Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

I love this program. I was one of the first people to use it abd I must say it works exactly how I wanted it to. Thats pretty much all I have to say D:

Edit: May I note (unless Sal has changed this), that the coordinates (x and y) that you type into the program are to be from JCS and NOT JJ2. It will automatically fix it for jj2 use ;D

Devan does it again! Boy oh boy he does!
I decided to stop my Ischa Boycott to see if Ischa’s level-making skills had improved. Honestly, here’s the blunt, cold, hard, truthy answer: They’re still terrible. Here’s the sugar coated answer: Keep trying! You can do it! B Moe Positive!

Whats so hard about the concept of getting people in the community to betatest your levels? You don’t have a deadline, and you’re apparently not making purposely bad levels, so why not? I know you read these, as you’ve gone to such lengths as to prove a simple line in my review false, so why not actually take the advice? Sign up at the JCF and make a topic that says “Hey, I have a level, does anyone want to betatest who isn’t going to forget 6 days later?”

Onto the actual level. I’ll let stealing a concept slide. I’ll even let underutilizing the FLoating Rock slide.
What I won’t let slide is the level’s poor design choices.
Why in god’s name would you have the player start by WALKING IN THIN AIR, if later on, every pit kills off the player? That is a terrible thing to do. You toy with the player by adding a secret slightly left to the starting position out of sight, after he’s/she’s used to not having anything there. You don’t toy with them by laying down a ground rule (example “You can walk on thin air”) and then a little later break said rule.

Next, whats up with the Stone Lady? She constantly never makes sense. First she addresses you as “Jazz”. The next time you see her she says “If you’re Spaz or Lori”. Later on she just starts spurting out gibberish but makes it sound important by saying “according to me”

The level itself, is a terrible disjointed mess that’s linear the whole way through. Really Linear. Aside from when you need to get up to the next straight path, the whole level is just a straight path. Theres even a section where you push a crate for 20-25 tiles NOT DOING ANYTHING. It’s a waste of time. Dont get me started about the lame tacked on “jump over fire with 1 tile wide safe zones randomly scattered” area. Finally, there’s the boss fight with Devan. Can we seriously just stop using the same arena for this guy? I’m sure Devan-Stories would be more appreciated if the Devan bossfight wasn’t on a straight line of an arena. Seriously, can we also give Devan a little more motivation than “I’M EVIL! I ‘M OFF TO GO DO EVIL THINGS NOW! HAHAHAHA” or any other villain for that matter. Just because Super Duper Badguy Lemon is the villain of a level, doesn’t mean he’s automatically better than Devan. Especially if he has no motivation to actually do the evil deed aside from “I’m Evil!” (That was aimed at everyone else, not Ischa).
In JJ1, Devan’s motivation was that he hated rabbits and wanted them wiped out. In JJ2, his motivation was to wipe out Jazz’s parents so he can wipe out the rabbits without the Green hare meddling in affairs. In JJA, Dark Shell wanted revenge on Jazz for defeating him 2 years prior.
Those are all short and simple motivations that make the villains much more interesting than “I’m EVIL”.

Finally, the Moon is a jerk. Well, the oversized Boomerang that calls itself “Moon”. he could have flown away anytime he wanted too, but didn’t because he wanted to see Jazz beat up Devan. What a jerkface. If our moon was really like that, I would go to space and slap it on where I assume it’s cheek to be.

It should be clear to anyone who has read this- No Download reccomendation.

What kind of occasion is it to upload a level nearly in the same time with so similar genre than an another level? Accident or purposal? I think the last.

Very decent work from our now more experienced group-member. Just hoping Chippie is updating the memberlists as soon as possible so Birdie can become a Distinguished member even officially at the least. I am suggesting people to really download this for a look and review it as well.

I was awakened right the moment Birdie reported to be uploading a pack within an hour in a public game-server. I had high expectations while remembering his previous achievements. And I wasn’t disappointed. A few more levels could have been definitely appreciated with all this quality though. Here are some of my first thoughts on the levels.

Area 51 was already seen earlier in public betatest and the layout was really something that I would have expected somebody else to use multiple times till today already. But it isn’t so apparently, so this is welcomed indeed. The eyecandy is Birdie’s neatest. And with the newest fixes to the layout the entire level does really make sense.

Limenade’s eyecandy is something quite close to Area 51’s quality, but the lay-out could have differed a little as now it does just look like recycled Area 51. The paths are annoyingly long and the gameplay is too much of two-way style.

Something else has a way different and simplified layout, which is still original at places. It’s too squared up however. The tileset would surely offer more detailed scenery. Something should be done for the bottom region especially. Since the tileset is underused, so is the eyecandy. As well it is outstanding.

Nevertheless a high-quality pack with only a few medium improvements asked. Good job Birdie!

Well, I didn’t know about savefile.com, thanks for it, I’ll reupload it. The reason why I used rapidshare is that there’s no delete time (except for inactive files, same with savefile).

Thanks for telling me about Savefile, once more. And thanks for review, Cruk!

I wasn’t going to review this, but the reviews prior to mine have really disappointed me, rating-wise. Especially SJ who used to be one of the more harsh reviewers back in the older days. Perhaps times have changed again?

Visual Appeal – 3 out of 5

..the author tried. This level has little to no any outstanding eyecandy (which isn’t necessarily the tileset’s fault), or any good-looking eyecandy for that matter. There’s the (particularly ugly) animation of the palette tile used rather randomly.

Like in other levels by the author, “some parts look pretty empty while others look like they have random stuff tacked on, and the backround is pretty boring” as Blacky put it nicely. The background is nothing interesting, and the rather odd (pastel blue?) 16bit fade just adds to the empty, boring feel.

Also why does layer 7 move faster vertically than layer 6? It looks nonsensical, really. And on a closing note, the author should have at least taken time to disflip the tiles from the flipped half of the level.

Playability – 4 out of 5

First of all, I have to say that this level does have a very nice flow. I haven’t found myself annoyingly bumping into things, which is a vital thing in a CTF layout. On the other hand, the layout itself is a mixed bag. I do like its bottom part, even if it could use a little more paths, but the upper part just feels random and uninspired. There’s a big open area just next to each base, why not add a platform there?

The coins (needed to get to the player’s own base, which could be useful but not really original) are placed decently, if a little confusing. However, I couldn’t help it but get the feeling that there’s way too few loose ammo in the level. And if there actually was ammo, it would be in a boring square pattern.There could be more fastfires rather than just 3, since it would take a longer time to get a properly fast fire rate. The powerups are Bouncer, RF, and Seeker – no balance problem.

And last but not quite least, I really like the way Yasco places the +3 carrots, and this is no exception. The player requires to drop down a pit to get the +3 and bounce with a spring, which is kinda evil and might encourage camping, but I still like it, so there.

• Has several good concepts, like the +3 carrot placement
• Flows decent

• The eyecandy needs work, and quite a lot of it

Overall
This level was definitely overrated. Not by a lot, but certainly not worth an 8. It’s still a fairly decent level, but there are more worthwhile ones around. And just as well, the “BURN, BABY, BURN”, things are moderately disturbing at the least.

Can’t download it :(
RapidShare sucks. I type in the CORRECT code, yet it still says I typed it in wrong. May I suggest a different site?
How about www.megaupload.com or www.savefile.com?

Anything BUT RapidShare.

@Danyjel: No Problem. :)

I like the music. But, I dunno how to review music. It can’t be used in JCS as it’s MP3 format.

Intro…

Nice trancy technoey song :o… I like it.

Well, the song starts out with the techno organ thing, which sounds nicely cut off with a quick fade out. Then a bassline starts out.. Which sounded quite odd tuune and blurry. It sounds a tad bit too loose and drags on. It needs a bit of a cut off.

The organs overpower most of the song, other than the bass which can get pretty annoying after a little while. The drums could be a little louder than they are now, because they sound good, and would like to hear more of them.

The length of it is good, a nice 7 mins, worth listening to.

I recommend downloading.

Thanks for the reviews. :)

To perhaps encourage more people to review this one, I, as a member of the same group as the author, am giving this level a simple and very tight review, for what is it all about.

The funky blue fade in the background caught my eye first once looking into the level. In front of it there’s some nice underused eyecandy-stuff used, although not really special. The masked walls meant for sprite-layer shouldn’t confuse anyone as it isn’t used for the sprite layer at all. Also some other original decoration like transparent black’n white spots for example are put into the level. Too bad they end up being only very minor things about the level overall. There were a few strange tile-bugs at spots eventhough the level was supposed to have been betatested carefully, I as a lesser one too.

The gameplay is outstanding enough and doesn’t fall under circumstances like for example that the bases are too easily to be reached, bad balance, and so on. Only thing that I thought later about was, that there could be possibly a smaller spring-usage actually.

The choice and placement of pickups remains pretty alright too. There is just a small overuse of ammo in general. Don’t know if putting the carrot into a narrow gorge was that nice idea, especially because Yasco did use that earlier.

As a summary I would give the level a score of 8, but for the sake of good habits, being a groupmate I remain not rating it officially. Do download and review!

Cooba: That’s true. Glad to see your standards changing too, maybe. http://www.jazz2online.com/J2Ov2/downloads/info.php?levelID=2771

Guess belonging to the same group made me “overrate” it perhaps, if anything.

SJ

Why has this tileset not had any ratings? I really like this tileset!

EYECANDY: 3 Tilesets are included in this pack and each one is the same but they come in 3 different colours, so these 3 tilesets could be used for a certain time of day: Morning, afternoon & night. I like the animated Robot tiles, they are really cool. It looks like a Factory. 9/10

LAYOUT: The set appears small but there are lots of tiles that can be used. There are very few blank spaces, so most of the Tileset space has been used. 10/10

MASKING: Automask has been used but that’s not much of a problem. Tiles have been masked correctly. Actually, I don’t find background masking as much of a problem because the buidings in the background could also be used in Layer 4 for the character to walk on. 10/10

EXAMPLE LEVEL: When you start the level you see lots of moving Robots in the background. I really liked this level. I am amazed at how much can be done in a level with a tileset this small. This will not be counted in the Rating.

EASE OF USE: This tileset is easy to use. Lots of the tiles can be animated. Some of the tiles can be used as conveyor belts with Belt Left/Right events. 9/10

TOTAL = 38/40 (9.5)

DOWNLOAD RECOMMENDATION?

YES!

GRADE: A

This tileset was made in Photoshop, and I’m not very good at drawing on a computer.

EDIT – Now I’m working a much better, much bigger (1030 tiles) tileset. (1030 means TSF only!)

I downloaded it and it said:

Could not find level file or tileset for level“C:\DOCUMENTS AND SETTINGS\BILL\DESKTOP\JAZZ2\JJ1TUBEELECTRIC.j2l”

User Friendliness 1/1: It’s a very small tileset, so there’s not much you could miss when actually using it.

Overall look 1/6: It’s just another MS Paint tileset to me. Use a proper program next time like Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop (or whatever the guides suggest). The colors used in the textured background need to be placed in the right rows of the tileset palette in order for them to not get the messy white color (see JCSref and the othersites to understand this).

Usefulness 0/1 It doesn’t have all the basic tiles needed in a tileset. There are a few eyecandy tiles, but not enough to give a level variety in scenery.

Size 0/1: Make it bigger in the future.

Originality 1/1: Yeah, it’s original. That’s about it.

Overall coolness 0/1: If this tileset was properly drawn and featured the sort of scenery you would see in the Andes (jungles, mountains, plains, etc), this would be a great tileset, but I think you need to put a LOT more work into your tilesets if you attempt to make another. Make a checklist and be thorough when you make a tileset. It should have:

Ground (all angles and corners that anyone could possibly need)
Tunnel (indoor areas where you use layer 5 scenery)
Vine
Hurt (spikes, etc)
V and H poles
Buttstomp and Destruct Scenery
Animations
Signs (exit, bonus, and text)
Directional Arrows
Hook
Collapsing Scenery
Teleport
Disappearing Ground (invisible tiles with a mask that allow people to make secret paths or drop enemies/items from above)
Extra Scenery (foreground abd background extras; any kind of eyecandy you can think of — add as much as possible).

Now go and make a better tileset :)

This tileset combo is badly put together.

EYECANDY
The Tileset combo of misses out some of the most important tiles.
6/10

DIFFICULTY
Quite hard to use, and with a lot of poorly tile placement.
5/10

TILESET DESIGN
The tileset has got an ugly layout, with some tiles that are pointlessly added.
5/10

TOTAL
16/30=*5.3*

[Rating (5.3) clearance. The only thing the review really mentioned was the tile placement, which is not enough to base a rating on. ~Cooba]

Betatested this a lot and helped him change a lot too… lets see.

Eyecandy
The eyecandy is good. The tileset doesn’t have a lot to offer, or they just don’t fit within the level. There is foreground, but it doesn’t confuse or get in the way. It’s a lot of eyecandy for this tileset, but maybe use something with more eyecandy tiles in the future. The background is just bland though, but it’s best the tileset can offer probably.

Gameplay
Very smooth. Float ups make sure you don’t just crash into walls without reason and springs are placed right, so you can just walk to the left/right without crashing into walls. Suckertubes here are handy too. The only thing is that the middle might be a little bit campable because of the coin warps and seeker pu, but there’s enough space to shoot people. The coin warps might be a bit too easy, since you only require 2 coins and you land right on the opposite team’s base, but it’s still a nice add. The layout is very easy to learn too, it has a lot of ways but it’s easy to remember. There aren’t a lot of dead ends either, and if there are there is a goodie.

Placement
Enough for everyone. The Pu’s are unbiased and on each side the ammo differs a little, but it’s still balanced. There’s not much more to say.

Maybe there could have been some food to fill up the level (sorry forgot to mention). The 1+ carrots are placed nicely and are reachable to both Jazz and Spaz. They do need to be shot down.

Comment overall level: Good job, nice relaxing music and easy to remember layout.

This tileswt is about super impressive landsacpe, like super-red paradise…
I would be usuable to make climatics jazz city, because this tileset is somethnig like mix of hotels elements with “paradise isle” and ancient ruins (like from Adam Elshamiers paintings) + JAZZ CHARACTERS!!!
I have never seen that many characters, before I download this Tileset. There are children, teachers, soldiers… very colorful world.
This would be very cool, but… Only for TSF :(. However, this fact is not disadvantage.
So, I said, it is worth of download.

Review time:

EYECANDY:
Well, there isn’t much to say really. Layer 8 fits, but without anything else, the level seems kind of empty (The only other thing was the clock on layer 2). The sprite layer is no better. Because you can see outside the main path into nothing, it seems as if you’re in a floating pod (or something) above some flames. Luckily, the eyecandy doesn’t stick out anywhere an there aren’t any tile errors.
RATING: 3.5

GAMEPLAY:
I thought the gameplay was alright. The main objective is to get to the finish before the time runs out (a time trial) whilst dodging fire and …er……. the only thing you should dodge really is fire. No enemies, no interesting puzzles along the way. The other major problem is that the level is too short. It takes about 25 seconds to complete, yet you give us 55. You also used the ‘fall down and die’ obstacles, but in thier proper way, so that you don’t end up killing yourself (even more fustraiting punishment for those who don’t know about JJK). And finally, the level ins’t as fun as it could be without a small story.
RATING: 5.4

ITEMS:
The only items you used were a few gems…the most useless kind of item. This level did have the potential for some food items or ammo if there were enemies.
DEDUCT: 0.1

OVERALL RATING: 4.3
RANK: 4 Not Good
DOWNLOAD: N/A

How to water-walk?

[Entirely unsupported rating (7.7) clearance. ~Cooba]

For a reason of not maybe “friendship”, while review-rules of the downloads-section tells not to review a “friends level” biasedly, I decided to give a smaller kind of review for this smaller kind of level just very recently uploaded, but some time ago was actually finished. Romantical Landscapes.

The level is very atmospherical, like you could just guess looking at the name of the level. Something I really wonder is why do flicker- and steady-lightning really exist here eventhough there is no Set-light given to players. However, the halos made with a pickup-set are visible for everyone and are a great bonus to the level-outlook itself. And just about the eyecandy here in general, doesn’t have really any flaws or strange stuff that wouldn’t fit to the level-theme. After all you only get to see the decent background properly only at a few places.

The layout is very complex but still does work out pretty well. This could be possibly even considered to be a ctf-level as it does have such reasonable balance between left and right edge. Tubes leading away from dead ends would be the only necessary ones here in my opinion. The rest don’t really add a lot to the tactical side of the level. A few trigger-effects were used too.

What the level contains as pickups is alright. I would have nevertheless wished more ways to place food and gems than what they are currently placed like; Random? For a level of this size Toaster-PU is a good choice.

So we see that even a small level can be after all a decent level. But as jcs still has limits to how “exactly” create a good level, this kind of tiny (masterpiece?) level cannot reach a high score. Snooze seems perhaps even more retired on creating the great stuff, no offence. Considering about the score by all these factors, so far a 7.5 would be a fair one. Download recommendation of course. F0R SN00ZE!

SJ