| Q: |
What is Jazz
Jackrabbit 3? |
| A:
|
Jazz 3 is the sequel to the 1998
Arcade Game of the Year, Jazz Jackrabbit 2. This
website is devoted to giving you all available
information about this long-time secret project. |
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| Q:
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Is the game 2D or
3D? |
| A:
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Jazz enters the 3D world for the
first time in a Mario 64-type environment. It was
agreed that there wasn't much more Jazz could do
in the 2D world. |
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|
| Q:
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Is Jazz 3 a First
Person Shooter? |
| A:
|
A Third Person Shooter would be
more accurate. Again, think Mario with a gun.
Jazz 3 is more of an Adventure game, although
your gun is still your best friend. |
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|
| Q:
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What game engine
is being used? |
| A:
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The current engine is Unreal/Unreal
Tournament. |
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|
| Q:
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Who is responsible
for creating the game? |
| A:
|
World
Tree Games (WTG), formerly known as Eclipse
Productions, were responsible for all of the
programming and sound. Dean Dodrill (Jagged
Edge Studios) did the majority of the design,
art, and animation. Unlike the previous Jazz
games, Epic and Orange Games had very little
involvement. Click here for the full credits. |
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|
| Q:
|
Did people from
the Jazz 2 team work on Jazz 3? |
| A:
|
Dean "Noogy" Dodrill was
also the cinematic animator for Jazz 2. Alexander
Brandon, Epic's former Jazz 2 musician who now
works for World Tree Games, also came back to do
the Jazz 3 soundtrack. |
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|
| Q:
|
When will Jazz 3
be released? |
| A:
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To everybody's dismay, it is very
unlikely that Jazz 3 will ever see the light of
day. |
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|
| Q: |
Why was it
canceled? |
| A:
|
Jazz 3 has been on rocky ground
since it went into development. It was started as
an unofficial project, originating from a team of
about five people with roots in Eclipse
Productions. The guys worked for months without a
budget. When it came time to show their work to Epic, the original creators
of Jazz were very impressed, but Epic was unable
to find a publisher. Without a publisher backing
Jazz 3 with their money, work could not continue.
The Gathering
of Developers, who published Jazz 2 in the
United States, was the prime candidate, but they
turned down Jazz 3 with a simple reason: Jazz 2
was the only game they ever lost money on, and
they didn't want to make the same mistake with
Jazz 3. Now the project was in Epic's hands, and
they called it quits. (Epic owns the rights to
the Unreal engine and the Jazz characters, which
makes it difficult to do anything without them.)
Epic had offered to move Dean Dodrill to their
North Carolina office to work on Jazz 3, but Dean
turned down the offer. It wouldn't work with his
current living situation, and he had more
important things on his mind, namely getting
married. The rest of the team also went off to
work on other projects. |
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|
| Q:
|
When was Jazz 3
officially cancelled? |
| A:
|
The last time WTG did any real
work was in March 2000, when they stopped hearing
from anybody. The cancellation was official in
late May. |
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|
| Q:
|
How long was Jazz
3 under development? |
| A:
|
Roughly two years were spent on
the game, during which time nobody received any
form of payment for their work, and probably
never will be compensated. That would place the
beginnings of Jazz 3 around the release of Jazz 2. |
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|
| Q:
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How much work has
been accomplished? |
| A:
|
At one time, it was estimated that
25% of the game was finished. A self-running,
playable demo was largely completed, which was
shown to Epic and potential publishers. Although
the demo runs off of Unreal technology, it plays
without Unreal installed. One well-defined
character (Jazz) was playable in a large variety
of environments. A few enemies, weapons, and
items were in place, and a soundtrack of a dozen
songs was implemented. |
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|
| Q:
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Will the Jazz
community ever get to see the demo? |
| A:
|
Although WTG wants to release the
demo, and Cliff Bleszinski (the owner of Jazz)
has talked about distributing the game for free
on the Internet, right now it is unlikely that
we'll see Jazz 3 anytime soon. Before it could be
released, the demo would have to be reprogrammed
to eliminate the Unreal technology, or else WTG
would be paying Epic a hefty $300,000 for use of
their engine. It would take a great deal of time
to do the reprogramming, and WTG is not
interested in working on it right now. They are
tied up with other projects, and working on Jazz
3 does not make them any money, so it has the
least priority. There's a better possibility that
Jazz 3 may be released as an Unreal or UT mod. |
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| Q:
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What is the
storyline? |
| A:
|
Unlike its predecessors, the
storyline of Jazz 3 is very important. Robert
Allen, the producer of Jazz 2, came up with the
original idea, which was fleshed out by Dean. The
game ties in with Jazz 2, starting with a battle
between Jazz and Devan in a 2D environment,
either in cutscene form or actual gameplay. (A
story board for one such cutscene was drawn, but
never animated.) The premise has Jazz and his
wife with kids, which Devan comes to kidnap.
Devan is successful in snatching the kids away,
taking them into an alternate universe using the
Jazz 2 Time Machine. (converted to a Dimensional
Machine) This alternate universe turns out to be
the 3rd Dimension, and of course, Jazz must
venture into the 360-degree world to rescue his
children. During the search, Devan uses the kid's
dreams against Jazz... |
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|
| Q:
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Who are the
playable characters? |
| A:
|
Jazz, Spaz, and Lori were all
planned as playable characters, and perhaps also
Razz, the famous blue rabbit rumored to be in
Jazz 2, along with other unknown characters. Jazz
is the only playable character in the current
demo. |
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| Q:
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What kind of
special moves does Jazz have? |
| A:
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As of now, no special moves are
known. |
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|
| Q:
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What other
characters make appearances? |
| A:
|
Besides the well known characters
from Jazz 2, there are many anonymous rabbits who
walk around to offer you advice. |
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| Q:
|
How does the game
play? |
| A:
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Unlike the first two Jazz games,
there is not a system of levels. Each "level"
is tied in with the others, forming one large map.
This creates a nice adventure atmosphere with
puzzles and enemies. |
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|
| Q:
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What multiplayer
features were implemented in the game? |
| A:
|
Much was planned, but little was
finished. Setting up games was similar to
starting up a server on Jazz 2. Battle, Team
Battle, CTF, and Treasure Hunt were some of the
modes planned. This old screenshot shows a
server being tested by a group of bots. However,
the bots had problems, and currently there is no
functional multiplayer/Internet play. |
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| Q:
|
What are the
different levels/environments? |
| A:
|
The demo alone has a wide range of
environments, from a forest, beach, and canyon to
a flooded castle near Carrotus Village. Of
course, the village wouldn't be complete without
the War Tavern.. |
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| Q:
|
What kind of
enemies are found in Jazz 3? |
| A:
|
The standard turtles and lizards
return, along with a dangerous kind of fly/bee.
Enemies were never full developed, but the ones
mentioned are functional. |
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| Q:
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Weapons? |
| A:
|
Your faithful Blaster is always by
your side, and the Blue Bullet Bouncers from the
previous Jazz games again return with 3D physics
and a new name: the Gizmo Gun. (They claim that
it has nothing to do with the Jazz 2 fan named
Gizmo that many of us know.) Little more is known
about the weapons, but they can be powered up
with certain fire and ice cells. |
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|
| Q:
|
How much
ammunition? |
| A:
|
Jazz 3 uses a power bar, as seen
in the screenshots, which is slowly
depleted as you use a weapon. It automatically
replenishes itself, eliminating the need to
collect ammo. |
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|
| Q:
|
Has any artwork
been released? |
| A:
|
Screenshots and sketches can be
found here. |
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| Q:
|
Any music samples? |
| A:
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Alex Brandon has generously
released the entire Jazz 3 soundtrack, which you
can downloaded here. |
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|
| Q:
|
Was Jazz 3 going
to be released on a console? |
| A:
|
Yes, in fact, the plan was to
release Jazz 3 on Playstation 2 before it made a
debut on the PC. In May of 2000, Epic announced their development of the
Unreal engine on the PS2 console. At the same
time, Epic reported that they were developing a
brand new game using the Unreal engine for PS2.
This game was Jazz 3, although it was never
publicly mentioned. Of course, this never came to
fruition. |
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|
| Q:
|
What is the Jazz 3
team doing now? |
| A:
|
Recently, World Tree Games has
been working on an updated version of their old
classic, Tyrian. Dean Dodrill went on to work at Learn2.com and is living at home
supporting his wife, Elizabeth. |
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|
| Q:
|
Were the rumors of
Jazz 3 City true? |
| A:
|
Yes, Jazz 3 City was
under development for a long time, although it
hit many stumbling blocks and never really got
anywhere. "The #1 Jazz 3 site" began
under the direction of Roaster. The idea was to
implement everything Jazz 2 City had, but to make
for easy updating using CGI. (Universe Jazz is a
good example of how that might have worked out.)
Wakeman happened to grab a very old, very
preliminary version of the site, which can be
viewed here.
Some
time after this, Jazz Central came to learn about
Jazz 3, and it already looked as if there might
be some heated competition between J3C and Jazz
Central over coverage of the game, even though
Jazz 3 was still in preliminary stages. So, we
found it to be logical to join forces, and soon
we became the Dimension Jazz team. (No way
associated with the current DJ website.) Not only
would it be the ultimate Jazz 3 website, but it
would also offer general info for previous Jazz
games, combining aspects from both J2C and JC.
This time DethMan headed up the design, but it is
still unknown what work he completed. Around this
time, both Jazz 2 City and Jazz Central began
suffering from problems, and when both sites were
shut down in January 2000, any hope of Dimension
Jazz went with it.
|
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|
| Q:
|
What was Jazz3.com
all about? |
| A:
|
www.jazz3.com is a domain that
Alienator registered to prepare for the release
of Jazz 3. He was also planning a general Jazz 3
website, but all we ever saw of it was a message
board, as Alienator later abandoned the project
when he saw that Jazz 3 wasn't going anywhere.
Instead, he seized the opportunity to make a
general Jazz website after J2C and JC went down,
but Universe Jazz also did not last long. Jazz3.com
currently forwards to Alienator's personal
homepage. |
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| Q:
|
Is there any
chance somebody may take up the Jazz 3 project
again? |
| A:
|
Now that the Jazz 3 team has
broken up and gone off to do other projects, and
due to the problems mentioned above, it's
unlikely that anybody will work on Jazz 3 again. |
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|
| Q:
|
Is there anything
the fans can do to convince Epic to do something
with Jazz 3? |
| A:
|
The project is dead, and there is
nothing the fans can do right now. |
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|
| Q:
|
So there's really
no hope? |
| A:
|
Actually, some recent news has
emerged which has provided a ray of hope. Upon
speaking with Michiel Ouwehand, a former Jazz 2
programmer who currently works for LostBoys, ShadowGPW learned that
LostBoys are "very interested in the wacko
bunny" and may create a new Jazz 3, which
would probably be "Semi-3D". Arjan
Brussee, the lead programmer of Jazz 2 who now
works at LostBoys, is also interested, despite
his previous comments that he was through with
Jazz. Development of Jazz 3 under LostBoys would
mean a good budget and a much higher possibility
of success. Visit this thread from the JMMB for more info, and keep
your fingers crossed. There may still be hope for
that mean green hare. |
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