Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Might as well review it since I betatested it. Apologies for the late review.

Note before review: I had to copy the original tileset and example level onto another place so it wouldn’t get replaced by the new one. I have a disorder with keeping stuff. =P.

First Impression: Pretty good. I wasn’t too surprised since I’ve seen this before, but it still managed to impress me. Pretty good.

Tileset completeness: Definately, and so much more. Got the ground tiles, got the blocks, the green toxic stuff. Plus it has them with 3 different backrounds. You’ve also took the time to make every single block combination as well (and with 4 different backrounds too, nice). Anyways, Im not going to ramble on further and torment you with a long review, so I’ll finish off saying that you did an amazing job in this area.

Extra added stuff: You took my advice and put in weapon based destruct blocks ( =))))) ), there are invisible tiles (one full one next to the ice block, two under the sunflower at the bottom). The diagonal invisible tiles require flipping, though, and you probably could’ve removed some useless/double versions of tiles to fit actual versions in. The water looks nice and well textured, except that it looks more like a sheet of blue shiny stuff or paint then water. Hook events are there, and in an original way, but require the use of a foreground layer (3) to look properly. You did a nice job on the elevators (and took the time to add them in; not many people do). Not all the destruct blocks are there, but they’re good enough, and considering the fact that you didnt have any space left to fit the rest in, and the fact that you made space to fit in as many as you could made up for that. Poles are there, and work fine. Hurt events, check. Vines, check (rux job on them too). Suckers look a bit like some flattened tree stumps, but at least they are there =P. Textured BG and BG eyecandy are there, but I question the use of those loop like things above the BG. Overall, you scored decentely on this category, except you could’ve increased the tile count to 1000 to add in 10 extra tiles (presumably the rest of the invisible blocks, the rest of the destruct blocks, and whatever else you think is important and you left out), but that would’ve left room for less animations, so I guess its fine the way it is.

Animations: Yes. To list some: Various toxic waterfall tiles, various toxic puddles/rivers/whatever you want to call them tiles, waterfalls, elevators, spikes, destruct blocks, arrows, torches, signs, and potential for more. Plus the animations look good, and are detailed. Great Job.

Technicalities: Hmm..Lets see. Jungle Pole works, and doesn’t look too bad, aside from the fact that it looks like some sort of aluminum, silver, or metal..Carrotus pole works really well, Psych pole is a nice shade of blue, but it seems a tad out of place (still usable though), Pin 500 bump works nicely, Carrot bump looks a bit strange, left and right pad work. Snow works really well. Water works. The Small Tree looks a bit strange. The Jungle Pole, Psych pole, small tree, and pinball all look better in the winter version imo.

Winter Version: Its alright, the poles, snow, tree and bump look good here, although I question why the leaves are blue, the grass a wood looking green, and the waterfalls red (O.o). Looks a bit more like some fantasy land then like winter =P. Still, at least its there, and it works. Some icycles hanging off the leaves + vines, maybe a polar bear and a snowman, and the grass being white instead of pale green, would’ve made it seem a lot more like winter.

Userfriendliness: When I first saw the tileset in JCS, parts of it looked a bit like a garbled mess of tiles. Looking over it a bit more, I got to understand some of it. Still could’ve been a bit simpler, though. Big tilesets usually don’t score too high here =P.

Color (Note: This only applies to the winter version and the extra tiles): Like I mentioned before for the winter, it just doesnt really look like winter. The ground is covered with white, fluffy snow in winter. The ground in Exoticus is pale green. Although if you use your imagination, it sorta looks like the grass is frozen. So it could be some really cold, snowless winter. Imo the waterfalls should’ve been dark blue or so instead of red, they just look freaky like that. The red BG is also strange, and the leaves could’ve had traces of frost and/or icycles on them. Ok, I’ll stop critisizing the poor winter version now ;P. The color of the extra tiles in the normal exoticus tileset is pretty good. I like the nice, calm shades of purple, and the waterfalls.

Overall (not an average): The best exoticus set out there, and I’m probably going to use it sooner or later (whenever I find enough inspiration or time). It doesn’t really suffer from anything major, aside from the amount of tiles it has. Next time, when planning to make/convert a large set, plan ahead and take out as many unneeded tiles/doubled tiles as possible, and replace them with useful tiles. Otherwise, an excellent job.

Now, time for the rating >D:
Tileset Completeness: 9.5 (everything is there, but you could’ve conserved some space).
Extra added stuff: 8.5
Animations: 8.7
Technicalities: 8.9
Extra (winter) version: +0.2
Userfriendliness: 8
Color: 8.3
Overall (not an average): 8.4
And the final rating comes down to…8.614, rounded down to 8.6, and +0.2 for the not-so-winter looking version.
8.8~8.7, a definite download reccomendation, and keep up the awesome conversions. And next time, include a polar bear instead of the masking text ;D. Canada owns.
~Blackraptor

To sum it up, this is a very solid conversion by Violet.

Everything I can remember from playing jj1 exoticus is here. There are the main land tiles placed very understandably and compacted three times, each time with a different background. My only suggestion would be for a way to switch directly between the two dark backdrops, but I’m not going to take off for that. Also included are the solid pink and yellow beveled blocks and a way to transition between those and the ground.

All of the extra components I can think of are there – spikes (floor and ceiling, both animating, and can be made into a custom length), vines, poles (two different kinds, including with backgrounds), arrows (animated), destructable scenery (self made), lights (animated torch), hook (only works with the background tiles, though*), etc.

He included some beach-ripped tiles* (for background, I presume) as well as many other background-purposed tiles. Some water/sewer tiles including any animations that went with those are also all there. The textured background fits in well, though it’s your average jj2-copy background.

The winter version is just a simple palette change into a harker purple/pale yellow/red hue. It doesn’t look particularly ‘winter’ to me but it still looks alright. I don’t think I’d ever use that version, though.

My only major complaint is that there is not a variety of specific eye candy (little things that make a tileset look less monotonous). Nevertheless there’s enough here to make an interesting level.

This is a solid conversion. It has many tiles and includes everything you’d need to make a quality level in any gamemode. I didn’t give it a 9+ simply because it’s not amazing or groundbreaking and the eyecandy complaint, but it’s definetly worth your time if you’re a fan of conversions (as I am).

*Violet corrected me that there is, in fact, a hook for the outside parts, and that the background sand stuff is not from Beach, but from another jj1 set.

Definetly download recommended.[This review has been edited by Spaztic]

I promised to review this, so here i am. Lets get started. anyway, i was busy, so this review may be short.

Well. this conversion impressed me. it has all the tiles from original exoticus, which was one of my favorite planets when i played jj1. author included some other nice tiles too, like self made blocks, vines, torch, some castle like tiles.. etc. One of the top jj2 conversion ever seen in my opinion.

Well. i like the masking here. its very smooth, and its nicely done. nothing is wrong with it. very nice.

There’s no missing tiles in my level, and the inventory here is very good, text signs, spikes, custom textured background, some sand tiles, which can be used as background, castle looking like tiles, sucker tubes, seelf made blocks.. and all other things like that. nothing is missing.

Palette is very good too. water works in 8-bit, or atleast i think it does. Carrotus/psych/jungle poles work too, but diam pole looks still weird. this doesn’t really matter though, because there’s no way i would use 3 different poles in my level. ;p

Overall, i really like this tileset or conversion, because it has really cool tiles, which can be used when building good levels. there’s no needed tiles missing in my opinion, and the quality of this tileset .. is perfect. im going to give this a nice 8.5 for the reasons i’ve mentioned. [This review has been edited by Snooz]

NO. Jazz1 Nippius wasn’t the best conversion. It looks very good, it is easy to use, I think this tileset has FUTURE. Has nice colors, all needed tiles – (good work Black’n‘Lab)
I think this is really better because in JJ1Nippius it was fror nothing to do levels. This is original, easy to use and nice tileset like all conversions but has much much bigger modernity and potentional and I like it much!

well, i found a conversion of exoticu made by cell, but that conversion was very tiny!

ii enjoy this thing !

well im not good at Rating Tlie sets but i give you a 8.2 it may get Dilited ! (arg miss spell)

uhh any one know a Free Thing that i can make Tlie Sets with ? i dont have cash soo i cant get Panitpro !
(Unsupported rating removal edit. Possible subjects to talk about when rating “tlie sets” include masking, color, graphic quality, theme, missing tiles, usefulness, tile placement, and probably some other stuff. ~Violet)[This review has been edited by Violet CLM]

(Rating removal. -Trafton)[This review has been edited by Trafton AT]

Ok, I’m not good in rating tile sets, but I will try :-)

MASKING
The masking is very smoothly done, I didn’t got stuck in the example level and there aren’t any masking bugs.
Also, what looks like it’s masked, IS masked (very good) :-)
SCORE: 9.0

COLORS
The colors are very nice, I didn’t see the original jazz jackrabbit exoticus levels, but I really like the colors here. The winter version is cool.
SCORE: 8.7

GRAPHIC QUALITY
The graphic quality is high, the tiles fit together well and look very smooth.
SCORE: 8.5

THEME
The tileset has a theme of an exotic island, you can build a beach, a cave something that looks like a castle build with lego :), a forest and a black hole or something :)
5 themes in 1 tileset is great, but I don’t like the castle thingy :P
SCORE: 9.5

MISSING TILES
All the tiles I needed are there. The tileset has poles, selfmade blocks which look really cool, tubes, text signs from Jazz Jackrabbit which could work fine with Trigger Zone and more stuff.
SCORE: 9.7

USEFULLNESS
This tileset is very useful, there are 5 different themes, different backgrounds, a textured background, 2 palletes, event stuff and all you need to build a cool level.
SCORE: 9.7

TILE PLACEMENT
The tile placement is good, you fastly get to all you need, I only think those trees could be a bit more up (because I always had to switch up and down).
SCORE: 8.0

So, that’s all, I don’t really know how to rate this, I don’t review tilesets often :-) so I’ll just agree with the others and rate this 8.5

GOOD JOB

NOTES
I’m using your tileset in my episode. KeEp Up ThE gOoD wOrK :)

_PHT

EDIT: Sorry, my episode got stopped because I ran outta creativity, so I won’t continue it.[This review has been edited by PHT]

This is a good conversion.The example level is good too.

Eyecandy: Good.

Tileset: I think this is a good idea for a conversion.

Download reccomendation: If you liked JJ1.
(Unsupported rating removal. I shouldn’t need to go into too much detail, as this review is pretty much missing anything and everything. Original rating 9.0. Don’t rate example levels. ~Violet)[This review has been edited by Violet CLM]

This Exoticus conversion rocks! All the JJ1 tiles I believe are there, along with quite a few extra tiles. Add a second color variation, and you get Violet CLM’s Exoticus.
Not really any bugs, fortunately. I really liked how there was such a large variety of blocks to choose from [like little purple/gold squares, grassy soil, dark caves, plenty of green and blueish waterfalls, etc. all].
So, to sum up, this is a very good conversion. DL now.