Obscure Jazz Jackrabbit fun facts

[Treylina]

They don't have to be new, but not well known facts.

So anyway, SE was checking the state of trademarks on the Jazz Jackrabbit franchise. Apparently, Jazz Jackrabbit was planned to have a TV adaptation. JJ3D was also planned even before JJ2 was released.

Here's the source if you're interested. (http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=75265524&caseType=SERIAL_NO&searchType=statusSearch) And the other source..
(http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=75326790&caseType=SERIAL_NO&searchType=statusSearch)And the regular trademark. (http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=75134487&caseType=SERIAL_NO&searchType=statusSearch)

Oh and TSF was made on a tight budget and deadline..not really obscure and showed many obvious signs, but sometimes I feel people don't really acknowledge that.

Alternatively, you can discuss what the TV adaption could've been like.

Official facts only please. In other words, no facts about fan-projects.

[Seren]

"Plan" is not the luckiest word to describe "register a trademark for", but I like how they did that just in case their bunny turns out to be the next Sonic the Hedgehog.

[Violet CLM]

Oh I remember that. <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/19990222132649/http://www.gamesdomain.co.uk/j2w/">Craig was talking about a cartoon</a> in mid-March, then a couple weeks later it got trademarked.

I'll quote what Jeh told me about TSF:
TSF started out as a big project; it was an idea that myself, Robert Allen (JJ & JJ2 producer) and Dean "Noogy" Dodrill came up with. Noogy and I had these elaborate plans for a big enveloping storyline that centered around the ending movie of JJ2, at the wedding/party scene. We even had plans for a cool opening movie complete with voiceovers! From there, Devon causes mayhem again, etc etc etc -- and Jazz, Spaz and Lori save the day. I forget if Eva was kidnapped again, but either way the 3 playable characters had a mission. It was never really "finalized" though and was large omitted due to time commitments.

TSF, all-in-all, was a big success in my mind as it was the first project I had worked on as a major release. There were issues with the Party Mode servers due to compatibility. We wanted to put more in but due to timeframes it wasn't possible.
...
Dean did a great job animating [Lori], but because this is such a time-consuming process, by the time all the animation was finished there was very little time to implement her special moves. All the moves were "in the works" (i.e. we'd come up with an idea, and Dean would animate it) so once it was animated, we used it. And, due to time constraints there wasn't any time to re-draw or animate different moves later on etc... so we had to use what Dean animated. Lori didn't get the testing she deserved when it came to her gameplay style.

[Treylina]

From the old newsposts, you were originally meant to be able to send high scores too.

[snzspeed]

One of their tileset plans for TSF was a "dream world" or something like that. It sounded interesting.

[Seren]

Fun fact: Jazz Jackrabbit 2 has a cheat code so obscure not a single online guide up to date on J2O or elsewhere mentions it. Unlike other cheats, it has to be typed on the episode selection screen and, when used, temporarily unlocks all episodes. Finding the code is left as an exercise for the reader.

[Primpy]

They don't have to be new, but not well known facts.

So anyway, SE was checking the state of trademarks on the Jazz Jackrabbit franchise. Apparently, Jazz Jackrabbit was planned to have a TV adaptation. JJ3D was also planned even before JJ2 was released.

NO WAY and woah. Well, I'd say a TV adaptation of Jazz could've been good but that would highly depend on the creators of the show. Most video games TV adaptations are pretty bad imo. It would've been interesting at least. The fact that Jazz 3D was planned before JJ2 bothers me a little, probably because it wasn't finished (which is sad...) .

One of their tileset plans for TSF was a "dream world" or something like that. It sounded interesting.

Sounds interesting.

Fun fact: Jazz Jackrabbit 2 has a cheat code so obscure not a single online guide up to date on J2O or elsewhere mentions it. Unlike other cheats, it has to be typed on the episode selection screen and, when used, temporarily unlocks all episodes. Finding the code is left as an exercise for the reader.

Pretty much useless cheat code since you can just JJNEXT a few times. So this can be found on the internet?

[Love & Thunder]

So this can be found on the internet?
not a single online guide up to date on J2O or elsewhere mentions it.My brain isn't working right now(Tiredness), so out of curiosity, what is the cheat code?

Anyway, Jazz 1 had a cheat code("APOGEE") that activated "Apology mode", which would reduce the game to 16 colours, and slow the game down to a crawl. This was poking fun at Apogee releasing 16-colour games that ran really slow at the time, even though games like Jazz 1 were possible.
The code was taken out of the game some time after the initial floppy release.

Jazz 1 was originally to star Wubbo Ockles, the first Dutch citizen to go into space.
After it was changed to Jazz(Named after Cliff Bleszinski's dog, who himself was named after the Transformer), he originally looked very different and was purple. He was then changed to green, and then later redrawn by Nick Stadler(The earlier green version can be seen here (http://www.jazz2online.com/jcf/showpost.php?p=479259&postcount=17)).

It's possible that the Jazz 2 source code no longer exists in a usable form. A while ago, there was a possibility of it being released, but they couldn't find it, and lawyers started getting in the way(Although it's academic at this point, since all the source code could really do now is help to optimise some of the Plus code, but not really anything else).

Jazz 2 was originally to have a 3D sequence between episodes. This was even partially coded, <s>and an easter egg in the game(Press 'I' on the Orange games logo, then try stuff) is theorised to be a test of what was finished of it</s>.

There is a code displayed at the end of Christmas Chronicles '99 and Holiday Hare '98. Since the code at the end of TSF, when entered into Project 2's website, would give you some extra levels to download, it is assumed that this was also planned for the Xmas editions, although HH98 came out after the site closed down, so we don't know if any such levels were even designed.

There are two versions of Jazz 3D floating around. One is an earlier build with a simpler main menu, and the other is a later build with a voice saying "Welcome to Jazz Jackrabbit 3D!" on the main menu.
Additionally, a partial production diary from Jazz 3D's development is featured in at least one of these builds.
Also, both versions say "Jazz Jackrabbit 3D public beta test" on the installer(Or setup, I forget which). It is widely known that both of these versions are early, unfinished, buggy alpha builds, so make of this what you will.
Finally, no one knows how Jazz 3D was leaked, or who leaked it. My personal theory is that either it was sent to an Epic employee who then sent it to a friend who sent it to a friend, etc. until it ended up on torrent sites, or that a copy was stolen from Epic's offices.

[Violet CLM]

Jazz 2 was originally to have a 3D sequence between episodes. This was partially coded, and an easter egg in the game(Press 'I' on the Orange games logo, then try stuff) is theorised to be a test of what was finished of it.
theorized by whom

[DoubleGJ]

Maybe not that obscure, but the GBA Jazz Jackrabbit was meant to be the start of a new series for the system, and future games would eventually feature prequels (just like Star Wars did) to tie the new story with the old one. In hindsight, you can see how wishful thinking that was, and it's kind of silly how pretty much everyone involved with the project got sort of angry at how poorly the game fared, and JJ was deemed unprofitable as a franchise.

Some tie-ins explained by the developers involved Jazz divorcing Eva and as such losing any ruling power on Carrotus, and Dark Shell being as loosely related to Devan as Dark Helmet was to Lone Starr in Spaceballs (A+ originality)

[Love & Thunder]

theorized by whom
I remember in the thread that was discussed in some people saying that might be it.
Although, I will admit that I haven't read that thread since it got posted in a while back, so I could be misremembering.
(EDIT: Just went back to the thread, and all I was remembering was a sarcastic remark from Sir Ementaler. XD)

DoubleGJ: That honestly makes me pretty glad JJA didn't go anywhere.

[Treylina]

...and JJ was deemed unprofitable as a franchise.

Have developers ever figured it's not because of the brand name, but because the games are underwhelming?

Infact JJ2 isn't even that good as a game alone, official contentwise (well, it's not bad either, just mediocre..meanwhile, TSF and CC99/HH98 are bad). Many of the fans are simply nostalgic and getting more people into the game is difficult, which tells something. Plus does make it better, but unofficially supported mods aren't going to draw people in.

It probably doesn't help it was released when 2D games were coming out of fashion either, though.

I think JJ is a franchise with unlocked potential. JJA was a downgrade (even looking past the FIXX0RZ stuff).

[Stijn]

getting more people into the game is difficult, which tells something
Good luck "getting people into" any game from that era.

[Primpy]

Good luck "getting people into" any game from that era.

Well said.

I think JJ is a franchise with unlocked potential. JJA was a downgrade (even looking past the FIXX0RZ stuff).

That's why I still believe that Jazz Jackrabbit will be back one day.

[Seren]

Also, both versions say "Jazz Jackrabbit 3D public beta test" on the installer(Or setup, I forget which). It is widely known that both of these versions are early, unfinished, buggy alpha builds, so make of this what you will.
I don't have any copies of JJ3D so it may be obvious but I'd like a citation for "both of these versions are early, unfinished, buggy alpha builds". While they tend to be called alpha when referred to, as far as I know everything suggests they were beta versions that might have been indeed being publicly tested ("public" here meaning "by an outside company", namely Epic).
Finally, no one knows how Jazz 3D was leaked, or who leaked it. My personal theory is that either it was sent to an Epic employee who then sent it to a friend who sent it to a friend, etc. until it ended up on torrent sites, or that a copy was stolen from Epic's offices.
I find that very unlikely, especially the theory about theft. To be honest, if I were to guess, I'd say World Tree Games published it themselves, whether by mutual agreement or individual decision of one of the members. Having spent 2 years without payment working on the game and finding no publisher, they didn't want their work to go to waste and intended to release what they had for free anyway, and all that seemed to be stopping them was the Unreal Engine usage fee. For them it was either leaking the demo unofficially or dooming their work of 2 years to never see daylight. Sounds like a motive to me.

Oh, and another fun fact, that every once in a while gets brought up but might be new to some: License agreement distributed with the game prior to The Secret Files explicitly forbids both creating and playing custom JJ2 level packs without authorization from Epic. Exact quote: "You are expressly prohibited from creating, using or selling any unauthorized level packs, add-on packs or sequels based upon or related to the SOFTWARE". The same license also refers to the characters as "Jazz Jack Rabbit" and "Spaz Jack Rabbit". The Secret Files license contains neither of those.

[Love & Thunder]

[Alpha vs. Beta]Given the fact that saving is completely broken, only one out of the four planned characters is playable, the game ends after the first boss, and multiplayer is almost entirely non-functional, I'd call it Alpha.
TBH, though, Alpha vs. Beta is semantics, as it can vary(See Minecraft, which was in public Alpha for years). Either way, though, I'd still call it a private beta at best. I guess this gives some credence to your theory about JJ3D being leaked by WTG, since it would make sense for them to tag "Public beta test" onto the setup if that was the case.

And speaking of...
[Theorising about JJ3D's leaking]That does sound a lot more plausible, especially when you consider that Cliff Bleszinski showed interest in it being spread around back when that was still being talked about, and what I just said about the setup thing.

[JJ2 licence agreement stuff]Oh yeah, I remember that. XD No idea what they were thinking there.

Anyway, might aswell post another fact: Jazz 2 was originally to have two different opening cinematics; one for the demo, one for the full game. The demo one is the one you see in-game currently.
Dean Dodrill(Who animated the demo one aswell) started work on the full game version, but never finished it. What he did finish of it can be seen here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlzia_6Bys0).

[Seren]

As you probably know, all sounds JJ2 ever plays are loaded from a single file, Anims.j2a. With a single exception: a sound played during the Gathering Of Developers intro cinematic that comes with some distributions of JJ2. This one sound is read from a file named GODSnd.j2v - even though it is not actually a valid J2V file. In fact, it's a completely regular WAV file with a modified extension.

One of the resources contained within Data.j2d is a grayscale texture named "Shield.Plasma". This texture is used by - you guessed it - the fire shield. No, not the plasma shield. Please stop calling the lightning shield that.

Speaking of misnomers, and getting further from official JJ2 facts and closer to community facts, here's something I found out one day and won't shut up about: Every once in a while you'll probably see somebody wanting to play "some survivor levels" or uploading their "first survivor level". Then sometimes another person corrects them saying they meant ground force, which is a game mode, while Survivor is BlurredD's level pack. But are they right?
You probably know part of the story: Survivor is indeed a level pack by BlurredD, based on a concept level named Ground Force created by ET, after which the entire mode was named ground force. But did you know Ground Force also came from a pack? Now, given that Ground Force was the first level of its kind, you should ask what game mode the rest of the pack was. The pack is most widely known as Cracco Pilot and its game mode is named by its main creator, Chiyu, "survivor".
It's starting to get complicated at this point, and unfortunately I couldn't find any records of naming the game mode that prior to release of BlurredD's pack, but the levels of Cracco Pilot mostly predate those of Survivor, and in particular, at least some of them predate Ground Force. Quote from Chiyu (note that while I try to keep lowercase/uppercase notation consistent in the rest of this post to indicate a difference between game modes and levels or packs, I didn't want to change the notation in the quote, so sorry for introducing even more confusion): "There are two well-known spin-offs of the concept Survivor. A few months after the release of the first Survivor levels, ET came up with a nice twist for this concept, and he asked me if he was allowed to use this idea combined with my original concept to create Ground Force". To sum up what we learned so far, Survivor is a ground force level pack, Ground Force is a ground force level, and ground force is a variation on survivor.
So what actually is survivor? Again, I'll let Chiyu explain: "Survivor levels have to be hosted in treasure. [...] The point is to stay in the arena as long as possible. Most levels have some added things to make this hard; such as destructable blocks/ground, self-exploding TNT's/bombs, lasers and events like winds, belts, suckertubes etc. If they're not falling by themselves, you have to 'fight' your opponents off. You can push them, but you can also shoot them with various ammo [...]". Sounds familiar? Well, it should, because this is essentially an elaboration on JDC description of gladiators. What on earth happened there?
Perhaps, like I, you came across the JDC description once and thought "hm, that's a cool idea, I wonder what levels there are for that". I spent my time looking around, browsing archives, and asking people, and came to conclusion that A) there is not a single gladiators level (other than Chiyu's "survivor" levels), and B) there has never been any gladiators event. So why would JDC list it? And more importantly, why is it named "gladiators"? Don't you think that's a fairly distant association? Trying to push and shoot people so they fall to their deaths versus swordsmen fighting in the closed space of an amphitheater?
I don't know why this happened, but I do have a theory: perhaps one person asked another: "what was the name of that concept game mode by Chiyu where you fight players in an arena until only one is left?" and heard back "you mean gladiators?". Because, guess what, it so happens that Chiyu also uploaded a bunch of concept levels named Cracco Gladiator 1 through 12. Those show a completely different concept game mode of their own, which is up to 8 players in a single elimination tournament in separate secluded arenas fighting battle mode duels until there's a single winner. This, in a sense, is reminiscent of what JDC calls One Day Tournament, although the levels are specifically constructed for it and each duel is played in a different arena.
At this point, I propose accepting the following classification: survivor is any level played in treasure hunt mode where the objective is to be the last person left in an arena. This mode's sub-types are ground force, characterized by being mostly composed of destructible scenery, gladiators, characterized by its lack at least for the most part, and airboard survivor, the other variant Chiyu mentions, which contributes majority of the Cracco Pilot pack.
To conclude, you can now link to this post when people try to correct you. Go play some survivor levels.

[Talec]

survivor, the game mode, has always been my favorite custom mode (along with Jailbreak). I was really confused when "ground force" took over, like what does that even mean, at least "survivor" is self-explanatory

Fact: There are things you can type into SP that look like valid cheat codes (i.e. press F9 twice and type them; like valid cheats, they vanish after you finish them) but don't seem to do anything. These are what I found:

jjcolor
jjd
jjpower
jjt

[Treylina]

Fact: There are things you can type into SP that look like valid cheat codes (i.e. press F9 twice and type them; like valid cheats, they vanish after you finish them) but don't seem to do anything. These are what I found:

jjcolor
jjd
jjpower
jjt

Most of these are just newly added cheat codes.

jjcolor is a plus-only cheat. It changes your colour to your MP ones.
Yet another plus only cheat, jjpower powers up your current weapons
jjt is also a plus-only cheat. Typed once, it doubles the speed of your game, typed twice, it halves the speed of your game.

TL;DR: Read the plus readme.

[Violet CLM]

No, they always were cheat codes; that's how Talec found them.

jjcolor was always meant to change your colors, but it failed to load them from the registry first, so Plus fixed that.
jjd did work! It turned off the high scores list. You could undo it by typing jjd three more times, or by typing jjending. Plus removed that effect because it was kind of pointless, though.
jjpower and jjt existed but never had any effects.
There's also jjcpu, which toggled a flag that is never read by any other section of code, so there's no way of knowing what it was for. It may have been replaced with F9 or Shift+F7, but that's pure speculation.

[Seren]

Minor spoiler warning: Neobeo's Firetruck easter egg.
That reminds me, Neobeo's Firetruck is known for a number of previously unused tricks, but one of them in particular is very easily overseen. There is an optional location in the level that contains one of the many rhyming messages. If you had played Neobeo's Firetruck, you know that the messages sometimes contain a useful clue, more commonly state your very obvious objective in a complicated way, and occasionally seem to be complete nonsense. This one is easy to discard as a joke: it congratulates you for finding a secret area and tells you to enter what appears to be a completely ordinary icy zone and type "jjackrabbitsaysthatneobeoiscool". However, if this is actually done, the game will react by displaying "neobeoiscool" as a text message on the screen. This is because the icy area is filled with text events with ID 133, but, as you probably know, only IDs up to 15 are meant to be supported. You can define more by modifying a level file using custom tools, but because JJ2 only has space for 16, IDs above 15 will take place of random memory, with potential to cause errors and glitches unless you know precisely what you're doing. The level utilizes that fact too, by using some unused memory for its text strings, but more importantly, Neobeo found out that the same memory address text 133 would start at, happens to match that of the 20th character of the cheat code currently being typed - hence the unusual effect. Keep in mind this only works in vanilla JJ2 1.23 (and maybe 1.22?), as does the rest of the level. TSF is known to crash in that level, versions before 1.22 don't support trigger zones, and JJ2+ uses some of the memory vanilla didn't and as such won't display some of the text strings correctly.

[Grovespaz!]

Sir Ementaler & Violet CLM: Your facts are very interesting, I like technical JJ2 trivia. Thanks!

[ShadowGPW]

Some Jazz2City.com staff members were the testers of Jazz Jackrabbit 3D back in the day.

One of those early testers leaked JJ3D after they found out the publisher GoD wasn't interested in the content. Leaking the demo was highly illegal, it contained raw sourcecode from the Unreal engine. I honestly can't remember who gave me the original demos. I do remember that Newspaz and me were looking for any info about the game.

At some point I've ended up making Jazz3FAQ together with Wakeman, WTG, DrJones and Noogy. ( http://www.jazz2online.com/j3f/ )

There was a plan to start Jazz3City. A concept and some artwork was made for it. Just like many other files, I've lost all of them during a HDD crash.

[Love & Thunder]

Here is a preliminary Jazz 3 City mockup (http://www.jazz2online.com/j3f/j3cindex.htm).

Originally, Jazz 2 levels and tilesets were saved together as one file, with the .LEV extension. This was in the early stages of development, when JCS was still called MLLE(Multi-Layer Level Editor, not to be confused with Violet CLM's WebJCS-like project of the same name (http://www.jazz2online.com/downloads/info.php?levelID=7291), which can edit levels of JJ2 1.00g/h, 1.10o, 1.23, and 1.24, aswell as Battery Check, and Animaniacs: A Gigantic Adventure, the two other games that use Jazz 2's engine, neither of which's levels can normally be edited by JCS).
This early .LEV-style of saving levels can be seen in the 1.00g and 1.00h OEM beta versions of the game, although neither included a level editor.
A screenshot of this very early JCS(MLLE) can be seen here (http://www.jazz2online.com/upload/adminmedia/earlyjcs1.png).

And getting back to Violet CLM's MLLE, a little while ago, a beta version(1.10o) of Jazz 2 was discovered(It was a review copy if I remember correctly), which used J2L/J2T files like the final game, although the final version of JCS can't open these files. However, 1.10o included its own version of JCS, which can open these levels, aswell as Battery Check levels. This level editor was reverse engineered into an unreleased project known as BCCS(Battery Check Creation Station), which was never finished, although a lot of the work that went into it helped Violet CLM put together Battery Check support in his MLLE project.

We all know that Jazz 2 has all its enemies, objects, sprites, etc. pre-loaded into the engine, making level editing in JCS quite easy. In contrast, Jazz 1 saved all its sprites in specialised files for each level(SPRITES.xxx), aswell as one sprite file for Jazz(MAINCHAR.000).

The way events worked in Jazz 1 was that there were about 128 blank events, which had a lot of settings and behavioural modifiers you could change, which would apply to all instances of that event in the level. When you set all these settings right, they become specific events(Although some events(I forget which ones) should be left blank, as they function as things like drawing the tile in front of Jazz, making the tile intangible, etc.). This is complicated to get working and understand, but it means that Jazz 1 had a highly versatile engine(Sonic With A Gun (http://www.jazz2online.com/downloads/7343/sonic-with-a-gun/) showcases a lot of the stuff JJ1 can do when pushed).

One of the things you can modify about each event in JJ1 is its name. If you open the final level of Episode 6 of Jazz 1 in J1E, you can see that the developers named the final boss "Fucker".

[Violet CLM]

Speaking of 1.00g/h, they did include <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUKhUeCpKTg">one event</a> that retail JJ2 doesn't.

[Primpy]

One of the things you can modify about each event in JJ1 is its name. If you open the final level of Episode 6 of Jazz 1 in J1E, you can see that the developers named the final boss "Fucker".

OH MY GOD. Well, I do believe lots of people called him "Fucker" while fighting him so, yeah...

[Violet CLM]

(Although Robo overstates the significance a bit... the Megairbase boss is also called that, the Lagunicus boss is badassmotherfucker, TNT is "get the dick," and various other objects (Candion rats, Lagunicus bubbles...) include "fuck" somewhere or other in their name as well.)

[Love & Thunder]

I've only very rarely used J1E, so this is news to me. XD

[Slaz]

Speaking of dirtyness, did you know that the JJ3D Alpha contains 2 unused audio files for Jazz's death?

One goes "Ah Fucking Shit!" and the other being just "Ah Shit!"

[Love & Thunder]

And who could forget the time Dean Dodrill drew Lori completely naked.
Context: Most artists do nude drawings, it's an art exercise or something. Additionally, Dean actually took all those images down several years ago, which was probably best for his reputation, given how certain people view furry/furry-like artwork, and the fact that he was making Dust: An Elysian Tail at the time, and is currently still working on his similarly titled film, Elysian Tail(Which he's been making for roughly ten years IIRC).

Anyway, to provide some brain bleach to those who don't even want to think about that, here's some info from the JJ1 manual: Jazz is 3'1", Devan is 2'4", Eva is 3'9", it's always raining on Medivo because the atmosphere is very thick, and the supercomputer planet Letni is how Devan builds battleships and figures out where to get lunch on a rainy Tuesday afternoon.

[Seren]

She wasn't "completely naked". She was topless.

[Nonomu198]

As you probably know, all sounds JJ2 ever plays are loaded from a single file, Anims.j2a. With a single exception: a sound played during the Gathering Of Developers intro cinematic that comes with some distributions of JJ2. This one sound is read from a file named GODSnd.j2v - even though it is not actually a valid J2V file. In fact, it's a completely regular WAV file with a modified extension.

One of the resources contained within Data.j2d is a grayscale texture named "Shield.Plasma". This texture is used by - you guessed it - the fire shield. No, not the plasma shield. Please stop calling the lightning shield that.

Speaking of misnomers, and getting further from official JJ2 facts and closer to community facts, here's something I found out one day and won't shut up about: Every once in a while you'll probably see somebody wanting to play "some survivor levels" or uploading their "first survivor level". Then sometimes another person corrects them saying they meant ground force, which is a game mode, while Survivor is BlurredD's level pack. But are they right?
You probably know part of the story: Survivor is indeed a level pack by BlurredD, based on a concept level named Ground Force created by ET, after which the entire mode was named ground force. But did you know Ground Force also came from a pack? Now, given that Ground Force was the first level of its kind, you should ask what game mode the rest of the pack was. The pack is most widely known as Cracco Pilot and its game mode is named by its main creator, Chiyu, "survivor".
It's starting to get complicated at this point, and unfortunately I couldn't find any records of naming the game mode that prior to release of BlurredD's pack, but the levels of Cracco Pilot mostly predate those of Survivor, and in particular, at least some of them predate Ground Force. Quote from Chiyu (note that while I try to keep lowercase/uppercase notation consistent in the rest of this post to indicate a difference between game modes and levels or packs, I didn't want to change the notation in the quote, so sorry for introducing even more confusion): "There are two well-known spin-offs of the concept Survivor. A few months after the release of the first Survivor levels, ET came up with a nice twist for this concept, and he asked me if he was allowed to use this idea combined with my original concept to create Ground Force". To sum up what we learned so far, Survivor is a ground force level pack, Ground Force is a ground force level, and ground force is a variation on survivor.
So what actually is survivor? Again, I'll let Chiyu explain: "Survivor levels have to be hosted in treasure. [...] The point is to stay in the arena as long as possible. Most levels have some added things to make this hard; such as destructable blocks/ground, self-exploding TNT's/bombs, lasers and events like winds, belts, suckertubes etc. If they're not falling by themselves, you have to 'fight' your opponents off. You can push them, but you can also shoot them with various ammo [...]". Sounds familiar? Well, it should, because this is essentially an elaboration on JDC description of gladiators. What on earth happened there?
Perhaps, like I, you came across the JDC description once and thought "hm, that's a cool idea, I wonder what levels there are for that". I spent my time looking around, browsing archives, and asking people, and came to conclusion that A) there is not a single gladiators level (other than Chiyu's "survivor" levels), and B) there has never been any gladiators event. So why would JDC list it? And more importantly, why is it named "gladiators"? Don't you think that's a fairly distant association? Trying to push and shoot people so they fall to their deaths versus swordsmen fighting in the closed space of an amphitheater?
I don't know why this happened, but I do have a theory: perhaps one person asked another: "what was the name of that concept game mode by Chiyu where you fight players in an arena until only one is left?" and heard back "you mean gladiators?". Because, guess what, it so happens that Chiyu also uploaded a bunch of concept levels named Cracco Gladiator 1 through 12. Those show a completely different concept game mode of their own, which is up to 8 players in a single elimination tournament in separate secluded arenas fighting battle mode duels until there's a single winner. This, in a sense, is reminiscent of what JDC calls One Day Tournament, although the levels are specifically constructed for it and each duel is played in a different arena.
At this point, I propose accepting the following classification: survivor is any level played in treasure hunt mode where the objective is to be the last person left in an arena. This mode's sub-types are ground force, characterized by being mostly composed of destructible scenery, gladiators, characterized by its lack at least for the most part, and airboard survivor, the other variant Chiyu mentions, which contributes majority of the Cracco Pilot pack.
To conclude, you can now link to this post when people try to correct you. Go play some survivor levels.
This is the nerdiest thing I've read in weeks, I love it. The etymology of obscure terms in obscure fandoms. (y)

Lori
Artists are pretty much expected to draw cheesecake of their female characters.

[Love & Thunder]

She wasn't "completely naked". She was topless.I'm just relaying what I've heard, having never seen the picture.

[Slaz]

I'm just relaying what I've heard, having never seen the picture.

Then I volunteer to be the one to link the picture. It's the 21st century, why would we still lie in shock after seeing a part of the human body about 50% of humanity has? It's not even porn, it's just breasts.

So don't click this link if you are afraid of seeing yellow breasts: (link removed)

[Primpy]

And who could forget the time Dean Dodrill drew Lori completely naked.
Finally, someone confirmed this to me. I was going to mention this as well but I wasn't sure if the fact is real or not.

So don't click this link if you are afraid of seeing yellow breasts


3spooky5me

[Torkell]

/me puts admin hat on

No NSFW content, please. Discussion's fine, but I'm drawing the line at images.

[Appels]

So as soon as i rushed to my beloved android dosbox turbo and started JJ1 i found out that the APOGEE mode didnt work because im using a later version of jj1 (obviously not the floppies of my great great great granddad )

[Primpy]

/me puts admin hat on

No NSFW content, please. Discussion's fine, but I'm drawing the line at images.

#FreeTheNipple
just a joke, pls no ban

Now I know all of these facts but there's no one I can share them with. That sucks.

I do believe that pretty much everyone here knows this but there is a "Chris is a redneq" sprite. It's supposed to be a joke about an Epic employee at the time.
https://tcrf.net/images/e/ea/Jazz_2_Chrisisaredneq.png

Oh, and also take a look at this (https://tcrf.net/Jazz_Jackrabbit_(DOS)). I find this funny especially because the devs were way younger and more or less immature back then. I do believe that this proves the fact that they enjoyed making this game.

[Newspaz]

Oh, and also take a look at this (https://tcrf.net/Jazz_Jackrabbit_(DOS)). I find this funny especially because the devs were way younger and more or less immature back then. I do believe that this proves the fact that they enjoyed making this game.

That TCRF wiki you link to is interesting, the Jazz2 page actually has some stuff I didn't know or forgot (or didn't know I forgot).

It also mentions a game called DOG Dune Runner which apparently uses an Orange games engine which has the Jazz2 -spy console. However that game seems to be 3D and sporting voxel technology. It makes me wonder if maybe that game is a showcase of the bonus stage technology.

[Violet CLM]

Oh, and also take a look at this (https://tcrf.net/Jazz_Jackrabbit_(DOS)). I find this funny especially because the devs were way younger and more or less immature back then. I do believe that this proves the fact that they enjoyed making this game.
That page is a bit confused... it seems to think that the Holidaius and Lagunicus messages weren't actually used in the levels (they were) and that Exoticus was called Carrotus (it wasn't). Their JJ2 page looks better, if still (inevitably) incomplete.

[Nonomu198]

That page is a bit confused... it seems to think that the Holidaius and Lagunicus messages weren't actually used in the levels (they were) and that Exoticus was called Carrotus (it wasn't). Their JJ2 page looks better, if still (inevitably) incomplete.

Did you hear that? The wiki is calling you to add to it! ;-)

[Primpy]

That page is a bit confused... it seems to think that the Holidaius and Lagunicus messages weren't actually used in the levels (they were) and that Exoticus was called Carrotus (it wasn't). Their JJ2 page looks better, if still (inevitably) incomplete.
Did you hear that? The wiki is calling you to add to it! ;-)

Well, the page also says this:
This page sucks.
If you could make it suck less, that would be awesome.
And it would definately be awesome if you or someone else here could improve it with some of their Jazz Jackrabbit knownledge.

[Jelly Jam]

And it would definately be awesome if you or someone else here could improve it with some of their Jazz Jackrabbit knownledge.

I would update the wiki all day if i had a PC... Lets all donate me money for one!
it's a joke, ofc

Jj3d before jj2 isn't a suprise imo, since many 2D stars had their 3D release back then. 1996, perhaps?

As for the Cartoon, i dont think it would have been something huge...

[Primpy]

I would update the wiki all day if i had a PC... Lets all donate me money for one!
it's a joke, ofc

Jj3d before jj2 isn't a suprise imo, since many 2D stars had their 3D release back then. 1996, perhaps?

As for the Cartoon, i dont think it would have been something huge...

Hey Jelly, long time no see! I hope you'll get your PC as soon as possible :)

Actually if you think about it, you're right. Maybe they wanted to jump straight into 3D instead of making a 2D sequel of the game.

I agree. As I said before, video game based cartoons are usually disappointing.

[Love & Thunder]

Then I volunteer to be the one to link the picture. It's the 21st century, why would we still lie in shock after seeing a part of the human body about 50% of humanity has? It's not even porn, it's just breasts.Although I agree with you(Despite still having not seen the image XD), most things like this are dictated by arbitrary social paranoia, which is a discussion for another day. The bottom line, though, is that if Dean Dodrill hadn't removed the image from his site, I think Dust: An Elysian Tail probably would have been sabotaged right out of the gate, and I'm not sure it would have turned out as the big success it became.
Anyway...

I personally think a Jazz cartoon could have been good. If it was in the style of the two manual comics(Or Sonic: SatAM, or Animaniacs), it could have been pretty entertaining. I suppose we'll just have to watch Bucky O' Hare and squint.

Oh, also, thinking about Dean Dodrill, did you know that Epic offered Dean the chance to finish Jazz 3 sometime around the time it was cancelled. The catch was that he would have to move to North Carolina, which was not an option, as he was settling down with his wife.

[Jelly Jam]

I personally think a Jazz cartoon could have been good. If it was in the style of the two manual comics(Or Sonic: SatAM, or Animaniacs), it could have been pretty entertaining.

As long as it's hilarious (no, not hillarious as 'lame american puns'), i would deffinetly watch that. I imagine Devan as a 'villian in try' there.

[Primpy]

Oh, also, thinking about Dean Dodrill, did you know that Epic offered Dean the chance to finish Jazz 3 sometime around the time it was cancelled. The catch was that he would have to move to North Carolina, which was not an option, as he was settling down with his wife.

Oh, that's interesting. I wish he would've accepted... What a shame, what a shame...

[Hare]

That Lori pic was a gift for someone in the community. Maybe. I can't quite recall. Either way, they ended up puting it on a t-shirt and wore it in public to a furry convention.

[Stijn]

Quoth Noogy.com, when it still had a gallery:

These images are shown as the owner had requested, and do not necessarily reflect my preferences in art. As such, there will be mature content on this page.

(...)

This was a request by Dr. Jones (owner of Lori Central). My creation Lori has never looked more beautiful :) This was one of my first pieces uses a brush pen, and then painted with Painter.

[Treylina]

....Either way, they ended up puting it on a t-shirt and wore it in public to a furry convention.

[Citation needed]

[Borgia]

So don't click this link if you are afraid of seeing yellow breasts: (link removed)

Link removed? Well, nuts. But it's not that hard to find the picture on the Dark Side of the Internet :roll:. So with my superior searching skills I managed to dig up the picture in a matter of moments.

http://3dsplaza.com/chathnd/icon_megusta.jpg

--

It's nice to see all these tales come to the surface. Sheds another light on the game and whatever happened around it :). I, myself, know no fun facts to share. I am way too uninvolved in the game to even know obscure facts.

[Hare]

[Citation needed]
This was back on Noogy's animation forum before it was shut down around 2004. Not sure if there is an archive floating around somewhere.

[PurpleJazz]

It is possible to play the Shareware Demo levels in the OEM version (1.00g/1.00h). All you need to do is rename Share1.lev to Castle1.lev, and you can play them by selecting the Formerly a Prince Episode - make sure to back up the original Castle1.lev though. This same technique also lets you access the MP levels in SP and vice versa.

[Jelly Jam]

I actually knew this already. I didn't make a big deal about it because i thought everyone knows. Guess i was wrong though.

[Love & Thunder]

It is common knowledge that freezing a gem ring in vanilla JJ2 causes a crash. What isn't common knowledge is that this was not true in 1.00g/h.

[Seren]

There's also a related widespread lie (http://www.jazz2online.com/wiki/List_of_known_Jazz_Jackrabbit_2_bugs#h-3) that such a crash is caused by the fact "there is no animation for a frozen gem ring". Obviously literally no sprites have separate frozen animation resources; that would be an incredible waste of space. It also has nothing to do with drawing a rotated frozen sprite, because rotating rocks do that just fine when frozen (although one thing to notice is that rotated frozen sprites vastly differ in appearance from regular frozen sprites) (also, in JJ2 code for rotated sprites, gem mode has priority over frozen mode anyway, so if frozen gem rings didn't crash the game, they would be drawn as regular gem rings). Instead, the reason of the crash is that frozen objects have their state changed to FREEZE, but gem rings have a poorly written behavior function that doesn't expect any states other than START, SLEEP, HIT, or DEACTIVATE, and, when called for an object with another state, doesn't properly set size of the sprite to be drawn, leaving it at 0. Of course that wouldn't be a problem with properly written code for displaying scaled sprites, 0 would just mean no sprite is drawn. Yeah, no, JJ2 is totally taking that and dividing by that.

[cooba]

But why does it make a blue bang in 1.00g???

[ShadowGPW]

By god why did I Google nude Jackrabbit pics. :eek::eek::eek:

[Love & Thunder]

No idea. You can probably find it in the Wayback Machine somewhere though, if you really want to find it.

Anyway, here's a fact: One of the levels in the Jazz 3 alpha not normally accessible ingame is a hub that allows you to teleport to all the main sections of the game. There is also a sign in front of you when you enter it, which says "Welcome to the Jazz Jackrabbit 3D demo!"

[Primpy]

Anyway, here's a fact: One of the levels in the Jazz 3 alpha not normally accessible ingame is a hub that allows you to teleport to all the main sections of the game. There is also a sign in front of you when you enter it, which says "Welcome to the Jazz Jackrabbit 3D demo!"

Are you talking about jmpclover or jmpclover2? If yes, they are accessible ingame.

[Love & Thunder]

How?

[Stijn]

IIRC, you can select them when setting up a multiplayer game.

[Love & Thunder]

Oh, I meant in singleplayer mode. Aren't all the working maps in the game available in multiplayer?

[Primpy]

Oh, I meant in singleplayer mode. Aren't all the working maps in the game available in multiplayer?

I believe all the working maps are available in multiplayer, except the SP maps.

[Love & Thunder]

Oh, that reminds me, has anyone ever managed to get the broken maps in JJ3 working? I've always been curious about what they contained.

[Treylina]

Know the castle tune in JJ3? It's actually a re-arrangement of Cloud City by Necros:

http://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=73743

I don't know why I didn't post this earlier, I found it out ages ago. The JJ3 remaster is better though.

Also, more commonly known, that the tune in Townhouse (Streetwize) is a spiritual remix of this;

http://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=40082

[Primpy]

Know the castle tune in JJ3? It's actually a re-arrangement of Cloud City by Necros:

http://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=73743

I don't know why I posted this earlier, I found it out ages ago. The JJ3 remaster is better though.

Also, more commonly known, that the tune in Townhouse (Streetwize) is a spiritual remix of this;

http://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=40082

The facts you found are really interesting in my opinion. How did you find out about these? And I think Cloud City was just a placeholder until A. Brandon would've come up with a new track.

Considering the facts that Streetwize is part of the Secret Files DLC and The Secret Files was, well, pretty obscure (maybe not the most fitting word but you know what I mean), does that mean Frolick Lane and Jazz Belmont are also remixes/remasters of other songs?

[Treylina]

It borrows the melody and structure. That's not a remix, but a cover version (or reinterpretation, depending on how much you think the songs overlap).

It follows the melody in the beginning, but other than that, I don't see much resemblance.

[Love & Thunder]

As a result of the weird way Jazz 1 addresses VGA hardware, DOSBox outputs the game at a resolution of 320x199 ingame.

[luke11685]

guys and guls if i could find gilvasunner's ost re-arrangement jazz jackrabbit 3 castle city flinstone music main theme loop on youtube,but it seems it's deleted on youtube

[Treylina]

guys and guls if i could find gilvasunner's ost re-arrangement jazz jackrabbit 3 castle city flinstone music main theme loop on youtube,but it seems it's deleted on youtube

Read the first post.


Official facts only please. In other words, no facts about fan-projects.

[Love & Thunder]

License agreement distributed with the game prior to The Secret Files explicitly forbids both creating and playing custom JJ2 level packs without authorization from Epic. Exact quote: "You are expressly prohibited from creating, using or selling any unauthorized level packs, add-on packs or sequels based upon or related to the SOFTWARE". The same license also refers to the characters as "Jazz Jack Rabbit" and "Spaz Jack Rabbit". The Secret Files license contains neither of those.
Here's a quote from the JCS digital manual(For those unaware: In the top bar, mouse over "Help", then click "Contents")...
We at Epic encourage you to make your own levels with your own tilesets and share them with friends and family, put them om your homepage and so on, as long as you do not sell your tilesets or levels.
My guess is that someone on the legal team misinterpreted "Do not sell your tilesets or levels" as "Do not distribute your tilesets or levels." By the time TSF was being made, they must have noticed and corrected this. Speculation aside, since this addendum is in the manual for the 1.23 version of JCS, the thing in the license agreement was almost certainly a mistake.

Also, I'm aware of the typo in the quote above("put them om your homepage"); the typo is in the original text, and I decided to leave it in

[nimmoisa000]

Alternatively, you can discuss what the TV adaption could've been like.

Well it could've been like be on the lines of Sonic SatAM, Exosquad, Wing Commander Academy, and Bucky O'Hare and the Toad Wars with a storyline and time development like Steven Universe. It would be its semi-canon with some connections to the games (though there will be some references from the games), and fan content would also be referenced and used. The cartoon would start with Jazz, Spaz, and Eva enjoying the peace on Carrotus. When Devan Shell came by and shattered the once-peaceful Kingdom, by launching a devastating attack on Carrotus after rebuilding his force to what it was in Jazz 1 level. Devan planned on conquering Carrotus and enslaving the surviving rabbits. But, Devan Shell called away to Aeschylus, Devan's homeworld. Devan left Carrotus in ruin, after setting up a secret laboratory on Carrotus. Elements from both games Jazz Jackrabbit 1 and Jazz Jackrabbit 2. Still aspects from the "made to be" Jazz Jackrabbit 3, and the GBA version of Jazz Jackrabbit. Fan characters are used as well. It would be a storyline series with the use of story arcs like Steven Universe. Major Arcs cover multiple seasons; Minor Arcs cover a whole season. Major Operations cover multiple episodes; Minor Operations covers a single episode's main plot. In contrast, dispatch and homeworld investigations include an episode's side plot. Initially, those who are loyal to Jazz Jackrabbit are his brother Spaz, best friend Eva and Queen Earlong. Early on, Lori Jackrabbit and Razz Earlong become loyal to Jazz. Jazz from then forms Team Jazz, a team of rabbits loyal to Jazz dedicated to defeating Devan Shell. Midway in Season 1, Zoe Connentail (from the GBA version of Jazz Jackrabbit) becomes a member of Team Jazz. Another member of Team Jazz joins the fold Ian J. Burn who is the James Bond Jr. of the Jazz Jackrabbit universe and comes from Earth from the milky way galaxy. Devan Shell will also have his counterpart to Team Jazz at the start of the cartoon consisting of Dirven Shell, Cosmo Shell (Devan's scientist cousin), Evil Jazz, Salti Crust (from the fan comic Guilty Gene), Kazz Jackrabbit (the "modern" Jazz Jackrabbit from the GBA version of Jazz Jackrabbit) and Dark Shell (at first). Just like Steven Universe, the characters would develop over time. Razz would create his rabbit army to outmatch Devan's turtle army as well as coming up with neat ideas to defend Carrotus and retake planets under turtle control. At the same time, Razz becomes more like a rabbit version of Devan Shell, and Razz would start going too far by wiping out innocent civilans. Devan Shell realizes what he had done and attempts a heel-face turn. Dark Shell becomes more merciless and frames Devan Shell for killing rabbit civilians. Kazz Slickhare also defects from Team Shell to become a Shadow-like antagonist to Jazz. There will be new species in the cartoon, like scorpions who are just as cruel and brutal as Razz was towards turtles. A species of smart, intelligent monkeys who conquers other planets to expand their businesses. A species of space-faring toads whose homeworld was destroyed by the scorpions and became allies with the rabbits. One of the reviles in the cartoon is that Devan Shell's homeworld is Aeschylus. It serves as a significant plot point in Season 4, where Razz's revenge plan is to blow up Aeschylus with the Razz Station laser cannon. The same way Devan Shell did to Carrotus at the start of the cartoon. Unlike Devan plans to enslave every surviving rabbit. Razz plans to execute every surviving turtle. Devan would reveal that he's never a savage towards rabbits. Devan even tells Razz that he and his rabbit army are savages towards turtles. With Razz going after turtle civilians as well as Turtle Terrorists and Devan has to step up protecting the civilians and his troop members. The later seasons could see Kazz Slickhare and Dark Shell, as the main antagonists. Dark Shell vows to kill everything in the galaxy who does not side with Team Slickhare or has sided with Team Jazz. Kazz Slickhare is more of going after Jazz specifically out of jealously that he's gotten his comeback. Devan completes his heel-face turn at this point, fighting the good fight with Jazz. Unlike Steven Universe, villain redemptions are sparing. Only Devan Shell, Tweedle, Hook Lee, Cosmo, Satil Crust, and Dirven Shell would be redeemed good guys over the series.

I've got more of my idea of what it could've been.

[ShadowGPW]

thats one big wall of text :D

[Love & Thunder]

Wow, this is a flashback.

... Well, while I'm here, I might as well drop in a thing or two.

I've been working on this on and off for a long time, but I should probably debut some of my findings here for some people to enjoy; I've trawled through some old Jazz 3 design docs that leaked a while back, and discovered a lot of interesting stuff.

The earliest Jazz 3 design doc in the leak is from June 1998, a mere month after the initial release of Jazz 2.
There was a full plot outline in the July 1998 doc:Devan Shell has come up with a masterful, if flawed plan (or perhaps someone else does this to him unknown to him at first) to create more than one of himself. Naturally, once he created another of himself, he could take the typical cartoon concept of horror and remorse and fear what had transpired, desiring to 'right' what was created. (Using this, Devan could be a secret character available to play after completion of the game.) Once the created duplicate was made, it decided the best way to continue was to make another of itself, and so on. This takes time and money, which ultimately ran out. So the duplicates - good friends at first - decide to head off and cause trouble on their own. Realizing that they are evil, they decide also not to stay faithful to the others, and each start plotting to their own destruction. While most focus on destroying the rabbits, a few figure they'll destroy their clones and just generally cause chaos as well. Which is the real Devan? He's the one hiding around, maybe in disguise, who just figures he'll blow the universe up and destroy whatever he can, then take a very long vacation afterward to take over some other planet.This plot would probably make a really fun Jazz 2 SP pack. But anyway, onward...

I don't think that initial plot was particularly well-liked by the team; in fact, I think there was a lot of trouble getting together a coherent plot for the game. Here's a second plotline they came up with, from January 1999. Please note that at this stage, Lori was intended to be a love interest for Spaz; she was the yellow bunny we see in the cutscene at the end of Jazz 2.With Devan Shell crushed, his plan to go back in time and destroy Jazz’s parents defeated, Jazz Jackrabbit and his brother Spaz returned to Carrotus for a grand celebration. With the time machine ruined and Devan’s minions scattered into hiding, nothing but Jazz’s stepmother remained to oppose his marriage to Eva Earlong and crowning as King of all the land.
However, being King brought with it many responsibilities which Jazz slowly learning, but also it was downright dull and tedious from the easy-going lifestyle he was used to. Nevertheless, he became a good King in time.

Meanwhile, his brother Spaz was promoted to Captain of the Guard. An entire army trained in wacky fighting techniques fell under his command. At the same time he finally persuaded Lori (basically irritated her to death) to finally go out on a date with him, and the two have been happily, er, arguing since.
Eva saw to it that Jazz became a good father as well, as the two basically, er... went at it like rabbits. They happily raised numerous bunnies; their children the pride of Carrotus. With no turtles left to be dealt with, their family has inspired Carrotus to gala parties thrown in their honor.
Tonight we find the many elite and royal families of the land gathered at castle Carrotus, with Jazz trying to sneak off to the computer in the secret dungeon to play his new game, Jazz 3...

Later, they came up with the more familiar plot we've come to understand as "The plot of Jazz 3", here from the February 2000 design doc:Jazz Jackrabbit’s children have been stolen by the evil and annoyingly tenacious Devan Shell! Devan has taken his six children and created an alternate reality using the power of their dreams, so Jazz and the rest of Carrotus will never be able to find him, thus ensuring his rule over the real world.

Jazz must venture to find his six children, destroy the dream generators that keep them captive, and flush Devan Shell out of his hiding place in orbit around Carrotus before destroying him utterly and winning the game.

Throughout the game as Jazz rescues more children and citizens, more parts of the world open up, however as the dream generator system becomes more unstable, more unusual and bizarre places become realized...

I've said this a few times on the Discord server, but I am putting all this info together into some sensible manner, and plan on making a thread laying out exactly what Jazz 3 was on track to become. With lockdown, it's not like I'll be short on time spent in front of my PC, after all. :lol:
I've already got a pretty much complete guide to every single level in the available builds of Jazz 3. In fact, there's actually a lot of interesting things in the long-known-about original leak that people just don't know. There's one particular area which is a fully-built puzzle, which I've never seen talked about to any extent.

I'll see if I can organise enough to start a thread on this in the coming weeks. :)