Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

I wish I could see this, as well as the previous episode hosted. I even wanted to convert that one to LRS so it can be put on ZB, but it looks like I forgot it in the end. The levels seem to be of Survivor quality and feature a lot of awesome ideas, so I can only suppose it’s the CTF-biased community that lets them slip of the downloads list.

LVL PWNS!!! OMG!!! HIGH AND BIG 10 WITH DR!!!
:333
U MUST PLAy IT OR GRYTOLLE WILL BAN YOU FROM STEEL DUELS!!!

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A decent pack.

I agree with Derby but I like this level enough to think it’s underrated!

Here are a couple of levels that I haven’t seen being played at all since a month of their release, despite their good quality. No wonder though, since they haven’t yet been added to any of the Zeal Servers’ levellists. Another one of the levels, ‘Escape from Precint 83’, is actually familiar to me from a JDC event which was much before the release date though.

‘Big Apple Beatdown’ however, is a brand new level to me, thus I’m looking forward to play games there. A level called ‘WHANTIL’, is probably the most popular level known using this same tileset. Comparing to that level, ‘BAB’ is similarly layered into floors, although more diversely. I can suppose most of the action in games here is drawn to the indoor corridors above the bases, which are on the bottom of the floor, being easy to attack to, and hard to defend. Sounds fun, but is it?

I assure a level of this size can fit no less than a minimum of 8 players at once. A few bad things about the level are the few quite campy spots in the level, such as the full NRG carrot, or the Seeker PowerUp. However in a JDC Main Event for instance, such cons would be minimal, if existant at all. The level flow seems to work well with wise placement of springs and stuff, yet it’s not overdone. I like how advanced players are able to use RF-shortcuts,(or walljump cough) which add to the gameplay-depth of the level even more.

I generally have no complaints about the level’s visuality. Nothing distracts the eye, and yet the level’s atmosphere is appropriate in an original way to the industrial theme. Also the pickups seem to fit in well, although I would have personally made the more powerful powerups harder to reach/hog. The shootable carrots-concept seems cool enough as well.

As I’ve experienced before, ‘Escape from Precint 83’ is for now the only decent airborne-combat level I know, which is entirely based on all players being forced to fly. You could consider levels such as ‘Medieval Skycrapers’ or ‘SILWI’ to be mostly based on air warfare, but still in those levels the flycarrots are to be obtained first invidually by players and the most important combat still happens without the flycarrots. ‘EfP83’ however, is all about your flying-skills, and there truly is space to use them.

Considering the overall level size, and the tactical layout, where bases are well separated from each other, I wouldn’t personally try a game smaller than 6vs6 here. If there happened to be a stop during the game with nomovement on, some players could fall a long way unexpectedly from their original position, which could lead to tactical disadvantages for certain players. However it is only a minor problem anyway, since massive games such as JDC events wouldn’t get stopped for a single players’ connection problems for instance.

The amount of ammo(and food as well) is massive, made to suite the big number of players. There could be more carrots though, alike in ‘BAB.’ The tileset used isn’t exactly my favourite one, but it’s bearable. The background is faded and thus can’t confuse the player, yet it adds to the level atmosphere. Overall the level is creatively designed, with innovative airborne gameplay.

This level pack=“electronic style”, as KeeS himself would say. After all it’s clear people prefer smaller games recently, thus most big-to-huge levels are only played in JDC Events and such. However both definitely deserve to get added into both Zeal Alpha, and Duels’ levellists asap. Download recommended.

Applause to OLC & friends.

Hey dboy, I just played your level “Tricky Carrots” and it was a delight to see someone new to making levels like I used to be. Your level reminds me of when I first started playing jazz jackrabbit 2 and started experimenting with level making many years ago as a kid. Good memories! Therefore, I think it was funny to play your level!

I don’t think your level was THAT bad. On top of my head is the lack of checkpoints. When you die (like I did several times), you have to start all over which is boring and kind of annoying. Try to put more checkpoints spread around the level and it will be a much better experience to play.

So, why did I even die in the first place with all the incredible rabbit skills I have? Uff, your enemy placement was a little tough for poor Spazz. He was mutilated several times by unforeseen demons, monkeys and what not without any chance of preventing or even assessing the situation. Particularly after coming out of sucker tubes, there are some bestial monsters waiting to attack. It’s an unfortunate destiny. Spazz didn’t like that at all. Spazz likes when he has an opportunity to prevent damage and thus have the possibility of beating the whole level without being hit and be an awecool hero. Unfortunately, he hadn’t this chance in this level. It hurt his self-confidence! So, in the future, I’d try to place the monsters better to prevent dying no matter what.

Goodies and ammo. The abundance thereof must be a very enriching experience for Spazz, but, uh, unfortunately, it doesn’t add to the fun. What’s even the point in collecting all those coins when you don’t even need the place you go with enough coins, when you have more than enough ammo without? I think it’s awesome to be striving after ammo – to always be searching for ammo, that you have to fight to get ammo – and use it sparsely to keep it. Therefore: I’d place a hell of a lot less ammo (and all that food/beverage is just making Spazz a little fatty; no need for it ;)) and only place ammo that is actually suitable and useful in the given situation.

‘Eyecandy’-wise, I think, uh, there’s something to be working on. That’s a good thing! You can actually improve and become a better person. The seemingly randomly placed background entities are, uh, distracting at the best. They don’t exactly add to the ‘Lets kick some ass’-atmosphere. On the other hand, it makes the level unconventional and a bit of a rule breaker, it spices the level up (but in a bad way, I’m afraid).

I am no professional/advanced reviewer but I thought it would be good to give feedback to a seemingly new level maker like I used to be as a kid.
I admit I thought it was actually funny to play the map, but again, I am no practised JJ2 player and I just play it every once in a while for fun. Despite the linear level progression and what not, it was cool for a newbie level. Therefore, I give you a 3. Have a good day!

Everything added is somewhat taken from A_Fix_carrotus. The example levels don’t really show off the new possibilities. (for example with the additional horizontal tree logs). there is also no rearrangement in the tileset, or additional tiles i haven’t seen before.

So all in all these are just mainly pallette swaps, and even those are directly taken from tileset packs like Diamß by pyromanus. this makes easterius look like carrotus, which shouldn’t be like that. Even in pallette swaps where the blue/pink/purple theme still appears i am not sure if the contrast is right or for example, fits with a grey background.

It’s fun to have A_carrotus fix copy with chocolate bunnies.. But with easterius it’s grass turning green like carrotus, pallettes taken from some other sets, additional tiles taken from other sets and questionable color schemes. I don’t think I should give you much credit and appreciation.

No DR since these tilesets are imo not a must have.

I like it. Very nicely done. Keep doing the good job!

This a really nice tileset. I really like it, at specially because it’s cartoonish. Good job, at specially the eye-candy!

Damn this is good, I love it (and by the way im not catholic). This is a perfect tileset. Very good job man.

ok tileset, but nothing special. nice to be able ot use it with 1.23 however

Man this is great! At specially i like the toxic 1, it’s awesome. You did a great job. I think it deserves a clear 10, since u say i can exaggerate a bit. But seriously it’s a good conversion, and u have put in some extra things. Good job :)

[Review changed to quick review.] [Review changed to quick review.] [Review changed to quick review.]

These are good fixes/variations, not outstanding but interesting nonetheless and can be used for spice

First of all: I can’t seem to host at the moment, so I was not able to play these online. As such, I am not giving a rating, as I cannot say much about the balance. However, I can still evaluate some things.

Big Apple Beatdown is great. Nothing particularly novel, but very well done – flow is nice and intuitive, the level is good-looking, and so on. The only thing I really dislike about this level is that there are too many powerups and they’re too easy to obtain; you can expect to see powered-up seekers and bouncers flying everywhere.

I am not so fond of Escape from Precint 83. The concept of having all the players permanently flying is a good enough one, but I feel it could have been implemented much better. It’s really easy to get caught on the edges of the many, many ceilings, and the “pits” at the bottom just seem to get in the way. The level also strikes me as looking downright ugly, though I think that’s more the fault of the tileset (someone make a good Technoir conversion already! And then give it a palette swap so it isn’t so hideously pink!). Also, it completely breaks in 8-bit color for some reason; the background turns completely black and my FPS goes from 100 to 30.

Anyway, this “pack” didn’t blow me away, but it’s certainly worth a look.

I wish I had known about this before I made my JJ1 pack > <. If I ever make a sequel though, rest assured I will definitely be using this. A very important and I would even say essential tool for JJ1 level design that cuts back on a LOT of time spent level editing. To reiterate: it will save you a LOT of time and work…

I played both of these online with a couple of people, and thought they could use another review. So i’ll quickly state my impressions on both of the levels and how they played.

Tyuka’s Realm Forsaken

I had a duel in here, and it’s a really hectic level. The scores just kept piling up with both me and my opponent trying to out-rush each other in a really crazy way. When we both captured the map became a lot more strategic, with a lot of anticipating the opponent’s moves and hit and run tactics. I really liked the base placement, I think it adds a different element to the level and certainly makes for very unique tactics when playing. The fact that it only takes a couple of seconds to reach both bases, and that both of them can be camped simultaneously through the middle area makes it a pretty important area to control esp. to prevent rush tactics. It also makes the pacing of this level wicked fast, which I found to be a really good thing. The level of detail was also well done and I liked the method you’ve chosen to decorate the eyecandy with esp. with the use of the crystal shards. Music choice also boosted the level’s atmosphere and made it more aesthetically appealing. Overall, a nicely made level with a unique gameplay that’s fun as hell to play in. My first impressions were that it is deserving of an 8 or so, but after properly dueling in it I’m inclined to boost that up to an 8.5-8.7 range because of the playability of the level.

Games: Alive Sky-High

This level is substantially bigger than the former so I ran a 2vs2 in it instead of a duel. First impressions are that this is more of a party-based level than one for serious matches for a number of reasons. Although the level is fairly large, the bases are located a very short distance apart from each other. The powerups, shield and also the full energy on the other hand is located on the outside perimiter of the level, meaning that you are basically helpless to defend the base while you are collecting powerups/health. I’ve seen my team member score 3 flags in a row because all of red team was on the outer rim of the level and couldn’t get back in time :P.
Also, the carrot placement I find kind of strange. The Full NRG is easily campable and is kind of awkwardly placed, imo. I’m assuming its there to counter-balance the seeker powerup but the entire area it is in is just a bit strange. The tileset choice is interesting, and very quirky with some quirky eyecandy and a quirky theme. Can’t say I love/hate it like some of the other reviewers but it’s definitely interesting in the fact that its strange and different. I’m not sure what to rate this level, its not bad in larger servers but I would definitely never play a duel or even a team game in this that would be taken seriously. This would probably score around a 7 if I were to critique it as a serious, balanced map meant for 2vs2s or larger.

Finally, I just wanna say that despite of what my comments may sound like I did have fun playing both of these levels, especially Tyuka’s Realm Forsaken, and would certainly rather see them hosted instead of all the overhosted crap like semi etc. that people just play over and over. I really hope you do decide to make more levels in the future as well, FS.

-Blacky

What is this!? :/
eh…bad one

7.2 with DR!? Can’t believe…

@ Gry’s rating: Nah, the level gets played a lot, especially at bigger games and perhaps the level is a bit too big for proper 3v3’s, I find it a great level for bigger games. Works well and it is popular. Love the tricks which you’re able to do there too. :)

Tiles are looking like ripoff from 16bit games.. I don’t say it’s bad drawn, its very nice drawing, but it doesn’t just fit JJ2 style.

It’s just an unusual drawing style aint it? Like from another game which supporst 16milion colourz…
Definitely add more tiles so i can give you rating between 6-7.

EDIT: You know you shouldn’t upload something that is unfinished?