Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Ok, look. We’ve been through this before, Lab. You send a file to the beta testers. They report bugs. Then you send it to them AGAIN. You do NOT upload it RIGHT AFTER the FIRST REPORT. This. is. just. not. finished.

CONVERSION ACCURACY: At first glance, this looks like a complete Jungrock. It’s not. There are several rock combinations missing, for example non-45 degree slopes not on a rock background. Other than that, it seems all right, though when the rocks are pretty much the entire tileset, you should try to get them right. Other stuff is all there – the bounce plants, the green vine stuff, the waterfalls, signs, etc.
Pros: Mostly there.
Cons: Only mostly. I miss the 22(?) degree slopes.
Rating: 8.5

COLORS: This is where the tileset really shines. Everything looks perfect, I can’t spot any color flaws but one. And that one is that the textured background doesn’t work in 8-bit. I wish you’d stop breaking the textured background, Lab. It’s got these little light purple things in weird places, and it’s not even a properly fading background. See what I mean about testing before uploading? Anyway, pretty much everything else works – besides Carrotus Pole, but there are enough poles anyway, and Snow, because Jungrock isn’t a very snowy place. Still, the TEXTURED BACKGROUND.
Pros: Most things look great. Whoever did the color was a genius.
Cons: YOU BROKE THE TEXTURED BACKGROUND WHICH IS GOING TO BE VISIBLE ALMOST FULL TIME! Why…
Rating: 8.2

MASKING: Masking is pretty good – mostly straight lines and such. The only questionable bit is that the floor for grass and pure!rock have different heights. Why? Does this serve any purpose other than possibly messing up levels using this tileset? There are also some handy invisible tiles, including support masking for the sucker tube – good job.
Pros: Mostly logical, sucker tube stuff.
Cons: Different heights? Just… weird.
Rating: 8.7

ADDED TILES: This is what can make or break a tileset. Let’s run through the list:
Sucker Tubes: Yes, but ugly.
Blocks: Yes, but ripped.
Poles: Yes, but ripped.
Spikes: Already there.
Hooks: Already there.
Vines: Yes.
Water Blocks: No.
Background Eyecandy: No.
Foreground Eyecandy: No.
It’s not bad, but… Jungrock is a really pretty tileset in 320×200. I’m sure it would look better in levels other than just the example level, but the screen of 640×480 is so big that this tileset really needed some sort of background eyecandy. The sucker tubes are still ugly and until I looked in JCS, I had no idea they had special tiles for the ends. They also only support corners, no T’s or crossroads. The blocks and poles are still ripped, and some of the blocks get repeated. There is little or no support for things like poles, vines or already existing tiles going back and forth between cave and notcave. In fact, there is almost no support for cave edges whatsoever. There are some single tile trigger scenery walls, but they look shrunken and bad. The rain is, for all intents and purposes, invisible against the already purple background. And there are a few other things I’m missing, like connections between leafy brown sticks, support so that signs can go ino the ground, and some added functionality for the red flower vine stuff.
Pros: Most of the absolute requirements are there.
Cons: Not all, lots of missing tiles, way too much stuff (read: more than 0 tiles) ripped from JJ2 tilesets.
Rating: 7.2

TILE PLACEMENT: It’s… not bad. Most stuff is placed logically, though I’m at a loss why the splashing waterfall tiles are so far below the rest of the waterfall. There are also a very large number of duplicate tiles, which could possibly have been avoided, as the tile placement doesn’t look incredibly strategic. Event tiles are scattered all over the tileset, from top to bottom, instead of being all in one place as they belong. This tileset also suffers from “Beta Tester’s Syndrome”, where there are large amounts of tiles to be found underneath the textured background, where nothing should be at all. Especially since some of the tiles down there are quite useful, like sucker tubes, or stuff inside the caves.
Pros: Mostly good.
Cons: Kind of illogical.
Rating: 7.5

OVERALL (not an average): It’s not a bad conversion, but it suffers too much from not quite being ready yet. There are a few too many bugs and missing tiles, even ignoring the fact there should be none period. Still, it’s Jungrock, and it’s far better than CelL’s, so with a little luck, you might be able to make something nice looking. Just don’t have the walls be too large, as there’s only so much to decorate them with. The original Jungrock thrived more on open air than anything else, something the example level does not show very well.
Pros: A good looking conversion, quite usable.
Cons: Somewhat lacking when it comes to things beyond copying tiles and putting them into an image.
Rating: 8.2

Alas! I was going to give this the rating it deserved, but then I saw the beautiful entreaty of “I am a female” and my heart was lost. Now I must give this a 10 so that she will go out with me! Because that’s what females do on J2O!
..er. Sorry. Please don’t incite sexism. I’m sexist enough already, and I’m sure other people don’t need the provocation either.

GRAPHIC QUALITY: This is one of those levels which tries to completely sail through the eyecandy category on the strength of a nice looking tileset. Sadly, you have to actually be able to use the tileset, and that factor is not readily apparent. There is very little deviation in the walls or background (layer 8 isn’t textured – this tileset supports textured mode, right? Mirrow, have you been making bad tilesets again?), and there’s not much else to speak of. No ground – the whole thing takes place in what I assume is supposed to be a castle. No background eyecandy. Essentially no layer 4 eyecandy except for Disguise’s head. Disguise is a great guy, but his head is not proper eyecandy for a level.
Pros: No glaring tile bugs.
Cons: Nothing beyond the basics, too much Disguise, a few layer 3 problems.
Rating: 3.7

LEVEL DESIGN: “Run to the right” is a good description of the design fo this level. It is not as bad as that Diamondus race level where you never have to press any keys besides run and right, but it’s pretty bad. I timed myself and beat the entire level (including the boss – been a while since I saw someone make Bilsy difficult… come on, people!) in less than thirty seconds, and I count too fast. This would automatically get a low mark, but it’s somewhat saved by the fact that the main time spent playing this level is spent finding the secrets. Admittedly the secrets are mostly layer 3 hidden holes in the floor, but there are still secrets, which is kind of interesting. I didn’t have nearly enough coins, for example, though I’m not positive there are actually so many coins in the level.
Pros: The secrets are a nice touch – keep that in mind for your next levels and they should become quite enjoyable.
Cons: Still too much of a straight line. Add some curves, corners, whatever strikes your fancy. Fun tricks like moving platforms. Spikes (the one place where there were spikes was cool, I’ll grant).
Rating: 5.0

GAMEPLAY/FUN FACTOR/REPLAY VALUE: It occurs to me a great deal of “Level Design” was actually spent describing the gameplay. Oh well. As I sort of said, the gameplay of this level in itself is not very enjoyable, it’s the many detours that make up the prime interest value. Obviously this is not done so well as it is in levels such as Tomb Rabbit – Central Cave, but that’s a very high standard in the first place. Sadly, despite the secrets, this level doesn’t really become a level you’d have any particular desire to play more than once, unless you’re an insane overrating J2O reviewer (naming NO names).
Pros: Did I mention the secrets? Yes, I did. Oops.
Cons: Just not very interesting.
Rating: 5.0

ORIGINALITY: I liked the part with the spikes. It’s not quite original, but it does look fairly professional (aside from the graphics, but that’s another story). Besides that, this level is pretty much dullsville. The only bit that interested me was the float ups – a few more spikes and a little more room and that could become somewhat interesting.
Pros: N/A
Cons: N/A
Rating: 3.5

EVENT PLACEMENT: There are way too many goodies. Coins, shields, ammo – you name it. There’s a secret at the start of the level containing some ammo which never shows up again in the level and you have no reason to use. There aren’t enough enemies to deserve the ammo, but I suppose that’s a good thing. Too many enemies can be a crippling point for a level. I saw no real event bugs – no destruct scenery on un-animated tiles or stuff like that.
Pros: Decent enemy placement.
Cons: Way too many goodies. Advice: study other levels, particularly the Formerly a Prince episode and anything by Chandie. Avoid anything by Blade or Willie in this regard.
Rating: 3.7

OVERALL (not an average): This is not a bad level, but it is below average. There appears to have been some sort of story to this level, in combination with another level(s?) that was not included in the .zip. Huh. Warn us next time.
Pros: Eyecandy’s not BAD, nor is most anything else.
Cons: Somewhat dull, over too soon.
Rating: 4.2

On a side note, I completely forgot you were a female while reviewing this. ANGST!

How is this different from the various other places you can download JJ1’s complete music collection?

Bjarni, when setting a music file for a level, you need to include the file extension if it’s not a .j2b. Thus…

Peaceful.j2b = Peaceful
CRAZYDANCE.MOD = CRAZYDANCE.MOD

Hopefully, that should let you listen to some other music files with JJ2.

…I kind of miss having beta tested this, but it sounds like you didn’t bother to fix anything I pointed out anyway.

GRAPHICS: Awful/poor
USABILITY: Poor/medium
MASKING: Automasked
ORIGINALITY: Poor/medium
OVERALL: Poor

…honestly, what more is there to say about this tileset? All it is is a bunch of red blocks with numbers or letters on them, an awful space background, and some sucker tubes. Oh, and I guess there’s a semi normal “pipish” wall. As I said, it’s automasked.
Would I use this tileset? Even if it weren’t TSF, I wouldn’t see too much point to it. That tileset by CelL has the same color scheme, but looks infinitely better. And there are other tilesets with letters.
Ok, so it’s user friendly. This is because there is so little to use! And it all looks almost exactly the same. This tileset has no variation whatsoever. One of the few saving graces is the example levels – if you can stand so few colors being used.

I just went through and deleted several reviews. Please, this is not a discussion board, this is where you review the quality of the upload. Go argue the merits of hotels in general somewhere else. LIKE THE JCF.

I have no clue what this “game” is for. A bunch of hand drawn carrots are bouncing around the screen. A non-animated Spaz is controlled (however poorly) with the mouse, and if the carrots hit Spaz, they bounce off. Unless they get stuck inside of Spaz, at which point they start spinning around until you move away. If the carrots hit the bottom of the screen, they disappear. Nothing else happens. If all the carrots disappear, Spaz disappears, and you can’t try again. There is no way to win. There is no point to having more than one carrot on the screen. There is no point to playing this game at all.
Graphics, except for the carrot, are all ripped – Spaz from JJ2 and everything else from the graphics libraries.

CONTROL: 2/10 It uses the mouse, and carrots can get stuck inside of you.
PRESENTATION: 1/10 There are no menu, instructions, or anything else.
GAMEPLAY: 2/10 I don’t think I need to say anything more than I already have.
GRAPHICS 3/10 Spaz isn’t animated, the other graphics don’t go too well with him, and the carrot looks bad.
OVERALL 2/10 It’s just not a very good game. Rabbit Wars was better.

Well, well, well. Here we have the last level of the old year, being reviewed by my first review of the new year.

EYECANDY: There is no background eyecandy (to the point of Layer 8 not being textured), but the author makes a gallant try in layer 4. And fails. The ground is a flat surface which alternates between grass and ground with no apparent reason – oh, right, forgot to mention. This level uses one of LRK’s tilesets, but I can’t say which as they all look the same. Regardless, it’s not included in the .zip. Anyway, a few extremely fast animations and some odd signs are presumably intended as eyecandy, but they don’t really do the best job.
Pros: The author tries, and a number of eyecandy tiles are used.
Cons: Animation too fast, just not enough stuff.
Rating: 2.5

DESIGN: It is at this point that I sincerely hope this level is a joke. The level is a small hollow box (straight lines and all) with six one tile platforms scattered around. There are a few hooks on the ceiling for some unknown reason. I can think of nothing else to say about the design.
Pros: None.
Cons: I liked the design of Zappoman’s Egypt better than this, I think. Couldn’t the platforms at least be situated so an easy jump will get you to the bottom ones?
Rating: 1.2

GAMEPLAY/FUN FACTOR: Playing in this level will consist of jumping on those platforms. And all you have is blaster. And the platforms are small. And you get the idea.
Pros: And there are no pros.
Cons: And I could go on like this. And the level is really the type of level which would let me.
Rating: And I give this a 1.0 thingy.

ORIGINALITY: Two signs are connected by a V-pole.
Rating: 1.2

OVERALL (not an average): No. Just, no. Don’t download this. It has one or two good points, but the author not knowing how to place a start position and being undecided on the level name just sealed the deal for me.
Pros: The eyecandy is actually kind of ok.
Cons: Nothing else is.
Rating: 2.0

NOKA, second rule of beta testing: don’t only show it to your testers once. Chances are quite high your bug fixes will create new bugs, or there might be problems that weren’t noticed the first time around. I mean, really. This is just about as buggy as Tubelectric, which is saying something.

TILES INCLUDED: At first glance, this is a perfect conversion. It’s not unless you actually like Turtemple that things start to get really annoying, as this is missing way too much stuff. The sand is barely usable (you’ll have to stick it on the bottom of the level or something), half the flowing red stuff is missing, and the “what are you doing up here” is a hastily thrown together rip by NOKA (instead of actually converting the real one). Instead of taking the time and tiles to add things, NOKA wastes space with random things taken from J1CS which don’t seem to have much to do with the tileset, added tiles which don’t always work, and an enormous “now approaching Turtemple” sign which I think we could all do without.
On closer observation, you may notice that several of the original tiles are actually fakes created by NOKA out of various other tiles. This almost works, but not quite, as they use the background. Inside the unmasked bricks area, you see the orange rocky ground – on top of brick background. This is wrong. It’s supposed to be on top of the double block tiles (interestingly, there Are other tiles on top of double blocks, despite there not being a blank double block anywhere in the tileset). I’m not really sure what to make of the pipe background from JJ1, as it doesn’t actually seem to be from JJ1 (the original was Much longer).
While there are way too many problems (fortunately some have been fixed since the beta testing stage), for the most part, Turtemple is available in this (series of, plural) .j2t file. Unless you’re a purist and/or perfectionist, in which case this is severely flawed.
Pros: Almost everything exists.
Cons: Missing tiles, poorly reconstructed tiles.
Rating: 7.7

COLOR: NOKA has not yet gotten the hang of making a proper palette. Everything from Turtemple looks fine (at least in the normal version…), but there is not a single working palette event in the entire tileset (…except water). This is particularly brought to light by the fact the author tries to give you the jungle pole to use… ouch. One or two palette events missing is quite understandable, but please, at least the 500 bumper (appropiate, as Turtemple seems to be a tileset best suited for races). As for the palette change versions, I’ll talk about them later.
Pros: Most things work.
Cons: Nothing else works. Oh, and the “now approaching” fails to look good. Again.
Rating: 8.5

ADDED TILES: In place of getting all the real stuff, NOKA has thrown out small pieces in order to add lots of new stuff. And the new stuff is really rather cool. The vine and sucker tube look great, the trees are all believable (some of them were even sort of in the original tileset), the blocks fit in well, etc. This is one of the best parts of this tileset, as the new stuff really help Turtemple be Turtemple, if that’s possible.
Pros: Everything looks great. Especially the sucker tubes.
Cons: …oh right, the complaints. Well, the trees have some serious anti-aliasing difficulties, and the included jungle pole tiles don’t work (color wise). The sucker tubes might be better with something behind you as well, so it looks more like a tube.
Rating: 8.7

ANIMATION: Turtemple is an extremely unanimated tileset. About the only animation is the red flowing stuff. Admittedly half of that was left out, but the half that got included was carried out very well, with lots of stuff being able to go atop it. No complaints here.
Rating: 9.5

MASKING: Masking is also mostly good. Everything is smooth (with the exception of part of the sand slopes, but they manage to work just fine anyway), and I see no little dot bugs. There are one or two problems, though.
Pros: Masking mostly logical.
Cons: Masking the balls as balls might be able to get you stuck, transition from some platforms to others doesn’t work too well, masking for the sand too low down.
Rating: 8.5

(OTHER VERSIONS): NOKA has rather firmly latched onto the idea of “add other versions”, but they rarely seem to work very well. The sprite palette ends up getting changed in such a way that it looks more accidental than intentional, the background bricks display color bugs, the signs end up changing color, the jungle pole works even less, and there’s way too much green in the Wild version. Also, they’re all (except Wild) way too similar to the original, so much so that it’s unlikely they’d actually be used for anything.
Rating adjustment: -0.6

OVERALL: Before this finishes, I want to say (again?) that this is actually a very good conversion, and it just doesn’t seem fair there are so many, Many bugs in it. For all ordinary purposes, this is a perfect Turtemple conversion (probably better than CelL’s… not sure). I won’t be surprised if I see levels using this (Deserto is fairly popular, and this is similar to Deserto).
Pros: Mostly great.
Cons: A few too many bugs.
Rating: 8.5

You know something really horrible? I don’t care how easy this program was to make, it’s simply incredible. Ultra-simple layout, full functionality… what more could you ask? This program does what it advertises.
…ok, actually, there are one or two bugs. However, the only ones I can find is that it works in SP (making it usable as a cheating program) and that the Coins-to-health conversion takes away all your coins.

PROS: Incredible program, very useful.
CONS: A few bugs. Reupload this with them fixed, please please please. Also, instead of the set multiplications, it would be nice if you could choose what each commodity was multipled by.
Rating: 8.7

On a side note… Yay! There is a coin limit, after all! …which causes the program to crash, but oh well.

This would really be nice if it worked better, but sadly it relies way too heavily on an admin, and it fails to consider things like lag. Essentially, ignoring the larger part of the readme, this is how the upload works:

Client sits in WaitTime SuckerTube until a Seeker SCE shoots them, presumably causing them to lose some gems.
Admin sees the gems fall. Accurately. Without any lag or count difference. Honest.
Using the IceBank system (did I get credit? Is that one of the few things I didn’t get credit for?), Admin brings them down into the proper warp.
This gives them a number from 1-5 coins. Hopefully, the admin is trustworthy and will give the client the same amount of coins as gems.

This also takes way too long to be of much use. Can you imagine trying to turn 1000 gems into coins with this thing? Assuming it worked, that is.

This is completely unrelated, but I want to know how your copy of RabbitHotel.j2t is from 2009.

Response: Hotels are hosted in Battle. Also viewing gem counts doesn’t work very well at all.[This review has been edited by Violet CLM]

NOKA really needs to get some sort of life. Or maybe just spend more time on each conversion. The quality has been kind of lessening each time (read: bugginess), and now this Turtemple (wanna bet it’ll overwrite CelL’s version?) is almost finished. Not to mention; if you take so little time, people will start realizing that making JJ1 conversions isn’t too difficult and that most anyone can do it.

MASKING: Masking is, for the most part, good. Almost everything is masked logically, straight lines and stuff. However, there are a few useless holes in the vertical yellow wall area, the bottoms of said yellow walls are too uneven, the giant glowing things have very poorly masked corners, the turrets are too automasked, and of course the tileset says the mask holds instructions on how to use the tileset but it doesn’t.
Pros: Mostly logical.
Cons: A few too many bugs for my tastes.
Rating: 7.7

ANIMATION: Tubelectric is a highly animated tileset, and thus, almost everything (except for the basic ground) is animated. I am unable to find any real flaws with the animation. Very nice job.
Pros: Everything seems to work.
Cons: Well, ok, the turret fireballs could have moved a little smoother.
Rating: 9.2

COLOR: Noka, who previously has survived the problem of multiple palettes, finally falls prey. An unacceptable number of the tile types in this tileset have multiple palettes, resulting in the fact that they look very strange when placed next to each other. In addition to these primarily mild gripes, the textured background in the day version barely works at all, where in the night version it’s one of the few things that does. I mean, really. Did Noka test the night version at all? It’s so full of color errors it’s almost painful to look at.
Pros: Most things work, nice outward show.
Cons: WAAAAAY too many problems. Noka, you really need to look into the possibility of a beta tester. They’re great at finding bugs you’re too lazy to fix without being informed of by a third party.
Rating: 6.5

INCLUSION: Very nice. Essentially everything any good tileset needs is here, with more blocks than most have, a belt, etc. There are no normal spikes, but there’s other stuff, and there’s no water block (but for obvious reasons). From the original tileset, everything seems to be present. Putting stuff in is certainly Noka’s strong point.
Pros: Everything seems to be there, the poles look rather good (despite being completely JJ2 rips).
Cons: The “Now Approaching” thing really doesn’t work at all. Noka, it looks cool, but you haven’t spent nearly enough time figuring out how to make it work. It’s kind of buggy even if you don’t count the fact that it looks weird and the stars don’t fly and things like that. Oh, and the vine doesn’t look too good.
Rating: 8.5

POSITION: For the most part, all tiles seem logically placed in their own seperate areas. My only gripe is that the various event tiles seem scattered randomly throughout the tileset, instead of all at the bottom (and optionally along the side) where they belong.
Rating: 8.5

OVERALL: This is essentially a good conversion, and is probably the best available Tubelectric conversion. It screams “BETA TEST ME!”, but if you don’t want to use the textured background, the night version, or any of the layer 4 background bricks, you may be able to make a working level. (Well… there are no slopes, either, so I guess you’re pretty much regulated to single player) Noka, please spend more time on your work.
Pros: Everything seems really good, especially at first glance.
Cons: Way too many bugs.
Rating: 8.5

On a final note, out of all the Palette Events, only the Carrot Bumper works in the slightest. In Tubelectric especially, this is unacceptable. I’m probably overrating this, but I’ll leave it at 8.2 for now.[This review has been edited by Violet CLM]

INTRODUCTION TO PAC JAZZ: This game (seperate application) seems to be a variant of Pacman where you control Jazz’s head (the author has this strange fixation with Jazz’s head) instead of Pacman.

GRAPHICS/ETC: Hmmm. The walls look normal enough, though probably a little too bright. The pellets which normally turn ghosts blue look awful. Pacman has been replaced with Jazz’s head, who only has one frame of animation (this looks really strange when he dies), and the ghosts are replaced with the worst rips I’ve ever seen of Normal Turtles. (If you eat one of those power pellet things, they get nigh-invisible dark red letters above their heads). The whole graphics set looks extremely ripped and has that “I need to make this Jazz like I’ll spent two minutes rippiung things!” feel.
Pros: Jazz’s head actually didn’t turn out too badly.
Cons: The walls are too bright, the power pellet is ugly, the normal turtles are horrible.
Rating: 4.0

GAMEPLAY: Everyone knows how to play Pacman. You move around through a maze eating little yellow dots, avoid the ghosts, and eat special things which let you eat the ghosts. All of this is here. The main problems are… bugs.
One, you can turn around and crash into a wall. This is really annoying if you were hoping it would just turn as soon as you get to the intersection. Also, the ghosts have apparently no artificial intelligence at all, seeming to move randomly whenever they reach an intersection. Being scared does not seem to effect their behavior at all. And you appear to have infinite lives…
Pros: It’s recognizable as Pacman.
Cons: Too many flaws, not even the right layout.
Rating: 4.7

ORIGINALITY: Nothing is original in this except for converting it to Jazz (though I remember hearing something about Pacspaz from ET..). I recommend you go download a game called “Pacman Worlds”. It might inspire you somewhat.
Rating: 2.0

OVERALL: This is a rather poor Pacman takeoff – I hestitate to call it a clone – with strangely ripped graphics and poor gameplay. There is honestly not all that much else to say about this. You are still advised not to download this file. (This time it’s only 1,345 KB, though!)
Rating: 2.5

ERRATA: Apparently this entire game is an edit of some already made program. This lowers the rating by .5 (And I haven’t calculated it yet).

Ok, I’m going to try the more ordinary review format again this time.

INTRODUCTION TO HIT JAZZS HEAD: This seems to be a seperate application, presumably intended to be a game. It’s probably made by this program people call “Game maker”, as I think I’ve seen that loading bar before.

GAMEPLAY: Uhhh. Four Jazz Heads (the lives symbol from JJ2) bounce around the screen. You click on the heads. If you do it right, your score goes up by one, and the head repositions itself. There is no way to lose score, nor go to a more difficult level (I assume… I gave up after 50), nor make any advancement at all. After about ten seconds, you will start to wonder “just why am I doing this?” and you probably won’t come up with some sort of answer. This game is brilliantly pointless, but that’s about all it’s brilliant in.
Pros: Everything seems to work.
Cons: Nothing seems to happen.
Rating: 4.0

ORIGINALITY: When reviewing the originality of a seperate application (a game, in this case), I suppose one should compare it to other apps/games of the same nature. I can’t find any. Still, juding by the complete lack of… well, anything, I’m going to guess originality is rather low.
Rating: 2.2

EYECANDY/GRAPHICS/APPEARANCE: The bouncing things are Jazz’s JJ2 life head. The background is an apparently unedited screenshot of Psych (Night, I think.. for some reason there are those parallexing star things which look somewhat out of place), and the window has a border of what are either ten second drawn pyramids or ripped from Commander Keen, it’s hard to say. One wonders, with all the other graphics from JJ2, why not simply have a more graphically familiar border? Shrugs
Pros: No obvious visual errors.
Cons: The border is ugly, nothing is all that new.
Rating: 5.0

REPLAY VALUE/FUN FACTOR/ENJOYABILITY: After a few seconds, this game quickly loses interest. Sorry.
Rating: 2.0

OVERALL/VERDICT/SUMMARY/BREAKDOWN/FISH: This program isn’t really worth the space it takes up… which brings up a rather annoying point. Why in the world is this simple program 1,654 KB? I understand you use some graphics, but really, this is ridiculous! …sorry. Off on a tangent there. Anyway, you probably shouldn’t download this. Wait until the author improves or decides to upload something which isn’t quite so simple. (In fact, what with the simplicity and the filesize, I rather worry this was a virus in disguise)
Pros: Everything seems to work.
Cons: Rather boring, nothing can really change, the “automatic repositioning” looks weird.
Rating: 3.2

(In other news, I seem to be a Ultra L33t Reviewer. Hmmmm.)[This review has been edited by Violet CLM]

New concepts in level design… gameplay has never been this flat!
This level essentially could be plotted out with a program that creates filler material and changes directions when told to: Right, down, left, down. Sure, while travelling the lengthy horizontal parts (which you can easily skip over as Jazz – this level is so incredibly biased) you have to jump, but if you pay attention, you notice the design is really just “move forwards”. This level would not be misplaced in a Mario game. As for the little nuances in the flat paths, they mainly consist of the author taking whatever weird tile structures are prebuilt in Inferno and putting them into the level.
What’s good? There are a few interesting parts like the coins/1up at the spikes, and (considering the lack of fastfire) the blaster powerup isn’t the worst idea.
Pros: Not too much. Read the last paragraph.
Cons: Design way too boring.
Rating: 4.7

Zooooooom… ouch.
With a design so strange, what can the gameplay be like? Surprisingly, not too bad. The flow is really annoying, due to the constant idea that “a small cliff is a good obstacle”, but for the most part, it’s decent. Bilsy, of course, has an awful arena, but I suppose we’re used to this by now. ….and I can’t think of anything more to say.
Pros: Not too bad.
Cons: Not too good. Bilsy is bad.
Rating: 5.2

Yum! Yay! Die!
Getting steadily better here, placement is really rather good indeed. There aren’t nearly enough weapons, but enemies seem placed logically throughout the level, likely to cause damage. There’s an ingenious bit at the top of the level where you can find bats, which aren’t noticable unless you’re skipping through the level as Jazz, at which point they swoop down and hurt you. Brilliance. The ravens are always good, and the land stuff does its job as well as anything with such limited intelligence can.
In the style of the original SP levels, goodies are placed generously in this level, available for just a little extra effort. There are a few bomb crates, the extra life needs extra work… all nice, though maybe a little too easy. My main complaint is the trigger crate, which is depressingly pointless.
Pros: All fairly good.
Cons: Not enough ammo, trigger crate is bleh.
Rating: 6.5

I can see the sky from here! Isn’t Kansas wonderful?
One of the more disappointing parts of this level is the eyecandy. Layer 4 consists mainly of ordinary walls (and a few trees), with far too many open spaces. This would be fine, but the open spaces are just that – open – no interesting filler stuff. Maybe a little more cave would be good… but really, the level seems far too empty. And imagine what it would be like with low detail…
As for the other layers, they’re extremely bleh. The author copies (maybe literally) the original graphics from Inferno for this level, leaving a primarily empty background. The lighting even causes the walls to partially blend in with the background, making this a very annoying/boring level to look at, on the whole.
Pros: No tile bugs that I noticed.
Cons: Extremely bleh.
Rating: 4.5

What’s new, and should you care?
Very little is new. I can not think of a single thing in this level I have not seen before, to tell the truth. …wait, the bats. Ok, the bats are new. But the rest of the level is extremely hum drum and blah and old and that sort of thing.
Once you’ve played this level once, you have little reason to ever want to play it again. The annoying design, mediocre eyecandy and less-than-amazing gameplay combine to create an unexperience which should remain unrepeated. You may, in fact, give up before finishing the level. It’s just that dull.
Pros: The bats are new!
Cons: Boring.
Rating: 3.0

New joy wait upon you; here our play has ending.
Here we are in the summing up, and I can think of little to say I have not already said. This level is good for a first level, but in no way deserving of such ratings as an 8.5 or 7.7. In short, this level is a wonderful representation of the poor quality we are forced to put up with these days, but it’s not wonderful in too many other ways.
Pros: The placement! The placement is good!
Cons: So… dull… must keep… eyes open…..
Rating: 4.5

Hmmm? Interesting… no reviews? I wouldn’t expect that from a normal level…
..of course, maybe it’s not normal. The most impressive thing about this upload is that it took about a half hour to make. I bet the text took up a large portion of it.

It’s 12 ‘o’ clock, do you know where the fun is?
This level has a rather unusual design. Four 8*7 rooms, which you can traverse using the holes in the walls. Strangely, there is text inside these holes, but only in the middle tile – not on the parts one is more likely to be in. Why in the world did the author choose to upload this level? It looks awfully like a “wow I made this in (amount of time) I must rock” level that doesn’t get uploaded. But I disgress.
Ok, “fair witness” mode aside, you now know what the design is like. So the question that arises is “Why is the design like this?”. It hampers flow, the springs aren’t too well lined up with the horizontal holes… yeah. Levels with this sort of design are interesting to make as an experiment, but to tell the truth, they rarely (if at all) turn out well. This did not.
Pros: The author included springs (though green would be nicer), thankfully not leaving you to high jump through the holes. TSF Compatible!
Cons: This design! It’s just horrible.
Rating: 2.5

Here’s a riddle for you… what’s green and white and bad all over?
Answer: The eyecandy for this level. The walls consist entirely of the greenish pipe tiles included in Mez01, and while there are no tile bugs, this is hardly surprising. Mez01 really has a lot of possibilities for eyecandy most people don’t bother with, but this level bothers with none of them! Give us some blocks! Pipe variation! Other layer eyecandy! Something other than this DISMAL green stuff!
…ok, I exaggerate. There is background eyecandy. Sort of. Apparently the author has taken the star tiles and thought something like “Look, white dots. Like snow!”. So voila, the white stars go down. Straight down. At a rather unusual speed. Not only does this end up not looking like snow, but it’s so obviously tiled it’s almost painful to look at. You’ve got at least two unused layers for eyecandy, add some depth to the snow! Different placements, different speeds… please?
Of course, the question arises; “Why is there snow in the first place?” The level name is Microtubes, the filename is electro1, why is there snow? It’s like that “Snow in Carrotus” level: the snow is only there because it can be. Ok, I’m only going to say this once: Your level name is Microtubes, get some tubes in there! Mez01 has lots of tube tiles just asking to be eyecandy… don’t waste time on inappropiate snow!
Pros: I guess the snow Is kind of original… no tile bugs in the pipes.
Cons: ARRGH! Lack of EVERYTHING! WHY WHY WHY WHY?????
Rating: 3.0

See the little angels… how do they rise up, rise up, rise up?
Weapons placement is actually surprising sensical, considering the other aspects of this level. You’ve got Fastfire (always a good idea), EB (nice with so many walls), Seekers (for those annoying people in the room opposite) and… TNT. Well, three out of four ain’t bad.
The weapons are placed in corners of the rooms, which actually is more logical than putting them in the middle where they’ll just be shot down. My only real complaint is that no matter how fast they generate, four of each type is really not enough. A strategist Could possibly stay alive for some time in this level, as it’s not a tiny carnage room – so give us more weapons.
As for those things known as “other pickups”, they do not exist. Again, this is a good thing, as they’d be completely pointless in this level.
Pros: Somehow, this factor is far better than all the others, despite a rather obvious lack of real thought or effort. Things are placed well, and nice choices.
Cons: Why TNT? And again, there needs to be more ammo.
Rating: 4.5

Wow! Let’s do that again!
Oh, no. A few minutes in, this level is probably going to get boring, unless you’re already very bored. Of course, one person is bound to like it for that reason, as why else would it be hosted in the first place? This level is good for a quick glance at “how not to make really fast levels”, but for playing – no.
Pros: I suppose some entertainment could be gleaned.
Cons: Just not enough. The appearance doesn’t really lend to the enjoyment either.
Rating: 1.7

In conclusion, sir…
…don’t download this. It’s not really all that good, and the complete lack of anything interesting makes the bad parts seem worse. The fact that the level is too small to fit into a 640×480 screen, making the author add an empty column, is not really all that pleasing. Let’s just all be glad that the author has matured since this level, and instead makes things like “Colonius 1 edited so the tile Dizz Sux is no longer there”.
Pros: Few.
Cons: Too many. This level should not be edited with a few changes, it should be thrown to the ground and forgotten.
Rating: 2.0

Well, this should be interesting. A new boss. Not that I really believe it’s new.

Interesting. The Uterus MCE. Destroy the floating green/red box thingies, then kill the main guy (who can’t hurt you) with TNT. Sadly, once the boss life bar is depleted, it fills itself again, so it’s essentially an endless battle.
Still, it’s an interesting eyecandy effect, and might be useful somehow. Download this to take a look at it if you haven’t seen the Uterus MCE before.

I have decided to adopt a new tactic. Instead of playing the level once, then reviewing everything, I will play it once for each category, trying to only note those factors. How long this will last is rather dubious, but I’m going to give it a try.

Gameplay, Design, and related fields:
Well. Ever since BlurredD released his SP pack, all of Dx’s levels seem to have been desperate attempts to equal the sheer goodness. In this case, Dx goes so far as to use Thermal K, in much the same style as it is used in Blur’s pack – I.E. lots of caves.
And, of course, the instant death. Which doesn’t work. About 75% of the time, I seemed unable to lose a life from the instant death you’re supposed to get when you fall into the lava. Technical side gets a low.
But what about the real gameplay? Rambling aside, the gameplay’s not too bad, but the level is short enough it doesn’t have much of a chance to grow on you. First you navigate some tunnels, not falling into the lava. Then you are a frog for less than a minute, not falling into the lava, and get hurt while turning back. Then you navigate a few more tunnels, not falling into the lava. Then you fight Bilsy, (and you guessed it) not falling into the lava. I’ll discuss Bilsy later, but in the meantime let’s look at the previous areas.
The tunnels try too hard to be hard, as Trafton said most admirably. This will be expanded upon later, of course. But with the high jump you need to climb on top of hurting fire to perform (a high jump in a TSF level.. for shame), when said fire is nearly invisible against the lava fall… things get a little annoying.
The frog is, of course, far too short. You jump three pits, two devils, then get kissed by Eva. And you get hurt. Did I say that already? Here’s a hint: give the player a carrot for those unavoidable ouchies.
Still, the gameplay is somewhat decent. With the exception of Bilsy. Because Bilsy is one of Those bosses, the ones who need support from their arena to provide a challenge. Like buttstomp floor. But in this level, you’re not even on the same platform as Bilsy! You never should be! No challenge at all! Feh.
Rating: 6.5

Graphic quality, use of layers, tile-to-tile smoothness, general eyecandy:
The eyecandy is, for the most part, ordinary Carrotus. Walls that don’t really fit together at all, large or small (in this case large) amounts of cave, and no plants besides the carrots, which are used simply as walls. All of these apply. About the only difference between this level and a normal Carrotus level is that, well, it uses Thermal K. So in addition to all that other stuff, there’s a moving lava pit (weird), lava falls in the background (too bright, and they blend in with the fire), and those neat little wooden platforms. Only once, sadly.
If you want other layers, you’re out of luck. Everything is Speed 1, and aligns perfectly. Obviously there should be something more, as you do see the sky now and then, but there isn’t. Alas.
And yes, the walls don’t fit together all that well. Black edge to wall edge, wall edge to black edge – all over the place. If only Dx had added some plants, at least…
Rating: 6.7

Weapon Placement, Item Placement, Enemy Placement, Text Placement… you know, placement.:
There are no goodies. There is only Zuul. Enemies, anyway.
Well, ok, that’s not completely true. Near the end you get two boxes of ammo, some seekers and some relatively useless bouncies. And… umm… well, I guess that’s it for goodies and all that. Well, I suppose it’s a small level, but some carrots would have been nice now and then. SUCH AS NEXT TO EVA.
But enemies. There are enemies. A few of the enemies are well placed, paticularly some bats who are in good positions to knock you into the lava. But many of the bats, and most of the devils, are just there to be shot. “Automatic carrot creators”, you could call them. There are two at the boss, for that matter. It’s not like they can pose any harm, so they just give you carrots.
Basically, there will be a bat in the ceilling if any of the following are true: You are in a long straight passage, you are just getting into a passage from a drop to the lava, you are leaving a passage to get over a drop to the lava, or you are going somewhere to be able to cross a drop to the lava. There will be a devil on the ground if any of the following are true: There is flat ground and there is not another devil for at least three tiles.
Besides the bats and devils, there is one more type of enemy. The Floating Sucker, which as we all know, has no real purpose except to be stomped. So Dx lets you stomp them to get across some lava. In a tight space. And only once. Why only once? Why not more than once?! ASDF.
So what’s the verdict? Placing enemies after you finish the level is not the way to go.
Rating: 6.7

Fun Factor, Originality, Replay Value… whee, I just changed the order around.:
Well, as said before, pretty much this entire level was taken from Blur’s demo thing. So what is original? Just a few things, sadly. There’s the disappearing author sign, the annoying high jump fire, and… I guess that’s about it. Work on your own brain a bit more, Dx.
As for fun and games and all that, I have now played this level about four times. My feelings for it have gone *bad, *ok, *ok, *eeh. I’m starting to lose interest. This shouldn’t be played too many times, but play it more than once, as your first impression is likely to be wrong.
And I have to admit, a few parts are fun. There’s something just strangely satisfying about killing the two devils on wooden platforms. Or jumping over the widest frog pit.
Rating: 7.0

Overall impression of Subject Level:
This level is all right, but it’s not too good. The music just seems wrong, and I don’t even have much of an ear for music. The enemy placement detracts from the enjoyability of the level a little too much, and the eyecandy can get tiresome.
But there’s something about this level. Something showing that no matter what Dx reviews like, eventually he may become a good level maker. I try not to rate potential, but this is actually in the level, so whatever.
So it is that I give it a Rating: of 7.0. Low 7, but 7 anyway.[This review has been edited by Violet CLM]

ET, latest suggestion: Now that you’ve made all these nice changes, could you be persuaded to reupload the file?[This review has been edited by Violet CLM]