Floating Platforms: Difference between revisions
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If it just so happens that you ''can'' fly, floating platforms will serve the opposite purpose and become inane obstacles in your way, forcing you to go around them. Unless, of course, you can only fly short distances, in which case, they allow you a rest to recharge your flight meter or whatever the game happens to use; maybe all you have to do is land for an instant and you're ready to go.
Floating platforms aren't just immune to gravity, but to all laws of physics. Regardless of what happens to them, they'll either just stay frozen in place as if in some state of dimensional stasis or keep moving in their pre-defined pattern, ignoring all thrusts of inertia which attempt to affect
Some games try to justify this, often by putting jet thrusters or something on floating platforms, or by making the platforms clouds (although that raises [[Fridge Logic]] of how it's solid enough to support the player and why it's perfectly shaped like a platform).
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** In ''Portal'', the Unstationary Scaffold fits, requiring a button or trigger to activate, but otherwise not unlike those in Half-Life.
* [[Mass Effect]] 2's {{spoiler|Collectors}} use hexagonal platforms inside their ship and bases. They seem to be built for quick movement around the huge caverns they seem to favour, but have {{spoiler|conveniently located blocks for Shepard to take cover behind attacked}}. During one mission, {{spoiler|the Collectors}} use one of these to spring an ambush by {{spoiler|allowing Commander Shepard to pilot one out into open space before locking it down and sending drones after the Commander. Shepard systematically blasts through every one before EDI can hack the platform and Shepard can escape}}. These platforms probably float around using mass effect fields.
* Floating platforms in the ''[[Mega Man X]]'' games are usually justified by having propulsion jets attached. The jets' condition also indicate their status. Platforms with smoking jets are [[Temporary Platform
* As said earlier, ''[[Metroid Prime]]'' has jet-powered floating platforms. They simply sit on the ground when the power is off, and one puzzle involves filling a room with water to float such platforms. However, there are also plenty of non-powered floating platforms, including an underwater crash site with perpetually-floating debris that's perfectly spaced out for Samus to hop across.
** Also, the game never gives any explanation on why some platforms have rockets attached to them. Presumably the Space Pirates did it, but why would they bother strapping rockets to hunks of rocks?
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** The best example in the series would be Sky Sanctuary in ''Sonic & Knuckles'', which is the ruin of an entire floating city, traversed mostly vertically instead of horizontally as with most levels. Appropriately, the place collapses at the end of both Sonic and Knuckles's respective versions of the level.
* Floating platforms, or "cloudstones," are considered proof of very powerful (and ''dark'') magick in ''[[Vagrant Story]]'', and they only exist within Lèa Monde. Later on, Ashley acquires a Grimoire that allows him to raise cloudstones himself. At the end of the game, when {{spoiler|all the magic ceased to exist in Lèa Monde, the cloudstones are seen tumbling onto the ground.}}
* ''Conquest of the Stratosphere'' invents Phlebotinum called floatstone, a mineral that allows the floating fortresses of the game
* ''[[Serious Sam]]: The Second Encounter'' has these in the forms of giant hovering caged fans. A variation is the ones that will sink while you are standing on them, but are not temporary platforms as they will stop sinking at a certain level, but still may sink enough to prevent you from making your next jump or you are required to stay on it long enough to jump to a lower area that would have been impossible to reach from a higher point due to an overhang. Also some of them move sideways while floating.
* Many ''[[Worms]]'' maps have inexplicably floating platforms. And that's just to start out with; as in so many other artillery games, you can blast away everything around a single pixel, and it will remain gravity-proof.
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* Largely averted in ''[[Devil May Cry]]'', as the platforms are usually firmly affixed to a wall. When they aren't, it's clearly magic. At one point, the game looks like it's setting you up for a jumping puzzle with classic floating platforms... and then [[Scenery as You Go|the platforms fuse into a bridge as you come near.]]
** One level in ''Devil May Cry'' sees you having to traverse a series of ''invisible'' floating platforms, presumably made of some kind of magical energy, to obtain the item needed to unlock the last room and proceed to the [[Boss Fight]]. These magical platforms are only visible when the lightning flashes from the storm outside temporarily illuminate them.
* ''[[Tomb Raider]] 2'' included some of these in the next-to-last level, in the form of "jade islands"
* Averted AND Handwaved in ''[[Little Big Planet]]'' where all platforms must be attached to something in order appear floating unless of course it's made of dark matter then it just plain floats.
** Thankfully, the sequel lets you play it straight by attaching a tool to an object that allows you to make it float, making dark matter redundant.
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** Ironically, Shigeru Miyamoto once stated in an interview that he still has some issues with floating platforms, due to the lack of any real logic behind them. He then said that he pretends that they are attached to the background in the 2D games.
* ''[[Crystal Caves]]'' has mechanical platforms with jet engines, allowing them to hover. There are also some classic floating platforms, though; since it's a game with a [[Side View]], let's just say they're actually attached to the background.
* ''[[Secret Agent (video game)|Secret Agent]]'' has a lot of
* Laputa in Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. It is flying with help of magnetic force. Or so they say.
* The ''entirety'' of the six levels of ''[[Bug!]]!'' take place on a floating terrain- which is actually part of a movie set.
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