Game physics in the real world

Question

In many games the characters, particularly the main character, has weird physics. I want to know how these things could happen in real life and whether current technology could make it happen.

This question would be quite hard to answer so I have narrowed it down to three, jumping based questions.

1)Double Jumps - Can a modern society using current technology allow a human to jump whilst in mid-air.

2)Wall Jumps - Could a human get the necessary speed and strength to overcome gravity by jumping from wall-to-wall using modern technology.

3)Direction changes in mid-air - In games the character jumps towards the left then suddenly changes there mind and in mid-air starts heading back to the right. Could this be done?

Answer 1

With current technology seems to be the key aspect here. Everyone seems to assume it's just people jumping under their own strength, but what if they have assistance from another object? Like, say, a directed, controlled explosion. I'm pretty sure you know where i'm going from here.

Why explosives? Any other object used to create sufficient force by simply dropping or pushing would have a large mass, which makes the initial movement fairly pointless. Why bother having a double jump if the first jump is 3 inches? Explosives, on the other hand, can generate a HUGE amount of force from a small amount of mass. So what does this mean?

Double Jumps: Yes. Rocket jumps and such provide the additional force directed downwards to result in a 'second' jump. The difficulty comes in controlling the direction, the initial impact itself, the final impact upon landing, and having the resources to do it more than once.

Wall Jumps: Yes. As most people have covered, just look at parkour experts. This becomes a fight of strength against gravity. Pushing off against the wall grants you additional force upwards, although it requires extreme strength to continually move upwards. Likewise, this could be assisted with some form of directed explosives

Directional Reversal: Similar to rocket jumps, direction forces can change your direction, although the effects will be jarring. Imagine jumping straight up in the air and then having a cannon blasted into your stomach. You'll change directions for sure, but it's gonna hurt like crazy. This will have a similar effect. Unlike double jumps, you're going to have to counter your current momentum and some. I suggest armor of some kind.

Once again, these are all fairly dangerous and likely to harm you if you attempt it, other than the wall jumps (which is still dangerous if you're inexperienced). If you want a less dangerous alternative, perhaps try something along the lines of compressed air.

Answer 2

Double Jump: Nope. The problem here is Newton's Laws. In order to jump a second time in mid-air, you need to apply a force to something (Second Law) - something to jump off of, basically. In order to do this we'd basically need jetpack boots or something like that, which (1) are not modern tech and (2) at that point why are you worrying about jumping, you have jetpack boots.

Wall Jumps: Yes. The hard part is moving your body fast enough to get a good next jump - you don't want to be jumping backwards. Obviously there are limits as to how far apart the walls can be, but that's primarily defined by gravity rather than how good your jumping ability is - if the jump is far enough you will start dropping, no matter how strong you are.

Direction Reversal: Nope. Again with Newton's Laws, you'd need to apply a force in order to change directions and you just can't do that feasibly without some sort of jetpack-type-thing.

Answer 3

Wall jumps are possible

Wall jumps are already feasible to some extent by trained people - look at parkour experts. Of course, they are not as spectacular as in games, but with some plausible technology they could be.

In particular, footwear and/or clothing with surfaces that can alter their grip "on command", i.e., become very sticky for a fraction of a second to allow the user to apply significant force while making a step and then immediately releasing that grip would enable wall jumps "as in games". There is some experimental technology that allows making such grip even on surfaces such as glass (based on how e.g. feet of chameleons work) and that's releasable with electrical signals - so that would be conceptually possible. As far as I know we're not nearly there yet, but by handwaving some advances to it and to wearable power supplies it would be rather reasonable.

Double jumps and direction changes mid air are a different beast though - that requires suddenly applying a significant force, so if you want it to be realistic then it either requires something like comparably huge wings that could allow such maneuvers by flapping them, or pulsed thrusters - something like a jetpack. Alternatively it could be done if you have force fields that allow you to essentially "grab a handle" or bounce off a nonexistant wall/floor that you just (temporarily) made, but that's IMHO more in line with fantasy/magic rather than plausible sci-fi.