Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Foreseeable Future is the first “modern” JJ1 release. Everything before this has been more or less bound within the steep limitations of JCS94 — DD was able to create a palette edit of Diamondus, and we’ve many of us edited a few events within the confines of the sprites that come with the levels we’re editing — but Newspaz has custom tilesets, custom attacks, custom sprites (mostly swapped from original JJ1 planets, but also some smaller spritifying work, like the flames in Castle and Desolatus), and even custom movement. There could be more — the flowers in Carrotus are conspicuously unanimated, and you should be able to shoot the knights’ helmets, like in Bloxonius — but overall Newspaz is pioneering and demonstrating JJ1’s true range of customization possibilities. Cooba and I are of course working on our own projects, as are perhaps others who haven’t shown any screenshots yet, but Newspaz got his out the door first.

All that, though, has nothing to do with the more important question of how good the episode actually is. Fortunately, in addition to doing stuff first, Newspaz is pretty good at it as well. He creates three distinct atmospheres that are copies neither of their JJ2 counterparts (though Desolatus, his version of BlurredD’s tileset “Desolation,” doesn’t have an exact single player counterpart anyway) nor of any particular JJ1 planet. Carrotus definitely has familiar elements from the original Carrotus levels, but it’s still distinctly Newspaz’s own, and I suspect I even noticed a piece or two inspired more by Easter. The enemies are turtles and bees, more or less straight from Diamondus, although the movement of the bees is sometimes a bit wonky, and nothing of the planet poses too much of a threat, unless you fall into the thorns a lot. Every once in a while the level feels a bit open, but for the most part NS recognizes that JJ1 necessitates eyecandy being crammed into small spaces, due to its small screen size, and his tileset conversion is flush with foliage. The turtle looks a bit weird, since its shell is the color of the Carrotus radish, but that’s not too big of a deal.

Castle is assuredly the main event. It’s the hardest and the prettiest of the three, the subdued tile colors mixing beautifully with the near-garish sprite colors. Enemies are Armor-Doofi from Stonar, recolored Red Bats from Turtemple, and the cannon tiles, which cannot be destroyed but will still fire cannonballs at you. The bats come out of nowhere, the cannons fire a lot, and there are a lot of spikes, all of which adds up to a difficult experience, with only one checkpoint per level. The level design is in no way an emulation of JJ2’s castle — it feels a lot more solid, for one — but it’s still very consistent, and does the best job of any of the three of feeling like it has a coherent, planned layout, more than a lot of areas one after another.

Desolatus is the most out there and plays around the most with JJ1, featuring moving platforms, spike-like events, weird jumping owls, tubes, bridges, and spring shoes. Its layout might be the closest to Cliffy’s, though I’m not sure… it’s pretty claustrophobic, with a pretty twisted path in each level, and, more than the other two planets, it features a number of clearly divided areas. It’s not as pretty, but that’s arguably not NS’ fault. It’s not nearly as difficult as Castle, though, to the extent that the level order becomes a little confusing, and while NS provides a skeleton plot for the episode, it’s not especially clear why one planet necessarily precedes another, so this could have been switched.

There are some distinctive features to NS’ level design which feel slightly out of place in JJ1 because they show up so rarely in the original levels. Newspaz makes much greater use of vertical space than Cliffy did — Cliffy had occasional floating platforms or floating springs, and Newspaz does use the latter once, but he also has a lot of tubes which you traverse using a single spring, or big pits for falling down, both of which are quite distinctive to him across all three planets. Secrets are usually in the same sort of place, a little off to the side in a place you’re supposed to go up or down, and they’re never hidden by foreground or destructable walls, you just need to walk over to them. Paths break occasionally, and that’s always cool — Carrotus is fairly complicated, and there’s a nice loop area in a Castle level that feels similar to Crysilis. One area near the end of Desolatus has a bunch of floating (tile-based) platforms and feels more like a CTF level than anything else, or perhaps Jill of the Jungle.

The biggest flaw in Foreseeable Future is that the difficulty, while mostly reasonable, is occasionally unfair. A side effect of Newspaz’s fondness of vertical space is that there are a lot of leaps of faith, and there’s no good way to know which ones will have spikes at the bottom and which won’t. One pit in Castle comes to mind especially which it’s really not clear that you have to jump across, and while this is subverted at one point in Desolatus — you fall down and land directly on a moving platform, which NS clearly timed carefully — it seems that working in such a small resolution is difficult, especially if you’re used to JJ2. The bats and cannons in Castle are hard to predict and the latter fire very frequently, making them possible to get by without injury if you memorize where they are in each level, but much harder to appraise at a distance and come up with a strategy for avoiding. You feel much safer there when you’re moving left, because the bats approach you more slowly and the cannons can’t hit you. I don’t object to difficulty by itself, I just object to success resulting only from memorization. The other planets are much better with this, though, a few surprising flames in Desolatus aside, and for the most part you’re just treated to pretty graphics, new and very memorable level designs, and a sense of inspiration as you realize how many things JJ1 can do if you give it a chance. Foreseeable Future isn’t perfect, but what is?

It’s hard to know what to say about this… on the one hand, it does a good job of what it tries to do, if not a perfect one, but on the other hand, is what it tries to do a good thing?

I compared the levels in the pack, in addition to their JJ1 LEVELX.00X originals, to jj1Diamondus1.j2l, a total conversion of Diamondus 1 I found in my JJ2 folder, of unknown origin, and jjtube1.j2l, the total conversion of Tubelectric 1 that came with Newspaz’s Tubelectric conversion. In terms of tile-to-tile accuracy alone, PT32 does a better job, no doubt aided tremendously by the existence of the level viewer JCS94, which was not available when the other two levels were made. jjtube1.j2l has two tubes slightly longer than they are supposed to be, but PT32 gets both of them right. jj1Diamondus1 has a few missing tiles at the end, perhaps because they were not present in the tileset it used, but PT32 includes them. The only places I noticed where PT32 diverts radically from the actual JJ1 tiles are those which are never seen on screen, and that’s fine. Obviously a massive amount of time was put into the accuracy and it turned out well, with only occasional, minor hiccups (a layer 3 problem in Diamondus, a few background tiles overgeneralized in Medivo). In nearly all the spots where Jazz could get stuck in JJ2 from diagonally masked tiles coming together, PT32 carefully inserts invisible solid tiles to keep you safe: good job there. Even the enemies that appear only on hard difficulty are present and appropriately parametered.

Of course, JJ1 and JJ2 are different games and use different engines, and there are a few things that do not translate exactly, and thus necessarily a few decisions that must be made. I can’t however say that I agree with all that many of PT32’s. The enemy replacements are all straightforward — replacing JJ1 bees with JJ2 bees is never as accurate as we might want it to be, but I’m not sure there’s any better alternative, and rapiers are a decent swap — and I can’t say I have a better, easily implemented suggestion for shields than coins, but problems subsist. The tiny turtles are gone without a trace, although I’d have been tempted to use moths. The secret level, as PT32 admits, is barely playable, and it would have worked out much better with an airboard than an actual bird morph. This is what JelZe did for his own conversion of Turtle Terror, and it was much more functional, even if the bird morph is a better match VISUALLY. I’m not sure how I feel about using Bubba for the turtle boss.

Only occasionally does PT32 have to change the level design outright. There’s a secret in a Medivo level with four +15 Toaster boxes, which in JJ1 you reach from above and then exit through the floor. PT32 notices this doesn’t work in JJ2, because two of the boxes would fall through the floor, and replaces the exit route with one way tiles. This is decent, if confusing, but +15 boxes are not affected by gravity when you move them with belts, as JCSref mentions, and I think that would have done a much better job. Conversely, there’s another spot at the top right of Diamondus 1 where some tiles are supposed to be one way but aren’t because they’re not masked in JJ2 and I guess PT32 didn’t test it enough. The various tube secrets are all done pretty well, but the secret-to-the-left-of-the-spring in Diamondus 2 is inaccessible because PT32, unlike JelZe, was unwilling to compromise and add one more unmasked tile above the spring for Jazz to fit through. The destructable blocks in the Guardian arena are understandably replaced with destruct scenery, although I don’t understand why their debris tile is lava. On the bright side, invisible springs are handled consistently well.

Tubelectric is the biggest offender. To be sure, it’s for good reason — there simply aren’t obvious counterparts to the turrets or barriers. Newspaz leaves the barriers as unmasked eyecandy (after all, his only goal was to show off the tileset as visually complete — which it wasn’t — not to push the limits of the JJ2 engine), and puts Hurt events on the turrets. JelZe leaves the turrets out entirely and replaces the barriers with four-hit destruct blocks. PT32, though, employs the worst of both worlds and masks neither of them, leaving Tubelectric neutered. However, unlike Newspaz or JelZe, PT32 was actually working with a tileset that had masked animations for the turret fire, and apparently just chose not to use them. Bizarre. The barriers are a harder case, but I’m pretty sure a solution could have been found with Reworder. It wouldn’t have been perfect, but it would have been better than not trying.

So, PT32 does a nearly perfect job of 1:1 conversion accuracy, though the creativity comes up a bit short. What’s it worth? This episode is the natural counterpoint to JelZe’s, which itself was fairly controversial — I don’t even agree with the rating I myself gave to it back then. JelZe did better in making a JJ2 pack — his Fast Feet section and secret level are irrefutably better than PT32’s, for instance — but necessarily sacrificed a bit of accuracy, both from graphics (waterfalls, glowing blue circuits, lava, foreground bars, and so on) and from gameplay. PT32 does better in bringing over the exact contents, almost mechanically, with few problems other than those of the JJ2 engine and the conversions used, but loses the feeling of newness, creativity, and mystery.

The real problem, in short, is that PT32 should not have made this, not in 2010. I’m not saying that if no one had totally converted Turtle Terror in twelve years, then there was a good reason for it — though I’m not arguing against that, either — I’m just saying that, given our understanding of both the JJ1 and JJ2 file formats, this should never have been done by hand over a period of apparently 80 hours. A program could have done automatically just about everything PT32 does here manually, with human labor necessary only for a bit of cleanup and feature adding at the end. And that’s the tragedy of the work: all the lost time and talent toward only a questionable end.

Thanks Treylina, I have to agree with you that a 9.5 is way too high, I much rather see advice on how to improve then a high mark. As for the seeker and blaster: Did you try using the same ammo as the power up to get it? Its not hard to get it if you know how to :). The lack of ammo is because I havent tested this level yet, I thought it was enough because this level is pretty small (you can go from point A to point B verry quickly so you can collect ammo faster) and the respawn time wasnt too high. Its probably one of the few gameplay issues I still wanted to change (I want to have a balance between spamshooting and collecting). Last: I uploaded this level because I really didnt plan to continue on it and I still wanted advice on how to improve.

Lol 9.5? No offense, but this lvl is rather over-rated. I know you “lost your motivation”, but there could’ve been much more done to make it better. You could’ve worked on it on the next few months maybe…(well, I have a battle lvl I’ve been really lazy about working on, but it’s taken sooo many months, possibly even more than 6 because I’ve been so lazy about it) The layout is fine, but ammo is seriously lacking in some places. My advice is spread out the ammo a bit more- like put some of them in a path evening out or something so you can collect them on your way, or maybe add some more around the rather empty areas.
I understand that you dislike lvls where you just shoot as much as possible, but this is seriously lacking ammo in some places…it’s not even funny and makes it look rather unfinished.
And I’m going to be honest here, but I was never really a fan of this tileset. It’s kind of hard to see what’s going on in it, and a bit too dull for my tastes, you don’t really need to change the tileset to improve it, I’d just really like it more if you added more ammo in some kind of way. As for music, the music is fine.
I’ll leave this at N/A because maybe one day you’ll finish it off. And because this wasn’t really a proper review…

EDIT: ROFL this is featured! I have better reviews out there, this one sucks compared to the most of my other reviews. Btw took out the bit on asking how to get blaster and seek PU.

OK battle level

I’m giving this 10 because its an amazing effort. and PT’s rating is too low..

This was kind of amazing. the possibilities of editing jj1 seem to be sort of endless..

This level left me without words,i really enjoy it,it has amazing gameplay,very fun to play no annoying pits,very much intensity,It just left me without words.
It’s okay with eyecandy,nothing special.
It’s really enjoyable you should download it.

I like it. Open spaces and smaller corridors make for a nice change of pace. Eyecandy isn’t great, but that’s not what the game is about.

It’s probably not very useful now, anymore, but the background bugging out is simply caused by the level having too many destruct scenery tiles.

A maximum of 48 of this event can be used, and no more than abut 20 should be tried, otherwise you’ll trigger the ‘tilespam’ error, where all tile #0 are replaced.

Otherwise I pretty much agree with Violet, even though I wouldn’t be as harsh really

Again, an excellent JJ1 level editor.

Unlike J1CS, this program is very convenient and user friendly, and not just a proof of concept, either. Once you spend about ten minutes fiddling with the interface and the hotkeys, you’ll be able to create levels in the blink of an eye.

There’s a ton of included features which make JJ1 editing a fun, curious exploration – amongst which are editing enemy attacks, modifying sounds, custom tilesets, etc…

When combined with Doubble Dutch’s swiss-army-knife JJ1MOD, the modification possibilities are basically endless. Those who know how to design will surely appreciate Newspaz’s excellent work.

Even if you’re not exactly crazy about JJ1, you should download this – even if only out of curiosity. But if you do feel like getting your feet wet, then download this right now and get started!

Very, very nice editor. The new J1E has updated features, handy simplicity, a simple yet unprecedented bonus level editor (I hereby predict a surge of custom JJ1 bonus levels) and much more. Event customization. Quick performance. You can create a save game in JJ1 via the editor, allowing you to speedily test your level without skipping through the rest of the episode. Handy.
There were some things I didn’t like though, mostly in the convenience category. Unlike in the older and loosely similar J1CS, this prog does not let you scroll with the arrow keys, and you actually can only scroll up and down. Also missing is the inestimably valuable “B” multiselect key. I was very disappointed by that. The events were also stripped of their names, making it a long, boring and tedious process in hunting down and labeling each item.
So verdict? Nice and practical, and with only a handful of aesthetic detractors, the J1E is a very helpful tool that will redefine how JJ1 levels are made. Download today.

xSnooze: …what the heck…
Why is my rating too low? My rating is exactly what I think it deserves. IMHO, it’s not a bad one either, although perhaps an 8.0-8.2 might work too.

PLEASE DO LETNI FIRST!!!!!
A better tech would be great too, but there really isn’t a good version of Letni yet

@Violet CLM,
I went into far more detail in my private message to you, but I do appreciate what you have to say. It’s better that way.
I also forgot to mention this in my message, but my goal in making these levels was not to make it fun to play in JJ2 (although I am certainly willing to go fairly far out on that limb to do so), but to make levels as close as possible to the real thing in JJ1. If I have to sacrifice a bit of playability to do so, so be it. Some people aren’t as lucky as you or I to have JJ1, and some people are too lazy to go find the DOSbox progs for it. They are the ones I did this for, so they can see what JJ1 was like. If I radically changed the pack to suit the 2ers, that wouldn’t accomplish my objective. As long as they get my very best effort (and I’ll grant you that this one wasn’t entirely perfect), and as long as they get a quality product, I will never consider this a waste of time. Never.

@Fox,
Yes, there IS a version of Letni out. But it’s so unusable that I’m not sure it counts. I tried building with it once and never did so again.
As I have said before, the point of this pack is close-to-perfect JJ1 replication. There was a much larger ammo capacity in JJ1 than JJ2. Oh, and the non-TSF JJ2 can’t exceed 99 ammo, either.
Let this be the last time I have to explain it to anybody. It WILL stink gameplay-wise! I was more concerned with accuracy, a mistake I do not plan to repeat next time around.
Oh, and someone already made a JJ2 version of episode 1 with JJ2 tilesets. [admin please add link to it here] However, I won’t stop you if you’re planning to do it as well.

very nice. Glad to see we finally got this out. Hopefully we will get some good conversion of Tecnoir and Letni. (May do one of them myself if I get bored. Made the pallet already for tecnoir.)

Edit: I’ve decided once Lark get’s back to me on Fanolint, I’ll try to make a more usable Letni tileset. Won’t put as much effort into it as Fanolint, but still it will be a lot more usable then the current one

Excellent race levels, esp. use of upcurrents and falling.

Improvements:
-Remove excessive poles – they are really annoying and do little to speed up the player when so closely spaced
-Kingdom of Glass is too easy for Jazz cf. Spaz (intentional?)
-Remove annoying long ‘connecting tubes’. It interrupts the flow of the fast-paced race

No offense to you, but i’d suggest you’d lower your seemingly high standards a bit, if this kind of levels are the best you can do.

EDIT: I am not the only one who has noticed/has gotten annoyed by that, btw. also, for the level it seems you could have fixed alot with some small adjustments..

ThunderWalker: I mean small details, like adding some more ec, and adding oneways to some tiles. doing that would greatly help the flow :P

Don’t work for me.
If i open JJ2 (i use 1.24) and i select Singleplayer: ACCESS VIOLATION.

Please fix this.
EDIT: Ok works. You need to erase one of the Episodes (too many Episodes). NOW it works fine. GJ

Spike balls? OMG It’s really bug!
It’s causing some “Access Violation“s.
Letni is really good.
Orbitus? Hard. But sweet music.
Recommend? Yes, of couse.
Rate? 8, because I don’t like spike balls. :)
(Sorry my bad English.)

PS: I’m waitng Ep. 3. Be quick! xD

[Review changed to quick review. ~cooba]

Good, good, and good!
I really really (and of course) really like it!!

But I didn’t like sparks. (-0.3)
Recommend? Yes OF COURSE!

[Review changed to quick review. ~cooba]

It’s really cool! xD
Everything is good very creative!

I want Part 2 :)

[Review changed to quick review. ~cooba]