There was some speculation that Melk was based on an in-development version of JJ2('s engine), based on a string "0.95" that appears inside the exe. I doubt this based on all the non-exe files, which look near-identical to TSF's file formats (the headers replace the words "Jazz Jackrabbit 2" with "Jazz Engine") and nothing at all like 0.98k's. Not only do the J2T files use TSF's 4096 tile limit, the J2L files use TSF's 256 animated tiles instead of 1.23's 128, even though the most animated tiles any of the levels actually define is 41. The formats used by 0.98k's LEV and J2 files are completely absent here. That would be a whole lot of coincidence. Also, the game's build date is March 2001.