Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Here's some classic good Single-Player gameplay combined with small scripted twists and neat tileset mashes. Have to say that especially the Holiday Hare and Carrotus tilesets work together really well, although fixing the flawed masking of Holiday Hare requires quite some manual effort with MLLE.

+ the idea with the Beer is really great ;D
(in this level we can find a custom pickup item
it makes your rabbit drunken, and give him for a short time a suggarush,
you also gets for a short time more fastfire on your gun, this also works on other weapons like seekers, and missiles
+ the water have a different color
- underwater the background could be different,
+ makes fun to play
+ great fun factor with the new custom item, the Beer ;D

This pack is even more city-heavy than Sonic Generations, but the levels really are quite different. Though one thing I do think reappears throughout is the problem of the trigger crates. It's almost always hard to tell what they do, because they tend to target things off-camera. The third level does the best, I think, with text signs accompanying most or all trigger crates to explain where you should go next, though you have to do some thinking to figure out which areas are described by certain words. The first level does okay, because it's pretty consistent, though the presence of layer 3 in front of some of the trigger blocks is off-putting. The second level is the most confusing, despite being filled with cool related tricks. This is a fundamentally difficult problem of game design, but trigger crates alone are not enough of a varied vocabulary to explain to players what they need to do next, especially if all trigger sceneries (no matter their trigger IDs) use exactly the same tiles.

Jungle City is linear with a gimmick: a bird does all your combat for you. Well, mostly. You can still buttstomp and stuff. There's also a whole fetch quest thing associated with this gimmick where first you have to find a bullet, then you have to find a birdcage, and then you put the two together to get the bird out, and if you ever get hurt you have to do it all over again. (Though fortunately they generate if you're still in the area; if you've moved on further in the level you may want to find a new bullet/birdcage pair.) Honestly this feels like a little too much punishment for getting hurt… just find some way to give me the bird permanently, that's the more engaging part of the gimmick.

The other issue I have with the level is that it really, really likes layer 3. There's nothing wrong with some secret areas, but (and this is a pattern that reappears throughout this pack) it's hard for the player to know what's a secret area and what's the main path, and there are a lot of places where the room is partly obscured by foreground and partly not. None of that is inherently bad, but it's so constant (at least aboveground) that it starts to feel more cruel than exciting.

Otherwise, though, when the level sits back and lets you play it, it's pretty cool. Slaz is always good at making levels that are playgrounds with things to do, and there are goodies everywhere here. War Torn is one of the best tilesets out there and (this edit of) it looks great here. More importantly, the level really is designed to be played with a bird, it doesn't just feel like an afterthought. Enemies are rarely very tough, and sometime you even get to shoot through destruct scenery because there are enemies on the other side, which feels really cool.

French Town is probably the normalest level, as it's roughly linear and you have guns, though there are a lot of times where you have to wander around to figure out how to open some door or other. There are lots of nonscripted gimmicks here too, really pushing the envelope, and lots of mysterious, hard-to-see passages that may or may not be necessary to find in order to progress. When this level works, it feels great, but sometimes it does verge into the obscure. Sections where you have to shoot certain destructible blocks to progress through them at a different angle are very cool, though it's hard to notice some of the tiles you need to shoot through.

I think my reaction to Industrial Town is a lot more positive than abgrenv's, though there's no denying it's difficult. It's a very non-linear level with two different types of trigger crates: three that unlock the end area, which is clearly labeled from the very beginning, and some more that do other things that you have to figure out. There are a lot of paths to navigate, some of them probably optional, and you approach areas in different orders and from different directions. That's a tough level design challenge but I think Slaz nails it. I think getting rid of the intermediate trigger scenery obstacles would make this play that much more smoothly, but in general, if you don't mind things being on the cramped side, this is a good experience.

Slaz's levels are for when you're in a specific mindset of wanting to explore. They're not designed for people who want to zip to the exit: you're rewarded for exploring, and there are too many obstacles to go quickly even if you wanted to. These three levels all take different approaches to this—constant back and forth between sewer and aboveground, inventive puzzles, non-linear layout—but they do share that. And they look good too, that helps.

A bit too expansive for my taste and the tileset doesn't make the best variety for this type of level either. I wandered around aimlessly only to end up dying and not knowing what I missed or didn't miss. Despite this it's a generally good looking level with nice music, so I still recommend it.

Slaz's levels exist in a peculiar intersection of being incredibly specific to JJ2 mechanics while also not specific to traditional JJ2 level design. There are so many events that this level is built around that couldn't easily be substituted, and yet, this is not at all how the normal levels play. V-Poles, one of my favorites, are used frequently to help the player get around. Pickups are simultaneously numerous and infrequent, often placed singly instead of in groups or four or six. Some food pickups are used to mark where players should jump and so on, classic platformer design goodness, while many more are just incidental to keep the player engaged and the screen busy. Secrets are absolutely everywhere but do a good job of being clearly secrets, not the main path, except for the exit from the dark grave area, which is kind of confusing. Collapse scenery is used to great effect in an all-new(?) way to open up the level as you progress through it: there will be multiple horizontal areas built on top of each other, and once you find the way up to the next one, you can trigger collapse scenery to open up more paths for easier exploration later. Sometimes this is paired with buttstomp scenery, which I think works less well because the stomp blocks are much easier to see than the collapsible bridges, and that makes it look like something you're supposed to uppercut. Things that look like they can be shot can generally be shot. There's just an endless variety of things to do, in a variety of possible orders to do them in, letting players take control of their destinies and craft their unique gameplay experiences. But somehow this non-linear experience manages to be crossed with an ultimately linear level with three or four distinct, bounded areas with their own objectives and layouts. It's an impressive balancing act, the moreso for how natural (but rewarding) everything feels.

It's a neat little Halloween themed SP level! I really liked the custom ghost enemies and the atmosphere.

when i first saw it,
i was pretty amazed by this creations!!! so good job!! :)
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+ i really enjoyed it! it made me fun :))
+ the halloween desingh does fit, and it works that it looks like on halloween!
+ nice idea with the ..ghosts!!! (make sure that /plusonly on ..and /latestversiononly on … is enabled,
to see this 2x enemies in a ..transparent white )
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- to the level: a few things could be better , i think!!)
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+ the "coin warp" goes into a cave, inside of this cave , there is a little ufo
hmm.. not sure what it does, i didn't got all the coins, i'll try soon again to find all the needed coins
not sure what this little ufo does! :)
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..anyway it's a nice idea!!
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btw you need 60x coins to collect
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of course i liked it to play it!! :)
thanks
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your creation was a nice surprise!! :))
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//message from: 30.10.2023
today i replayed it, and i found all the needed coins, the search was long, and easy to find them
finaly to the cave:
and.. that ufo seems to be a tile, ..and it's not a pickup item.
first, I thought its a new weapon, ..but i was wrong :i
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and there is a message left: "This tree survived the nightmare."
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btw you can not kill the ..ghosts but you can freeze them.
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[hidden message] im always so much thankfull!! ,for any new selfmade creations for jazz2! to keep the game allive! :)

im so much thankful for this "limited blaster" script!!
thanks so much for it!!
i was thinking about this over years..
but i was not able to code that.
now im endless much thankfull for your limited blaster script ;D
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..and about that city tile.. looks pretty good…
[Rating removed, please review the levels the author made]

A fun level! Nothing too revolutionary, but it does a good job of throwing new things at you often enough to stay interesting, and manages to be both not completely linear and not confusing, which is no small feat.

There are some neat ideas too, like the crate you destroy by hitting it from the bottom. One of the text signs even got a laugh out of me. Overall just a nice level that’s worth playing.

Finally, a new single player level I can check out :)

This is a really fun, well crafted level. If you like secret hunting, then there’s plenty to find here, you’ll also get a large percentage of your coins in secrets, though other than for being a completionist (which luckily I am, or at least try to be) the reward is not that big of a deal, plus it’s put right at the end, before the boss room. It also gives a 1Up powerup, which is usefull I guess, but the boss and the level overall isn’t difficult.

Enemies are standard turtles and lizards, but their placement is pretty well thought out, meaning you can’t just rush through the level. Tileset is the standard Easter tileset from Secret Files, which is fine since it’s an easter themed carrotus which is already a pretty varied and userfriendly tileset, though I wouldn’t have minded something else when it comes to the music, though that’s mostly a personal thing.

It’s too bad JJ2 never incorporated the end level score for enemies and pickups like JJ1 did, because 100%-ing this level is a lot of fun, there are a ton of side areas which aren’t even necessary to finish the level, all full of mini secrets. I actually managed to find enough coins for the coin warp on my first time, since I always try to explore everything I can, when I’m enjoying a level, which in this case I certainly was.

I don’t think there’s much more to add, it’s a tightly crafted fun level, which is definitely worth playing through.

It’s a fine level if you like the kind of levels that Slaz makes. A bit claustrophobic and lacking in enemy variety though.

Is this a vanilla, traditional level? Well, sort of, yes. Enemies are the most basic available—thematically, if not mechanically—it’s an official tileset with the standard music, there’s nothing wild about the background use. Slaz even sacrifices an entire background layer just to controlling the speeds of the textured background, rather than let a single line of scripting take care of it. There’s not a lot to describe on these fronts because yes, this is in fact how Carrotus (or Easter) tiles go together—though, to be clear, a very strong example of the form.

But sort of, at the same time, no, tradition is being bucked here. There’s a question that lived me with the whole time I went through the level: what are all these coins for? I got to the end of the level, beat the perfunctory boss battle, and still didn’t know. I had to go in a second time to discover that there was a coin warp I simply missed the first time. Even if you do better than me and manage to notice the warp right away, I think you’re still unlikely to have enough coins the first time you encounter it. Especially because you can’t really know in advance what the target number is.

So you go back and play the level again, this time maybe somehow doing enough exploring to collect all the coins. But why? What’s the reward? Nothing too much. The reward does speed things up a bit, but if you’re replaying the level, you’ve probably already beaten it. You don’t actually need the reward to beat it. You could make a completionist argument, sure, but is it possible—and bear me with me here—the goal of playing the video game is simply to have fun?

Because this makes a lot of things about the layout make sense. This level trusts completely that you want to collect goodies and find secrets. Sometimes you even have to find secrets to progress, unless there’s yet another alternate route that I missed that would work as an alternative. But also there are large areas that aren’t necessary at all. Sometimes because they’re alternate routes to the next stage in the journey, but sometimes large areas that don’t go anywhere, that just loop in on themselves and contain goodies and secrets and things. The goal of playing these sections is playing these sections.

And collecting coins in them, I guess.

Anyway, those were the thoughts going through my head, deprived of sleep as it is this weekend. I can’t promise they have anything to do with Slaz’s actual intent with this level, which has a lot to recommend it even if you don’t stop and get confused about the meaning of coins or whatever. Slaz’s levels tend to have lots of little microsecrets and these are in full force here: some are little holes in walls, some are in the floor, some are more complicated. But they tend to be signaled. There tends to be some visual sign "secret here! try to find it!" on the wall. It’s something I associate with Slaz a lot and it works well here.

In general, this level is filled with moment-to-moment stuff. You enter a new room and suddenly you could climb those eggs, you could go up that slope, you could stomp that block. At least one of those options will probably help you progress. There’s a whole lot of use of vertical space, including clever uses of springs, and even some swinging platforms that it’s actually worth paying attention to. There’s very little flat ground, there are not dull rooms where you walk to the right while shooting lizards, there are not moments where you purely turn your brain off because it takes no work to decide what to do next.

And in that regard, this is not a usual traditional level.

I very much enjoyed the first and the third level; the second one, a little less.
Some custom music would’ve been nice but the vanilla track choices aren’t bad either.
You can tell this is a Slaz level from its gameplay gimmicks. Some are great, others not so much, but all of them are very creative nonetheless.

Download recommended!

3 levels, each scratching different itches, and rather inconsistent difficulty compared to each other.

Let’s start with Jungle Town since it’s the first map. The gimmick is that you can’t use your weapon, unless you get a special pickup that give you 1 shot (generally needed for destructable blocks) or you get the 3 way rockets from the coin warp. You also get multiple birds (I believe they respawn, unless I’m mistaken). Logically the difficulty is worked around this handicap, and does it so mostly successfully. The only issue is when you are supposed to shoot the destructable block you have to go running back and forth to get the 1 shot pickup, which adds padding to an already big and long level. Thankfully this particular level has a layout that generally nodges you in the correct direction, though due to the already mentioned lenght, you might get some fatige by the end. The level like the other 2 has an open structure, letting you do the exploring until you reach the path needed to progress, where you’ll generally be required to find a trigger crate or a 1 shot pickup. While the level is well designed, I think it should have been divided into 2 seperate levels, since the scenary will start to blend together, and being lost in an average sized level compared to a giant one is quite the difference.

Now for French Town, you can shoot in this level, so the difficulty is ramped up accordingly, but it stays well manageable. 1 thing I need to mention before anything else, is how cool the background for this level is, it’s basically a wide shot of a city (presumably in France). I wouldn’t normally even consider an idea like this, but I think it fit in very well, and looks unique. Now for the gameplay. You’ll be doing quite a lot of trigger crate hunting. Unfortunately this can sometimes lead to frustration, since you often have to enter sewer areas, and due to the tileset used, the manhole covers often blend in with the grass, so you may end up running around looking for the correct path and missing it multiple times. The level ends with a pretty fun boss fight. Luckily the level is shorter than the previous one, so it ends roughly at the time it starts to wear out its welcome.

Unfortunately this can’t be said about the final level. The biggest positive is definitely the music, which is my favorite track from the original game (Dark Groove, Hell2 level). This isn’t to say the level isn’t good at all, but there are some really big flaws in my opinion.
Number 1 the massive difficulty SPIKE, pun intended since a lot of it comes down to the spikes, they are placed in such positions that you have to make perfect jumps to avoid them which is hard with the often cramped up spaces they are placed in. Unfortunately due to the level having probably the most confusing layout out of the 3, means if you don’t know exactly where you should go and how to get there, you will be traversing through these spiked areas constantly while trying to find out where you have to go next. Add on top of that, some enemies respawn.
Number 2 is the layout and the trigger crate hunting. Even though the level may look smaller compared to the first one. I’d say it feels twice the size. The high difficulty does add a lot to it, but what doesn’t help either is how you may find a trigger crate on one side of the level, and then have to retrace your steps back to where the crate opened a new path on the other side of it. And since on your way you meet multiply trigger blocks, you won’t really have an idea which one it does open up (yeah you get text messages, but on your first playthrough will you really remember where the mentioned area is?). At one point you are required to defrost a frozen spring, so you have to go look for flamethrower ammo. The funny thing is when I got there, I couldn’t pick it up, because you have to jump from a vine/rope so only a double jump will work, which Jazz doesn’t have. This leaves your only other option as far as I could tell, getting hit by the Floating Sucker enemy, which launches you high enough to get the ammo. Of course there’s a 3rd option, but you might not have that option due to circumstances. The 3rd option is using TNT and letting the explosion throw the ammo down where you can pick it up. There is a big reason why this may be out of question, you may not have TNT anymore. Maybe you are wasteful and used it when not necessary (you get maybe 6 from the previous level) or more likely, you killed the deflated Floating Sucker with it, since when it hits the ground it will be so low that crouch shooting will still have your shots going above it, so you can either ignore them, or kill the with TNT, since no other ammo will hit them (yes, even the seeker ammo won’t register it walking around on the ground). So unless you play as Spaz or are lucky, you’ll have to take damage to get an item needed for progression, which would be fine normally, but the level is already difficult enough. There were also some areas where I had no idea how I was supposed to progress.
Edit: 2023.01.23 I was informed that the intended way was to buttstomp the Floating Sucker. Fair enough, since it respawns, it can get annoying if you don’t know that since if you shoot it by instinct it will fall into the spikes where you can’t kill it without taking damage, or you can run back far enough where it will respawn as a Floating Sucker. (I guess I was impatient at that point and didn’t even consider buttstomp an option) This also does justify some of the respawning enemies since now I actually realised they serve a purpose. Since those high areas can be reached with buttstomping, though in my opinion some require too much precision.

Number 3, the moving platforms. I don’t know if the intention for them was to work like this, but they are extremely annoying, and make platforming a crapshoot basically. You barely get any control over your character whenever you land on these moving platforms, since they will catapult you off themselves unless you are standing next the wall, but since you can’t just through them since the One-Way funcion wasn’t added to them, you have to try your luck by going to the edges and jumping from there which requires far more patience and precision from the player than it’s realistically worth. One of these examples is the frozen spring area. If you return from where you picked up the flamethrower ammo, you’ll eventually have to somehow jump up to the area with the frozen spring. It’s in the area where the gold coin is, even getting back to that point is questionable since in the underground area I have no clue how I’m even supposed to continue, there’s a long strech of spikes with 2 Floating Suckers and a very tall wall with a Normal Turtle on it. I have no idea how you are supposed to get back up there when returning. I ended up using JJFLY and JJINV cheats to see through to the end, because I had very little fun that would justify me to find the end of the level through normal means. And judging by the boss arena, I think I made the correct choice. Seriously? Bubba boss in a small space with springs covering the ground, walls and ceiling with 2 pinball bumpers? It is quite a shame because otherwise the level is pretty, and like I said, at least the music choice was awesome.

Still though, I think the first 2 levels were good enough to warrant a recommendation, since those were well worth playing through.

The 3rd level would need some changes to be enjoyable because as of now it’s a confusing frustrationfest. Maybe I missed something or assumed the wrong path as the intended one, but then it should be made more obvious. I’m sure it’s not that confusing for the actual level designer, since they were the one to come up with the layout and different ideas, and spent who knows how long creating the level. But if possible either simplefy the level a bit, make more deliberate methods of shoving the player in the correct direction and if possible don’t have the trigger zones and trigger crates be 2 levels worth of distance from each other.

But like I said, the other 2 levels are good in my opinion. So this pack get’s a download recommendation.

Edit: 2023.01.23 Due to some of my issues being cleared up for me level 3 makes a bit more sense, Navigation can still be tricky and frustrating, but certain choices at least have a purpose rather than being oversights. Due to this I’m bumping the score up a bit.

A really fun xmas themed level. Level design is extremely open ended, it’s almost designed like a regular multiplayer map would be, obviously bigger. I think the level flows really well. You can go whereever you want, and as far as I’m aware the only point of no return is with the boss fight, this gives you time to explore the entire level and check out every corner you want, since the level design facilitates (or more appropriately recommends) having a look around.
The difficulty is pretty much my cup of tea, where it’s not extremely punishing, but you still need to play attention. Plenty of pickups to look for, as well as secret areas. To be honest, I feel like the single checkpoint you placed in the level is unnecessary though. When I died, I would have preferred a clean start from the beginning of the level, since it’s designed in an open ended fashion anyway.

The music choice is fitting, it’s a calm and nice tune.

My only minor complaints are that the level could have had 1-2 more enemy types in it, and that the boss fight was sort of meh (though that’s mostly thanks to how bosses are pretty 1-note in the game anyway)

Overall I think this is a really well made level, worth having a run-through and exploring it. Definitely recommend everyone to give it a go.

A vehemently multilinear level from Slaz… the layout is less of a path than a playground, many of the branches too short to be considered branches at all. The universal idea of Head Right To Win keeps things surprisingly understandable, though, as I never had any trouble figuring out how to advance the level after I’d finished harvesting all the items in whatever area I was in. Sometimes it takes a little work to get back to the start of another alternate path, sometimes it’s very quick, depending mostly on how much verticality is involved.

In typical Slaz fashion, the walls are packed with little alcoves covered in layer 3 containing this or that extra pickup. Sometimes, especially toward the start of the map, the pickups advertise their presence by being in bigger and visible areas that you need to find the right tunnel into, but there are also plenty of times you just have to know to check every wall (and sometimes ceiling). In my experience, the openings to the more visible secrets tended to be exactly where I’d expect them to be, so I didn’t have to come at the same area from three different walls before finally getting in. None of this is especially innovative, of course—it’s sort of the most basic possible type of secret—but it’s so plentiful that it’s hard not to have a good time exploring absolutely everywhere.

The level distinguishes itself more by its frequent use of scenery blocks… all the main types are present, even speed blocks, though Slaz wisely (or possibly due to the limitations of the tileset) chooses not to bother with any weapon-specific blocks. Sometimes there are blocks for blocks’ sake, because shooting blocks is simple fun, and other times they play a more significant role in the level’s layout. Here the level stumbles a little bit… a trick used frequently is to put a crate or two on top of some destruct blocks, with the idea being that the player will shoot the blocks in order to open the crates. However, usually (unless maybe if playing as Lori) it’s easy to get to the crate without bothering with the blocks at all, which is particularly odd if the crate contains a green spring. This may be partially a result of the layout seeming a little more open and less claustrophobic than some of Slaz’s previous maps, though I also wonder if the crates may have been originally planned to be the gift boxes from the HH17/HH18 packs, which open only upon falling.

Other elements are pretty ordinary for a JJ2 level. Ammo is plentiful, powerups are easy to get, and enemies are not generally placed to poise any real threat. There’s a bit at the end that looks like a house with a chimney, but otherwise eyecandy is more or less what you’d expect from a basic tileset like this one, with no issues but nothing memorable/innovative. Most praiseworthy are the hand obstacles… the level is unscripted, so they can’t be shot, but the delay in their animations between appearances is so short that they’re nearly impossible to miss, When I did get hit by one, it felt like my own fault, not the inevitable consequence of a nasty design.

Cool level, I like the tileset and the music is lovely. Enjoyed the text strings and the gimmicks such as shooting the trigger crate with bouncer. The level isn’t linear which is cool gameplay-wise, but at some point i got lost and had to jjflyjjnowall somewhere. It also has some nice secrets. The boss is just… wtf?

Tileset:

*There’s only one tile for the wall and it’s not varied enough.

*The spikes bland in too much. You should have used a different color.

*The lava flow appears to be in the background (there’s one part where there’s a vine in front of it), but for some reason it’s in the foreground. It’s not transparent enough and the objects behind it can hardly be seen.

*The bats have a weird color palette.

*The pinball bats’ color palette is like you forgot to set it.

Level:

*There’s not enough space for the enemies to move. The helmuts get stuck in the overused diagonal tiles. The tuf turts just stand in one place or change direction in miliseconds.

*There are too many elements. There’s one room with pinball; another with swinging vines, which are really out of place in a lava cave with no plants; the next with a hover board, which glitches with the swinging vines.

*You put items on lava and there were many parts where you need to exploit the faulty hitbox on diagonal tiles to not get hit by spikes.

*The bonus room was empty. So collecting the coins was a waste of time.

Overall, the whole level feels overcrowded.

The description says it works with the normal jazz2, but it doesn’t. The music doesn’t play, JCS crashes if I try to open the level with it, and there was another error at the end with the final passage not opening up. I had to check with TSF JCS to see where to go and realized I was stuck and have to restart the level in TSF if I want to complete it.

This isn’t the hardest level ever made, because its focus instead is on being absolutely chock-full of stuff to do, and as a result it’s a really fun time. Everywhere you go there are more pickups, more blocks, more secret areas. There are a wealth of paths to take at every point, and if you take enough of them eventually you’ll figure out which is the right one—the only challenge is not picking it until last, so you won’t miss anything along the way. And even then the level snakes back on itself enough times (usually with great artistry) that you should get a second or third chance to recoup any pickups you did miss. One trick in particular the level uses to great effect is partially hiding a destruct/stomp block behind a wall tile that doesn’t fully cover the 32×32 space, so you can see the block if you pay attention. A few secret areas are a bit too unclear, in that they’re in the center of a wall and it’s not until the second or third time you pass by that you actually get to the entrance, but most everything is basically where you expect it to be and it’s a lot of fun to clear everything out. Plus of course the level does feature regular enemies, spikes, and some fun moments with spinning platforms, vines, and pinball objects to up the variety even more. I’m not honestly sure how long this level was, because it never dragged at all. The graphics let down the level design in a couple places, and some people may find the layout a bit too claustrophobic at points, but for the most part this is perfectly executed.

The ending was a bit anticlimactic and there were a few dick moves placed here and there but it’s overall a good SP level :)