10 GENIUS Ways Players Outsmarted Video Games

iD Software's now iconic Quake series was one of the earliest pioneers of the online shooter, helping to formulate and refine many of the genre's core ideas and tropes. The most notable addition, however, was something that the developers hadn't counted on.

Players soon discovered that if you were to jump in the air and fire a rocket launcher at the floor, you'd be flung upwards with such velocity that you could bypass certain parts of levels in no time at all, effectively turning Quake into one big platformer.

And just like that, Rocket Jumping came to be.

This nifty little trick would cost you some HP, but for those who knew how to best conserve their supplies, this was a game-changer. Opening up the floodgates for speedrunning and turning the already fun multiplayer deathmatch modes into high-intensity vertical skirmishes.

Rocket jumping became such a widespread exploit that later games in the series adopted it entirely, making it a key mechanic in Quake's combat. The developers even went so far as to design subsequent levels with the mechanic in mind to challenge players who'd become accustomed to its use.

And thus a legend was born.