Wall Jump

A mouse walljumping.

Same mouse walljumping.

The wall jump, sometimes known as the wall climb or just wj is an essential skill used to scale a wall by repeatedly jumping off and on it, going successively higher each time. It's used to leap to areas inaccessible to other mice with vastly improved times and without the aid of the Shaman.

Walljumping Technique

Walljumping is done by exploiting a glitch that gives mice their ability to jump back when they fall into a frictional wall. Mice use the jump immediately and make repeated half circles along the wall.

1. Fall down and towards the wall. Your mouse should extend his forelegs as if about to run. Holding the arrow key while near the top of a longer wall will show the running animation. It's extremely important that your mouse be falling when coming into contact with the wall. Otherwise, the mouse will slide down and not receive her jump back.
2. Tap away from the wall. It's important not to jump too far away from the wall.
3. Jump.
4. Repeat.

The most important thing to walljumping is to be falling when you make contact with the wall. A failed jump will cause you to slide down, from where it may be difficult to recover. Accurate pacing is vital; slow and steady wins the race.

The actual control-based steps are as follows, if you are moving towards a wall on your right:

1. Hold down the right arrow key (or D)
2. Ensure you are falling when you touch the wall
3. In rapid succession, let go of right (D), press left (A), then up (W). Do this very quickly or you will not make an effective jump.
4. Let go of both the other buttons, and hold right (D) again. Wait until you know you are in contact with the wall and moving downwards, then repeat

Likewise, if you are moving towards a wall on your left, you hold left, then quickly press right, then up, then hold left again. This can be described as "rolling" your fingers across the movement controls. A -> W -> D (hold)-> A -> W -> D (hold) etc., or D -> W -> A (hold) -> D -> W -> A (hold), etc. and is very similar to a command motion in fighting games known as "half-circle forward", or "HCF", where one rolls the joystick in a half-circle (such as "Back -> Down -> Forward" or "Down -> Back -> Up"). Just as in fighting games, actual diagonals are optional.

Problems

Walljumping can be difficult when not timed correctly; there are a variety of reasons why walljumping may fail:

• Holding the jump (W) key. While mice will automatically jump when a movement key and the jump key is held, turning around and doing so will cancel out this effect.
• Not making contact with the wall. Do not be too quick: ensure you are touching the wall before you make your jump!
• Not falling down when making contact with the wall. Your mouse needs to be moving downwards by some amount before you can jump again. Try slowing down a bit, and watching your mouse's up/down position.
• Attempting to walljump off the bluish purple Ice substance, found in some levels. "Ice" wood has no friction, and no way to grab onto it.
• Attempting to walljump off the purple Trampoline substance, found in other levels. "Trampoline" wood has no friction and pushes you away, BUT trampoline jumping is possible. Because the trampoline wood will push you away, there is no need to move away from the wall because it does that for you. So to trampoline jump, hold in the direction of the wall and jump. Trampoline Jumping is sometimes required for some bootcamp levels.
• Attempting to walljump off the red Lava substance, found in this level. "Lava" wood will toss you into oblivion, also making walljumping impossible. However, Lava jumping is possible if there are two lava walls facing each other. To lava jump, walljump in one direction, then the other, and keep doing so until you reach the top.

• 

  A mouse dances afer a successful lava jump

If you have trouble with walljumping, try entering your own room and practicing.

Walljumping with cheese

Walljumping with cheese is often much more difficult than without cheese. Cheese weighs down your mouse and makes it impossible to turn around quickly after leaping away. While regular walljumping allows the left or right arrow key to be continously held through the jump step, launching a mouse diagonally away, doing so with cheese makes your mouse unable to return to the wall soon enough afterward.

One way to solve this is by changing your walljumping pattern: the moment you tap away from the wall must be incredibly quick. Rather than making half-circles around the wall, you barely release the wall with a fine tap to the left or right, then immediately jump, a motion more like sliding up the wall than a half-circle. Practice this pattern without cheese to make it a habit.

Walljumping various walls

Walljumping can only be done on walls with friction and does not bounce you back in a way that you cannot return back from. Therefor, unmodified ice and lava walls cannot be walljumped.

However, some maps contain modified walls that have both fiction and restitution, often in the form of a walljumpable trampoline wall. These walls can be walljumped with some changes of the mouse's walljumping pattern. On extremely bouncy walls, mice must quickly change their direction in mid-air to compensate for being thrown back so far.

Video Demonstration

A step-by-step video walljumping tutorial, courtesy of Lagotrope