Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

The first public full implementation of a custom game mode in AngelScript, and it’s well worthy of it. While the included level is a bit plain and questionably balanced, the concept of the game mode more than makes up for it. I hope someone makes more levels for this game mode!

The original tileset in Super Meat Boy isn’t too bad, and it fits JJ2 pretty well.

Unfortunately, it’s been scaled and palletised completely naively. It’s now blurry, distorted, and full of stray pixels. The layout is also poor in places, with closely related tiles place far away from each other.

My advice is to just try again and put more effort into making it look as good as the original. If a tileset is worth converting, it’s worth converting well.

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!

Trigger zones work in 1.23. They just aren’t listed in the JCS.ini that comes with most versions of it. Just add this line to your 1.23 JCS.ini: 246=Trigger Zone |+|Trigger |Trigger|Zone|TriggerID:5|on/off:1|switch:1
Or, heck, just use the converter; if it messes up the triggers, that is a bug in the converter and not an actual difference between the level formats’ or JJ2 versions’ capabilities.

Also, they only apply to the connection that triggers them, so unless the 2vs2 is in the form of four players splitscreening, touching one yourself does nothing for your teammate or your opponents. Test your levels!

(also you spelled claustrophobic wrong)

Put in technically incorrect “layman’s terms,” 1.24 has a greater supply of internal animation structures, so it doesn’t run out as easily as 1.23.

First of all: I can’t seem to host at the moment, so I was not able to play these online. As such, I am not giving a rating, as I cannot say much about the balance. However, I can still evaluate some things.

Big Apple Beatdown is great. Nothing particularly novel, but very well done – flow is nice and intuitive, the level is good-looking, and so on. The only thing I really dislike about this level is that there are too many powerups and they’re too easy to obtain; you can expect to see powered-up seekers and bouncers flying everywhere.

I am not so fond of Escape from Precint 83. The concept of having all the players permanently flying is a good enough one, but I feel it could have been implemented much better. It’s really easy to get caught on the edges of the many, many ceilings, and the “pits” at the bottom just seem to get in the way. The level also strikes me as looking downright ugly, though I think that’s more the fault of the tileset (someone make a good Technoir conversion already! And then give it a palette swap so it isn’t so hideously pink!). Also, it completely breaks in 8-bit color for some reason; the background turns completely black and my FPS goes from 100 to 30.

Anyway, this “pack” didn’t blow me away, but it’s certainly worth a look.

It’s Medivo. That’s about it. Glad someone made a better conversion than CelL’s old one, though.

Simple and inoffensive, but quite well done nonetheless. There are some interesting visual experiments, most notably the pond, although in some places they come off as messy. Layout and general gameplay is very good, no complaints there.

What part of this upload are people supposed to rate? The tilesets, the levels, or both?

If you react to all JJ2 tests with disdain, you obviously weren’t around in the EvilMike days. The biggest problem with this upload is that it took about five years to appear.

Very ugly and inconsistent in style, but quite functional. The various stolen tiles were completely unnecessary, though (you didn’t even give credit – for the record, those gems are from Bookworm Adventures).

You have a good grasp of tileset layout and what tiles are needed – a shame this isn’t backed up by competent artwork.

Next time, please do not upload tilesets that are not used in your level.

Competently made. The biggest flaws I can see are the ammo placement (too much and uneven), invisible walls (they’re useless and a bit confusing), and tilebugs.

“Crappy” referred to the contest, not the levels made for the contest.

Pretty much what you expect from Mike – original and interesting ideas that are well-implemented. Not really exceptional, however.

Lava Fortress is certainly a very good tileset. It is well-drawn and easy to use. However, like anything, it does have certain flaws. This review will try to explore the tileset in more detail than 350 characters and “hope someone uses this” can allow.

How does it look?
The tileset consists of two different themes: a barren, rocky and irreconcilably brown landscape of dust, and a generic factory setting with pipes and conveyor belts.
And lava. Lots of lava.
Both settings are nicely drawn. I think I prefer the look of the factory setting, however, simply because it is much more varied; there are very few eyecandy tiles available for the outdoors — just some wooden poles, bridges, and a dead tree.
And, um, lava.

I must, however, make one exception. The volcanoes in the background look like crap. In fact, they look sort of like actual crap. I admit that volcanoes erupting with actual crap would appeal a lot to my juvenile sense of humor, but it doesn’t excuse bad artwork.

What about usability and flexibility?
It’s certainly easy to use, I’ll give it that. Tile layout is sensible; there are a few tiles placed in rather odd places, but they’re still easy to find.
Flexibility is when the tileset begins to lose some serious points. It’s called “Lava Fortress,” but /you can hardly do anything with the lava/. It is extremely restrictive; lava can only be in one-tile-high pools on a single flat surface. There are tiles for lava pouring into the pools, but no tiles for lava pouring out of them, which means there are no true lavafalls (they’re like waterfalls, BUT WITH LAVA).

And then there’s layer 5. The tileset is impossible to use effectively without layer 5; there are no tiles containing both solid ground and background, requiring you to split them up between layers. I completely understand the tile limit, but come on, I had to give up a layer so that you could draw some fricking crap volcanoes?

Also, the large pipes lack corner tiles, which is rather disappointing (even the example level finds this a problem).

Anything else?
The mask, palette, and event tiles are fine. You can shut up now, Boldface Text.

This is a good example of a tileset that has no place being converted for JJ2. There’s no way getting around the fact that Bubble Bobble, great game as it is, is rather ugly, and it only looks uglier when you put it next to JJ2 sprites. And as the example level shows, you can’t make up for that with clever usage.

Well-drawn and fairly flexible, but in no way is this tileset exceptional; the most appealing part to me was the background.
Edit replacing review, for Dodges: The structure of the ground is similar to that of Traditional Japan. It is made of many small rocks in a “cartoonish” style with heavily defined outlines.

This is an example of a great concept with poor implementation. Level design is bland and repetitive, and there’s not a whole lot of skill or tactics involved in the gameplay.

Excellent in both design and execution, held back only by a few flaws that could’ve been corrected with a little more time and testing (tree masks are easy to get stuck in, a few resprites/recolors look slightly off).
And you did avoid doing the reflective goop, you sneaky little git.
Edit: Night is crazy awesome, have another .3 points.