I feel like releasing new information on the project I am working on. Some of this information is already out, but a lot of it isn't, and much of the stuff in my last post is now irrelevant.

First off, an overview of my level pack:

It's designed to be like no other. It is not linear like many level packs, and many levels utilize multiple exits meaning to get the most out of this you need to play through it more than once. The major levels are also much larger than conventional ones. The difficulty of my pack is supposed to be on the hard side. Checkpoints and extra lives are abundant, and for a good reason. I suspect very few people will get through this without dying at least once. Easy mode is more like "normal", normal mode is more like "hard" and hard mode is more like "virtural suicide," although even the easiest mode will be more difficult than the standard jazz2 single player.

Finally, in the main levels you won't be able to save. Yes, it is evil for me to do that. You WILL be able to save your game in my level pack, of course. You will just have to do it in the short levels which connect the main ones together. Think of jazz1... when you reloaded your game, you had to start at the beginning of a level. This works much the way in my level pack. If this "feature" annoys you, that's probably because you are what I like to call a Save Monster. You are probably someone who saves the game so much that it's basically a form of cheating. Checkpoints are before all difficult parts of the level, so there is no real reason to worry, unless you are about to get game over... heh heh heh.

Now for the structure of the level pack.

There are 6 main "areas" of it. Each area is very large, and all but one of them is used as more than one level. Think of the main chamber in Tomb Rabbit if you want an example. Most of your time playing will be spent in these main areas. In between the main areas, there are smaller levels which will usually take a minute or less to beat. In these levels you can save the game.

The main areas are as follows (tilesets included):

The Ruins of Deserto City (Jazz1 Deserto by Violet)
The Ancient Temple (Temple by EvilMike)
The Temple Depths (Temple by EvilMike)
The Deserto Space Station (Undecided)
Outer Space (Jazz1 Battleships by CelL)
The Alien Homeworld (ET's Planet 1)

These are simply the main areas of the level pack; as stated before there will be levels between them. The main areas do not have to connect to each other in the oder which I have given, although they can if you play the level pack in a certain way.

The storyline, summarized, is as follows:

After Jazz's adventures lead him to discover and explore the planet of Deserto, it became colonized by settlers from his section of the universe. Decades later, it was a semi-populous planet with about six million inhabitants. About a third of them lived in the capital city, Deserto City. All was well until without warning, a wave of attackers somehow breached through the city walls during the night and destroyed all but a small part of it. No one knows how or why this happened, and all who saw the attack were killed. You (the player) are one of the survivors, living in the one part of the city that the attackers couldn't get to. You don't know why they did it, or how they got into the city, but you do have a good idea where they came from: an ancient temple about 15 kilometers away from the city. You are the only living person in the whole city capable of fighting.

Well, the whole journey through the levels somehow leaves you fighting aliens on another planet. I won't say why.

I estimate this level pack will take at least an hour for the average person to beat, and if you really want to enjoy it to the fullest, you will beat it several times.

If you have questions, I am prepared to answer them.


Screenshots are comming.

One more thing:

This level pack has a total of 26 j2l files, and all but 4 of them are actual levels (the 4 that aren't are just story things. No enemies.)

I can read minds.

And you can read old posts. I had this idea for quite a while ;P

I can read old posts when they're new, forget about them, hunt around in my mind for original ideas later, and come up with something in the old post, not knowing I got it from somewhere else...

Edit: Now that I think about it, I seem to recall having the idea before you posted that as well... of course, I could be wrong.

Guess what I was trying to make. A non-linear levelpack with levels with multiple exits

Now I'm not saying it was my idea or something. The pack you are making sound quite promising and better than what I was trying to make. Any estimated release date yet?

Can I beta test, Mike? Sounds cool.

Sounds interesting, but i may be wrong. The idea may lead to confusion though, and may be to easy to defeat. Id like to see how this turns out though..

It's too interesting. It will never work.

Sounds good so far. But I'll wait until it comes out to pass judgement.

It sounds awesome, but I want screenshots before I pass judgement. (Or betatesting, wink wink)