Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Astral Witchcraft is an unique multiplayer map that combines visuals and audio like never before with a fresh tileset and new weapons. It's a scripting marvel showcasing the power of SPRITE::MAPPING. Every levelmaker can learn from this in the future.This level does so many new things, that it's a real risk taker. I'm very appreciative of level designers trying new things, however taking risks can go both ways. Other reviewers have covered the basis of the level already, I'll try to go into detail of each level aspect to provide some good feedback on what I liked or didn't like about it.

To start of with what I really liked about this level:
The jungle 2.0 leaves are a great addition to the tileset. Not just for the tiles themselfs, but also the way Minmay utilized them. The way the thin leaves curve around the bricks is really clever and I can't deny I'm a little jealous not thinking of that myself. I wonder what the inspiration for this was. Together with the writings on the walls, drifting objects, potions, particles and background it sets the tone of the level immediatly. The map has clear landmarks for an open area at top, a middle area and a basement area. It's easy to learn and to move around in. Also I can't forget to mention the background colour shifts are amazing. This level is the reason why generalized mapping functions for scripting are rising on everybodys wishlist. Overall it feels great how alive this level feels.

Things I liked less about the level:
While this level is a visual marvel, it also pushes the boundaries a little too far sometimes. I think a little bit 'less is more' on the visual effects could have been applied here. The flashing foreground (during the bridge part of the music) hurt my eyes. The floating tiles I was talking about earlier, are also screen filled in a 1 -to-1 tile proximity which I can only describe as spilling a bowl of rice on my monitor. A small last nitpick about the visuals is that the tree branches from Agama Swamp feel a little bit tacky due to the artstyle and vibrant colouring, but I give this a pass because it's very difficult to find and match those tiles. I couldn't think of any better replacement myself.

The level limits itself to 3 weapons, one of which looks and plays like a blaster resprite and 2 other special weapons which can be collected at the centre of the level. They look great, they sound great, they play not-so-great. The novelty of them also quickly falls off when realising they are both incredibly powerful and easily collectible, way more powerful than any existing JJ2 weapon. This not saying the balance of jj2 weapons hold some golden standard, but the nuances of the gameplay are missing. Other reviewers have mentioned the level layout is build around the weapons, but this isn't necessarily a good thing when this allows the bullets to fly everywhere with extra area denial. The distance of the bullets is so high that it constantly hits atleast 3 screenlengths away. While playing with many players in the server it felt chaotic and like my actions were meaningless. My whole tactic in this level became camping and being afraid to ever make sudden movements. Any agressive movement is a death sentence for some of the bullets coming at you at mach 8 speed. This in addition to being limited to 3 weapons becomes stale quickly. You win by sticking to the ground as much as possible, because there is no weapon like bouncer that covers below you.

So overall: The scripted visuals are revolutionairy for jj2 and I hope to see them more often. I liked the eyecandy implemented here for the most part. The gameplay felt refreshing, but only for a very short while.

I have to admit that I didn't at first quite understand this level and was therefore more confused than impressed by it, but during the past months I have started to like it more and more. I felt that the layout is rather maze'y and perhaps too cramped in certain places, plus I wasn't so fond of the tileset and so forth. However, the fact that this level has abolished the standard set of JJ2 weapons and replaced them with completely custom scripted weapons that support the layout and gameplay overall have quite made the difference between a good and an average gameplay for me.

And that is what this level is really about; It's about minmay's astronomical witchcraft in AngelScripting and making magic real in JJ2! The custom weapons, which I don't know how to call, have been designed cleverly to offer the players true tactical weapons to overcome their opponents in the level's creepy corridors and silent stairways. Although the weapon choices are few, they offer everything needed to make the good maneuvers in this level, much better than a classic set of e.g. Bouncers and seekers would do. There's even the really cool concept of a chargeable ultimate buttstomp strike to unleash your whole magical potential and the custom minimap of the level to ease navigating.

There is so much to describe about the cool scripted gimmicks here, which do not limit to just the gameplay features, as they also make the visuals come to life and dance to the music track as well. Even the mezmering background is mighty impressive on its own.

Although I haven't got to play the level for long yet, I did enjoy it for the shorts moments I got to try in the recent online events. I think I definitely prefer the CTF version here though (with the Halloween Evas), as the level kind of loses a part of its profile in a battle-based game mode, albeit that is playable too. I suppose the level wouldn't really work in duels, but I haven't tried that either yet. Maybe the only real complaints I have to the gameplay are the slightly too narrow pathways here and there, plus the minor dead ends at the center and top-right corner.

Still, outstanding work minmay and a strong download recommendation from me!

The Halloween Contest rules noted that "Scripted gameplay modifications are permitted [w]ithin reason. Please submit a Battle level, rather than an example level for your new cool gamemode mutator." I have lingering doubts about whether Astral Witchcraft really obeys this rule, but fortunately I'm not judging the Halloween Contest, I'm just reviewing a battle level. Or a CTF level. Or both.

There's a lot of room in this world for battle levels with deeply strategic layouts, hidey little corners where you need to use the exact right weapon to hit people, powerups and other resources you need to dominate control of to win. This isn't any of those things. This gives you lots of power right from the onset, and while there are definitely extra ammo types you can find to make you stronger, you can still get by without them. You're always a killing machine. There are always likely to be enemies in front of you, no matter what the minimap says. But the weapons are cool and new, so this feels exciting. In retrospect, this is kind of what I was condemning Titan Armory for…?

Visually I don't have much to say other than it looks incredible. There's rotating stuff! Tendrils of greenery! Colors that pulse with the music! Whatever is going on in the background! Eva out for a night on the town!

The buttstomp blast takes a little longer to charge than I'd like, and the center area for getting the green ammo is oddly hard to reach. That's all I've really got.

In what is probably the grandest scripting tour de force since BL18, minmay delivers on her own contributions to JJ2+ and allows the selected music track to wholly control every aspect of the level. The background nebulas glow dramatically, the very ground subtly shifts from grayish brown to purple and back, the candles will suddenly come alive upon hearing brass notes – all to the rhythm, ebb, and flow of A Bard's Tale, a module that would already have been a winner in a regular level. This level is an audiovisual experience like none that came before

It is also an experience that is feels very <i>bespoke</i> – with a flashy makeover for the Blaster, two brand new weapons, a new mechanic to collect (at least one of) them, a Sugar Rush alternative that is more like an ult move, and a very precise layout built specifically to accomodate all of the above, this level feels like a brief window to a modern video game, much different than JJ2. It’s impressive on multiple levels.

I do worry, though, that minmay went a little too far with fun over safety – all the weapons fire rapidly, are very highly kinetic, and cap off at 100 rather than the usual 50 – which was just fine with the number of people I played this in, but I imagine will quickly descend into bullet nonsense that would surpass even BlurredD’s Quick Death Valley. Which, I suppose, is the entire point of the level, but not my personal preference. And while I would be hypocritical to complain about a level that can be both CTF and Battle, the nonchalant non-symmetry of the layout suggest that the Battle version was a bit of an afterthought. It remains a spectacularly designed afterthought, however.

Bonus points: Really appreciate the crazy amounts of SPRITE::MAPPING used here.

I really like this concept. It can be used for the future. 10/10 Hype.

EDIT: it works for single player and even co-op levels!

Overall, this isn’t as good as the 2nd pack. Some levels are cool, while some are just bad, lasting a lame 3 seconds. Infected is the worst level, with everyone annoylingly pushing because of the same start pos, dying there out of your own control, as well as being far too small and risky for seekers. I will make a longer review later.

Clever and cute.

A high quality level pack of GF-levels for many, but not too many players at once. My favourite one being ‘Darkness.’ What’s yours? Go and share the fun with your friends!

Hey, better late than never.

- The flag direction shouldn’t actually matter.
- Added that MCE event (never bothered to actually fall in the pit during my own testing!)
- Can’t reproduce the JB4 bug.
- This scoring issue in BR2 only happened because someone managed to get a flag without returning it to a base. It was actually possible for this to happen due to me using an unmasked tile where I wanted a masked one (and not noticing); fixed now!

I feel like I failed you as a tester, but I’ll tell you here in hopes that you can update it!

In JB2, flag direction to top right jail doesn’t work.
In JB3, no MCE event in bottom right corner.
In JB4, there’s a bug whereby you keep dying if you fall in the pit in the pregame.
In BR2 there’s a bug where every 4th point for blue scores for red instead…

The rest seem perfectly functional though!

Sorry for not spotting this sooner.

Interesting pack, to say the least.

I can’t believe a decent review hasn’t been written about this yet, since it’s arguably a great pack. Good eyecandy, good mechanics and smooth flow.

In short, it’s a good pack, and DEFINITELY worth a download.

Good!

[Review changed to quick review, see the review rules.

i hosted this last evening and i thought it was entertaining :D

Coincidentially enough, I happened to have the creators company when I hosted these levels, but that’s somewhat irrevelant to the review.

Gameplay
Quite an amount of levels experiment with innovative gameplay elements, which breathes some fresh air into quite a well known custom gamemode. On the other hand, some other levels have the same fairly typical ground force gameplay elements which most are familiar with, and while those ones are nothing too special, they do okay for what they say on the tin, as there isn’t not too much freeze enemy events and ammo.

However, the less typically placed warps in some levels will leave people not realising that you’re not supposed to go there and end up being out of the game, which I noticed a lot of players were doing when they played those maps just for the first time, which happened to me as well…maybe some textstring note when you enter, perhaps?

Reguarding character balance, copter advantages in GF are inevitable. Fortunately, Spaz does get some given advantages, such as being able to reach more ammo with double jump. At first I thought it was unfair, but considering you have infinite health in GF (the original gamemode concept not LRS) , you can just get shot as Jazz/Lori to reach higher places. Power plant isn’t really much of a Lori friendly level, though, and well, reaching to the very top part in Nuclear winter can get rather tricky too. Now, before anyone gets annoyed for me saying that being that it is 1.23, remember that it’s supposed to be a balanced pack and that includes the character you all well know and love/hate.

Eyecandy
There is quite an amount of new EC elements, which brings a little something more into the standard gameplay levels, and they also fit according to the theme too, so you shouldn’t expect random EC just to fill space. That aside, the EC does feel a little bit too empty for a few levels.

Music
Nice music choices which fit most of the levels and pace of gamemode, although something about as the music progresses further in Buried, it doesn’t really fit all that well.

I think it’s pretty fair to say these levels are quite close to “Survivor” quality (a well known GF pack for you newbies out there). There are a few minor gameplay issues though, but overall, it’s decent. Download recommended.

I wish I could see this, as well as the previous episode hosted. I even wanted to convert that one to LRS so it can be put on ZB, but it looks like I forgot it in the end. The levels seem to be of Survivor quality and feature a lot of awesome ideas, so I can only suppose it’s the CTF-biased community that lets them slip of the downloads list.

A decent pack.

I’m really not sure why is this not getting attention, because these are pretty solid and original Ground Force levels.

This is frankly a great tileset. Great and practical. A few minor issues but overall well done.

Palette colors were spotless, which is definitely a big plus when considering previous

renditions of Fano by various users. All the tiles were there, which is also good, and tile

masks too are accurate.
I was struck profoundly by the large amount of tiles that were duplicated in the set. Many of

them were placed twice in the set, leading me to believe that either 1= There was an

option to make some tiles translucent in the level, or 2 (Which is far more likely) = The

author forgot which tiles had been already added, and put ‘em in again just to be safe. This

also occurred in the older versions of Fanolint. In any case, it was slightly irritating.
Fortunately, Minmay made up for this by using an excellent tileset layout, putting [almost] all

of each group of tiles in the same location, sorting expertly. A few of the orange bricks were

displaced, but overall it was nicely done.
Music was the fanolint song.
The tileset was fairly clear buggage-wise. Textured bg was alright.
So, what can be said about this Fanolint conversion? Very nice tileset. Not-so-nice example

level. I guess I’ll just say 7.9 and a DL rec for the tileset [I don’t recommend playing the

example level, unless you need help figuring out how to use the set].

Keep Jazzing!
PT

Hahah sorry i was drunk :D

Level is very good, with nice eye candy. I found one bug in WUSS level, 109, 87 and it is masked tile. I guess it is an accident when you put it there. Also the WUSS version of The Rising Isle is much better, without pits. All JB levels are symmetrical because of balance of the level, so this one is too. 2 PUs for this level are too low, you should put at least 1 more in the middle, in my opinion. I am not a guy who thinks ‘You must put seeker/bouncer/RF somewhere in the level because I like it’ but no…I really think that you can put toaster in the middle, because 3h, without any ammo what can make damage 2h, will be very long game. Also 1 C in the middle (fullNRG) is…well…again needs at least 2 more Cs +1 somewhere in tubes or similar. That area, where is fullNRG, is very campy. Seeker can’t kill you from up and you can kill them up with seeker (just jump, and again back to wait C). If you look on the top of the level, you will see trees and other stuffs what are on the grass. You could put some of them down, in the level, in my opinion. Also that background style is good, but it can be better, if you put it in layer 5 and make it moving it will be much better, believe me.
Download recommended? Sure, download this level, not too much JailBreak levels nowadays. This level can be for 4v4 or less, in my opinion. I will rate this without that bug in WUSS because I believe that was an accident on position 109,87 ;). But please don’t give up with making levels, you’re not that bad, just don’t lose interest in JJ2 ;(.
(Sorry 4 my English, it is not very good, I hope you will understand this).