I am a student of Information Technology with my specialty being programming. In this last semester before graduation I have a course in gaming. For this course I am tasked to make a 3d game using Unity. First game I am going to make, I have some experience in modeling and can rig a model.

Concept:
Character is viewed sideways and is always running, the user encounters various objects "coming at him". The user has a button that will make the character jump over the obstacles in a freerunner kind of fashion. This could mean for instance that the character will plant his hand onto a box and swing his body over it.


Rosy Scenario:
User pushes the right button at the right time, his hand is planted succesfully on the obstacle and the jumping animation is played.


Problem:
How do I account for badly timed jumps? Best case I would want there to play some kind of collision animation even better would be to make the character start his jump but then make the model go into ragdoll mode when no handplant is detected causing the character to fall.


Question:
Am I getting myself into advanced territory here or is this something that can be achieved by a beginner? I am indulding my own imagination for this project and havn't really thought about how feasible these kinds of things are. I can manage the modeling and animation. But the interaction of an animated character with a static object is something that alludes me.

Any tips, comments, suggestions are greatly appreciated!