Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Cloudy Challenge Course Single player, by jjturbo9, requires The Secret Files, with JJ2+

• Rating: N/A

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Description

Newest version (2025-04-19) fixes some minor things, like a two carrots giving full HP instead of just 1 heart. And I improved small details. Stijn would like this version more, because some improvements are based on his review. Like re-spawning 1ups to most checkpoints so you’ll get a life every time you lose one. This was a feature already, but I added it to more checkpoints now.

Version (2025-04-18) includes ways to prevent ‘abusing’ of loopholes so the gameplay is more how I actually intended it. I think there’s no such ‘shortcuts’ anymore, but who knows I might have to update it again. It is what it is :D But I’m happy with the new improvements anyways. I also improved the boss area, for the bonus route ánd regular route. It’s fairplay at this point, if someone still finds a shortcut (no cheats/debug mode of course) I’d be very impressed, I really tested it on a lot of possibilities Also; if a player makes a mistake, it shouldn’t disrupt the flow of the game, shouldn’t have to redo parts too much, but shouldn’t let them be lazy either. I made sure to make it fair but also to the enemies. I mean, it has to be a challenge, although eventually Jazz has to win. There’s a route for more skilled players (no coin route will result in a more difficult boss ending, and speed runners tend to skip over collectables) and a route for more tactical players (coin route). Both have a fair chance.

I used the simplest tileset I could find on this website that I liked to quickly make my gameplay ideas, and also because I wanted to make a template for beginner level creators. Eventually I used the template myself as a test and it made me want to improve the foreground and background, so the simplicity didn’t make the level suffer visually. The template is easy to use, the tileset as well except the things the player doesn’t need to change in the template anyways. I didn’t really put a lot of effort in making the tileset efficient for the background and foreground. It was just the easiest for my 1 template, not made to redo, so don’t judge on that…

In MLLE it’s a bit inconvenient to have such a big tileset though because the animation tiles are always below the tileset, so you have to scroll down. But I think that might be a nice future update for MLLE actually. I like how that worked in the original JCS. But like this it still works well too. Would be a nice detail.

Anyways; about the level: it’s just a challenge course with an enemy + endboss section at the end. You have to loop the challenge course parts until you did it without getting roasted once. Then you get access to the enemy area.

If you collected all coins you can open the secret area, if you found the hidden location of the bonus warp. You can beat the boss without the bonus warp, but the bonus warp will make it a bit easier the first attempt.

Btw, the sun is round if you play on 16:9 which is the standard these days I’d say. But sorry to players who prefer the tiles to stay square in-game. The sun will be oval for you, but that’s the only issue with it. Anyways, I wanted to make it look good for at least my own setup and the video I’ll make so 16:9 was the best choice, I don’t mind rectangle shaped tiles when eventually in-game (although the squares are handy for editing/creating levels).

Credits & Acknowledgements

Mmadguy for the simple tileset, Delvour for making Technoir Remix and myself for parts of the tileset and the level. ChatGPT also helped with the clouds and mountains.

Contains 8 Files

Cloudy Challenge Course.j2l	Cloudy Challenge Course	18.81 kB
Simple San Level Template.j2l		14.24 kB
Simple tileset + sky.j2t	Simple tileset + sky	374.89 kB
Cloudy Challenge Course.j2as		0.69 kB
Simple San Level Template.j2as		0.52 kB
Cloudy Challenge Course-MLLE-Data-1.j2l	MLLE Extra Data	16.52 kB
Cloudy Challenge Course-MLLE-Data-2.j2l	MLLE Extra Data	15.00 kB
Simple San Level Template-MLLE-Data-1.j2l	MLLE Extra Data	15.69 kB

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Reviews and comments

Stijn 18 Apr 2025, 21:10

This is essentially a Test level, but made to be played in Single Player rather than online. As someone who never enjoyed online tests that much I appreciate that, and there's less of a sense of urgency when playing just by yourself.

The tests are a mix of standard test fare – jumps, precise sidekicks, etc – and one or two more creative challenges including one where you need to do maths. I don't understand the math clue, which tells me that the formula to figure out what the right gun number is is "[number] x 2 + 1". The number for the first block is 0, so that's 0×2+1=1 i.e. blaster, so far so good. Then the next number is 1, so 1×2+1=3, i.e. freezer? Which doesn't work, so I'm not sure what's supposed to happen here. But overall it's an okay selection of challenges, even if most of it is pretty standard.

Rather than warping back to the start of each challenge, in this level you simply die if you fail, most of the time. Lives are not infinite though, which I found really annoying. Some tests took me a few tries to figure out what I was expected to do and not having the chance to fail more than once or twice seems to only serve to frustrate the player. This was demotivating and I would enjoy the challenges much more if I could take my time trying to figure them out. It also kind of breaks the level once you reach the end of the challenges – you're supposed to shoot a checkpoint and then kill yourself to respawn beyond a wall… but what if you have no lives left at that point?

There's a bit after the challenges where you have to swim through a school of fish. This is pretty easy to do by just speeding through with maybe one or two hits. Then there's a boss, which I found way too hard and no fun at all, but I guess it could be a fun challenge if you're really good at the game. The fact that it takes place in an arena with the same insta-death spikes found in the rest of the level at the bottom feels a little cheap though.

Visually, the level is not terrible, but not that interesting either. I guess using a blocky tileset is more or less a genre requirement, in Test levels – by that standard, this one is one of the nicer-looker ones, with some effort spent on making the background look nice, for example. This level takes place on a world orbiting an oval sun. The argument that it looks right in 16:9 doesn't really work for me – sure, it does, but then everything else looks bad.

Overall, not a bad take on the test genre, but with a bit too many elements that spoil the fun for me to really enjoy playing it.



PurpleJazz 18 Apr 2025, 06:38 (edited 18 Apr 25, 06:58)

The level is rather reminiscent of old Test levels, which also forego the usual level design conventions and strip things back to an arrangement of blocks (such as those made with the Top3 tileset), focusing entirely on gameplay over aesthetics. The level looks just about serviceable in terms of functionality, but lacks any kind of visual design flair, mainly consisting of brightly coloured blocks placed haphazardly, like a box of crayolas. There are certainly plenty of far worse looking levels out there, I appreciate that this one lacks many of the more egregious elements found in many similar levels such as flashing colours or obstructive foreground layers. The AI generated clouds look passable but do feel very out of place with the rest of the level, being semi-realistic while everything else uses flat colours.

I didn`t like that I was forced to restart the level after having died once before the water section, that felt like an unfair gotcha! moment. Fortunately it didn`t take long to get back to that section as the level is very short and rather trivial. Most of the challenges I was able to cheese in some way, most simply by doing running jumps as Spaz, such as the Mega Man-esque disappearing block section which I was able to clear in a single running jump (after having died due to not realising the green bar was a pole). I didn`t bother trying to decipher the clue for the destruct block section and just brute force guessed my way through it first time. The water falling section was far too short to be of any real threat. The end boss I just cheesed by jumping to its platform and buttstomping it to death, abusing the i-frames.

Aside from the aforementioned restart, there was nothing else particularly unfair but nothing really grabbed my attention either. If you have been playing JJ2 as long as I have, I`m pretty sure you will have seen just about every obstacle in this level in some shape or form before. I don`t think there`s anything inherently wrong with that, and I can at least applaud this level for not going completely overboard with the difficulty like so many other levels of a similar ilk have done. I feel that the concept of the level, while not exactly novel is an honorable one. It does feel fairly accessible to newcomers unlike other challenge levels which is a nice attribute, although I would still have a hard time recommending it over the vast treasure trove over other similar levels out there that come in a far more polished package and offer a more refined experience. You can certainly do much worse than this, but the bar is set pretty high nowadays.

(My note to the author: please do not feel discouraged by my feedback, I was in your shoes once as well. The best thing is to take feedback as a learning experience, and take it on board for your next project. Making mistakes is a huge part of the learning process for any creative pursuit. Literally every successful JJ2 level creator I can think of started out making mediocre levels but then gradually improved each time with persistence and a willingness to take on board criticism. I do genuinely look forward to seeing your next project!)



jjturbo9 18 Apr 2025, 05:26

Good level imo