Air-Jumping in Dino Run DX: An Introduction

In this guide you will learn how to jump in mid-air in Dino Run DX. Yes, it's possible, and yes, it can be very useful.

Air Jumping Mechanics

First of all, the air jump must be defined. For the purposes of this guide, an air jump is a jump that the player dinosaur makes while not touching the ground or riding a boulder, meteor or a large or flying dinosaur.

Air jumps work due to a quirk in Dino Run DX: whenever your dinosaur is close enough to interact with something, the game seems to treat the dinosaur as being on the ground for a brief moment, allowing the dinosaur to make a jump as if it were running along the ground. Thus, air jumps can only be performed in very close proximity to certain objects which are above the ground for some reason or another.

Air jumps are affected by jump modifiers such as DNA upgrades and boosts from critters and jump fruit. Unlike jumps made from solid surfaces, air jumps are always considered to be made from flat ground, so they do not allow for dramatic changes in horizontal speed. Also unlike ground jumps, the dinosaur's vertical speed at the time of the air jump has a significant effect on the jump's height - if an air jump is made while on the rising portion of a ground jump, it can launch the dinosaur very high, but if it is instead made while falling, the air jump will have a greatly reduced height.

There is no limit to how many air jumps can be done without touching the ground. With the right map and some skill and luck, it is possible to traverse a large portion of the map without touching the ground.

Now that you know how air jumps work in theory, the following sections will explain how air jumping works in practice.

Air Jumping in Practice

As explained in Air Jumping Mechanics, air jumps can only be performed where there are interactable objects found above the ground. Air jumps vary in difficulty depending on the type of object off of which one attempts to perform an air jump; in all cases, though, the air jump is performed by pressing the Jump key while touching or interacting with the object.

Several applications exist for air jumps. First, air jumps can help you overcome small hills or scale mountains. Second, air jumps can help you secure dactyl rides where the dactyls would otherwise be unreachable. Finally, air jumps can elevate you above rival dinosaurs, making it easier to air-attack them in multiplayer.

All possible air-jumping objects are covered in the following sections in order of ascending air-jumping difficulty. While you are still learning how to perform air jumps, you should first be focused on air jumping off of...

Eggs in Trees

Eggs in trees are ideal for learning air-jumping for two reasons: 1) eggs in trees do not move, making it easy for you to jump into them and gain an opportunity for an air jump, and 2) eggs in trees are commonplace air-jumping objects, allowing you to gain a lot of practice on every run. The only downside of using these is that the eggs can be broken by boulders or meteors, so they will not always be there when you expect them.

Fun fact: before I discovered that air-jumping worked off of other objects as well, the original name for air-jumping was going to be egg-jumping.

Jump Fruit on Fruit Trees

Fruit trees are much rarer than trees with eggs; however, the fruit cannot be dislodged by boulders or meteors, making jump fruit on fruit trees more reliable in theory than eggs in trees. In practice, however, fruit trees are generally not located in good places for air-jumping, and the fruit is not always there for the taking, so you will not be utilizing these much.

Birds

Birds are arguably the easiest moving objects off of which a dinosaur can perform an air jump; this is mainly because birds take time to accelerate to full speed, allowing a fast dinosaur to nab the tree-dwelling birds before they have even escaped the tree. Even if you decide not to make an air jump off of a bird, eating it grants you large jump and speed boosts, augmenting other air jumps for a short time.

Dactyl Eggs

In addition to being worth 10 eggs each, dactyl eggs can be used as air-jumping objects. However, due to the unpredictability of dactyl egg-laying, catching these eggs in mid-air, let alone performing air jumps off of them, is quite difficult.

Falling Lizards

Falling lizards, like dactyl eggs, are unpredictable; to make things worse, however, you have to eat them in mid-air before you can air-jump off of them. In order to air-jump off of a falling lizard, you have to press the Crouch key to eat the lizard, then immediately press the Jump key to perform the air jump before the opportunity passes away. The combination of a difficult interception and a difficult key-pressing sequence makes falling lizards the most difficult air-jumping objects in Dino Run DX.

Jumping Fish

These are the only air-jumping objects which I have not yet used myself (thus, I don't know how difficult they are to use). However, fish are almost never found in places where you might actually want to perform an air-jump, so air-jumping off of jumping fish is purely for bragging rights.

Hot Dactyls

(October 2021: Added to guide)

Hot dactyls are normally a bad idea to touch, but they can be used for air jumps while you have a strength buff (from 500 DNA Shift effect, strength flowers or certain levels).

Conclusion

Now that you know all there is to know about air jumping in Dino Run DX, go out there and show everyone who's the best air-jumper in prehistory!

In unrelated news, here are some general tips for velociraptors:

• While riding a parasaurolophus (the fast dinosaur with a pickaxe head), press the Jump key while in mid-air to manually dismount, launching yourself forward.
  
• If a dactyl releases you, you will start with no forward speed; however, if you release yourself from the dactyl manually using the Jump key, you will be able to start with significant forward speed. In short, be proactive when it comes to ending dactyl rides.

[Boymanchan]

no

[DomToblerone27]

Hey Renusek! Here is a video that showcases Air Jumping. It is very short and doesn't really show its speedrunning potential, however it shows the functionality of the skill. https://youtu.be/JeijSgvMW-M

Also something not mentioned in the original post is that it is also possible to air jump off of hot dactyls if you are invulnerable to them!

[Mhmmm]

could you showcase it on a video?

[MissGrimReaper]

Interesting thanks.

[CACHAMA.com]

neat