Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

This is very good for a first level!

The gameplay is quite original and isn’t too hard either to make you stuck for hours. Some invisible walls in this level could have been done more graphically correct, but it also adds to the slightly confusing atmosphere of the level. The eyecandy is nice although I would’ve liked to see some more foreground eyecandy in the first part of the level. I recommend this for downloading for I hope many players will see this level and recognise Jenny’s JCS talent.
GJ!

Gameplay: 7,5
Eyecandy: 7,5
Originality: 7,5

Edit: A ‘decent review’ says nothing about the grade you give, Loon…

Even though this may be a first level, I find it overrated, and I’ll explain the bad points (because I’m evil and it’s easier to point out);

Game breaking bugs come first. I’m not sure whether this is an awful trap or a serious bug, but the bottom left corner with the shield is seriously messed up. Once I got down into the room, I couldn’t get back up, no matter what character. EVENTS WILL NOT work properly when placed in the complete left/right corners of the map. Also, masking issue.

I think mazes could be more fun providing the player still at least gets a reward for taking the wrong path, like some pickup. I’m not a big fan of mazes myself, though having a risk-reward scenario (if they take the wrong path, which may be more risky, they get a decent reward) could make them more engaging. There’s some of it in this level, though.

Some of the parts in the level are just plain cheap; Things you get punished for because you don’t know they’re there, or things where you must flail around because knowing some “secret” (unindicated area) is required to pass. This may be personal preference, because there are probably are players who don’t mind it, though I don’t find it fun at all myself, as it’s unrewarding time of play that can make the level drag on longer than it’s supposed to, and make you feel stupid.

Here’s an example of it in this level: Making players require to pass something thats invisible. While it may be okay as a secret, when you make parts required to pass that are invisible, players can become confused and lose their bearings, and lose interest in passing properly (and then just “cheat”). At some point I looked it up in JCS, only to find out the trigger was invisible to pass. Then you approach a ““trap”” which actually makes you pass the level with cheap level design as the trigger crate is invisible…seriously, what?

No support for easy mode: There’s events for hard mode, but not easy. And let’s be honest, this level is easy and gets way too generous with useful pickups, such as full carrots, seekers and the blaster PU (it’s a lot stronger in SP than it is in MP). Are players that bad at SP that a million seeker pickups and powered blaster somehow doesn’t make the level too easy? Perhaps a bunch of seeker pickups and the blaster PU could be carried over to easy mode.

Oh boy, the invisible walls/winds. They just feel really tacky and unnatural. And some wierd invisible poles. They seem to suggest that you can go there, or it’s empty…but you can’t. The wierdest invisible wall is near a warp secret. The solid tiles don’t even need to be there. Due to the nature of the level design, there isn’t much that can be changed about that other than giving it a complete overhaul. So I think at least changing the wind speed to 16 would look nicer, because it doesn’t jitter the screen. And just stack them to the left/right so Lori can’t kick through them. You could remove the wind/invisible walls where you wouldn’t fall out of the level. I disagree about it adding an atmosphere, because an atmosphere comes from the eyecandy, sound and music, not the gameplay style.

There’s plenty of useless pickups, like a bunch of coins, because there’s no coin warp (or at least, I don’t see one. If there is, why would you hide such a crucial thing? What’s next, hiding the exit?). Gems don’t do anything either, unless it’s treasure or they’re scripted to give some perk. It’s not really bad, though unecessary. Yeah, okay…they add score, but who cares about scores anymore? You’ll get a higher score from the original SP pack.

There’s an awful bug with Spazkick that allows him to spam kick at some bosses, killing them in 2 seconds, and this boss isn’t an exception. Though, it’s a relatively not well known bug.

The Witch placement is lol. You can simply run across it and not get hit at all, then there’s a wierd row of TNT. God knows what it’s there for, but it looks pretty tacky the way it has been placed and adds nothing.

Lori can get stuck inside some of the masks (by kicking through thin walls), which could’ve easily been prevented. Just patch them up with full masks and it should no longer happen. Right click and show mask should help (both in tileset and level). If it causes tilebugs, just put the correct fitting tiles onto layer 3, so it should look fine.

There’s no music, and more could be done with the eyecandy (like more layers, this tileset has tiles for it!). I guess the level creator got frustrated at trying to figure out the other layers, which are awkward to learn when you add movement to them. Tile width and height really helps for the other layers. Also, please don’t use untitled as a filename. It’s really generic, and could overwrite existing levels. Even if you can’t think of a name, anything is better than untitled (since it’s the default).

Conclusion

Compared to others players first levels, it’s not as half-baked, as there’s some effort to at least make the tiles look used properly, and a decent length of playtime. There appears to be some use of unused events that do nothing, which may suggest the creator is still exploring JCS (which is probably a good thing, even though invincibility in the walls and dim light do nothing). However, there’s a lot to improve on.

Anyway, that’s enough critique for now, and I’ve probably overwhelmed you already. Don’t take it personally, I just want to help new levelmakers improve at level design. Check if you’re a hardcore classic SP fan and if you like invisible trial and error gameplay, and don’t mind novice EC. If not, skip this download.

Jenny made her first level and uploaded it here.
Alright then, here we go with a review.

I want to get this of my chest first, this is overrated. Since both Master Sven and Laro B. are clanmembers of Jenny, they should at least give a review with a decent rating.

Now let’s talk about the level. The level is good, very good for your first level, you did every just fine, but the details are a bit swept away.

The level could use more eyecandy for example.
The layers 1 ,2 ,6 and 7 are completely blank. Layer 5 is barely used. I would like to see more tiles in there. Like the tileset gives. You could do anything with it, the tileset gives loads of opportunities to make something fresh new.

In spite of that, the gameplay is interesting. Few things I do not like though.
The TNT’s on the building don’t have a meaning at all. I also thought that I could pick up the gems in the start. Tried for 5 minutes before I realized there was no entrance to them at all.

Well, overall it is a good map, you spent time on it I see, and since your little experience of levelmaking, makes this a good level to play.

It’s fun, I liked to play it.

(I would like to continue my review tomorrow, since this deserves a more detailed review than this.)

EDIT: Changed the sentence a bit, maybe you will understand now what I mean.

+1 Review flame.