Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

list.jazzjackrabbit.com back online - April 2nd 2017

Source: JCF post

Nimrod reports that someone at Epic has fixed list.jazzjackrabbit.com so it again works as a Jazz Jackrabbit 2 list server. This means those with vanilla JJ2 will be able to view the server list and join games again. Yay!

Jazz 2 still being played in year 2287 - April 1st 2017

While wandering dazed outside the fallout shelter that was all that was left of his hometown, J2O reporter camel ShadowGpw discovered that even in the year 2287, long after the collapse of all formal civilization, a group of diehards continues to play matches of the 1998 PC Game of the year, Jazz Jackrabbit 2. He reports that JDC season 300 was apparently “a huge hit” among most of the playerbase, although a few sat out some of the larger events over concerns they were too chaotic. A partially robotized human cyborg of uncertain age known only as Jety is said to have won handily.

“I think Jazz 2 just offers something in its gameplay and design that no other games on the market really offer,” said one fan, “especially because there are no other games on the market in this dystopian nuclear future. It’s great to have a chance to play a cartoony 2D arena shooter when everything around me is death, decay, and roving bands of scavengers.”

Another fan agreed, but voiced hope that the game would get some better network code soon. “Unless that happens,” she added, “I think JJ2 is really dead this time. Sure, okay, maybe people will still be playing it in another twenty years, but a hundred? No chance.”

When asked how Jazz players in the distant future usually recruit new people to the community, the first fan shrugged and said, “mostly we just post links on the Commander Keen forums and people join us from there. It’s still a really hopping place over there for some reason.”

Spring 2017 anime season to include Jazz-based show - April 1st 2017

Next week will see the world premiere of the new anime show Gochūmon wa Jazu Jawabitto Desu ka?, or “Is the Order a Jazz Jackrabbit?” The show is promoted as being part of modern anime’s popular “cute girls killing cute things” genre, and the average body count is expected to be at least three per episode, or as many as six during the Japanese equivalent of sweeps week.

“Anime is really the perfect home for the Jazu Jawabitto series,” explained anime spokesperson and trained camel AlFahl. “Our character design departments can turn out dozens of brightly colored, nearly-identical-looking schoolgirls every day, and that’s a perfect analog to choosing your fur colors before joining an online server. Sure, longtime Jazu fans may have a little trouble believing that bird-eating, double-jumping rabbits are just the same thing as saccharine eleven-year-old girls in pencil-length skirts, but anime is all about imagination. That’s why we’re so determined to do the same things over and over every season until people stop imagining giving us money for them.”

A smartphone game adaptation of the show is also planned, though it will only be available for purchase in Japan, which is still more places than any of the existing Jazz games can be legally bought in. A Hollywood adaptation is also being discussed, though American producers have reportedly demanded that all the rabbits in the movie be white.

Write your own Noogy joke.

Camel Duels announces plans to train camels - April 1st 2017

A reporter for J2O has obtained exclusive plans from the Camel Server Corporation to solidify their image by training real live camels to play JJ2. So far the camels have only shown enough skill to participate in clanwars and JDC events, but their handlers are confident they’ll be ready for more competitive play once they stop eating the teamchat keys.

“Quaker,” a spokesman for Camel who asked to have his identity protected for this interview, explained, “Look, it’s not like they can play the game any worse than Bot1 and Bot2.”

To simultaneously promote this new initiative and also make the camels feel more at home in the game, Camel Duels will soon be switching to an exclusively desert-themed series of maps, starting with Zappo Egypt and working their way forwards.

Puke Nukem also appeared to announce plans to make their servers more closely resemble their names, at which point our reporter left in a hurry.

NASA discovers new "Diamondus analog" planet - April 1st 2017

The National Aeronautics and Massive Budget Leaks Administration announced late Friday that they have discovered a new planet only 23 light-years away with remarkably similar gravity, atmosphere, and geography to Diamondus. As spokesman Bobak Ferdowsi explained, “finding new Earth-like planets has gotten pretty trivial—I mean, seven of the darn things around TRAPPIST-1? Give me a break! So we decided to look for planets with some slightly different criteria instead.”

After plugging notable Diamondus characteristics into their Letni-brand supercomputer, such as “a girl’s best friend” and “unbreakable,” NASA scientists were delighted to discover a planet practically next door that seems more than capable of sustaining turtle, rabbit, and bird lifeforms, as well as being a likely source of immunerable precious gemstones, with those gemstones also being the proposed means of recouping the cost of the mission to send a rocket there.

“Although,” Ferdowsi continued, “getting back to Earth again will be a problem, so we’re hopeful to find a Dreempipes analog planet out there next.”

When asked whether this new planet could sustain human life as well, Ferdowsi acknowledged that it probably could, but the human race hadn’t been doing so well for itself lately and maybe it was time to give some other species a chance at planetary dominion for a change.

Anniversary Bash 19 is coming - March 24th 2017

Source: JCF Thread

Since Jazz 2’s release in April 1998, it’s become an annual tradition to get together and celebrate with twenty or so Battle and CTF levels, some made in the last year (often at the last minute) and some drawn from JJ2’s long history of great level design. And now it’s almost time for another one! Treylina, the event organizer, has all the details on the JCF, but here’s the important bits:

AB19 will begin April 14 and run till April 17, Friday to Monday. Recent tradition has the first two days playing straight Battle/CTF matches, then the last two days spicing it up with alternate gamemodes and/or mutators. As such, having JJ2+ will be required in order to join the bash server.

At this time the two level lists have not been finalized. If you want to make any new levels for the bash, you have until April 12 to submit them, although obviously sooner is better than later so they can be tested more thoroughly. Contact Treylina or PurpleJazz if you have any specific questions.

Tell your friends! Traditionally a lot of people who haven’t been playing so actively of late will come back to play specifically for the anniversary bash, so it’s important to get the word out there that it’s happening again. :) Look forward to it!

Jazz cameo in Horizon Zero Dawn - March 19th 2017

Source: h/t/ Skunk Shampoo

Horizon Zero Dawn is a video game that came out recently for the PS4, and a few people on YouTube have noticed it includes a cameo-of-sorts from Jazz. Here’s a representative video. As you can see, there are two non-threatening rabbits, and one of them is named Jazz and the other is named… Jack.

Yeah, it’s kind of a least-possible-effort cameo, but at least one of them drops a green item when killed.

Scripting contest: recreate old hoaxes - March 6th 2017

Source: JCF thread

FireSword is running a contest with an unusual but fun objective: use JJ2+‘s new features to recreate those old hoaxes that showed JJ2 doing then-impossible things. Remember the 1.25 april fools joke? Those and other hoax-y screenshots would actually be feasible with a little scripting finesse, and FireSword is putting a prize out for whoever does it best.

It’s not clear what the prize will actually be, but it’s promised to be “relatively big”, so get scripting if that sounds enticing – the tentative deadline is April 1st (how fitting).

(And remember, the Assault the Base contest is still running as well!)

JDC season 26 starts next Friday - February 13th 2017

Source: JDC newspost

Hooray! A new JDC season! New scoring system, new website, new events, get hype. Dust off your LFG and get ready to determine Who Will be the Star of This JDC next week – it starts on Friday the 17th.

All the info is in the announcement on JDC, so go over there and read up on the changes this season brings.

Good luck to You all!

Poll ticks - February 1st 2017

How much optional UI do you enable in multiplayer?

None at all--I like the top of the screen empty.	3 votes (8%)
I press F9 once in order to see the player list.	10 votes (27%)
I press F9 twice because I like the additional info	5 votes (13%)
I'm constantly cycling through F9 stages	6 votes (16%)
I leave the screen clear but press Tab when I'm curious	8 votes (22%)
I press F9 but also press Tab sometimes to reorder the list	0 vote (0%)
I don't play multiplayer, so I don't understand the question	4 votes (11%)
Total votes: 36

Well, I think we’ve all learned something about ourselves today. Namely that a majority of you are wrong. But let’s give some love to the single player side of things and ask about what cheat codes you use there, or at least what cheat codes you use when periodically testing a level that you’re working on.