Tileset, by 
White Penguin… sound familiar… it rings a distant bell… Anyway, WP has given us a tileset. At first glance, I really like it. Let’s see how this does after some testing.
Tiles and Theme Great
The first thing any tileset maker should have is a solid theme to work with. WP has chosen for the natural, organic theme. However, included in the tileset are more tiles than just nature, more on that later.
The nature theme is certainly not unheard of. In fact, a decent amount of tilesets use this theme. However, I rarely see a nature set that presents itself as dark (or as a planet, for that matter). This tileset has a lot of good themeing tiles, ranging from plains to caves and forests to sewers.
Moving on, let’s take a look at the tiles and the masking. Starting at the top, one thing is certain: The tileset maker chose for a practical approach. On the top of the tileset are all basic tiles. Platforming, slopes, edges, corners, all that is needed to make a solid layout. Next to that are the practical event tiles; vines, hurts, hooks, poles, signs, destruction-blocks and trigger-switches. Every one of these outside tiles has their cave-counterpart, with nice edges and good tiling. The cave-tiles itself are located underneath the basic tiles, for easy access.
Scrolling down further will present the sewer/industrial tiles. They look worn down, as if the facility has been shut down for years now and the moss and vines are growing everywhere. I love it. Again, all sorts of tiles are included. Belts (from Labrat?), Matrix-esque wall tiles, pipe fences, animated hatches and even teleporter warps. Before its breakdown, this facility was quite something. :)
Then, at the bottom, are the more optional tiles. backgrounds, layer 7 and 6 mountains and different colours that can be used to redo something else, using JCS’s translucency options. A chaotic-looking texture is provided as well, if you’re not creative enough to make a cool background, since this set gives you all the tools needed.
Looking at the masking, everything looks fine except for one thing that bugs me. On the top of the tileset is a tree, on the left side. The base of this tree has the same type of masking as the hook next to it. This is probably unintended and a small fix should do the trick.
On to the next category.
Art and Atmosphere: Great
The tileset shows a real artist’s work. While the set is pretty pixel-ish, it does the trick of looking really nice, especially in JJ2’s 640×480 environment.
There is lots of eyecandy, of which most things are already named. Caves, trees, vines and decayed tiles, cool backgrounds, animated torches and even a little something peeking up from a hole.
This tileset can give any (dark) level idea you might have a spin. You can make the tiles into a sewer, filled with green sludge. You can use it to make a worn down computer lab. You can even turn it into a dark forest (with a little creativity… this tileset needs a variation on trees and shrubs, I’d say).
This is definitely well executed. Props to you.
Room for improvement: Not much
As I said, maybe a little expansion on the vegetation. Also, the maskbug I mentioned could be easily fixed. The outside signs also seem to miss an up and down arrow, maybe you can add those as well, if you decide to fix it.
Edit: Also, I would like to see this multi-palette. A dark-red or dark-yellow/orange version would make this tileset worth more, I bet.
With a tileset, it’s important to work away little flaws and re-releasing it to the public, so everyone gets the correct version. I will, of course, also edit my review then and probably even up the rating.
Overall: Very good
This tileset is awesome. Period.
Download Recommendation: Yes
Even without the slight flaws I mentioned, this tileset is pretty awesome and worth using.
Score: 8.6
This is one of the bests and easy-to-use tilesets I’ve seen in a while. Props to you, and keep building and improving.
Edit on March 24 2009:
Two of the things mentioned in ‘Room for improvement’ have been helped. The extra signs are added (vital for singleplayer) and the maskbug has been fixed. The score has been enhanced slightly to compensate. Good show.
