Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Several hours passed since you had uploaded this, and I’ve already come out with a first review.

PROS
I appreciate your attemps to invent new mechanics and eyecandy. For example, those burners that heat the iron platforms so you can’t step on them without loosing one heart, some tricks with springs and an unobvious way to reach barrels in bonus room. In my opinion, this level is a lil bit better than Frosty Party since it is not crouded with respawning foes. And I’m glad that at least there are no bees and beehives in this abandoned chemical laboratry (unlike they were included into your winter level).

CONS
The begining of the level was so nice, so similar to original levels, that I was filled with hope for an equally decent continuation. However, all of my hopes were smashed when I faced those sadistic things you love to place in your levels. Now, let me list some of that issues:

-Numerous areas where you have to search for an exit for a long time or search it by looking up in JCS. This significally reduces the pace of the game and thus the conception of a fun and fast shooter is been ruined. Majority of the players won’t solve your puzzles, they’ll use cheats or even give up without trying.

-And again, those annoying pits that make you cheat to get out of them. That’s definetly not good.

-Maybe that wasn’t the only way, but once I had to kill floating lizard and capture his copter to go further. Probably it’s not the best decition as the lizard isn’t respawning, is he?

-Invisible Dest Scen blocks. The idea is good, but, as you can see, it’s easy to get stuck into them.

-Finally, I expected to encounter a boss, but there wasn’t one.

COULD IMPROVE ON
You should think how to improve gameplay. Maybe it would be better to make player solve puzzles in order to reach gems, while progressing through the level would be a way less exhausting? Thus the player will be able to choose whether he wants to relax or to complete a challenge. Few words about the pits in this and some other of your levels. Even if you were not going to use script you could increase the depth of pits and place two rows of CTF bases (row of blue bases and row of red bases) to their bottom. Actually the collision with them kills you in single player mode.
Good luck in future works!

First, I say thank you very much for the reviews. But I have to tell you about this level that:
1. Frosty Party is possible for all characters. In the point where you have to stay on a rope and do a big jump, this is possible for Jazz and Lori too. You have to jump then stomp bee in order to reach to the next area. This bee is generator event, so your chance to do this is infinity.
2. You aren’t required to get 50 silver coins to pass this level. There is another warp on the bonus warp. So if your silver coins are not enough, you can still continue to the next area. And, if you use Jazz or Lori, they are possible to get all coins, then you can enter to bonus warp.
3. I’m a beginner to making JJ2 level, and I haven’t been able to use Angel Script.
4. Also, I’m a beginner to use English. Sorry.

Almost a year passed since I’ve written my last review. That’s not good.

Before I begin, I wonder what for do you set passwords to your levels? Almost everyone out there easily hacks all these passwords with “You shall pass” or other password-removal programms.

PROS
I liked the concept of hidden pickups that freeze you. Although at a first time I didn’t realise that it’s possible to unfreeze yourself by pressing fire (idk, wether players can freeze each other in a multiplayer since I’m kinda a sociophobic nerd who doesn’t play in co-op mode), so I was slightly confused till those respawning pickups keeped me motionless. Some walls freeze you, some don’t, some of freezing-walls are covered with ice blocks and some aren’t so you can’t predict whether the wall in front of you contains freezers. By the way this concept could be realised in a more elegant manner with Angel Script- just imagine walls, trees, or some enemies shooting freezers at you.
I appreciate the fact that the player has to collect some toaster ammo to remove frozen blocks in order to continue the level. But opposite to the enemies ammo isn’t respawning, so there is a chance to run out of toasters before you melt the blocks.
To reach some goodies you have to jump by stomping some flying enemy. That’s fine.

CONS
What Primpy says. There are more Cons than Pros. He’d listed some of the cons- narrow corridors, the lack of checkpoints, the level is too challenging and not relaxing at all. Looks like only Spaz can pass the level. Playing as Jazz I also couldn’t jump from a rope high enough to reach next platform. More than that, in the lower edge of the level there are pits you can’t get out of without typing “jjnowall”. And again, Angel Script can help you- it’s rather easy to write a code that kills the player when he falls below the certain horizontal line. But that’s not all downsides. An enemy just killed by you can respawn at your current position in a few seconds. There isn’t any obvious path in this level- several times I realized that I returned to the position I’ve started from. That’s why I don’t want to replay this level anymore (even with cheats)- it’s toooooo tiring to rush back and forth all the time. Fire hits you even if it is obviously situated at another layer, wich is pretty unrealistic. Bees in winter? Also unrealistic, but why not. I’m not quibbling, but as for me the level should have some kind of an atmosphere but this atmosphere can be easily ruined by the smallest things. It’s just my opinion, so I won’t deprive points for that. There are some mask issues, but they aren’t fatal. Wind makes the boss fight much harder, but it also presses you to the right wall and when Bolly adjusts his eyes to your current y-position you can easily shoot him within two or three times being stucked.

CONCLUSION
Seems like you’re trying to create levels offering a way more challenging gameplay than original levels do. You’ve though up some interesting features like those freezers, but the realisation isn’t so nice. Player should enjoy the gameplay, not suffer of it! Probably the features provided with JCS are insufficient to you. I strongly advice you to update your JCS.ini in order to expand your posibilities as a JCSer. You can also download some levels modified by Angel Script. You will realise that all your intentions to innovate the gameplay can be fully implemented with the help of scripted modifications.
Click the link below. There is a thread explainging how to modify JCS.ini and install JJ2+ (version of the game that supports Angel Script).
JJ2+

P.S.

- I really hate these creatures :)

Welp, I’m always glad to see new Single Player levels uploaded on Jazz2Online so I just gave this level a shot. Unfortunately, at least for me, playing this JJ2 level was not very enjoyable.

Pros:
- The level design is not that bad. I haven’t glitched through the level so that’s also a thing. It’s not fantastic, can be a bit too linear and claustrophobic but it’s anything but bad.
- The eyecandy is also alright. It’s just the good ol’ “Inferno 1” tileset it uses, nothing changed to it. Same thing for the music, it just uses “Hell Freezes Over”. A little bit of diversity would’ve been nice but at least there are little to no wrongly placed tiles. In general it’s pleasing to the eye.

Cons:
- Not Jazz and Lori friendly. There is one point in the level where you have to stay on a rope and do a big jump. I tried this with Jazz lots of times but just couldn’t pull it off (This makes the third image you uploaded on this level’s download page very questionable). Therefore I had to JJMORPH into Spaz in order to continue the level.
- No checkpoints. Yes, of course, there is “Save” but that’s not an excuse for not having checkpoints. If there is one that I did not notice, please let me know, I might’ve just not noticed it.
- The level has a part that happens at the bottom of the map. It feels very very claustrophobic with very limited jumping. Also it’s just annoying not to see your character somewhere in the middle or the horiziontal edges of the screen.
- “Fire”. I don’t know why did you have to use this in favor of all the other possible hazards. If you want me to dodge the fire then don’t put it behind things!
- You can get soft blocked if you accidentally fall into one of the pits at the bottom of the map.
- The enemies respawn exaggeratedly fast. I just wanted a MEDIUM gameplay experience, not a hard one.
- You have to collect all the coins in order to progress in the level. Look, if the level was less hard and at least MENTIONED that you have to collect all the coins (It instead mentions that you need lots of flamethrowers, which is partly true), then let’s say, maybe, just maybe. At that point of the level where you have to use those coins, backtracking to get the others is really hard if not impossible. Don’t do that, if you could’ve just mentioned that I need to collect all of the coins, that would’ve been great. Not to mention that there are some coins that only Spaz can collect. God bless the JJCOINS cheat.
- Little to no weapons. You can find very few toasters, some freezers, a little TNT and RF Missiles. There are two upgrades, however they are not very helpful.
- Considering how difficult the level is, the boss fight difficulty should’ve been reasonable. Not only that Bolly should be in a tall room with multiple platforms you can jump on (and not a wide one with literally ONE PLATFORM) but there is also wind so you can’t do your nasty butt stomp strategy and Sparks spawning from below.

Looks like there are more Cons than Pros but there is just nothing else I can say good about the level. Sorry.

I can’t say whether I can recommend downloading this or not. I know some of you are crazy good at JJ2 and are always looking for a new challenge. If you’re that kind of person, feel free to try out this level. If you’re like me, an average player looking for a medium difficulty level, do not download this, you’re just going to have an unpleasant experience.

I rate this level 6.7 out of 10. It has potential and it was obviously worked on a lot but if you make such a challenging level, at least warn the players about this. I still think it could be improved. If so, I’ll gladly give this level a higher rating :)

Woah! Three single-player levels in a row! As one of the last few rabbits who play single player elusively, I am thrilled to see there is somebody who’s still willing to make levels for us. Although Apple Surprise is far of the quality of some of the single-player packs on J20, the sheer fact that it exists means it deserves a review.

THEME:

Apple Surprise is based on a quite simple but interesting premise—every time you encounter an apple in the level, something dangerous lurks near. Most of the times the ground beneath your feet is about to collapse, although sometimes the apple warns you the next few steps you make might inevitably hurt you. Since this is a single level only, I cannot judge it like an episode; still, the apple-danger theme runs consistent throughout the level, and makes the experience coherent.

8/10

EYECANDY & TILESET CHOICE:

It is 2016 and there are plenty of great tilesets and tileset conversions on J2O. Of all the original tilesets, Carrotus is the one I feel most overused to the point where it’s boring to play it. This might be a personal preference of mine, but I still feel it is best to encourage the use of other tilesets. There were also quite a lot tilebugs throughout the level, although nothing experience-breaking. Most of the times, the eyecandy felt dull and repetitive; in my book this is unavoidable due to the use of classic Carrotus tileset.

Using a tileset conversion of Carrotus would raise the score in this category.

4/10

LEVEL DESIGN & FLOW:

The level utilises a lot of warp points, and uses them well, even better than some of the great levels on J2O. However, at times I felt lost and disoriented, and simple instructions might have improved my experience. If the author intended those moments to be like “puzzles” of sort, the implementation wasn’t great—those moments didn’t make me think, but jump around rapidly, trying to find the secret “hidden passage” to the next part of the level.

I also had to replay the level once for what I assume was a triggering mistake; I might’ve missed a required step to which I couldn’t go back, and thus I couldn’t move forward as well. However, this might have been due to a mistake on my end, so I won’t take points for this.

5/10

GAMEPLAY:

Hanif went for a strictly vanilla gameplay, which still has unexpected twists and turns. The difficulty isn’t too high and the level is suitable for somebody who hasn’t played in years, or with very little experience in the game. Still, the game play is quite enjoyable, even when accounting for all the flaws. Might be the fact that there are not many new single-player levels, yet still I found myself entertained at the end, and even glad I downloaded this level.

7/10

ANGELSCRIPT:

There is no AS for this level. It’s not required for every level to implement JJ2+ functionality, but I believe this level can greatly benefit from some scripting, even if it is used only for eyecandy enhancement.

N/A

BONUS:

Every new single player level deserves at least +1 point for just existing, and this level is good enough to get a second one! So here it goes, 2 bonus points for still making levels for us, single player rabbits! Thank you!

+2

OVERALL:

While Apple Surprise is far from perfect, if you enjoy playing single-player levels, I suggest you download it and try it out. It might disappoint you, but it is far from awful, and it presents some new thematic ideas which I haven’t seen in another single-player level.

6.5/10 (26/40)