Very impressive video! I think noone ever got further than you making a new jj2 game (correct me if I'm wrong). Another important thing is multiplayer (online), do you think you can manage to make that work on the long run?

Originally Posted by Jerrythabest

Indeed, after pretty much all the previous projects we have seen got abandoned.

This is pretty much the first time I am convinced somebody is developing the real deal on the internet. The number of abandoned projects and frauds of promised things on the internet exceeds my counting.

Impressive! While I still have plans to make whole new JJ game, though life gets in the way, my pet feels abandoned, etc., I am impressed. One question: Is this reimplementation of Jazz or Jazz2 engine?

//edit: Also, after engine will be done (as in it could run original game flawlessly), perhaps easier to use level editor would be good? JCS is damn hard - still didn't find out how to set backgrounds (lack of it makes character/enemies/tiles leave ugly "trail") or import custom tilesets.

Originally Posted by Darkhog

JCS is damn hard - still didn't find out how to set backgrounds (lack of it makes character/enemies/tiles leave ugly "trail")

http://www.ninjadodo.net/htjcs/, see "use layers" in particular

Thank you to everyone for the feedback even though so little was new Yes, Slaz, I did read your comment on YT and answered to it as well

Originally Posted by Foly

Very impressive video! I think noone ever got further than you making a new jj2 game (correct me if I'm wrong). Another important thing is multiplayer (online), do you think you can manage to make that work on the long run?

I haven't really kept an eye on other projects to know anything else than that no complete engine should be around, as you said. I've never written a single line of online code, but damn sure I will try to make online play possible as well.

Originally Posted by Darkhog

Impressive! While I still have plans to make whole new JJ game, though life gets in the way, my pet feels abandoned, etc., I am impressed. One question: Is this reimplementation of Jazz or Jazz2 engine?

//edit: Also, after engine will be done (as in it could run original game flawlessly), perhaps easier to use level editor would be good? JCS is damn hard - still didn't find out how to set backgrounds (lack of it makes character/enemies/tiles leave ugly "trail") or import custom tilesets.

If you mean by your question whether I'm using any old code, the answer is no. PC is a Jazz 2 engine clone built from ground up without any reverse-engineered code from the original.

I will be writing a new level editor once it becomes relevant enough, and I would need to at some point anyway if I ever wanted to expand the event set beyond the current one. So far the only thing even remotely related is this Qt UI file from July; no code using it exists, it's just a quick (heavily JCS-based) design sketch.

And the background problem got already explained above

Originally Posted by Soulweaver

If you mean by your question whether I'm using any old code, the answer is no. PC is a Jazz 2 engine clone built from ground up without any reverse-engineered code from the original.

No, I was asking if you are reimplementing DOS Jazz or Jazz 2. But that solved - from video I see it's Jazz 2.

Originally Posted by Soulweaver

I will be writing a new level editor once it becomes relevant enough, and I would need to at some point anyway if I ever wanted to expand the event set beyond the current one. So far the only thing even remotely related is this Qt UI file from July; no code using it exists, it's just a quick (heavily JCS-based) design sketch.

And the background problem got already explained above

Yeah, but using JCS is still significantly harder, than say RPG Maker's map editor or Tiled.

//edit: Also as I am game developer myself, I know that level editor is usually last thing you do in project like this (reimplementation of old game). If this would be completely new game/new engine, level editor would be implemented along with engine to actually test if it works. But since you have both original Jazz levels and user-made ones to test engine with, this can wait until engine can run any thing original Jazz2 could.

Originally Posted by Darkhog

No, I was asking if you are reimplementing DOS Jazz or Jazz 2. But that solved - from video I see it's Jazz 2.

For JJ1 we already have OpenJazz.

Originally Posted by Darkhog

Yeah, but using JCS is still significantly harder, than say RPG Maker's map editor or Tiled.

//edit: Also as I am game developer myself, ...

Wait, what... you are a game developer yourself, AND you have rather clear ideas of how JCS can be massively improved. Why don't you give it a shot, then? The structure of the J2L and J2T file formats are known.

I'd do that... but I simply don't have time. Already has unity and RPG Maker projects on my head (unrelated to Jazz) and I'm not particularly good at writing level editors.

I noticed this thread won't show anymore with the default time cutoff settings (for guests at least) at the moment so might just as well bump it to not make it look like the thread's dead

So... yeah, I've managed to find a lot of time to write code this month, so if you haven't been aware of that, go check the changelog in the first post. I'd like to do another video but it feels like I've been doing so much under-the-hood changes and so little else that it'd be rather pointless Most of the directly visible changes from that list can really be summed up to the following screenshots: 1, 2

Layer positioning feels rather accurate for the first time (for all resolutions); background layers were still all over the place in the second video. Before anyone mentions, yes, I know, textured BG still needs a few tweaks.

Awesome. Wrong gems.. But still bridge code!

Very nice progress!

Originally Posted by Marijn

Awesome. Wrong gems.. But still bridge code!

Yeah, the event only honors the length parameter for now; it reads toughness and type as well but overrides them with default values. That's just because it was easier to work with a bridge type with uniform bridge piece width for now, and only Diamondus and Labratory bridges fit that bill

Originally Posted by DoubleGJ

Very nice progress!

Thanks

Very impressive work! I'm new here btw, so hello everyone! I've always been a big fan of Jazz2 prompting me to work on my own sidescrolling game engine as well, only to get sidetracked on other things.
But I'm tidying it up a bit and will post a thread about it shortly. I'll release the source code so perhaps it will be of some use to projects like this.

Welcome to the JCF; fire exits are north, south, and Dennis. Enjoy your stay.

On a less sarcastic note, what programming language are you using?

what programming language are you using?

C++, I'll give the details in my own thread, but I don't seem to have the privileges to create one at this point(because I'm too new?).

Originally Posted by RabbitHare

Very impressive work! I'm new here btw, so hello everyone! I've always been a big fan of Jazz2 prompting me to work on my own sidescrolling game engine as well, only to get sidetracked on other things.
But I'm tidying it up a bit and will post a thread about it shortly. I'll release the source code so perhaps it will be of some use to projects like this.

Hello and thank you It's always great to see other projects pop up, so if you're planning to improve on yours, good luck Rest assured, you're certainly not the only one who's struggling with sidetracking, I spent a good deal of last year letting my code just sit around while I was playing games and I might be going on a hiatus of a sort due to schoolwork in the near future too. As far as source code goes, I prefer to come up with my own solutions in cases I don't have any means to reference against the original game; that doesn't mean I won't check your code, though.

Originally Posted by RabbitHare

C++, I'll give the details in my own thread, but I don't seem to have the privileges to create one at this point(because I'm too new?).

That must be it as you seem to have been able to do that recently. Restricting new threads to established users, either with a minimum post count or a minimum account age, is a rather efficient (but obviously not failproof) method to curb spambots, so I can see why that restriction is in place.

Due to my failure to deliver any new features to the engine during a major part of this year, I've decided to stay true to my word and share the source of the engine in its current state publicly:

https://github.com/soulweaver91/project-carrot

The readme in there states the most important things about how to get into diving into the code, but as a recap: you will need MS Visual Studio '13, Qt 5.3.0, SFML 2.1, BASS 2.4 (newer versions should logically work too), and to actually run the game, you will need to contact me via a PM with a proof of ownership of the original (at the very least photos with your name + a boxed copy of JJ2, TSF, HH98 or CC will all do), for which I will provide the currently extracted assets in the format currently required by the code.

Also, this certainly doesn't mean I've abandoned the project, but it does mean I've left it untouched for a far too long time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOS92nuHoXQ

Hey, remember this project? Surprise, not dead yet.

Bonus: Some bloopers from various stages of the events developed during the last month:
https://i.soulweaver.fi/uhhh.png
https://i.soulweaver.fi/halo.png
https://i.soulweaver.fi/brk.png
https://i.soulweaver.fi/springs.png
https://i.soulweaver.fi/FFsplit-160417-220325.mp4
https://i.soulweaver.fi/FFsplit-160411-010905.mp4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kt6HxdyT4Go

And an example of a new view model working – it has no use at the moment, so only one view is used regularly for now, but it is there while it wasn't a month ago.
https://i.soulweaver.fi/viewz.png

Thanks for the update! It's cool to see the places where it looks like you intentionally changed the game behavior... turtles walking up and down hills, and I think I noticed some pickups bouncing off a swinging platform at one point?

I'm assuming the tube physics are unfinished, though what I'm not sure is incomplete is the falling physics. Falling seems to go too fast. The falling speed cap should be smaller too. Also launching from springs still looks a bit too fast (no, I didn't use the blooper video as a reference).

Nice to see you working back on the project though. Good luck!

Originally Posted by Violet CLM

Thanks for the update! It's cool to see the places where it looks like you intentionally changed the game behavior... turtles walking up and down hills, and I think I noticed some pickups bouncing off a swinging platform at one point?

Yeah, some of it is kinda intentional, in the way that when I've tried to implement a feature, it has accidentally ended up with a neat side effect that I haven't tried to (or maybe succeeded to in some cases) remove. I can't remember what my original vision was, but at the moment my strong opinion is that even though I try to be as compatible with the original engine as possible, in the end I'm already at a point that a complete clone would be difficult without revamping most of the inner structures. Their limitations would especially be detrimental if/when it is ever going to go into the territory where completely new features are added in.

I actually listed enemies walking up and down the hills as a bug in the OP (which I should clean up soon), but I might just as well keep it, at least as a default behaviour. Your observation with the coins being bounced by the platforms was correct as well: the platforms have standard collision checking with all actors. Only players can be carried by them at the moment, though – expanding that to other stuff could be something interesting to look into later.

Originally Posted by Treylina

I'm assuming the tube physics are unfinished, though what I'm not sure is incomplete is the falling physics. Falling seems to go too fast. The falling speed cap should be smaller too. Also launching from springs still looks a bit too fast (no, I didn't use the blooper video as a reference).

Nice to see you working back on the project though. Good luck!

Thanks! I'm assuming you have better knowledge of the physics than I do, so would you mind to elaborate on how tubes seem incomplete? Factors like speeds are fairly easy to change and they've seemed good enough, so I've kept them as is for now and focused elsewhere instead, but if they seem to be off significantly, I might look into them in the future. For the springs, you are probably correct – changing how it works would require some non-trivial changes at the moment, though.

Disclaimer that the above reply to Violet applies to this as well though: being a 100% clone is a very low priority if at all if it comes with a high-cost compromise somewhere else.

Still looks nicely similar to the original, and it's encouraging to see some progress. I also had the feeling that the physics are "off" in some ways but at some point I suppose the law of diminishing returns kicks in and it's not really worth the effort of getting it pixel perfect. And things like enemies walking up slopes actually allow for more exciting gameplay than vanilla JJ2, so there's that too.

Could you tell a bit more about the end goal of this project? It would of course be nice to have a JJ2-compatible engine that is easier to tweak, but given the existence of JJ2+ (which you are surely aware of) it will probably see little use for playing existing levels. Would it be easy for people to use it as a general purpose 2D engine, for example?

Originally Posted by Stijn

Still looks nicely similar to the original, and it's encouraging to see some progress. I also had the feeling that the physics are "off" in some ways but at some point I suppose the law of diminishing returns kicks in and it's not really worth the effort of getting it pixel perfect. And things like enemies walking up slopes actually allow for more exciting gameplay than vanilla JJ2, so there's that too.

Could you tell a bit more about the end goal of this project? It would of course be nice to have a JJ2-compatible engine that is easier to tweak, but given the existence of JJ2+ (which you are surely aware of) it will probably see little use for playing existing levels. Would it be easy for people to use it as a general purpose 2D engine, for example?

Yeah, I'm aware of JJ2+ (though I have to admit I haven't come around to actually try it out yet). Can't tell if I had heard of it in early 2013 when I first started the project, though.

The main goal has always been primarily to provide an alternative, open-source engine that can be improved and eventually extended with relative ease. Not being bound to some of the technical limitations the original engine seems to have (see: fixed memory limits, somewhat limited colour support - though palette based graphics do make other things easier - etc.) could also be useful in the future. I already take advantage of that in places where it comes with no cost, for example with full alpha channel support with tilesets and assets, full freedom over the number of layers in a level (only made difficult by the lack of a dedicated level editor for now) or completely free window resolutions. (I don't really know how feasible adding these to JJ2+ would be, or if they already are there, though.)



One factor, to be honest, is also just to gain programming experience in a language I don't typically use that much elsewhere, since having a wider arsenal of languages on one's belt is always useful. That alone makes it worthwhile for me even if I would be trying to win people over from JJ2+, which I don't really see as a goal I should be going for anyway. In particular, the flexibility AngelScript provides would be quite a beast to compete against after all

Content-wise, the current long-term goal is to bring the engine to a point that everything necessary to play single player levels from JJ2 is in place, with the exception that levels that depend on minor details or good bad bugs (read: MCEs and such) specific to the implementation may or may not work. Obviously, that is a matter of balance, and the closer it can be moved to the original with relative ease, the better. Since I have absolutely zero experience on netcode, I haven't taken anything it requires into account at all, so I might have already shot myself in the foot if I ever want to add online play without huge overhauls. Local modes will regardless stay as the primary target for now, so that's another reason for not trying to compete with JJ2+.

The point about a general purpose engine is one that I hadn't considered but that seems quite obvious in hindsight. At the moment it is already very easy to replace the graphics and sounds with something else – PC is not tied to any of the JJ2 formats after all but uses its own for everything – and with some minor changes you could already add gameplay elements that transform JJ2 into a new game altogether.

...Well, that was a lot of rambling. Maybe I answered the question, maybe not

TL;DR: Goal is a mostly compatible open-source engine with main targets as local game modes, extensibility – especially in the future – and the honing of own programming skills.

That sounds really cool.

Any estimate on when we can expect a playable demo/beta release? Or are you going to save release until it's actually gone gold? (Or have you not thought about it? )

Originally Posted by Robo4900

That sounds really cool.

Any estimate on when we can expect a playable demo/beta release? Or are you going to save release until it's actually gone gold? (Or have you not thought about it? )

Before that long break, I had set the first test release to be when the Shareware Demo episode is fully playable, with the exception of a few specific events. That's what I'm still planning to go for, but we'll see if it seems useful enough for me to release something before that. Assuming I can keep the current pace, I'm quite sure getting it there would still be at least a few months away, though.

I'm tracking the list of events left to do for that release in this issue I added yesterday (I had had it in a random text file before that, so it isn't really new). This milestone also collects some (not all) of the bugs and missing features that I'd like to also have fixed/added in at that point.

Really sweet! I'm glad people are still looking to do Jazz Jackrabbit fan made games (kinda). First this, now Project Carrot (yes, I know it's been started before but you get what I mean, I'm a newer member). I've got to ask, are you going to add new features as well, like JJ2+ does to JJ2? Sorry if you already answered this question. I really like what you're doing, looking forward to see more of this project! c:

Originally Posted by Primpy

Really sweet! I'm glad people are still looking to do Jazz Jackrabbit fan made games (kinda). First this, now Project Carrot (yes, I know it's been started before but you get what I mean, I'm a newer member). I've got to ask, are you going to add new features as well, like JJ2+ does to JJ2? Sorry if you already answered this question. I really like what you're doing, looking forward to see more of this project! c:

That is eventually the intention, yes, but not a priority for quite some time now. And thanks!

Wow!Looks promissing.I guess it's gonna be unofficial refreshed Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Open Source Edition.Hey!Will Project Carrot support Android devices and rest unfficial ports like OpenJazz?

Originally Posted by lukaszdamianpiotrrygal

Wow!Looks promissing.I guess it's gonna be unofficial refreshed Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Open Source Edition.Hey!Will Project Carrot support Android devices and rest unfficial ports like OpenJazz?

That would be spazzin-awesome.

Originally Posted by lukaszdamianpiotrrygal

Wow!Looks promissing.I guess it's gonna be unofficial refreshed Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Open Source Edition.Hey!Will Project Carrot support Android devices and rest unfficial ports like OpenJazz?

All of the libraries I'm currently using do support Android (and iOS), so there's a theoretical possibility. That said, I have zero experience on mobile development, so I'm making no promises at all, and of course, even if it happened, it isn't really high up on the priority list.


Making some progress with pixel-perfect collision tonight.

Really cool. Is there's a GitHub of the thing? I mean, with more developers around it would proceed faster.

Soulweaver you can count on Alister Thomson.Guy who made a open source port of jazz jackrabbit 1.

Originally Posted by Darkhog

Really cool. Is there's a GitHub of the thing? I mean, with more developers around it would proceed faster.

I do believe you're talking about this?

Thanks. Will look through it to see if I can help with either optimizations or new code.

Yeah, the source code is available and visible there. I don't outright refuse help, but it is discouraged at least for now: there's still still some refactoring ahead which may mix up things, and I am not really tracking too accurately what I am working with at the moment, so it cannot be guaranteed what you'd like to work on actually needs work currently.

openjazz was game(still in actual updates from 2012 to 2015) engine clone for jazz jackrabbit 1,jj2+and project carrotus are game engine clones for jazz jackrabbit 2 as for jazz jackrabbit 3 unofficial patches are over so i guess there's no need for game engines clones for jj3d from unreal engine 1 and jazz jackrabbit advance game engine clone-it's crap from gameboy advance not the best like jazz jackrabbit classics.Unless I found UShock tool for Unreal Engine aka map viewer,but it makes no sense if someone like me wants to make jazz jackrabbit 3 again.

Decided to figure out what it takes to build it on Linux and lookin' fine after a bit of wrestling. (Sound is quite choppy though, I'll probably have to see if it is a VM problem or BASS + whatever audio interface Ubuntu uses by default problem or something else.)

Sounds cool! It'll be great to have JJ2 playable on all three major OSes.

i'm still wondering why's no tcrf.net articles about canceled jazz jackrabbit 2 sequel jj3.Anyways jj2 fangame engine clone is looking great,curious.Now stijn knows my criptic life,but why he's covering/hiding another jazz jackrabbit fangames.No matter what he's planning to ban me permamently.

A great thing about a project like this is the possibility of widescreen support and better antialiasing for the low res graphics... unless pixels is what you're going for. In any case, a modern game. Good work! I really hope this could become the future of JJ2!