History Main / LeapOfFaith

** A careful analysis of ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry2DiddysKongQuest'''s use of this trope is [[http://www.sirlin.net/articles/the-secrets-of-donkey-kong-country-2.html available here]] In a couple of them, you can just see the top of a barrel, but not often. However, the port to the GBA made several of them more obvious, and removed a couple, such as the one at the start of the first minecart level.

* ''VideoGame/{{BUG}}!'' has a ''truckload'' of these, ''especially'' secret areas ([[ShiftingSandLand Reptilia]] comes to mind). Want to find a secret area? Just jump off into the foreground, and "hopefully" land on a platform leading to the secret area!

** ''[[VideoGame/SuperMarioBros Vs. Super Mario Bros.]]'': World 6-3, which was later palette-swapped as World 4-3 in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBrosTheLostLevels'', has the longest jump in the game, which requires Mario/Luigi to bounce off a just-offscreen Koopa Paratroopa to clear. World 5-1 in ''The Lost Levels'' has another blind jump for which you need the wind to be blowing the right direction.

[[folder: Action Adventure ]]

[[folder: Action RPG ]]

[[folder: Eastern RPG ]]

[[folder: Fighting Game ]]

[[folder: First-Person Shooter ]]

[[folder: MMORPG ]]

[[folder: Platform Game ]]

[[folder: Puzzle Game ]]

* ''VideoGame/{{Antichamber}}'': [[DoubleSubversion Double subverted]] in the first room, appropiately called "Leap of Faith". You find a shaft, an explorable area on the other side, and some letters that read "Jump". If you actually do it, [[GenreSavvy expecting some variant of this trope]], you'll fall down to the pit. However, when you come back later, the letters have changed to read "Walk". Try walking and, this time, [[SceneryAsYouGo some platforms will appear to let you cross the shaft]] - they're safe while walking, it's just that they disappear whenever you jump.

[[folder: Stealth-Based Game ]]

[[folder: Survival Horror ]]

[[folder: Western RPG ]]

[[folder: Fan Works]]

[[folder: Film ]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

[[folder: Live-Action TV ]]

[[folder: Western Animation ]]

[[folder: Real Life ]]

* ''Videogame/SaltAndSanctuary'': Reaching one of the game's {{Bonus Boss}}es, specifically one of the most story-relevant ''and'' loot-relevant, requires a downplayed version of this. You can't see the platforms, and missing one will surely lead to death by fall damage, or facing the boss at less than 100%. There ''is'' a hint that you can trust, but it's insanely subtle and you're likely to miss it unless you've been there more than once, or been told about it. [[spoiler:Follow the candles in the background]].

* ''VideoGame/ConquestOfTheCrystalPalace'' has two such levels where falls don't kill you; instead, you get bumped back to a checkpoint near where the series of pits was. In one case, you can actually fall into a pit and discover an easy-to-defeat BonusBoss that coughs up a one-of-a-kind Moon Mirror, which destroys all non-boss enemies (but ItOnlyWorksOnce).

** In the last part of the game, the Great Maze, there are a few new areas. One of them is a wooden area based on a past one, which ends with two [[BottomlessPit bottomless pits]], only one of which will actually kill you. The other leads to a necessary battle. Since they are so close together, the map won't tell you if you're too far off from the door in question, and you scroll down with both. However, although it's incredibly obvious which one is the deadly one when it scrolls down, at that point you are too far down to do anything about it but struggle until losing a life]]. Luckily those lives can be quickly replenished.

* At one point in ''VideoGame/{{Oddworld}}: Abe's Oddysee'', you come to a sheer cliff overhanging what appears to be one of the many bottomless pits which litter the game. Chanting for a hint from the helpful fireflies will give you the message [[LampshadeHanging "Leap of Faith"]]. It is clear what you have to do, although half-hearted players should note that doing a small jump or falling off the ledge will result in them being found to be [[BottomlessPit not quite faithful enough.]]

* In the game ''VideoGame/EyeOfTheBeholder II'', there is a puzzle for which the clue is given of "faith is the key." In the puzzle, a sequence of 4 doors in a corridor must be opened by pulling four levers such that each lever opens a pit in front of the previous one, meaning that the fourth door-opener lever is inaccessible across a pit (albeit not a [[BottomlessPit bottomless one]], since the game doesn't have those). The trick, in this case, was to open the first 3 doors, walk down the partially opened corridor, and push a [[PixelHunt misaligned brick]] on the wall, at which point it becomes possible for the player to make a leap of faith and walk on top of the pit in order to pull the 4th lever and open the last door.

** A careful analysis of ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry2DiddysKongQuest'''s use of this trope is [http://www.sirlin.net/articles/the-secrets-of-donkey-kong-country-2.html available [here]] In a couple of them, you can just see the top of a barrel, but not often. However, the port to the GBA made several of them more obvious, and removed a couple, such as the one at the start of the first minecart level.

** The first ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry1'' game is notorious for this, but it's actually rather undeserved. There ''are'' many secret barrels hidden down pits, but if you look carefully, the vast majority of them are just barely visible on the bottom of the screen. The few that aren't generally have fairly blatant hints (usually in the form of [[FollowTheMoney bananas]]) that there's something there.

* ''VideoGame/SuperPrincessPeach'' handles this in an odd way. In early stages, there are no bottomless pits; falling into every hole is the only way to find all of the collectable items in each stage. And then later stages add the bottomless pits, punishing the player for using their conditioned reckless exploration skills.

*** Road to Nowhere has a section at the end accessed with the Red Gem where there are, you guessed it, pairs of gold planks that only appear when Crash steps on them, with big gaps in-between. The High Road does it even worse: you have to do it from the start of the level ''[[UpToEleven going BACKWARDS]]''.

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'': At one point in the plot, you run out of places to go except down a large waterfall. Your options are "Jump!" and "You crazy?". [[ButThouMust Choosing "Jump!" is required to progress the plot]]; the second option just gives you a chance to heal up and prepare for the battles you'll fight on the way down.

** A careful analysis of ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry2DiddysKongQuest'''s use of this trope is available [[http://www.sirlin.net/articles/the-secrets-of-donkey-kong-country-2.html/ here]]. In a couple of them, you can just see the top of a barrel, but not often. However, the port to the GBA made several of them more obvious, and removed a couple, such as the one at the start of the first minecart level.

* One example was in the Menlyn Mall in Pretoria, South Africa (the largest mall in Africa and largest enclosed mall in the Southern Hemisphere). It's under a roof but the main hall has an open plan, with higher levels only having floors around storefronts so that you can see the roof from the ground floor. This means that on higher levels, you need to cross footbridges to get to a store on the opposite side of the same concourse. Near one entrance, there was a specific bridge made of clear glass. People refused to cross it, preferring instead to go around the entire hall... so eventually it was sandblasted, and people now use it without a second thought. (Obviously, women wearing dresses had [[PantyShot other reasons]] not to cross it, but still.)

** ''VideoGame/CrashBandicoot2CortexStrikesBack'': There's the Crash Crush level where Crash runs away from giant snowballs, until they break through a wooden bridge and fall down a pit. In order to get all the boxes for the Gem, [[GuideDangIt you need to jump down one of these pits to reach a secret section of the level]]. How do you tell? [[ViolationOfCommonSense You jump down the one whose bridge wasn't fully destroyed]].

If there are common, mostly useless powerups (like coins in Franchise/SuperMarioBros or rings in VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog), it's common to indicate pits where a Leap of Faith will be rewarded by [[FollowTheMoney arranging them in an arrow shape]].

[[folder: First Person Shooter ]]

* ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'':
** Mostly averted in the UsefulNotes/SegaGenesis-era 2D games; almost ''any'' place where you can pitch yourself into space will either have a long landing strip, a tell-tale string of rings or a wall that stops you from going too far. Later 2D games -- ''Sonic Rush'' is particularly JustForFun/{{egregious}} if you're not on the highest possible path -- were less clever about this and it was very easy to die in a jump because there's no way out, or because you took the jump going the wrong speed.

[[folder: Stealth Based Game ]]

* At one point in ''[[VideoGame/{{Oddworld}} Abe's Oddysee]]'', you come to a sheer cliff overhanging what appears to be one of the many bottomless pits which litter the game. Chanting for a hint from the helpful fireflies will give you the message [[LampshadeHanging "Leap of Faith"]]. It is clear what you have to do, although half-hearted players should note that doing a small jump or falling off the ledge will result in them being found to be [[BottomlessPit not quite faithful enough.]]

* ''VideoGame/MegaMan'':

* Many of the earlier top-down ''[[Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda Zelda]]'' games made it very hard to tell which pits led to a lower level and which dealt damage. You had to look carefully to see if the pits were totally black, or if they had a pattern in them representing the floor below. In more recent, 3-D, ones, not only is the bottom of pits almost always clearly visible, "bottomless" pits will often be over ''different parts of the same area''.
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime'' had one Death Mountain ledge with either a Heart Piece or a Gold Skultula. If you moved the camera around you could see it, but you had to know to move the camera around.
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword'' features a moment in which you must jump off a ledge into what seems like a lava pit. When you're falling, a platform appears just above said lava pit. However, the game does tell you that you have to leap off the edge.
* A slight tweak in ''VideoGame/StarFoxAdventures'', in that the reward is not ''in'' the pit, but [[spoiler:across a bridge of light that appears]] when you jump off the edge of this gap that's too big to jump across, in accordance with the instructions on a nearby sign.

** The game is full of them. In fact, this is the only way to leave the first screen.

* ''VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue'' have an example in the burned-out laboratory, although a nearby scientist will point out the jump to you.
** Even without said scientist the player could be confident they won't get hurt, since NOTHING outside of battle can hurt you in the Pokémon games.
** Another such leap occurs in ''[[VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver HeartGold and SoulSilver]]'', in Olivine Lighthouse. There's also a TrialAndErrorGameplay with the directional tiles, in Viridian City Gym.

* ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros Brawl'' has only one example, which is still annoying. In the last part of the game, where [[spoiler: they make you repeat [[BossRush almost everything]], there are a few new areas. One of them is a wooden area based on a past one, which ends with two [[BottomlessPit bottomless pits]], only one of which will actually kill you. The other leads to a necessary battle. Since they are so close together, the map won't tell you if you're too far off from the door in question, and you scroll down with both. However, although it's incredibly obvious which one is the deadly one when it scrolls down, at that point you are too far down to do anything about it but struggle until losing a life]]. Luckily those lives can be quickly replenished.

* Like the ''Donkey Kong'' example below, many of the secret areas in ''VideoGame/{{Painkiller}}'' are guilty of this, specifically in levels where finding all the secret areas or their contents was a requirement for the HundredPercentCompletion. Sometimes you're at least giving a glimpse of the glowing holy items within and no immiadatley obvious way to reach them, but most times they're entirely hidden from view, meaning scaling every ledge and hopping over every cliff, or just [[GuideDangIt look at a guide]].

* In ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'', there is a mid level Horde quest where you must prove your strength of faith to the spirits through a series of tests. One of the tests is to jump from the highest point in the Thousand Needles, to show you have enough faith that the wind spirit will save you. You freefall down the side of a mountain, and just before you hit the ground, you are teleported back to the quest giver. While DeathIsCheap in [=WoW=], especially to the players, you're not sure if you're going to be making a corpse run or not the first time you do the quest.
** Another such leap quest was added in ''Wrath of the Lich King'', where you're told by a gigantic water spirit to jump into the water, exposing yourself to her, as a show of faith. If you actually do it, she [[spoiler: decides you passed and sends you back to the Kalu'ak for a reward.]]
** With Cataclysm, the quest was removed, as the bottom of the chasm you had to jump in is now filled with SoftWater.
** Also, Priests get a spell named Leap of Faith. It's used to pull party members to you.

* The ''VideoGame/MegaManX'' games were fond of these. You could WallCrawl (well, really, Wall Slide) and find that the screen would begin scrolling if there was something below. If it was a pit of instant death, it would not scroll and you could easily hop out.

** ''VideoGame/MegaManX6'', though, had them purely as a function of bad level design. A hidden area beneath what looks like a bottomless pit? Good. Having to jump onto a moving platform (that you couldn't see) over instant death spikes (that you didn't know were there)? [[FakeDifficulty Bad.]]
* Mostly averted in the UsefulNotes/SegaGenesis-era 2D ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'' games; almost ''any'' place where you can pitch yourself into space will either have a long landing strip, a tell-tale string of rings or a wall that stops you from going too far. Later 2D games -- ''Sonic Rush'' is particularly JustForFun/{{egregious}} if you're not on the highest possible path -- were less clever about this and it was very easy to die in a jump because there's no way out, or because you took the jump going the wrong speed.
** A [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEG_fVkbG1c&t=4m20s certain spiked pit]] in Act 2 of Mystic Cave, however, offers no chance of escape should you fall into it expecting another lower path. This is fatal, as there are no ways of escape, and the pit is too deep to leap out of, even if you had Super Sonic's improved jump height. Oh, and if you actually ''are'' Super Sonic, [[ICannotSelfTerminate the spikes won't even kill you]]. Go grab a drink or something while your rings run out.

** A careful analysis of ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry2DiddysKongQuest'''s use of this trope is available [[http://www.sirlin.net/articles/the-secrets-of-donkey-kong-country-2.html/ here]].
*** In a couple of them, you can just see the top of a barrel, but not often. However, the port to the GBA made several of them more obvious, and removed a couple, such as the one at the start of the first minecart level.

** ''VideoGame/PrinceOfPersia2008'' also required you to jump off a tower in order to beat one of the bosses. It is in fact story-based: the Prince has to identify the real Elika in a crowd of fake ones, and jumping off forces the real one to rescue you and put him back on solid ground just like in the rest of the game. [[LampshadeHanging Although as Elika points out immediately after]], the Prince did ''not'' know if she was, say, chained up and unable to rescue him! [[OhCrap The Prince has an appropriate reaction to this news]].
* ''Bible Adventures'', the ''David and Goliath'' game, last level. The reason why [[WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd AVGN]] couldn't beat it.

* ''VideoGame/{{Quackshot}}'', which cast Donald Duck in the role of AdventurerArchaeologist, had a section where you had to cross a vast canyon using invisible floating platforms which wouldn't appear until after you'd already jumped onto them.

* Either intentionally or due to poor design, many ''VideoGame/SuperMarioWorld'' rom hacks will have you take a leap of faith, not knowing what lies below.
** ''VideoGame/KaizoMarioWorld'' does this, possibly in both the final castles with a door on a ledge, and Mario having to quickly jump off a falling Yoshi to hit invisible coin blocks to use to reach the goal, which is, of course, the infamous KaizoTrap. This is among possible other examples which are probably too numerous to list.

* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros2'' (US) had a leap of faith in 3-1 which would lead to a warp to World 5.

* ''Franchise/SpyroTheDragon'' had a couple such leaps. In the first game, for instance, the level Dry Canyon had a blind jump in order to reach (what was commonly) the last dragon; in the third game, the level Dino Mines had a jump very close to the beginning, another blind leap, that would take you to an egg carefully tucked away where no manipulation of the camera would allow you to see it, and the event's name is actually called "Leap of Faith". The Dry Canyon jump, at least, would just send you back to the start of the level; Dino Mines was a plummet to your doom (but hey it was at the start of the level so reset times were minimal, right?).

* Several hidden areas in ''Franchise/RatchetAndClank'', usually leading to special bolts, would be hidden in places that seemed likely to kill you. Oftentimes they would if you weren't expressly trying to press Ratchet in the direction of a hidden tunnel or somesuch.

* ''[[VideoGame/Kirby64TheCrystalShards Kirby 64]]'' has a crystal shard hidden out of view between two high cliffs on Neo Star. It's marked by stars, though.

* World 6-3 in ''[[VideoGame/SuperMarioBros Vs. Super Mario Bros.]]'', which was palette-swapped as World 4-3 in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBrosTheLostLevels'', has the longest jump in the game, which requires Mario/Luigi to bounce off a just-offscreen Koopa Paratroopa to clear. World 5-1 in ''TLL'' has another blind jump for which you need the wind to be blowing the right direction.

** In [[VideoGame/CrashBandicoot1996 the original game]], both Temple Ruins and Jaws of Darkness featured areas where you had to walk across what appeared to be a normal pit that in fact had either invisible boxes or [[TemporaryPlatform Temporary Platforms]] that appeared only when Crash stepped on them.
** In the same game, Road to Nowhere has a section at the end accessed with the Red Gem where there are, you guessed it, pairs of gold planks that only appear when Crash steps on them, with big gaps in-between. The High Road does it even worse: you have to do it from the start of the level ''[[UpToEleven going BACKWARDS]]''.
** Also in Crash 1, the Heavy Machinery level had a pit where the edges were flanked at the bottom by two enemies who kill Crash on contact. Jump down, and you'll find a few boxes as well as one of the N. Brio tokens.
** In ''VideoGame/CrashBandicoot2CortexStrikesBack'', there's the Crash Crush level where Crash runs away from giant snowballs, until they break through a wooden bridge and fall down a pit. In order to get all the boxes for the Gem, [[GuideDangIt you need to jump down one of these pits to reach a secret section of the level]]. How do you tell? [[ViolationOfCommonSense You jump down the one whose bridge wasn't fully destroyed]].
* ''VideoGame/{{Shantae}}'' suffered from this at times, but all of its sequels specifically avoid this by clearly labeling which pits will hurt you by having skulls emanate from them.

One of the biggest challenges in level design was the fact that the player can only see a short distance vertically, so platforms, spikes and enemies had to be placed carefully. Though the player can safely bounce on enemies’ heads, making it more fair when falling into unknown places from above, I just avoided putting enemies in unknown areas below the player in the first place.

* ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheLastCrusade''. The bridge across the gap is artfully painted so that, from Indy's perspective, it's indistinguishable from the view across the abyss. Only when he took the step did he realize the camouflage, which we see when the camera pans to one side to view the bridge from a different angle. Indy has to spread sand on the walkway to make it visible to anyone following him.
** The Creator/LucasArts computer game version had the same leap of faith test; in the game, you passed if you [[spoiler: didn't hesitate before crossing. If you waited too long, any later attempt simply resulted in a fall to your death.]]
* A similar scene occurs in ''Film/TheLibrarian'': for the ActionGirl it's a leap of faith, but not for the LovableNerd, who calculates exacly ''where'' they have to jump.

* In the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_cliff Visual Cliff]] experiment, researchers placed babies and mothers on either side of two small, raised platforms. The mother then began calling for the baby. The trick was that there was a clear plastic floor over the gap, and the baby could quite safely crawl across it to the other side. The experiment was done to find out how soon we develop depth perception (and the instinct to ''not'' make leaps of faith).
** Most of the babies (of several species) refused to crawl off the cliff. Human babies would generally do it until they reached a certain age, or if the mother acted frightened of the gap. Baby turtles would attempt to dive into the glass, confusing the cliff with a pool of water.

* ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory''. Buzz jumps off the bannister in Sid's house because he believes he can fly.

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'': At one point in the plot, you run out of places to go except down a large waterfall. Your options are "Jump!" and "You crazy?".

** The first ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry1'' game for the SNES absolutely ''reveled'' in this; there is absolutely no way to [[HundredPercentCompletion find all of the hidden areas]] without systematically jumping, diving, and falling into every conceivable [[BottomlessPits hole on the screen]] (of which there were many). Such an effort will take quite a while, but most of the secrets are based on patterns of details. ''e.g.'', when a barrel's sitting on the ground (as opposed to the floating DK Barrels), look for a nearby destructible wall or an enemy blocking a path. The sequel eased off on this a bit, thankfully.

* ''VideoGame/{{Quackshot}}'', which cast DonaldDuck in the role of AdventurerArchaeologist, had a section where you had to cross a vast canyon using invisible floating platforms which wouldn't appear until after you'd already jumped onto them.

* ''VideoGame/TheTalosPrinciple'': In the Messenger Island from World C, it's possible to find a statue of a woman on an isolated island and a bust of a man. There is a Uriel message stating that love overcomes all obstacles. [[spoiler:While standing in front of the bust, walking straight for the statue reveals that there is an invisible path leading to the island.]]