We appear to be far from getting the source code or even making a fangame from scratch using original sprites and everything.

Maybe a few of you might know me- I am Jam (nothing to do with jamster) and have been playing Jazz Jackrabbit 2 online since early 2005. I am currently a member of the RR clan.

Last month (or maybe the month before, im not so great at estimating time :P) I decided I would take up the project of creating a Jazz Jackrabbit 2 fangame/rebuild. Because I tend to make sure I do things legally and the idea of Jazz Jackrabbit 2 is copyright Epic MegaGames, I emailed epic asking for permission.

You may be interested by these emails. My messages are in italics and messages from Epic are in bold.

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>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Jamie M [mailto:jamclx@gmail.com]
>> Sent: Sunday, December 04, 2005 2:13 PM
>> To: Mark Rein
>> Subject: Permission to create a Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Fangame
>>
>> Hello,
>>
>> I am an amateur software programmer and a member of the Jazz
>> Jackrabbit
>> 2 community. As Epic Games no longer support Jazz Jackrabbit
>> 2 and it does have many bugs, I would like to make a fangame.
>>
>> Now I know Epic is a large company and I doubt you would be
>> concerned with such matters but for legal reasons I am asking
>> you for permission to make a fangame.
>>
>> This would mean borrowing the tilesets, sprites and remixing
>> the music from Jazz Jackrabbit 2- are you OK with that?
>>
>> There are basically 2 options for the Jazz Jackrabbit 2 fans
>> to choose from right now and they are:
>>
>> * Make a 1.25 patch to fix all the bugs
>> * Remake the game
>>
>> I know that making a patch for the game as it is now would
>> require the source code to I would like to think about
>> remaking the engine from scratch.
>>
>> There is a big community out there depending on me!
>>
>> -Jamie
>>

Jamie,

I'm sorry but this is not something we can consider. We no longer let
outside developers make games with our intellectual properties.


Mark Rein
Epic Games Inc.

Visit us at http://www.epicgames.com

What if I got people to redraw the sprites/tilesets and wrote
original music just using the idea/concept of JJ2? Would that be ok?

Sorry but that wouldn't be OK either. Jazz is our intellectual property
and our lawyers tell us we have to defend it.


Mark Rein
Epic Games Inc.

Visit us at http://www.epicgames.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Jamie M
To: Mark Rein
Sent: Sat Feb 11 06:58:14 2006
Subject: Final request

PLEASE can I make a FREE fangame of JJ2?! I would not make ANY profit on
it and I can verify the users are real OWNERS of JJ2 by checking the MD5
hash of Jazz2.exe.

Considering your company don't even care about the game it's not really
going to be much of a problem if a FREE, NON-COMMERCIAL fangame is made!

I will give Epic FULL, CLEAR credit inside the game and I need NOTHING
from you but your permission.

Thanks in advance,
Jamie

Jamie,

I'm sorry but can't give permission for something like this.


Mark Rein
Epic Games Inc.

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There. I hope someone finds that "delightful" conversation with Epic Games useful.

From Jam.