When JJ2 was first released in 1998, I found it in a store, and not even knowing that there had been a sequel to the first Jazz Jackrabbit, I wanted to have it. I had played Jazz Jackrabbit shareware since I was 4 years old on our old Windows 3.1 computer. Unfortunately I was poor, and didn't get it until 1999. During this time, maybe some of you remember a service named Won.net supporting JJ2 multiplayer. Well me being ignorant of any listserver patches, and not knowing why I couldn't connect to them, found this site advertised on the box, so I went there. What I didn't know at the time was this service ignored passwords and allowed you to connect to any server. Even now I remember the name of the server, which was "Oldbies Only". I joined, and somehow I remember it being on one of ICEM@N's levels. I remember ICEM@N being the host, and Bartman and IceWing also being in the server. Then I remember everyone screaming HACKER BAN, and I ended up getting banned. I was pretty confused I'll admit. Next, I joined a server called UR Tryouts. I joined this server and met a guy named URJazz, who was really cool to me, and after I did a test allowed me into the clan UR. I remember he helped me with making my first level and always gave me advice. I ended up getting into playing Duke3D online with this guy as well. URJazz had a hotel for UR called goldwood. I loved the atmosphere of this level. Something about JJ2 made me extremely happy, just how everything flowed together so well. The graphics, the music, the people. Everything was so amazing. I could name so many names of random, seemingly insignificant people who I spent so much time talking to. I didn't really have any friends in real life, I was homeschooled and had just moved to Florida. The first hotel I ever saw was the A5 hotel by FalconA5. There was just something about this hotel, as crappy as it really is that I loved to death. The music, I think bonus3, made me happy. I met a guy named Overlord who had a moderately complex level in which you got to a certain part gave you a link to his website, Stronghold: Jazz. Here, as a reward, you could download a tool called overlord.exe, which let you open any level in JCS whether you had a password or not. I met CraccoBoy and joined CC. I loved the Cracco Land of Coin levels, I seriously thought they were the coolest things ever created. I joined TEC. I was the element Power, woo! I loved the TEC hotel as well. I thought it was pretty crazy when they started adding elements like the pokemon Marril though, that's when it was obvious we were running out of elements. I created my own clan, NB. My co-leader was Crazy Rabbit/Crazy R, who made a tileset and hotel for it. We had a LOT of people in it. And I mean a freakin' LOT of people. My recruiting strategy was something like daily going into the many populated servers and spamming, "anyone wanna join nb??" And honestly, all I did was play JJ2, post on the JMMB, and make pathetic stuff in JCS. I still had fun though. I loved the atmosphere. I seriously miss all the feelings I got from playing JJ2. I really wish everyone who used to play would just come back. But from the way it's looking, everyone's just grown up and stopped it all. Me, I'm basically lost. I feel like the biggest loser with no sense of direction. I feel like I can't do anything, probably because I live with my dad who hasn't had a job since 2000. It's really hard to believe that 9 years later I'm 18 and still in the same community. 9 years ago. It was half my life ago I began playing JJ2. And I was 4 when I first started playing Jazz Jackrabbit Episode 1. That's 14 years ago I started playing Jazz Jackrabbit. I'm a complete loser, and maybe I always will be due to the fact that I feel like I'm literally mentally retarded and unable to do anything worthwhile. But still, this game has always had an amazing atmosphere and made me feel good, even when I was 4. That's something not many games manage to do. The one other game that I feel does surpass this in atmosphere is called Little Big Adventure 1/Relentless: Twinsen's Adventure. That game, which I've played since I was 4 as well, gives me the same amazing memories as Jazz Jackrabbti does. I'll write more about this later, I'm going to sleep now.

Originally Posted by Ninja

I met a guy named Overlord who had a moderately complex level in which you got to a certain part gave you a link to his website, Stronghold: Jazz. Here, as a reward, you could download a tool called overlord.exe, which let you open any level in JCS whether you had a password or not.

Haha I remember this level. I think it was the first level that used the Top Secret (v1) tileset. It also had a winzip serial and password inside. Some people found it really interesting and fun.

For christ's sake, can't you use paragraphs

I can't decide whether you fail at life or not, but either way it looks like you had a lot of fun

When JJ2 was first released in 1998, I found it in a store, and not even knowing that there had been a sequel to the first Jazz Jackrabbit, I wanted to have it. I had played Jazz Jackrabbit shareware since I was 4 years old on our old Windows 3.1 computer. Unfortunately I was poor, and didn't get it until 1999.

During this time, maybe some of you remember a service named Won.net supporting JJ2 multiplayer. Well me being ignorant of any listserver patches, and not knowing why I couldn't connect to them, found this site advertised on the box, so I went there. What I didn't know at the time was this service ignored passwords and allowed you to connect to any server. Even now I remember the name of the server, which was "Oldbies Only". I joined, and somehow I remember it being on one of ICEM@N's levels. I remember ICEM@N being the host, and Bartman and IceWing also being in the server. Then I remember everyone screaming HACKER BAN, and I ended up getting banned. I was pretty confused I'll admit.

Next, I joined a server called UR Tryouts. I joined this server and met a guy named URJazz, who was really cool to me, and after I did a test allowed me into the clan UR. I remember he helped me with making my first level and always gave me advice. I ended up getting into playing Duke3D online with this guy as well. URJazz had a hotel for UR called goldwood. I loved the atmosphere of this level. Something about JJ2 made me extremely happy, just how everything flowed together so well. The graphics, the music, the people. Everything was so amazing. I could name so many names of random, seemingly insignificant people who I spent so much time talking to. I didn't really have any friends in real life, I was homeschooled and had just moved to Florida.

The first hotel I ever saw was the A5 hotel by FalconA5. There was just something about this hotel, as crappy as it really is that I loved to death. The music, I think bonus3, made me happy. I met a guy named Overlord who had a moderately complex level in which you got to a certain part gave you a link to his website, Stronghold: Jazz. Here, as a reward, you could download a tool called overlord.exe, which let you open any level in JCS whether you had a password or not.

I met CraccoBoy and joined CC. I loved the Cracco Land of Coin levels, I seriously thought they were the coolest things ever created. I joined TEC. I was the element Power, woo! I loved the TEC hotel as well. I thought it was pretty crazy when they started adding elements like the pokemon Marril though, that's when it was obvious we were running out of elements. I created my own clan, NB. My co-leader was Crazy Rabbit/Crazy R, who made a tileset and hotel for it. We had a LOT of people in it. And I mean a freakin' LOT of people. My recruiting strategy was something like daily going into the many populated servers and spamming, "anyone wanna join nb??" And honestly, all I did was play JJ2, post on the JMMB, and make pathetic stuff in JCS. I still had fun though. I loved the atmosphere.

I seriously miss all the feelings I got from playing JJ2. I really wish everyone who used to play would just come back. But from the way it's looking, everyone's just grown up and stopped it all. Me, I'm basically lost. I feel like the biggest loser with no sense of direction. I feel like I can't do anything, probably because I live with my dad who hasn't had a job since 2000. It's really hard to believe that 9 years later I'm 18 and still in the same community. 9 years ago. It was half my life ago I began playing JJ2. And I was 4 when I first started playing Jazz Jackrabbit Episode 1. That's 14 years ago I started playing Jazz Jackrabbit. I'm a complete loser, and maybe I always will be due to the fact that I feel like I'm literally mentally retarded and unable to do anything worthwhile. But still, this game has always had an amazing atmosphere and made me feel good, even when I was 4. That's something not many games manage to do.

The one other game that I feel does surpass this in atmosphere is called Little Big Adventure 1/Relentless: Twinsen's Adventure. That game, which I've played since I was 4 as well, gives me the same amazing memories as Jazz Jackrabbti does. I'll write more about this later, I'm going to sleep now.

Random paragraphyfying by yours truly

Originally Posted by Ninja

Jazz Jackrabbti

(PA)
Never thought poor people had computers in 1994.

[Personal attack edit. Please display some maturity. - FQuist


You can at least finish the tags. - IconGuy

nah, i definetely fail at life

Wow, I think I actually know what you mean by the atmosphere of the game. I kinda miss it, it's not the same anymore. There was a kind of joy I derived from it that you really couldn't quite name. Maybe it will come back someday.

Originally Posted by Ninja

nah, i definetely fail at life

Don't say that! Don't even think it! You still have your life ahead of you, you're stuck in a slump is all. Time and perhaps a bit of hard work will fix that.

(No links to the nastiest depths of the internet or instructions on how to kill yourself, dummy. ~Stijn)

When I'm at my worst, I usually get on the computer and look for a game of JJ2 to get my mind off of whatever's wrong. It's a fun way to let off steam, and sometimes I get a nice conversation out of it too, which can really make my day. Jazz Jackrabbit and his community has been there for me for what seems like my entire life; being in your age group, I'm sure there are plenty of people here along with myself who can relate to those reflections of yours, Ninja. I don't know what life would be like without JJ2, but I know that times change and people change, even people who have played a part in shaping who I am now. I suppose all you can do is hang onto the good memories and the strong sentiments, and keep in touch with the old friends that you do have.

My oldest JJ2 memory was playing in the capture4 labrat level in the shareware or demo version of the game I had downloaded while randomly searching "games" on the internet when I was a kid. We were all standing at the very bottom of the level to the right of the seekercrate area jumping on eachother. It might have been before the full game came out (if the demo was playable online,) I have no idea what year it was.

I MISS IT ALL

AMAZING STORY

Dude, your story was amazing! How can you call yourself a retard!?!

Myself, when I was 7 years old, I played (the shareware version i think, i might be wrong) Jazz Jackrabbit 1 on some CD that our neighbors gave us. Many years later, I rediscover the game and buy the full version from Epic Classics and here I am now, a big fan of Jazz.

I know, it's a boring story, compared to yours. LOL XD

I miss JJ2.

I don't, cause it's installed on every computer in my home (and beyond)..

Originally Posted by Slaz

(and beyond)

It's no good gaming at school/work ;p

Nice story, Ninja. If anyone is interested in mine, it's in Black Ninja's life story thread, right over here. It's paragraphitionizated.

I don't have a life story
Not fair.

But I do - W00T! Life Story! *cracks knuckles and begins typing furiously*

I find it strange that my memories about Jazz Jackrabbit are so vivid. (Is it a coincidence?) but at six years old, I didn’t remember much. School was still fun (probably because I didn’t do anything), and traveling to my aunt’s house was still boring (probably because I didn’t do anything). But what I do remember is how I was introduced to Jazz Jackrabbit. One fateful day, that very same aunt allowed me a little glimpse at her (Ohhhh!) Personal Computer. The only other computer I was allowed to touch was my dad’s, hidden away in the elusive corner of his bedroom. He wouldn’t let me do much with it. He wouldn’t install any of my games ever since Toy Story “screwed up his hard drive.” (yeah, I don’t get it either). I was mostly confined to watching him play his games (Doom and Heretic, mostly) from my kitchen chair that I dragged into his room. So back at my aunt’s house I was in a giddy cloud of childhood bliss, playing games on my her computer like Ski Free, pinball, and this weird one that I think was called Hoover. But my best discovery, by far, was Jazz Jackrabbit!

I don’t know where she got it and I don’t know why, but does that really matter when you are six years old? All that mattered was that I was playing it. And I loved it. It was like the coolest thing. Ever: The original Jazz. What six-year old was not to like an 8-bit green rabbit who munched on carrots and had a sweet gun? My favorite level was the one that was made of Lego blocks. I also remember the TubeElectric eyeballs (They always got me! Every time!) and that cool 3D part where you, as Jazz, ran around a track collecting things once you found the big red gem. I also can recall, after beating the first handful of episodes, that the chapter was over. I had to purchase the next ones. What kind of lame, stupid game was this? What kind of six-year-old has money to buy the rest of it? How could I ever play any more of this glorious game?

Truth was, I never did. In my subsequent visits to my Aunt’s house, I would re-visit the few episodes I had beaten, and sometimes watch my older cousin help me on the harder parts. But eventually, my aunt got a new computer. The old one was thrown out, and along with it, Jazz Jackrabbit. I was convinced that I would never see it again, and it slowly faded from memory. It may have gone completely, had it not been for encounter number two, this time in the game aisle of Fleet Farm.

Four years later, when I was ten, my aunt’s house was fun. Her daughter (my cousin) and I had forged a friendship through our Jazz-Jackrabbit playing, and had now progressed to furious games of hide-and-seek and whack-the-balloon-around-the-house-with-paint-stirring-sticks (never found a good name for that one). School, however, had taken a turn fro the worse. Now, I had subtraction facts to memorize. And I hated it. What was the point of having to think about something when you could get a calculator to do it? In desperation, Mom carted me to the local Mill’s Fleet Farm. You see, this was before Wal*Mart moved in to out neighboring town. Before then, Fleet Farm was the place to go.

She was dragging me through the games section, feverishly looking for flash cards or something else she could use to burn those annoying subtraction facts into my head. I followed timidly in the wake of her warpath, keeping my eye out for a good game (computer or otherwise) that I could try to beg her into buying for me. And what do I happen to glance at, lost among the shelves, but a small, white, CD case - and what was on this CD case but a small green rabbit!

“MOM!” I hollered, stopping her in her tracks, “Can you please please please buy this game for me?” I continued my plea in that characteristic child whine, clutching the game and rambling on forever and hardly stopping to take a breath. “Remember the one at Aunt Jean’s house, that I played all the time, it’s the same one, I love this game, and please please please could I have it? It’s the last one here, and that’s probably because it is so good, and if we don’t get it now, someone else is going to buy it right away, and then I’ll be really really sad, and can I please have it Mom I love you!” I finally had to stop to breathe.

“Why, yes, honey, of course I’ll buy it for you, but…” I groaned inwardly. There was always a but. Still, how bad could it be? I was about to own my very own copy of Jazz Jackrabbit 2, which, upon closer inspection, looked even better than Jazz Jackrabbit 1. However, I had to snap back to listening to Mom, hearing out her conditions. After all, Jazz Jackrabbit could be hanging on the line. “…But you can only play it the same amount of time that you study your subtraction facts,” She finished, flashing me a mischievous grin and holding a pack of flash cards in her outstretched hand.

Needless to say, I had those subtraction facts memorized in three days.

Throughout the years, Jazz Jackrabbit has held my attention as so few games can do. As I grew up, I inevitably forgot about it for a stint of another two years, until I got a computer of my own. It was time for Dad to get a shiny new one, and he of course gave his old “piece of junk” to me. I then proceeded to stamp stars all over the side of the monitor (not the screen, doofus) and install the first game I happened to dig out of the pit of CDs. You can all guess what game that was.

With this new installation of this old game, I discovered a feature that was previously overlooked. This new thing, Jazz Creation Station, reminded me way too much of Mark Kissler’s Imagination Station to be left alone. I soon opened it and discovered that it was much, much more complicated than a television drawing program. But still, I wanted to learn how to use it, as I had gleaned as much entertainment out of the single player adventure that I possibly could. So I began an arduous self-training program in which I finally, finally learned how to work the darn thing. I opened levels with it, studied how they were made, and tried to replicate it. My first levels were made with the Castle tileset, and were completely contained in level four. But as I got older, I soon learned how to make them better.

Upon my discovery of Jazz 2 Online, my interest in this game creation engine increased exponentially. There were so many people out here making so many things - it was like I was six all over again, sitting in front of my aunt’s computer and discovering Jazz Jackrabbit for the first time. You must understand that I didn’t even have an inkling that something like this even existed, so when I stumbled upon it quite by accident I was blown away. (New tilesets!?! You can make those??) I used the school’s high-speed Internet to download as many things as I could and put them on my jump drive, immersing myself in Jazz Jackrabbit all over again. Then, after playing EvilMike’s glorious single player odysseys, I thought “Maybe I could make something like that too.” So I tried. With my upload of O Brother and a sequel coming, (slowly but surely) Jazz Jackrabbit has managed to stay with me almost my entire life like no other game has.

So now, as I watch my eight-year-old sister play this game, I can’t help but smile. It takes a true masterpiece to entertain two generations like this, and how this game is still enjoyable ten years later is a perfect example of its timelessness. So that is why I loved, and still do (a present-tense love is required) love Jazz Jackrabbit two.

“Hey!” My little sister calls from my bedroom, where she had been happily holed up in for hours, “Can you help me get up here to this ledge? I can’t free the bird that’s in the cage! I bet he really wants to get out of there, and guess what! When I let him go, he follows me and shoots things! Isn’t that cool? I need your help please!”

“Of course kiddo,” I say, hopping up the stairs and taking my place at the keyboard, “See, when you hold shift, Jazz runs faster and you can make him jump farther, like this. Now you try…”

---

How was that for a life story! Hoo boy, I emphasized the story part a little much, but I assure you that everything is true. This really happened to me, every single part of it.

Yeah, the game and the community surrounding it is really something special... I don't think this community will ever die, to be honest.

Originally Posted by Olsen

Yeah, the game and the community surrounding it is really something special... I don't think this community will ever die, to be honest.

How about when the planet blows up

Hi ninja

Wow such a obsession with toilets ;p