Help making a swinging Rope

I need to make a swinging rope.. or vine.. or liana... Similar to the one in Legend Of Zelda: Wind Waker.. You jump onto it and the charater grabs the rope... you can press up and down to swing...and the piece of rope remaining from the point the character is positioned doesn't swing too much (optional)... Somthing like this:

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I tried doing it with cylinders and attaching them with hinges.. but.. it looks really stiff.. also.. I don't know how to stick an object to the rope...

Any ideas how I could implement it..

I suppose I could use something like a rag doll... use hinges and boxes for the bones...to make it look better

But, how could I stick an object to any part of the rope using physics. I want to go up and down the rope...?

I think maybe creating the rope with a lot of tiny boxes and hinges.. 30 or more.. And the character could be jumping from hinge to hinge to go up and down.. (box to box) If it's small enough, the jump won't be noticeable.. I don't know if it will be to hard on the cpu though.

Also I think that to simulate the effect of the remaing rope left, i could add a lot of mass to the box where it is being grabbed..

Any other ideas?