Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

“Here it finally is, the Find It Out (Multiplayer) pack, that has been worked on for so long. The single player part that was planned to be together with the Multiplayer part is right now progressing slowly, if at all, so for now it’s just being a separate project. The name for the pack comes from the concept of the sp episode, which you will have to, as said, FIND OUT.”

That was what I wrote in https://www.jazz2online.com/downloads/5021/find-it-out-multiplayer/ back then, over 16 years ago. Now after 16 years, I could say; Here it finally is, the Find It Out (Single Player) episode and I am very happy about managing to complete the project. But I definitely have to open up, that this was no smooth and easy journey at all, nor is the episode itself either (except maybe on Easy difficulty I hope).

This project actually started out back in the early 2005 (so almost 20 years ago) as a collaboration project between cooba, Snooze and me. It is by far the the biggest project of mine both time- and work-wise. It is also my first SP episode in over 20 years: https://www.jazz2online.com/downloads/2921/ultimate-command-the-colony-problems/, so I had even more motivation to create a more high-quality episode than my latest one so far.

Shortly after getting started with the creation of the first level (not the intro as that was added later when scripting became possible), the project quickly became fully my own, but even today the influence of cooba and Snooze can still be seen in the traits of the first level. I am very grateful for both that we decided to attempt this collaboration project, as today it is finally coming to fruition.

Originally, I had very ambitious goals and ideas for the project, as you can imagine, since I was a teenager like many of us in the current community were back then. I had the ambitions for a very wild story that would take the player on an adventure through many different worlds and realms represented by dozens of levels, as is the case with a typical episode of JJ2 :p

However, as the episode slowly progressed, my motivation to work on the episode became very on-off. I could at one moment burst of ideas and inspiration, but soon be lacking of any. There were several long gaps when there was absolutely zero progress on the episode for several months, maybe even years. Some years ago, I was even desperate enough that I threw the episode at Seren and asked her to take it over and finish it as she pleases, but luckily she did the right thing and turned down my offer.

As a result of the exceptionally long development process, the episode lived through multiple eras of level- and gameplay design and it shows. You’ll notice it as soon as you complete the first few levels. The gameplay seems very simple from the beginning with very little choice in directions, etc. But later on becomes much more diverse at least compared to the first levels. For the level music selection, I decided to go with classic module tracks that you may recognize from several old SP- and MP-levels.

Also since this a very story-driven episode, it features a fair amount of cutscenes (some may feel very long even) where you can just sit back and relax. You can also skip them by pressing fire or use fast-forward/slow-motion with the left/right arrow buttons at any time.

Since JJ2+ introduced AngelScripting back in 2013, many of the oldest levels have been more or less vastly renovated. Some even through multiple iterations and the 2nd level (Be Quick Or Be…) was remade completely from scratch. I included the original version of that level as the bonus level(s) that become unlocked once you complete the main episode.

Regarding the episode difficulty, I can say that it is probably more challenging than an average SP episode on J2O on Medium-difficulty. Hence if you don’t consider yourself an experienced SP player, I recommend starting with Easy-difficulty (there is a score/ranking board at the end of the episode that rewards you based on your score and difficulty). The Hard-difficulty is designed for very experienced players and I haven’t even beaten the episode on Turbo yet (at least not fairly).

Note that in this episode your level progress is automatically saved, in the sense that there’s a custom checkpoint functionality, infinite lives, enemies and pickups that disappear for good after killing/picking them up. However, every death after the first one will cost you a thousand points in score, so try to avoid dying too much.

The minimum resolution supported by the episode is 640×480, but it is recommended to play in 800×600 for the smoothest experience. Otherwise, you’ll find many of the graphical elements overflowing through the screen.

Well, what more can I say. Thanks for reading my wall-of-text! Or maybe you didn’t if it was a case of TL;DR. Anyway, here you go…

Superjazz/Vivando of XLM proudly presents: Find It Out (Single Player)

Enjoy!

EDIT: Slightly adjusted the food amount in the 3rd level so that the first possible sugar rush will trigger at a more convenient timing.

EDIT 2: Added additional trigger blocks to workaround spring problem in the 4th level (The Prisoner).