The ability to create platforms to cross wide gaps is a common Power-Up in platformers/action-adventure games. A Barrier Warrior can use his/her powers to make these.
Supertrope of Frozen Foe Platform, as that uses powers to turn non-platforms into platforms. See also Cranium Ride, Stepping Stones in the Sky, Lily-Pad Platform, and Leaf Boat. May overlap with Bridge Logic.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- In Chapter 2 of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha INNOCENT, Suzuka uses her Ice Shields to create some stepping stones for Arisa to help her reach a high target when Arisa insists on Roof Hopping instead of flying since "humans aren't able to just ... start flying all of the sudden"
- Arpeggio of Blue Steel: Mental Models use their Klein Field as this.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
- In Golden Wind, minor villain Sale has the power to freeze small objects in position relative to other objects. One of his many uses for this power is to throw a handful of gravel and freeze it in midair, creating a 'ladder' that allows him to climb a sheer cliff face.
- In Stone Ocean, titular Jolyne Kujo uses her power to unravel herself into string to cross a lake.
- Rebuild World: Akira's fifth and onward sets of Powered Armor have a feature for difficult terrain traversal, advertised as helping you move at full speed in mud or ice, by creating a force field. What Akira actually uses it for is this, shooting and doing acrobatics in the air, and some of his opponents do the same. A later Cool Bike Akira gets also makes paths in the air out of force fields, allowing limited flight as long as it has enough power reserves.
Fan Works
- During the battle against the giant fairies in Fantasy of Utter Ridiculousness, Coop has Megas use one of them as a means of gaining enough height to deliver an elbow drop to another.
Literature
- In the Mabinogion, the giant Bendigeidfran lets his men use him as a bridge. A fo ben, bid bont ("He who would be a head, let him be a bridge")!
- The Witch of Knightcharm: The protagonist Emily learns to use the shields that she summons from her pentacle amulet as these. This gives her some additional versatility in combat, since she can make her own platforms to outmaneuver her foes.
Toys
- BIONICLE: Kopaka uses his ice Elemental Powers to create a pillar of ice for him and Matoro to land on after being ambushed near a cliff by a Nui-Rama.
Video Games
- Donkey Kong Country:
- Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble!: one level requires the Kongs to throw barrels in the water as platforms, since the water is occupied by a Nibbla.
- Squitter, one of the animal companions in Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest and Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble!, lets you create platforms out of webs.
- One of the brush techniques in Ōkami creates lily pads on water for you to stand on.
- Super Mario Galaxy 2 has the Cloud Cap which makes clouds under Mario.
- Several of the Mega Man (Classic) games have a power that lets you summon up to three platforms.
- The first game has the Magnet Beam, a weapon that allows you to fire a temporary platform from his arm cannon, and is necessary to complete the game.
- Mega Man 2 has the Item-1, -2, and -3 devices, which create platforms of various types. Item-1 makes platforms that float up in midair, Item-2 makes a platform that travels horizontally, and Item-3's platform climbs against walls.
- Later games feature Mega Man's canine sidekick Rush, whose "Rush Jet" functions as a moving, midair platform.
- Mega Man 5 has the "Super Arrow", which sticks to walls and can be used as a temporary platform.
- Mega Man 9 has the "Concrete Shot", which upon impact creates a temporary block to stand on.
- Mega Man & Bass had the Ice Wall, which fires out an ice pillar. Megaman or Bass can then push the ice pillar and stand on it like a rideable platform.
- In Mega Man Powered Up, when playing as Ice Man, his Ice Slasher turns enemies into blocks of ice that can be stepped on.
- Likewise, a number of the Mega Man X games have one.
- Mega Man X has Shotgun Ice. When charged to full, it becomes an ice sled that X can ride on, in a manner similar to Ice Wall from Mega Man & Bass.
- Mega Man X2 has Crystal Hunter, which traps weaker enemies in crystal blocks that you can step on.
- A Charged Frost Spear in Mega Man X3, but only when in the water (it becomes a large ice block underwater).
- Lightning Web from Mega Man X4 creates an improvised wall to Wall Jump on.
- Ice Burst from Mega Man X6 fires out a snowball accompanied by two ice projectiles. X can move the snowball and stand on it.
- Half-Life 2: You can put bits of scrap and other rubbish on the sand to avoid disturbing the Antlions.
- In Scribblenauts, you can write the name of any object you want, such as "dock" or even "floating platform".
- I Wanna Be the Guy: in the second screen, you need to shoot one of the spikes on the wall to knock it over and use it as a platform.
- Also, when fighting Birdo and Zangief, you have to jump on the things they shoot at you to be able to shoot at the boss.
- Metroid: the Ice Beam and Ice Missile are used to make improvised platforms out of things such as enemies.
- From Super Metroid on, the fight against Kraid always features Samus needing to jump on the things Kraid shoots at her in order to reach his face.
- In Deadpool, the eponymous character once uses his speech bubbles to cross a river.
- Valkyrie Profile has Lenneth able to use her crystal shots as platforms to get to higher places.
- The Ice Arrows are used to make platforms on the water in the Great Bay Temple of The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask.
- Similarly, Batman: Arkham City introduces the freeze blast, a grenade using Mister Freeze's cryogenic technology to create breakable platforms on the surface of water.
- Battle Engine Aquila lets you land on any surface big enough to hold you, including enemy battleships and aircraft. Ocean levels will require you to do this, since there's nowhere else to land.
- In the obscure game Back To Stone for the GBA, your basic attacks turn the enemies into stone blocks after defeating them. These can be used as platforms or for weighing down switches.
- To cross water and lava in Magicka and Magicka 2, the wizards have to freeze it into a platform using the Cold element. Cue a bunch of wizards firing off poorly aimed freezing spells as they slide along the ice.
- Axiom Verge has the Address Disruptor weapon, a sort of handheld Reality Warper that has strange effects on anything you shoot with it. Using it on certain objects, like rising bubbles, transforms them into glitchy-looking blocks that you can use as platform—this is the only way to traverse parts of certain levels.
- Prey (2017) has a glue gun, which you can use to scale heights by shooting glue globs onto the walls and standing on them.
- In X-Men (1993), Iceman's assist did this: he zoomed across the stage at the same height as the character who summoned him and laid out an ice platform that could be used to cross long chasms (or bypass some boss fights).
- Spelling Jungle: Wali can drop boulders (in Spelling Jungle) or giant snowballs (in Spelling Blizzard) into the river for a temporary bridge. Spelling Blizzard also has Ice blocks, which can also be used for this or further moved around the river.
- Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom: Jin's Ice Sword allowed him to freeze water to create platforms when he needs to. Just remember to take off your Crimson Shoes first.
- Kirby Star Allies: At some points in the game, Kirby's squad will hold onto each other and transform into a Friend Bridge, allowing a Waddle Dee carrying a key or some other variety of Helpful Mook to make it across a gap safely.
Web Original
- Dreamscape: Drake can create a path of white runes like a bridge.
- DSBT InsaniT: Asia can create giant sunflowers to use as platforms.
Western Animation
- Ben 10 Alien Force - Ultimate Alien: Gwen uses mana to create platforms.
- In Avatar: The Last Airbender and its sequel series The Legend of Korra, Earthbenders and Waterbenders (manipulating ice) can do this regularly.
- In the Invader Zim episode, "Hobo 13", when the group Zim was leading had to cross a cliff, Zim suggests they form a bridge with their bodies; one of them suggests them much safer and simpler method of chopping down a nearby tree and use that as a bridge, but Zim refuses and part of the team end up falling off the cliff as a result.
Real Life
- This is one of the many jobs of The Engineer, and the variety of improvised methods available can be truly impressive. Everything from a Rope Bridge (at its most basic, a rope or cable strung across the gap) to fascines
to more sophisticated or specialized methods can be and have been used.
