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[Gainsworthy]

You could start with a car half-way in the hole, that blocks the player's progress. The player, coming up against the car, would push against it and the car would go down the hole, fall a really long way, explode or whatever.

That way you can indicate that the hole is deadly in a relatively non-staged-looking way, and also stop people from walking in before they notice it.

Ooh. I like that one! Nothing like interacting with a deadly object (without dying) to prove its danger.

[Wilson Saunders]

You could let the player figure it out the hard way (by killing them for the miss step). If you don't want to kill the player, you could have the avatar teater on the edge of the pit waving his arms if the player tries to walk over the pit.

[kavs]

Quick paintover I did. It'd look nicer if a) my tablet worked and b) it wasn't 1:30am. ^^

The only things I changed were the rotation of the hill and the color of the backdrop. It makes it seem more of a pit that way and helps add some contrast to the foreground/background. The added rotation/height probably isn't even necessary; I just wanted to see what it'd look like. I think the player gets used to seeing straight horizonal ground plane, so when you add in some diversity it demands extra attention and they might stop to think about why the terrain is changing like this.

I'd say you don't need to sell the idea that falling into a pit is a bad thing; just make the pit visible to the player and it should be evident that it's a bad thing to do. If they die it (should) only happen once, so no big deal. They'll just take it as a lesson learned.

 

[Klaim]

Sorry to be late, in fact in my answer what I suggested was something like this :

[Kegluneq]

As the protagonist approaches the pit, have a bad guy come charging at him and fall down the pit screaming.
As a side note: I really like the character's sprite.