Nintendo canceled a time-attack contest for NES Remix last week due to an exploit that some users took advantage of, said game director Koichi Hayashida on the game's Miiverse page.

The contest, Time Attack Challenge, began last month. Players were competing to see how fast they could complete a stage in which they had to control two Mario characters at once. But some individuals were able to cheat to get a faster time by repeatedly pausing and unpausing the game, so "in the interest of being as fair as possible," Nintendo ended the contest, said Hayashida.

"We know that you dedicated a lot of time and effort towards achieving your fastest time possible. We sincerely apologize for this matter, particularly because the vast majority of people played fairly," he added.

NES Remix, which remixes 8-bit Nintendo classics into minigames, was released Dec. 18 on the Wii U eShop for $14.99. You can read our full review here.