release of ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehogCD'' also have counters that top out at nine, but excess lives could be kept in escrow.
** ''VideoGame/SonicGenerations'' has a point cap of 99,999 and a life cap of 99. Score can (theoretically) reach 6 digits, but getting an S rank in a stage usually means you've obtained a score of around 50,000. Therefore, it's highly unlikely (if not impossible) to break 6 digits.
** In ''VideoGame/KnucklesChaotix'', the most rings you can get in a level is 255. Anything beyond that gives you 4,000 points a ring. Also, the most rings you can take into a special stage is 200.
* In the original arcade version of ''VideoGame/DonkeyKong'', the score rolls over to zero at 1 million points. This is almost, but not quite, impossible to reach, due to both the high difficulty of the game and the KillScreen which ends the game at level 22. Only three such scores are recorded on Twin Galaxies. The level counter is also capped at 99, though the aforementioned KillScreen does prevent anyone from seeing this. The KillScreen itself is due to cap problems -- the time limit is supposed to increase with every stage, capped at 8,000, but this cap is only applied at the very end of the calculation, which means that the time limit for level 22 rolls over to an impossibly-low 400 before the game thinks to check anything.
* ''VideoGame/KirbysDreamLand2'' has a score cap of 9,999,990, which is possible to reach within a week or so of playing (because the score is kept unless you game over). Once you reach the cap though, anything that would add points would simply convert into one-ups, with the sound. As cool as this may seem, as you'll never worry about dying, the sound will get old after five minutes.
* ''VideoGame/RainbowIslands'' has a score cap of 9,999,990 points, unless you enter a code at the title screen which increases this cap to 99,999,990 points.
* In ''VideoGame/JazzJackrabbit'', you can only collect each weapon type up to 99 in the story levels and up to 50 in the multiplayer ones like the Battle, Treasure Hunt and Capture levels.

* ''VideoGame/{{Terraria}}'' has caps for how many items you can hold in a slot, and it depends on the item. Blocks and Ammunition have the highest cap of 999.
* ''VideoGame/LaMulana'' has caps on how many of each subweapon you can carry. The limit is 255 shurikens and 128 each of most others.
* ''VideoGame/TheFairylandStory'' counter-stops at 9,999,990 points, which can be achieved by creative score milking strategies.
* ''VideoGame/KidIcarus'' caps your hearts at 999. This can be a problem, as Pit's power increases when he reaches specific upgrade rooms after having collected enough hearts on that level (among other factors). Hearts that aren't counted because you're already at the cap don't count towards this. In stage 2-2, the upgrade room is very close to the beginning of the level; if you start the level with close to 999 hearts, easily possible with some MoneyGrinding in stage 1-4, it's impossible to activate it. (Fortunately, there are enough other upgrade rooms that you can skip this one.)
* ''VideoGame/Rockman7EP''
** Your health and weapon energy now max out at 56 instead of 28, with extra health and ammo indicated by arrows beside the respective bars. Having more than 28 in either bar will cause them to drain slowly over time.
** The cap on Energy and Weapon Energy Tanks are upped from four to seven, and Beat Call's max capacity was increased by the same amount.
* ''VideoGame/GianaSistersDS'' caps the number of extra lives Giana can have at 99.
* ''VideoGame/{{Muri}}'': A cap of 99 of each ammo type, unless they've been made [[BottomlessMagazines infinite]] by a PowerUp.

* Similar to the ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto'' series, earlier ''VideoGame/{{Driver}}'' games have a limit of four police cars chasing you. But given their [[LemmingCops kamikaze tendencies]] of [[RammingAlwaysWorks ramming into you at full speed]], four of them are easily enough to give you a lot of headaches.
* ''VideoGame/GoingUnder'': Debt can't be deeper than -100 before it stops letting you go more in debt.

* Creator/{{Gottlieb}}'s ''Pinball/JamesBond007'', a [[TimedMission time-based pinball game,]] caps the number of "Time Units" a player can have at 50 seconds.