Sep 26, 2015, 01:50 PM | |
Obscure Jazz Jackrabbit fun facts
They don't have to be new, but not well known facts.
So anyway, SE was checking the state of trademarks on the Jazz Jackrabbit franchise. Apparently, Jazz Jackrabbit was planned to have a TV adaptation. JJ3D was also planned even before JJ2 was released. Here's the source if you're interested. And the other source.. And the regular trademark. Oh and TSF was made on a tight budget and deadline..not really obscure and showed many obvious signs, but sometimes I feel people don't really acknowledge that. Alternatively, you can discuss what the TV adaption could've been like. Official facts only please. In other words, no facts about fan-projects.
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Last edited by Treylina; Oct 9, 2015 at 11:15 AM. Reason: wanted to clear something up |
Sep 26, 2015, 02:10 PM | |
"Plan" is not the luckiest word to describe "register a trademark for", but I like how they did that just in case their bunny turns out to be the next Sonic the Hedgehog.
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I am an official JJ2+ programmer and this has been an official JJ2+ statement. |
Sep 26, 2015, 02:14 PM | ||
Oh I remember that. Craig was talking about a cartoon in mid-March, then a couple weeks later it got trademarked.
I'll quote what Jeh told me about TSF: Quote:
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Sep 26, 2015, 03:26 PM | |
From the old newsposts, you were originally meant to be able to send high scores too.
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Sep 27, 2015, 04:43 AM | |
Fun fact: Jazz Jackrabbit 2 has a cheat code so obscure not a single online guide up to date on J2O or elsewhere mentions it. Unlike other cheats, it has to be typed on the episode selection screen and, when used, temporarily unlocks all episodes. Finding the code is left as an exercise for the reader.
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I am an official JJ2+ programmer and this has been an official JJ2+ statement. |
Sep 27, 2015, 08:56 AM | ||||
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![]() "Floppy ears and a big butt?" - Slaz |
Sep 27, 2015, 01:17 PM | ||
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Anyway, Jazz 1 had a cheat code("APOGEE") that activated "Apology mode", which would reduce the game to 16 colours, and slow the game down to a crawl. This was poking fun at Apogee releasing 16-colour games that ran really slow at the time, even though games like Jazz 1 were possible. The code was taken out of the game some time after the initial floppy release. Jazz 1 was originally to star Wubbo Ockles, the first Dutch citizen to go into space. After it was changed to Jazz(Named after Cliff Bleszinski's dog, who himself was named after the Transformer), he originally looked very different and was purple. He was then changed to green, and then later redrawn by Nick Stadler(The earlier green version can be seen here). It's possible that the Jazz 2 source code no longer exists in a usable form. A while ago, there was a possibility of it being released, but they couldn't find it, and lawyers started getting in the way(Although it's academic at this point, since all the source code could really do now is help to optimise some of the Plus code, but not really anything else). Jazz 2 was originally to have a 3D sequence between episodes. This was even partially coded, There is a code displayed at the end of Christmas Chronicles '99 and Holiday Hare '98. Since the code at the end of TSF, when entered into Project 2's website, would give you some extra levels to download, it is assumed that this was also planned for the Xmas editions, although HH98 came out after the site closed down, so we don't know if any such levels were even designed. There are two versions of Jazz 3D floating around. One is an earlier build with a simpler main menu, and the other is a later build with a voice saying "Welcome to Jazz Jackrabbit 3D!" on the main menu. Additionally, a partial production diary from Jazz 3D's development is featured in at least one of these builds. Also, both versions say "Jazz Jackrabbit 3D public beta test" on the installer(Or setup, I forget which). It is widely known that both of these versions are early, unfinished, buggy alpha builds, so make of this what you will. Finally, no one knows how Jazz 3D was leaked, or who leaked it. My personal theory is that either it was sent to an Epic employee who then sent it to a friend who sent it to a friend, etc. until it ended up on torrent sites, or that a copy was stolen from Epic's offices. Last edited by Love & Thunder; Sep 28, 2015 at 01:56 AM. Reason: Put a cross through misremembered information. |
Sep 27, 2015, 03:43 PM | |
theorized by whom
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Sep 28, 2015, 12:16 AM | |
Maybe not that obscure, but the GBA Jazz Jackrabbit was meant to be the start of a new series for the system, and future games would eventually feature prequels (just like Star Wars did) to tie the new story with the old one. In hindsight, you can see how wishful thinking that was, and it's kind of silly how pretty much everyone involved with the project got sort of angry at how poorly the game fared, and JJ was deemed unprofitable as a franchise.
Some tie-ins explained by the developers involved Jazz divorcing Eva and as such losing any ruling power on Carrotus, and Dark Shell being as loosely related to Devan as Dark Helmet was to Lone Starr in Spaceballs (A+ originality)
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"So unless I overwrote my heart with yours, I think not. But I might have." - Violet CLM Two Games Joined releases: Control / Splinter (twin singles) || Ballistic Bunny (EP) || Beyond (maxi-single) || Beyond: Remixed (remix EP) || Inner Monsters OST (mini-album) || Shadows (album) |
Sep 28, 2015, 01:27 AM | |
I remember in the thread that was discussed in some people saying that might be it.
Although, I will admit that I haven't read that thread since it got posted in a while back, so I could be misremembering. (EDIT: Just went back to the thread, and all I was remembering was a sarcastic remark from Sir Ementaler. XD) DoubleGJ: That honestly makes me pretty glad JJA didn't go anywhere. Last edited by Love & Thunder; Sep 28, 2015 at 01:55 AM. |
Sep 28, 2015, 09:41 AM | |
Have developers ever figured it's not because of the brand name, but because the games are underwhelming?
Infact JJ2 isn't even that good as a game alone, official contentwise (well, it's not bad either, just mediocre..meanwhile, TSF and CC99/HH98 are bad). Many of the fans are simply nostalgic and getting more people into the game is difficult, which tells something. Plus does make it better, but unofficially supported mods aren't going to draw people in. It probably doesn't help it was released when 2D games were coming out of fashion either, though. I think JJ is a franchise with unlocked potential. JJA was a downgrade (even looking past the FIXX0RZ stuff).
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Sep 28, 2015, 10:19 AM | |
Well said.
That's why I still believe that Jazz Jackrabbit will be back one day.
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![]() "Floppy ears and a big butt?" - Slaz |
Sep 29, 2015, 03:17 AM | |||
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Oh, and another fun fact, that every once in a while gets brought up but might be new to some: License agreement distributed with the game prior to The Secret Files explicitly forbids both creating and playing custom JJ2 level packs without authorization from Epic. Exact quote: "You are expressly prohibited from creating, using or selling any unauthorized level packs, add-on packs or sequels based upon or related to the SOFTWARE". The same license also refers to the characters as "Jazz Jack Rabbit" and "Spaz Jack Rabbit". The Secret Files license contains neither of those. |
Sep 29, 2015, 03:12 PM | |
Given the fact that saving is completely broken, only one out of the four planned characters is playable, the game ends after the first boss, and multiplayer is almost entirely non-functional, I'd call it Alpha.
TBH, though, Alpha vs. Beta is semantics, as it can vary(See Minecraft, which was in public Alpha for years). Either way, though, I'd still call it a private beta at best. I guess this gives some credence to your theory about JJ3D being leaked by WTG, since it would make sense for them to tag "Public beta test" onto the setup if that was the case. And speaking of... That does sound a lot more plausible, especially when you consider that Cliff Bleszinski showed interest in it being spread around back when that was still being talked about, and what I just said about the setup thing. Oh yeah, I remember that. XD No idea what they were thinking there. Anyway, might aswell post another fact: Jazz 2 was originally to have two different opening cinematics; one for the demo, one for the full game. The demo one is the one you see in-game currently. Dean Dodrill(Who animated the demo one aswell) started work on the full game version, but never finished it. What he did finish of it can be seen here. |
Sep 30, 2015, 07:41 AM | |
As you probably know, all sounds JJ2 ever plays are loaded from a single file, Anims.j2a. With a single exception: a sound played during the Gathering Of Developers intro cinematic that comes with some distributions of JJ2. This one sound is read from a file named GODSnd.j2v - even though it is not actually a valid J2V file. In fact, it's a completely regular WAV file with a modified extension.
One of the resources contained within Data.j2d is a grayscale texture named "Shield.Plasma". This texture is used by - you guessed it - the fire shield. No, not the plasma shield. Please stop calling the lightning shield that. Speaking of misnomers, and getting further from official JJ2 facts and closer to community facts, here's something I found out one day and won't shut up about: Every once in a while you'll probably see somebody wanting to play "some survivor levels" or uploading their "first survivor level". Then sometimes another person corrects them saying they meant ground force, which is a game mode, while Survivor is BlurredD's level pack. But are they right? You probably know part of the story: Survivor is indeed a level pack by BlurredD, based on a concept level named Ground Force created by ET, after which the entire mode was named ground force. But did you know Ground Force also came from a pack? Now, given that Ground Force was the first level of its kind, you should ask what game mode the rest of the pack was. The pack is most widely known as Cracco Pilot and its game mode is named by its main creator, Chiyu, "survivor". It's starting to get complicated at this point, and unfortunately I couldn't find any records of naming the game mode that prior to release of BlurredD's pack, but the levels of Cracco Pilot mostly predate those of Survivor, and in particular, at least some of them predate Ground Force. Quote from Chiyu (note that while I try to keep lowercase/uppercase notation consistent in the rest of this post to indicate a difference between game modes and levels or packs, I didn't want to change the notation in the quote, so sorry for introducing even more confusion): "There are two well-known spin-offs of the concept Survivor. A few months after the release of the first Survivor levels, ET came up with a nice twist for this concept, and he asked me if he was allowed to use this idea combined with my original concept to create Ground Force". To sum up what we learned so far, Survivor is a ground force level pack, Ground Force is a ground force level, and ground force is a variation on survivor. So what actually is survivor? Again, I'll let Chiyu explain: "Survivor levels have to be hosted in treasure. [...] The point is to stay in the arena as long as possible. Most levels have some added things to make this hard; such as destructable blocks/ground, self-exploding TNT's/bombs, lasers and events like winds, belts, suckertubes etc. If they're not falling by themselves, you have to 'fight' your opponents off. You can push them, but you can also shoot them with various ammo [...]". Sounds familiar? Well, it should, because this is essentially an elaboration on JDC description of gladiators. What on earth happened there? Perhaps, like I, you came across the JDC description once and thought "hm, that's a cool idea, I wonder what levels there are for that". I spent my time looking around, browsing archives, and asking people, and came to conclusion that A) there is not a single gladiators level (other than Chiyu's "survivor" levels), and B) there has never been any gladiators event. So why would JDC list it? And more importantly, why is it named "gladiators"? Don't you think that's a fairly distant association? Trying to push and shoot people so they fall to their deaths versus swordsmen fighting in the closed space of an amphitheater? I don't know why this happened, but I do have a theory: perhaps one person asked another: "what was the name of that concept game mode by Chiyu where you fight players in an arena until only one is left?" and heard back "you mean gladiators?". Because, guess what, it so happens that Chiyu also uploaded a bunch of concept levels named Cracco Gladiator 1 through 12. Those show a completely different concept game mode of their own, which is up to 8 players in a single elimination tournament in separate secluded arenas fighting battle mode duels until there's a single winner. This, in a sense, is reminiscent of what JDC calls One Day Tournament, although the levels are specifically constructed for it and each duel is played in a different arena. At this point, I propose accepting the following classification: survivor is any level played in treasure hunt mode where the objective is to be the last person left in an arena. This mode's sub-types are ground force, characterized by being mostly composed of destructible scenery, gladiators, characterized by its lack at least for the most part, and airboard survivor, the other variant Chiyu mentions, which contributes majority of the Cracco Pilot pack. To conclude, you can now link to this post when people try to correct you. Go play some survivor levels. |
Sep 30, 2015, 02:38 PM | |
survivor, the game mode, has always been my favorite custom mode (along with Jailbreak). I was really confused when "ground force" took over, like what does that even mean, at least "survivor" is self-explanatory
Fact: There are things you can type into SP that look like valid cheat codes (i.e. press F9 twice and type them; like valid cheats, they vanish after you finish them) but don't seem to do anything. These are what I found: jjcolor jjd jjpower jjt
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If you rearrange the letters in 'sword', you get 'words'! n_n -- DDay |
Sep 30, 2015, 03:40 PM | ||
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jjcolor is a plus-only cheat. It changes your colour to your MP ones. Yet another plus only cheat, jjpower powers up your current weapons jjt is also a plus-only cheat. Typed once, it doubles the speed of your game, typed twice, it halves the speed of your game. TL;DR: Read the plus readme.
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Sep 30, 2015, 07:36 PM | |
No, they always were cheat codes; that's how Talec found them.
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Sep 30, 2015, 10:47 PM | |
Minor spoiler warning: Neobeo's Firetruck easter egg.
Highlight block to show spoiler: That reminds me, Neobeo's Firetruck is known for a number of previously unused tricks, but one of them in particular is very easily overseen. There is an optional location in the level that contains one of the many rhyming messages. If you had played Neobeo's Firetruck, you know that the messages sometimes contain a useful clue, more commonly state your very obvious objective in a complicated way, and occasionally seem to be complete nonsense. This one is easy to discard as a joke: it congratulates you for finding a secret area and tells you to enter what appears to be a completely ordinary icy zone and type "jjackrabbitsaysthatneobeoiscool". However, if this is actually done, the game will react by displaying "neobeoiscool" as a text message on the screen. This is because the icy area is filled with text events with ID 133, but, as you probably know, only IDs up to 15 are meant to be supported. You can define more by modifying a level file using custom tools, but because JJ2 only has space for 16, IDs above 15 will take place of random memory, with potential to cause errors and glitches unless you know precisely what you're doing. The level utilizes that fact too, by using some unused memory for its text strings, but more importantly, Neobeo found out that the same memory address text 133 would start at, happens to match that of the 20th character of the cheat code currently being typed - hence the unusual effect. Keep in mind this only works in vanilla JJ2 1.23 (and maybe 1.22?), as does the rest of the level. TSF is known to crash in that level, versions before 1.22 don't support trigger zones, and JJ2+ uses some of the memory vanilla didn't and as such won't display some of the text strings correctly. Last edited by Sir Ementaler; Sep 30, 2015 at 10:57 PM. |
Oct 2, 2015, 10:23 AM | |
Sir Ementaler & Violet CLM: Your facts are very interesting, I like technical JJ2 trivia. Thanks!
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Oct 2, 2015, 02:15 PM | |
Some Jazz2City.com staff members were the testers of Jazz Jackrabbit 3D back in the day.
One of those early testers leaked JJ3D after they found out the publisher GoD wasn't interested in the content. Leaking the demo was highly illegal, it contained raw sourcecode from the Unreal engine. I honestly can't remember who gave me the original demos. I do remember that Newspaz and me were looking for any info about the game. At some point I've ended up making Jazz3FAQ together with Wakeman, WTG, DrJones and Noogy. ( http://www.jazz2online.com/j3f/ ) There was a plan to start Jazz3City. A concept and some artwork was made for it. Just like many other files, I've lost all of them during a HDD crash.
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Join clan [GPW]'s discord! https://discord.gg/ktCcYnv S.H.A.D.O.W.: (aka Ins0mnia) Synthetic Hydraulic Android Designed for Observation and Warfare Mystic Legends http://www.mysticlegends.org Follow me on twitter: @Ins0mnia Follow us on twitter: @Mystic_Legends Last edited by ShadowGPW; Oct 2, 2015 at 02:55 PM. |
Oct 3, 2015, 05:24 AM | |
Here is a preliminary Jazz 3 City mockup.
Originally, Jazz 2 levels and tilesets were saved together as one file, with the .LEV extension. This was in the early stages of development, when JCS was still called MLLE(Multi-Layer Level Editor, not to be confused with Violet CLM's WebJCS-like project of the same name, which can edit levels of JJ2 1.00g/h, 1.10o, 1.23, and 1.24, aswell as Battery Check, and Animaniacs: A Gigantic Adventure, the two other games that use Jazz 2's engine, neither of which's levels can normally be edited by JCS). This early .LEV-style of saving levels can be seen in the 1.00g and 1.00h OEM beta versions of the game, although neither included a level editor. A screenshot of this very early JCS(MLLE) can be seen here. And getting back to Violet CLM's MLLE, a little while ago, a beta version(1.10o) of Jazz 2 was discovered(It was a review copy if I remember correctly), which used J2L/J2T files like the final game, although the final version of JCS can't open these files. However, 1.10o included its own version of JCS, which can open these levels, aswell as Battery Check levels. This level editor was reverse engineered into an unreleased project known as BCCS(Battery Check Creation Station), which was never finished, although a lot of the work that went into it helped Violet CLM put together Battery Check support in his MLLE project. We all know that Jazz 2 has all its enemies, objects, sprites, etc. pre-loaded into the engine, making level editing in JCS quite easy. In contrast, Jazz 1 saved all its sprites in specialised files for each level(SPRITES.xxx), aswell as one sprite file for Jazz(MAINCHAR.000). The way events worked in Jazz 1 was that there were about 128 blank events, which had a lot of settings and behavioural modifiers you could change, which would apply to all instances of that event in the level. When you set all these settings right, they become specific events(Although some events(I forget which ones) should be left blank, as they function as things like drawing the tile in front of Jazz, making the tile intangible, etc.). This is complicated to get working and understand, but it means that Jazz 1 had a highly versatile engine(Sonic With A Gun showcases a lot of the stuff JJ1 can do when pushed). One of the things you can modify about each event in JJ1 is its name. If you open the final level of Episode 6 of Jazz 1 in J1E, you can see that the developers named the final boss "Fucker". |
Oct 3, 2015, 09:25 AM | |
Speaking of 1.00g/h, they did include one event that retail JJ2 doesn't.
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Oct 3, 2015, 11:31 AM | |
OH MY GOD. Well, I do believe lots of people called him "Fucker" while fighting him so, yeah...
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![]() "Floppy ears and a big butt?" - Slaz |
Oct 3, 2015, 06:33 PM | |
(Although Robo overstates the significance a bit... the Megairbase boss is also called that, the Lagunicus boss is badassmotherfucker, TNT is "get the dick," and various other objects (Candion rats, Lagunicus bubbles...) include "fuck" somewhere or other in their name as well.)
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Oct 4, 2015, 07:06 AM | |
I've only very rarely used J1E, so this is news to me. XD
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Oct 6, 2015, 02:16 AM | |
Speaking of dirtyness, did you know that the JJ3D Alpha contains 2 unused audio files for Jazz's death?
One goes "Ah Fucking Shit!" and the other being just "Ah Shit!"
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Add SlazRabbit on Xbox Live if you want to play some GoW1/2/3/J or Destiny1/2. Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Forever!! Civilian Defence Force - Jazz2 Visual Fantasers ![]() |
Oct 6, 2015, 03:19 AM | |
And who could forget the time Dean Dodrill drew Lori completely naked.
Context: Most artists do nude drawings, it's an art exercise or something. Additionally, Dean actually took all those images down several years ago, which was probably best for his reputation, given how certain people view furry/furry-like artwork, and the fact that he was making Dust: An Elysian Tail at the time, and is currently still working on his similarly titled film, Elysian Tail(Which he's been making for roughly ten years IIRC). Anyway, to provide some brain bleach to those who don't even want to think about that, here's some info from the JJ1 manual: Jazz is 3'1", Devan is 2'4", Eva is 3'9", it's always raining on Medivo because the atmosphere is very thick, and the supercomputer planet Letni is how Devan builds battleships and figures out where to get lunch on a rainy Tuesday afternoon. |
Oct 6, 2015, 12:55 PM | |||
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![]() Artists are pretty much expected to draw cheesecake of their female characters.
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<img src="http://www.majhost.com/gallery/Lijik/Star-Wars-Figures-1/ewjclay.png" alt="I miss the techno Cheat." style="float: left; display: block;"> ((\_/)) ((<a href="http://www.explosm.net/db/files/Comics/Dave/comicbullyroot.jpg" target="_blank">o</a>.<a href="http://drmcninja.com/page.php?pageNum=44&issue=11" target="_blank">o</a>)) (()_()) Classical zombie retro extra fur rabbit. Guys, remember 2010? LOL Quote:
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Oct 7, 2015, 03:39 PM | |
I'm just relaying what I've heard, having never seen the picture.
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Oct 8, 2015, 12:43 AM | ||
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So don't click this link if you are afraid of seeing yellow breasts: (link removed)
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Add SlazRabbit on Xbox Live if you want to play some GoW1/2/3/J or Destiny1/2. Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Forever!! Civilian Defence Force - Jazz2 Visual Fantasers ![]() Last edited by Torkell; Oct 8, 2015 at 10:30 AM. Reason: No NSFW content |
Oct 8, 2015, 12:48 AM | |||
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3spooky5me
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![]() "Floppy ears and a big butt?" - Slaz |
Oct 8, 2015, 10:35 AM | |
/me puts admin hat on
No NSFW content, please. Discussion's fine, but I'm drawing the line at images. |
Oct 8, 2015, 11:42 AM | ||
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just a joke, pls no ban Now I know all of these facts but there's no one I can share them with. That sucks. I do believe that pretty much everyone here knows this but there is a "Chris is a redneq" sprite. It's supposed to be a joke about an Epic employee at the time. ![]() Oh, and also take a look at this. I find this funny especially because the devs were way younger and more or less immature back then. I do believe that this proves the fact that they enjoyed making this game.
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![]() "Floppy ears and a big butt?" - Slaz |
Oct 8, 2015, 12:58 PM | ||
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It also mentions a game called DOG Dune Runner which apparently uses an Orange games engine which has the Jazz2 -spy console. However that game seems to be 3D and sporting voxel technology. It makes me wonder if maybe that game is a showcase of the bonus stage technology. |
Oct 8, 2015, 02:01 PM | ||
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