Not recommendedReview by Tik

Posted:
2 Oct 2006, 21:00 (edited 2 Oct 06, 21:05 by Spaztic)
For: Diamonds n' Flags
Level rating: 4.7
Rating
4.7

Diamonds n’ Flags is, in summary, quite a boring CTF level. The author shows some basic knowledge of properly designing the landscape and placement of eyecandy and items; however, the level is more or less linear. And surprise, it uses Diamondus.

There is a cavern twisting up and down to the northwest of the map with a lot of random items placed rather closely together. This would probably make blue’s defense advantaged compared to the red team, whose base is located in the southwest in a large expanse. There the only natural formation promoting defense is a small triangular knoll (wherein lies the coin warp’s target and an rf powerup). There is a also a single tree a bit to its right, with one very long stem and a perpendicular branch leading out from either side, springs leading you upwards towards the narrow blue base or left towards a large floating arrangement of gold coins. These coins do not regenerate, mind you, so good luck getting into the warp (which lies directly under this stash of coins) after the first time.

So the red side has a lot of coins that do not regenerate, weapon 9 and bouncers. The blue side has seekers, bouncers, and rf’s. The northeast corner has a fire shield and some more gold coins. There are at least two carrots. It’s obvious that /some/ thought went into things, such as the bouncer powerup directly by the blue base (which is above what becomes a pit), but you can only get it with weapon 9.

In summary, the level looks meh, about average or slightly below. But there is potential and you’re on the right track, so keep trying to improve and experiment and I think you will see some results.

Review by PurpleJazz

Posted:
23 Sep 2006, 07:51 (edited 15 Oct 06, 16:37 by Purplejazz7)
For: Brazil
Level rating: 1.9
Rating
N/A

This tileset was made in Photoshop, and I’m not very good at drawing on a computer.

EDIT – Now I’m working a much better, much bigger (1030 tiles) tileset. (1030 means TSF only!)

Not recommendedReview by Janus aka Jahari

Posted:
23 Sep 2006, 07:28 (edited 23 Sep 06, 07:33)
For: Brazil
Level rating: 1.9
Rating
2

User Friendliness 1/1: It’s a very small tileset, so there’s not much you could miss when actually using it.

Overall look 1/6: It’s just another MS Paint tileset to me. Use a proper program next time like Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop (or whatever the guides suggest). The colors used in the textured background need to be placed in the right rows of the tileset palette in order for them to not get the messy white color (see JCSref and the othersites to understand this).

Usefulness 0/1 It doesn’t have all the basic tiles needed in a tileset. There are a few eyecandy tiles, but not enough to give a level variety in scenery.

Size 0/1: Make it bigger in the future.

Originality 1/1: Yeah, it’s original. That’s about it.

Overall coolness 0/1: If this tileset was properly drawn and featured the sort of scenery you would see in the Andes (jungles, mountains, plains, etc), this would be a great tileset, but I think you need to put a LOT more work into your tilesets if you attempt to make another. Make a checklist and be thorough when you make a tileset. It should have:

Ground (all angles and corners that anyone could possibly need)
Tunnel (indoor areas where you use layer 5 scenery)
Vine
Hurt (spikes, etc)
V and H poles
Buttstomp and Destruct Scenery
Animations
Signs (exit, bonus, and text)
Directional Arrows
Hook
Collapsing Scenery
Teleport
Disappearing Ground (invisible tiles with a mask that allow people to make secret paths or drop enemies/items from above)
Extra Scenery (foreground abd background extras; any kind of eyecandy you can think of — add as much as possible).

Now go and make a better tileset :)

Review by PurpleJazz

Posted:
5 Sep 2006, 17:07 (edited 5 Sep 06, 17:14 by Purplejazz7)
For: Blue Fortress
Level rating: 2.7
Rating
N/A

The things next to the door are sucker tubes, and I drew this Tileset in Photoshop.

Not recommendedReview by the jamster

Posted:
5 Sep 2006, 16:58 (edited 5 Sep 06, 17:03)
For: Blue Fortress
Level rating: 2.7
Rating
2.7

Im sorry to say this but you get 2.7.
I do like the blocks,they look smart,also the inside wall is nice and blue,gives a very good castle fortress look good job on that,now comes the nasty part of the review,The flags just look well,unreal,and look very messy,the colors are just plain red,theres no texture,it looks like you drew it in ms paint,i think im right that its done by ms paint,the gold does not look good either,agin weres the texture,try putting in small bits of gold coins.makes it look more like gold,same with the door,I can’t tell really what the thing is next to the door is,and near the top left,what are they,im judgeing there supposed to be spikes,well make them sharper,even tho ripper only a few tiles isnt really a bad thing what lets down points,its always better to make custom blocks,or at least mod them up a bit.

This is very good for a new person of the community,you should be impressed
Good job,don’t give up tho,learn from your mistaks,don’t hate me as well for giveing you a bad review =)

keep it up
-ryderwct (the jamster)

Review by Pyramid

Posted:
5 Sep 2006, 13:25 (edited 5 Sep 06, 14:15 by Fquist)
For: Blue Fortress
Level rating: 2.7
Rating
N/A

Rating? OK, no problem…

[Unsupported (1.0) rating removal. Please give reasons for your rating. – FQuist]

Review by PurpleJazz

Posted:
30 Aug 2006, 06:19 (edited 30 Aug 06, 06:30 by Purplejazz7)
For: Easter Feasta v2
Level rating: 6.2
Rating
N/A

I will fix these errors today and reupload it.

EDIT-The level has been re-uploaded now. Enjoy!

Review by LittleFreak

Posted:
29 Aug 2006, 19:06 (edited 30 Aug 06, 12:15)
For: Easter Feasta v2
Level rating: 6.2
Rating
6.2

This level feels a bit like a try-out. There’s a lot of stuff in there, not all of it working correctly.

Gameplay:

Quite solid. You kill enemies, collect goodies, find some crates, and kill a boss at the end. Nothing outraging, nothing awful. The boss had a more interesting arena now, unfortunately it the stupid guy got stuck in the spikes quite often, making him easy to kill. There were some platforms in the air with some crates and a flying lizard, unfortunately I played as Lori and couldn’t reach them.

Rating: 6.0

Difficulty:

Very easy. Nothing really challenged my hyper-mega-jazz2-skills (or something). The lives in the bonus warp were tweaked, still too many. For some unknown reason I lacked four coins this time though. Hardly any ammo, but none was needed anyway. There was enough food to get a sugar rush. In some places even a little too much, I felt. Oh yes there were some crate puzzles, but those weren’t hard either. Some more difficulty would surely boost the fun.

Rating: 5.5

Creativity:

Nothing all too creative, but some good appendages. In the updated version, the arena was made more appealing, but then again, it’s buggy. The landscape has been fixed a little too.

Rating: 6.5

Eyecandy:

Still not very beautiful. The surroundings have improved, yes, but then again there’s not much eyecandy and still some tilebugs. And I hate the Easter tileset. =P Well, enough for 1 bonus point.

Rating: 5.5 (+1.0)

Story/Design:

Quoted from the readme: “Devan and his army want to destroy easter land!”
Aaaah, so, well, any reason for them doing so? No? Nevermind, who cares. This is one of those utterly creative stories only coming around once a year or so. Easter land doesn’t look like easter land too, more like land of random objects land. But I’m getting too sarcastic here. To the point, not much effort has gone into designing anything plausible or adding a plot.

Rating: 5.0

Overall:

I find the improvement done in the update quite minimal, most of the really prominent problems are still there. The new boss arena doesn’t work, the game’s still too easy, however, the level looks a bit better in most areas now.

Final Rating: 6.2 (+0.2)
Download Recommendation: Maybe

Have fun.

~LF

RecommendedReview by SPAZ18

Posted:
29 Aug 2006, 17:24 (edited 6 Sep 06, 16:37)
For: Easter Feasta v2
Level rating: 6.2
Rating
7

This was good for your first level.

EASTER FEASTA REVIEW:

EYECANDY: The Eyecandy was OK but there wasn’t much in the background or foreground. 6/10

GAMEPLAY: It was quite short. Finished it in about 5 minutes. It was quite confusing trying to find where I needed to go. 6/10

PICKUPS: There was lots of 1UPs in the Bonus Warp. The number of 1UPs have been reduced now, so I will increase the pickups score by 1. There’s not too many Gems which is good. There was some food. The pickups were placed quite well. 8/10

OBSTACLES/ENEMIES: Not too many or too less enemies. They were placed well. There was a Trigger Zone (TZ) used where the Trigger Crate was. I saw a message saying to use the crate if you don’t have TSF. You can do TZs in 1.23 as well. Just download the JCS.ini update from here: http://www.jazz2online.com/J2Ov2/downloads/info.php?levelID=105
7/10

TOTAL: 27/40 (6.75)

BONUSSES:

Since this is your first level and you spent 2 weeks on it. I’ll award an extra 0.2 for effort.

FINAL SCORE: 6.95
Rounded to 7.0
DR: Yes

This review probably isn’t good enough but I don’t feel like writing a huge review at the moment.

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