Jumping off a cliff into a pool should hurt less, but not always

Players love leaping into water to survive a long drop, and designers hate the opposite extremes: water that cancels every fall, or a puddle that saves you from a skyscraper. Here is how depth, drop height and the shape of the pool decide how much of the fall is forgiven.

Why this works

Water works by giving the body more room to slow down, so it should take away fallen distance rather than a share of the damage. Shallow water then saves little, deep water saves much, and a high enough cliff is still dangerous.

When not to use it

Wrong for games where falling is always fatal or never harmful; the depth rule adds a layer nobody needs. Also unfair if the water depth is not visible, so players cannot tell whether a dive is safe. Show the depth first.

In the full entry

• What to build, step by step
• Starting values and the reason for each
• 3 common mistakes and the fix
• 20 lines of example code with 5 checks that pass
• How your AI shows you that it works

Say this to your AI

Use the Spielerando entry "Jumping off a cliff into a pool should hurt less, but not always" (read_entry fall-damage-reduced-by-water-depth) in my game. Build it step by step, and show me how you checked that it works.

Or skip this and connect the MCP: your AI then finds all of this by itself.Connect the MCP