Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

JJ2+ v5.4 released - December 10th 2016

Santa visted Carrotus early this year and look what he left in our Christmas stockings, a new JJ2+ release!!

Lots of bugfixes and behind-the-scenes improvements this time, as well as some new features:

• /gemtransfer allows instant transfer of gems in Treasure and Head Hunters, instead of the default behaviour of gems dropping to the ground.
• /resetadmins reloads the admin configuration file, restoring admin privileges to those specified in there
• Code that draws translucent tiles was made faster, so that they won’t slow down the game as much
• A health glitch associated with anti-radar mode was fixed

…and more! As always, check the changelog for the full list of updates, report bugs in the JCF thread and download the latest version here.

Jazz Jackrabbit is digitally archieved - November 15th 2016

Source: http://pers.beeldengeluid.nl/139438-jazz-jackrabbit-nieuwe-aanwinst-voor-collectie-beeld-en-geluid

The Dutch institute for Sound and Vision have announced that the game Jazz Jackrabbit is such an important piece of digital history. That it should be preserved for future generations. Because the game was a leap for gaming technology and also the kickstart of Arjan Brussee’s career.

To quote;
“The Dutch Institute for Sound and Vision is an player when it comes to management and accessibility of Dutch audiovisual heritage. The special building on the Media Park in Hilversum stores a daily growing collection of over 1.000.000 hours of radio, television, film, pictures and music. Sound and Vision is committed to make this unique collection and the knowledge about it widely accessible for diverse audiences, including media professionals, the creative sector, education and the general audience. Through research and innovation, the institute has developed into a broad cultural institution that, with its accumulated knowledge and infrastructure, occupies a central position within the archive and media branch.”

The game is playable during the “Let’s Play expo” this week in the “Beeld and Geluid” expo center in Hilversum. Together with other historical Dutch games. ‘

[Edit] the people of Sound and Vision has translated their press release.

Jazz Jackrabbit new addition to the Sound and Vision archive

Hilversum – You are a fluorescent green rabbit, entangled in epic battles with tortoises amidst colorful and dreamy landscapes. While this may sound like a psychedelic high, it’s a reality in Jazz Jackrabbit; a video game by Epic Games (back then: Epic MegaGames). The game is now added to Sound and Vision’s game collection and consequently preserved for future generations. Ineke Middag, Unitmanager Museum at Sound and Vision: “Producer Arjan Brussee was and is a trendsetting Dutch game developer. The iconic and high-quality game Jazz Jackrabbit, of which Brussee was one of the main producers, cannot remain absent in a collection of Dutch video games.”

Sound and Vision, the national audiovisual archive of the Netherlands, has been acquiring video games since February 2016 – as well as other forms of ‘contemporary’ media. Media consumption in the Netherlands has long surpassed the trend of solely tuning in to the traditional channels of radio and television. Jazz Jackrabbit is added to the newborn collection of games due to the involvement of Dutch programmer and game developer Arjan Brussee, who together with Cliff Bleszinski developed the game. Jazz Jackrabbit was commended as an innovative and popular game at the time of release in 1994. It was the first PC game that featured ‘side scrolling’; a mechanic solely used in console games until then. The first episode ‘Turtle Terror’ was distributed freely as Shareware – a strategy that aided the game’s reach and success – while five additional levels could be purchased to expand the original game. The magazine PC Format praised Jazz Jackrabbit’s high-quality graphics and gameplay, dubbing it “Arcade Game of the Year” in 1995.

Arjan Brussee: “Jazz Jackrabbit was the start of my career, and therefore also the early onset of what would later be Guerilla Games. It’s great to see Sound and Vision taking up this game in her archive. Computer games are unfortunately rather fragile, and older games often dissolve due to the rapid evolvement of technology in a broad sense. Nowadays, video games assume an important role in the daily interests of kids and adults. By preserverving them we can recognize the cultural impact the game had back then. I hope that many games will be added to the collection!”

Arjan Brussee kicked off his career in the so-called demoscene. This competitive group of programmers, active in the ‘80s and early ‘90s, created impressive audiovisual presentations – despite the limited computational power of that time. Brussee was one of the founders of Guerilla Games (est. 2000) and worked on the successful Killzone franchise which made Guerilla Games the largest Dutch game developer. He is now reunited with Cliff Bleszinski in Boss Key Productions.

Sound and Vision’s new addition – Jazz Jackrabbit – is currently playable during the Let’s Play exhibition, which runs from the 12th until the 20th of November. Play through several other Dutch games that belong to the collection, such as the popular race game A2 Racer II by Davilex. A variety of consoles and arcade machines from partner ‘Nederlands Instituut voor Games en Computers’ in Zwolle are also available to play on. And, don’t forget to create and stream your very own Let’s Play video of a Dutch retro game to YouTube!”

Rad Rodgers available for early purchase - November 14th 2016

Source: GOG

A couple months ago I told you about an in-development 2D platformer that’s trying to tie its wagon to the 90’s DOS platformer nostalgia train, or however metaphors work. Flash forward to today (okay, Friday actually) and it’s ready for you to buy. It’s still “in development,” which is kind of like “early access” but not really I guess. The point is if you, like apparently everyone else, dislike the writing, now may be the time to get them to change it?

Assault the Base contest updates - November 1st 2016

Looks like TreyLina’s excellent Medium-sized battle map contest awoke some sleeping giants, cause suddenly there’s some interest in what surely is one of the longer-running fan contests in gaming history by this point: BlurredD’s infamous Assault the base contest.

We first wrote about this all the way back in December 2004, and were chastised for being “a few weeks late” even then. Twelve years later, the contest is still going, thanks to the unique rule that it will only end when a set number of entries have been received. That number of entries is now 10, but on the other hand the prize has been raised to $20 multiplied by the amount of entries, netting the winner a guaranteed minimum of $200. Not bad, right?

There are some other rule changes as well, so check out the thread and get that Assault level going.

The medium-large battle map contest! - October 29th 2016

Source: https://www.jazz2online.com/jcf/showthread.php?p=490548#post490548

That’s right, I’m doing another contest again, and possibly my final one. The map should ideally accomodate 8-16 players.

First prize is £30, second is £15, and the deadline is the 31st of December 2016. NO DELAYS, I’d like some JCS award candidates!

Click here for more information!

Forerunners: The History Of The PC Side-Scroller - September 27th 2016

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xY_BumEWBA&feature=youtu.be

3D Realms has released another interesting thing: it has teamed up with some of the most iconic legends to bring us a piece of gaming history: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xY_BumEWBA&feature=youtu.be

Featuring:

- John Romero – Cliff Blezinski – Tom Hall – John Passfield – Bill McIntosh – Dave Taylor – Scott Miller – Clint Basinger

And others. Go check it out.

Platformer kickstarter namedrops Jazz, Epic, Apogee, etc. - September 8th 2016

Source: Kickstarter

A new Kickstarter project titled Rad Rodgers advertises itself as “the return of the 90’s era Apogee platformer,” specifically citing “classics like Commander Keen, Conker, Ruff’n‘Tumble & Jazz Jackrabbit.” People they got quotes from include “Mark Rein, Co-Founder of Epic Games,” “John Romero, Co-Founder of Id Software (Commander Keen),” and course “Cliff Bleszinski, Co-Creator of Jazz Jackrabbit (Epic Games).”

Given all that, it makes you wonder what this line might be hinting at: “Classic Easter Eggs: The game features hard-to-find collectibles in sometimes even harder-to-find classic secret rooms. Use your precision platforming skills to collect ‘em all.”

Anyway the game is about 28% funded right now. What do you think? I’m not a fan of the dialogue (content or quantity) and I could do without the bloody explosions for that matter, but hey, I suppose that Apogee’s oeuvre did include Duke Nukem, not just Cosmo. It definitely looks like a platformer, though, and I appreciate they’re making an effort to have some weird-looking environments, though the lack of contrast makes me imagine the palettes are still a work in-progress.

Polling the player list - August 22nd 2016

How many separate layers do you need for your levels??

Mo' layers mo' problems	6 votes (18%)
1-3	1 vote (3%)
3-6	4 votes (12%)
7-8	9 votes (27%)
One more	13 votes (39%)
Total votes: 33

That was a strange one. Here’s another strange one, asking about how you use (or don’t use) the F9 and Tab keys when playing online multiplayer JJ2. Hopefully I nailed every major category but maybe not?

National Tournament 2016 is OVER! - August 16th 2016

Source: http://jazzjackrabbit.net/index.php?league=1&season=1&op=forumz&watte=viewtopic&topic=956

National Tournament – Season 5 (2016) is now officially over! All games have been completed except for the 7th place which has been awarded to Serbia. Congratulations to Poland for winning the tournament 3rd time in total! Final rankings:

1. Poland
2. The Netherlands
3. Germany
4. Finland
5. Egypt
6. United Kingdom
7. Serbia
8. Romania

Stats and awards can be found HERE!

Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the whole tournament is: [GER]KeV! Congratulations!

It was an exciting tournament overall with a lot of fun! Thanks to everyone who participated on one way or another! Many thanks to all the referees, all the broadcasters, the whole crew and all players who represented their countries!

In case you missed any game, you can watch most of the replays by clicking on a specific game you want to watch!

All information about the NT can be found in the menu to the left under ‘Tournaments’, when you click on National tournament! (JJ.net)

See you next season!