Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Space’s Plummet

Below that nice message of Bjarni I review this file. It uses the overused Mez01 set and the used Music file is Castle, which sounds horrible in combination with the level and tileset. At least there is a next level setting..

Is this supposed to be an actual Treasure Hunt level? There’s only one gem ring, and there’s not a lot of ammo either so I doubt if this is a battle level. The only thing that’s working are the triggers and scenery. Uh, yay?

The Bouncy +15 is overused.. Don’t you think 20 instead of 99 would be better? There’s no background scenery or eyecandy.

- CONS:
You can’t decide whether this is a “test”, a battle, a CTF, a co-op, a single player or a TH level. The music choice is bad, the tile placement is bad, there’s no background scenery or even eyecandy.

+ PROS:
The author apparently knows how to use triggers.

VERDICT:
Maybe if you want to die you should choose this level to play. Absolutely no download recommendation.. You’d better not waste your time on this.

RATING:
1.5.

I’m sorry, DaPete, but we only allow finished levels on our site. Betas are not allowed. And please try to be a little nice to the reviewers, they are giving you advice after all, for free.[This review has been edited by FQuist]

[Review taken out cause I don’t care]. Trafton, you edit someone else’s reviews. so (wah) (wah) yourself![This review has been edited by DaPete10]

BAD!

Please note that the author got offended last time when I reviewed his level in a negative fashion. Nothing here is meant to offend you, it is meant to help you construct a better level. I do not mean to offend anyone with reviews, and I really hate it when people are offended. They are not at all intended to be offensive.

This level screams “beta” in the worst way. Everything, from the eyecandy to the gameplay, feels and frankly is very much unfinished. It is evident that this level probably did not have a huge amount of effort put into it, and this translates badly. The first area consists of a group of sucker tubes which shoot you through a few one ways to some ammo. One of the sucker tubes instead shoots directly to a room with a bubble shield, which looks pretty bad. The bubble shield is WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY too easy to get and simply makes for bad gameplay. Simply put, most of the gameplay consists of rushing to get the water shield. The only way one can really die is by not being able to get the water shield for an extended period of time. This kind of gameplay isn’t acceptable. The rest of the level is much of the same. There are no interesting highlights to speak of. The eyecandy fares no better. Everything is ugly and tile errors (combined with a lot of incorrect tile use) is more common than correctly-used tiles. Simply put, this is not a good level at all. I am sorry, but I can not recommend this for download.

+ PROS: None to speak of.

- CONS: Looks bad, plays bad, and has a way too easy to access water shield.

VERDICT: My rating is a two and no download recommendation. This level just is not good. I am sorry, but if you want higher ratings, you need to spend much more time on your levels than this. Still, it shows some promise. Good luck with levelmaking and remember – quality, not quantity! :)

EDIT: Unknown File, it is not the rating – it is the review. I tried to be as positive as possible. I am sorry if you were disappointed by the rating. You must understand it is not an attack on you. We all were bad when we first started. Please do not be angry. It is not an insult and I am very sorry that you were offended.
[This review has been edited by Trafton AT]

DaPete01’s beta level strikes out…big time. A colonius level, Townload has poor eyecandy, with bad tile mismatches, and the use of layers only 4, 3 and 8. The stairs are done incorrectly, and a shield is easily accessed; a big no no. The rope is also done with hook events instead of vine events making it awkward to use. So, a 2.5 for you.[This review has been edited by Iam Canadian]

I personally wonder how the author managed to host this, considering the filename, but oh well.
This level reeks Beta. It consists of a few buildings, which you can move through through windows that are missing parts of them. There are a few sucker tubes which shoot you through one ways to get a bit of ammo, and on the far left there’s a sucker tube to a Bubble Shield. Note that while you have the Bubble Shield, all the layer 3 looks wrong. On the far right, there’s a longish flat area which just stops at a wall with no explanation. The background uses the few inside-of-house tiles Colonius supplies, but the feeling is kind of messed up by all the buildings in the level.
On the plus side? A few nice sucker tubes, and at least one place with good layer 3. Yes, the author told us not to tell him about eyecandy errors, but I did anyway.

Edit: The purpose of uploading files (not pictures) to this site is having them be rated and reviewed. If you can not accept your levels being rated and reviewed according to their merits, please do not upload them.[This review has been edited by Violet CLM]

I wonder what this level will be…
Well, it seems that this is the level I landed on. Time for a review.

The first thing I noticed was the backround, it was very dull and boring, could of been better. The layer 3 looked bad, you could see jazz in it and the eyecandy was below average. Tha author didnt know that all events of the far rught dont work, and it should be kept closed. Tile use was bad as well, sorry if I sound negative in the review. The layout bothered me as well. I cant say much more here, no download recc, sorry…..[This review has been edited by Blackraptor]

HEY! This looks alot like one of the first levels I ever made! And with the same title… Weird..
Only problem is that it sucked more.. :P[This review has been edited by Red Ninja]

DO YOU REALISE I WORKED 2 WHOLE MONTHS ON THIS?! MAN!

Congratulations. This level puts new meaning for my CTF level reviewing system. Finally, a level so bad it deserves an extra long review (not to sound harsh or anything).

GAMEPLAY:

I don’t think I could ever possibly describe how bad the layout is. It’s not balanced, it has no flow, and I was frustrated just trying to find my way around. Let me give you some advice (or a lot of advice) with the problems I saw:

1.) There are no borders around the level, which can create the infamous flag bug where you see someone capturing the flag every second. Always, always, ALWAYS add a border around the entire level of at least one tile (two tiles are recommended).

2.) The events are either misused or just don’t work out. Like with the water, are you trying to make the level much more frustrating with it? And there is the problem around pos 26,34 with the steam where it is easy to get stuck there if you’re not very careful. And you used hurt events? If there’s one event you should never use in MP, it would be that one. It just gets in the way and can even kill the server.

3.) The level has too many dead ends, and not just routes that lead to nowhere, but places where you can actually get trapped and never get out. Don’t use horizontal springs the way you did in this level.

4.) And I think you took the advice to use animations one step to far. It seems as if you used animated tiles for more than 80 percent of the level. When others said use animations, they probably wanted you to use the tiles made just for animations (like with the blue “shock rods” you didn’t bother to animate). You, on the other hand, misinterpreted this I thought that they wanted you to make animations like where the tile disappears and reappears. You can use the disappearing/reappearing animation tiles if you want, but seldomly. The Mez tileset you used just naturally lacks tiles for animations. A lot of other tilesets are better for this.

5.) If I had to guess, I would say you have no idea of how to make layer 3 align with layer 4 (or really anything layer-related for that matter). All you have to do is go to layer 3 and right-click with your mouse and then click on properties. In that, go to where it says “Relative movement”. Next to the “X-Speed” and “Y-Speed”, change the number to 1 (it normally says 1.5 if you haven’t changed it). And you can resize the layer under “Properties” next to the box where it says “Tile width” and “Tile height”. I suggest experimenting with this and with all of the other options (I don’t feel it is necessary to explain everything in that section of JCS).

6.) And finally, the level looks more like a single player level than anything else. This fact alone could kill the rating of this level. It seems that you tried too hard to make the level work when really a simpler level would receive a much higher rating. If you’re going to make a CTF level, look at how other people made their CTF levels. And when you’re making your next level, look for some beta-testers and make sure they barrage you with a lot of suggestions. It appears you will need it. Keep making levels; practice can always help.

EYE CANDY:

I’ll tell you when I find any. It’s definately way below average. The background tiles weren’t used correctly (you’ll have to resize the layer and/or put the layer in “Textured mode”). You were lazy with a lot of the tiles in this level. Look at how other levels use eye candy and try to be more creative in the future.

CARROT AND AMMO PLACEMENT:

Not good at all. Too many carrots in one place and no ammo. Hypothetically, if this was the greatest CTF level ever created but you only messed up on this one thing, it would already be rated a 7.0 at the highest. CTF levels just can’t work with bad carrot placement and no ammo. And powerups are always nice. I’ll give three possible suggestions of what you can do with the carrots:

1.) Use one full energy carrot placed in the middle or somewhere near the middle of the level. Make sure that it is easily accessible, and generally same distance, from each base.

2.) Use two full energy carrots placed not too close to one another. From each base, it should be easy to get one of those two carrots but not both.

3.) Use a +1 carrot, similar to how I said to use the full energy carrot in my first suggestion, but don’t use any powerups (I doubt I myself would ever use this suggestion, but it’s still a good choice to use).

Personally I use the first suggestion the most in my CTF levels, but you can experiment with whatever you want. Also, I can’t really say much about ammo placement since you didn’t even use any. Take example from the way other level makers place ammo in their levels. And when you’re using events like these, use a generator (20 or 25 would be good). You just have to click “Create a generator for this event” where you select the event to use. Then change the number next to “Delay” to 20 or 25 or whatever.

HOST THIS OFTEN?

If I said host this often, that wouldn’t make me much of a reviewer. I’m rating this a 2.5 just because you remembered to put two CTF bases in the level. If I get bored and can think of other things to suggest, I’ll add on to this review.

The Edit: No, I had no idea how long it took you to make the level, but I can tell that during that two month period you didn’t focus on balance, ammo placement, flow, and several other things that I’ve mentioned in my review. I don’t want to discourage you to the point where you don’t make any more levels, but the one you made isn’t even decent. And just because you worked on a level for two months, it doesn’t necessarily make it a good level. Practice and opinions of others is where you get improvement from. Make sure you read all of the advice I added in the review.[This review has been edited by BlurredD]

This is a HORRIBLE level.
All bad points:
1. 10000000000000000000 Booby Traps
2. Hurt Event
3. You can get Very simple stuck
4. Eyecandy suck
5. Gameplay suck
6. It looks like more a SP level than a CTF.

Overall: Barf. The tileset tiles are strangely used. I see that you like the animations (there are tenthousends of them) But, spend more time on your levels and don’t make hurt events and booby traps and shield and blah blah blah. I give this a 2 for your practice and lol texts. Further nothing.

Nice and funny, with the water. But a little to less eyecandy…

(Unjustified rating removal. -Trafton)[This review has been edited by Trafton AT]

this really REALLY sux
bjarni why are you giving a bad lvl a 7 !!!???

i give a 2 for this
this is the why

1 suckertubes to slow use layer3 for layer3 tiles (like for the sucker tube

2 No animating tiles Hurt bij a SPRING!

3 to many bumb things

4 why only the same food

5 bad eyecandy

6 no ammo

7 if you go in the sucker your gonna back to the start

I can tell you 1 thing
this music rocks :)
i give this lvl a 2 its bad lvl

by 007

[Review taken out cause I don’t care][This review has been edited by DaPete10]

I am still trying to improve my level-building skills guys, sorry if you hate it.

“Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Pinball” would be a possibly new interesting concept if it is an interesting new concept. Unfortunately, the concept is neither new nor interesting. This level, which uses the fairly uninteresting Tube Electric tileset, consists of basically nothing except sucker tubes, pinballs, and pie (the food event, I am not being humerous.) It uses the interesting idea of placing hurt events under the pinballs instead of the normal warps. Less fortunately, jumping over them are really, really easy and offer absolutely no challenge whatsoever. After that, you are forced to go through an overly lengthy system of sucker tubes from point A to point B. Would it have killed to crank the sucker tube speed up just a tiny bit? Eh? After that, you are dumped in a room where you can either choose one route or another. Both end up in the same place, and you have probably already wasted the time difference there is between the first and second routes just by reading this. After that, you are dumped into room containing mainly carrot bumps. Damaged? If you are skilled enough to buttstomp well, you can heal it all. Not that it will matter much. The warp from the room leads back to the start. Over and over again. While Unknown File may have elected to use an interesting gametype for this level, it is used badly. Still, if this level was much longer and harder, it might even be worth a play. Keep working on levels, and you will probably be quite good one day. While this is not very good, it does show promise.

+ PROS: Interesting new gameplay, while the level was made badly, it could easily be much worse.

- CONS: A somewhat promising gameplay with terrible execution. Barely any eyecandy. Way, way too short.

VERDICT: As interesting as the idea behind it may be, this level is not very good at all, so it gets a three point five out of ten.

Reply: It’s fine. No one can be great on their first level, Unknown File. Keep making levels. :)

[This review has been edited by Trafton AT][This review has been edited by Trafton AT]

Interesting concept, but’s poorly implemented. The bumpers a too close together, the suction tubes a painfully slow, & there’s no exit or next level setting. No download recommendation.[This review has been edited by BtsfplkVR(Lem_Gambino)]

I think this is your first level, because of bad use of tiles and no animation, if you want to know, you can make animations by clicking in the yellow like square in the animation window, and then hold crtl and click the tiles you want to animate. You can also better place the tubes at layer 3 and keep layer 4 empty at those places. But pinball levels are never good, because players like to play and not to watch…

I suppose I will use a scale similar to Violet’s to rate this level.

Is this a Battle level? Well, yes, you can slap anything together with a start position and call it a battle level. But not all play like true battle levels.

Is this a good Battle level? Linear through and through, so no. Being that it is an edit of a single player level, there is only one path, so it is not much of a battle level, and certainally is not a good one whatsoever.

Is this a CTF level? Similar story to Violet. There is a blue base, but I did not waste my time trying to find the red base. It just was not worth my time. No matter where the other base is located, this just is not a worthwhile level for Capture the Flag.

Is this a good CTF level? No way. There is only one possible path and it feels like a single player level. That is because it is a single player level. It is really too bad they removed the cooperative/single player elements, because that was the only thing going for this level.

Is this a Treasure Hunt level? Sort of, but I can not say that it was intended to specifically be a treasure hunt level. Sure, there are gems (about a hundered) left over from the single player game type, plus a few that the author took the liberty of adding, but not enough to make a good treasure hunt level. Or a playable one for that matter.

Is this a good Treasure Hunt level? Not in the least bit. There are not enough gems to actually make a worthwhile game and there certainally are not enough to make it good. Oh, yes, and you will have to take the annoyingly long time that it takes to find the end of this level, if you actually bother playing that long.

Is this a Cooperative level? No! The one thing it had going for it, the single player type, has been completely removed. Read: all enemies have been deleted. Sure, I suppose it could fit the most loose definitions, but it certainally is not a “real” cooperative level.

Is this a good Cooperative level? No. The eventless blocks look ugly like the Heavens, there are no enemies, and play is one hundered percent boring. Avoid this mode at all costs.

Is this a level with eyecandy? Every level has eyecandy. This level included. But what eyecandy is there is really, really bad. Like the event-lacking blocks.

Is this a level with gameplay? Sort of. There is gameplay, but it is not good gameplay. For any mode except single player, this level has terrible flow. And playing in single player is pointless, since all of the enemies have been removed. D’oh.

Is this a level with good points? There are plenty of good points. But no where near enough to even fall into the average category. The author demonstrates some knowledge of JJ2 (like in the description, albeit saying that something that works for 1.23 will work for 1.20 is redundant.) The level itself is just awful.

What are you going to rate this? 2.

Will this level get a download recommendation from you? No way. SO STOP ASKING ME QUESTIONS, DIEMBODIED VOICE.

-Trafton

DaPete: I didn’t mean you could be worse, I meant that you did this better than many people would have done it! I wasn’t trying to be negative.[This review has been edited by Trafton AT]