Way back in 1998, our family got the very first PC of our home, and I got to choose a single game for this shared family PC. I chose Jazz Jackrabbit 2 from the gamestore, so that was the gift from my parents.

This PC was slow. Well it might have been fast for that time (Intel Pentium 166mhz, 16mb ram, 2.1gb harddrive with Windows 95), but I remember being stuck for quite some time looking at the "Now Loading" screen between levels in Jazz2.

The loading screen set some kind of mood before starting a level in my opinion, but as it was just that, a loading screen, PCs of today blasts through that screen in the blink of an eye.

It would have be cool to have some kind of option in let's say the plus.ini file to have a sort of optional timer for that screen, where you input how many seconds you would like the screen to last after the loading is done. Another solution could be to have the option of "press any key" (without the directional buttons) to enter the level after the loading screen has done its purpose. Or both alternatives as options, with both alternatives active at the same time as well for those who wish that.

Jazz Jackrabbit 1 has that "Now Approaching" screen with the image of the level's planet to set the mood, and unless you press Esc, the planet-animation that lasts a few seconds play all the way through (I just did a quick check in an emulator).

The loading screen continues to display until all script modules have finished their onLevelLoad setup functions. 7.0 will support mutators in single player, so if you want a minimum waiting period of 3 seconds, for example, you will be able to write and run a mutator:

const auto delayLevelStartUntil = jjUnixTimeSec() + 3;
void onLevelLoad() {
	while (jjUnixTimeSec() < delayLevelStartUntil) {}
}