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Directionally Solid Platforms

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Through-floors: "A one-way floor!! Hunh? What, was it too much trouble to make it two-way?! Anyway, you jump up, then you can't go down again!!"
Wario, Wario Land 4 manual.

Platforms and surfaces in video games, particularly 2D platform games, where you can jump through from below, yet they are solid when you're above them.

In some cases, it's possible to drop down from that platform (most commonly by ducking and then hitting the jump button). In other cases, it's impossible to go back down from said platforms except by walking off the edge.

In 2D platform games, it can be justified under the assumption that your character is not actually passing 'through' the platforms, but rather jumping 'in' or 'out' of the 2D plane (ie. the platforms may not be in the same plane; it just looks that way to the player).


Examples:

  • You can pull yourself up onto platforms like these in Bionic Commando.
  • The Wii version of A Boy and His Blob has platforms that are not solid from below but solid from above. You can't drop down on them unless you happen to have a hole with you.
  • In the first Bubble Bobble game, every platform tile is one. The possibilities of these platforms are commonly experimented with in the levels, too. Later Bubble Bobble games have these kinds of platforms as well.
  • You don't hit your head against thin platforms from Braid.
  • Castlevania games (particularly in Castlevania The Adventure Rebirth) often have platforms that can be jumped through from below. There are also stairs that partially behave that way.
  • Celeste has wooden platforms, which usually appear after screen transitions to block backtracking. Unlike just about all the other environment, they have no thickness so Madeline cannot hang/climb from sides of these wooden platforms. Also, clouds behave similarly, but combine it with bounce pad function too.
  • Commander Keen has the full works... not just the vertical version but one-way left or right blocks in the first trilogy, as well as platforms that you can fall through but are solid from below.
  • Contra has lots of platforms that are solid from above. It's possible to go through them from above by ducking and hitting jump.
  • Most of these kind of platforms in Darkwing Duck NES game can be jumped through, walked on and it's possible to hang on them.
  • Donkey Kong Country has these. Donkey Kong Country Returns manages to recreate them in a 2.5D game — even though the platforms and Donkey Kong are rendered as 3D models, Donkey Kong can still jump up "through" them and then land on them, and it's rendered as if he were passing "in front" of the platform instead of through it, yet he doesn't visibly move along the Z-axis.
  • In Dragon's Wake the player can jump up past wooden bridges, giant mushrooms, and the roofs of houses in order to land on them.
  • Earthworm Jim has some platforms that can be jumped through from below.
  • Environmental Station Alpha features both the regular kind (can jump through and stand on but not drop down) and the inverted kind (can fall through but not jump up through) in a few places.
  • In Everybody Edits, one-way blocks are a category of block that act as solid on one side. The exact functionality depends on the game:
    • In Everybody Edits Flash the sides are also solid, but not when moving the direction the block is facing. This game also features the One-Way pack, which has one-way blocks pointing in all four directions.
    • In Everybody Edits Universe, one-way blocks can always be entered from the side, and they can all be rotated in four directions.
  • The Fairyland Story was based around these, like Bubble Bobble but predating it.
  • Fancy Pants Adventures uses them after Fancy Pants Man jumps or runs upwards; the platforms don't allow him to drop down, though usually, he can just drop off the side.
  • Grand Chase uses this, letting you drop off from platforms by pressing down, but not in rooms that have a Bottomless Pit.
    • The earlier MapleStory has this as well. Jumping down is handled by holding the down key and pressing the jump key once for each descent.
  • Toadstools in Indiana Rodent.
  • Jet Set Willy (and its predecessor, Manic Miner) assigned each square on the screen one of four elemental types, colloquially referred to as "Air" (fall through from all directions), "Water" (can jump through from below and pass sideways through, but not travel down through; basically, this trope), "Earth" (impassable from all sides; can stand on, but not walk or jump through) and "Fire" (kills you on contact). And yes, water was often an instant killer, making water blocks technically "Fire" type...
  • Clouds in Jump Bug are solid from above but not from below.
  • Jump King manages an inversion of this trope, of course for the purposes of frustrating the player: sinking sand platforms is where Jump King will slowly sink, requiring the player to constantly jump a little bit to avoid falling through them and plummeting, losing progress. However, when colliding with the sinking sand from the sides or from below, Jump King will simply bounce away like from any proper solid platform.
  • Jumper Two and Three features solid-from-above platforms. Jumper Two Editor (version 4.x) changed these to "Ghost Platforms" to Hand Wave a certain bug in previous versionsnote  and added a variation for three other directions.
  • Kid Icarus (1986): Most surfaces are solid, but certain platforms (including those made of ice and clouds) allow Pit to jump through them from below, which are useful for vertical scrolling levels and fortresses. Pressing Down while standing atop these platforms will drop Pit down; this is useful in fortresses, but less so in other levels.
  • Katana ZERO gives this behavior to many types of platforms. Nearly every floor with a stairway below it like this. Less frequently seen are ropes, with an inconsequential but neat-looking effect of pulling taut beneath the weight of Zero.
  • Kirby games commonly feature platforms that are solid from above but you can jump through them from below. There are both can-be-dropped-down and cannot-be-dropped-down variations. Since you drop through them by just pressing Down, Kirby can't duck on thin platforms.
  • LittleBigPlanet tries to simulate these. There are three 2D planes you can be on (foreground, middle, and background), and jumping up above a platform on an adjacent plane automatically shifts you into that plane so you can land on it. You can also drop down from a platform by moving towards the foreground, but not towards the background.
  • An unusual example is from Lode Runner. Some of the trap blocks are solid from sides but can be fallen through from above.
  • A few moving platforms in The Lost Vikings series behave that way.
  • There isn't a single solid ceiling in Magical Whip: Wizards of Phantasmal Forest. One of the game's levels is nothing but these platforms, stretched the whole width of the screen. One has to be careful not to accidentally jump up to a higher platform, as there is no way to go back down.
  • Super Mario Bros.:
    • These kinds of platforms are present in every main series game besides the original, and even the original Super Mario Bros. style has them in Super Mario Maker. Which makes it confusing when these platforms avert this trope in the original Super Mario Bros. or its All-Star remake! As of Super Mario Maker, they've been given the official name of "Semisolid Platform".
    • Even in the original game, Hammer Brothers can jump up and down solid platforms as if they were this trope.
    • Invisible coin blocks can only be revealed by hitting them from below — from any other side, you'll go straight through. But once they're revealed they turn into ordinary used blocks that are solid from every side.
    • Frequent in the Wario Land spinoff series, with Wario Land 4 giving them the official designation of "Through-Floors". The primary use of the "Zombie Wario" transformation is that he can go down through these kind of platforms, though Wario: Master of Disguise gives the ability to Dragon Wario instead.
  • Mega Man games don't have a lot of them. However, certain stage-specific objects, like conveyor-powered small platforms in Sheep Man's stage in Mega Man 10, are not solid from below.
  • Metroid games invert this trope with "pitfall blocks" (also known as crumble blocks), which fall apart instantly when hit from above but block any attempts to climb back up. They're frequently used as one-way gates, with an added "gotcha!" factor.
  • In Miner 2049er, platforms are generally directionally solid; this is most obvious in the "Lillipads" levels.
  • Moon Crystal starts off with tree branches being like that and it continues with every thin or moving platform.
  • N and its commercial remakes N+ and N++ have four varieties of directionally solid platforms. It's just one block, but with different cardinal orientations, resulting in platforms you can fall through from above, but not jump through from below and vice versa, and platforms you can go through from left to right, but not the other way around and vice versa.
  • Some platforms in Pizza Tower can be jumped through only from below.
  • Psychonauts: In some locations, it's possible to jump while directly under a trampoline. You go through the trampoline but are bounced even higher.
  • Purple features such platforms for every direction, including standard "solid from above" hills.
  • Rayman: In the first game, an entire room is made up of bouncy platforms that you can jump up through, and the goal is to get to the bottom. It's incredibly easy to take one misstep and bounce all the way to the top of the room.
  • In Spacestation Pheta, climbing a ladder with a floor above it will result in the player emerging above the floor, even if the square above contains a solid object. If this is another floor, then it becomes a Directionally Solid Platform: the player can jump to rise above the second floor, but can't get back down.
  • The Super Smash Bros. series features a lot of these. With platforms that can be dropped through (and yes, it's actually shown as through in the game's 3D graphics), you can hold the analog stick down to drop straight through them without even landing on them.
  • You may build these in Terraria. You and most monsters may drop through them voluntarily, but Slimes and Demon Eyes can't. They're also good for grappling.
  • Two variants feature in Tribal Hunter, the common floating-platform type that can be ducked through if needs be and the much rarer variant that completely bridges a gap and has to be ducked through to bypass.
  • In one of the potential final bosses of Undertale, you're forced to deal with a rehash of Papyrus's earlier Blue Mode mechanics for a majority of the boss's attacks. However, this time, the boss will often also summon platforms as part of said attack, and all of them function this way.
  • In Yoshi's Crafted World, this is justified. One-way platforms are depicted as "tabs" attached to surfaces that fold back when Yoshi is jumping up through them. However, they only fold in one direction, so Yoshi can't go back through them.

 
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Cuphead

Cuphead features platforms that can be jumped up to from below as if they weren't solid, but can be stood on without issue once above them. You can also drop down from the platforms by crouching and tapping the jump button.

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