Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

(This review is based only on the Day version, under the assumption the Night version is identical but with a different palette. If this is wrong, I apologize.)

The impression I got here is of the author trying to lay out a coherent and logical jungle world, populating it with several distinct areas—a cave, a treehouse village…—that each have a layout appropriate to that kind of geographical feature. This is an admirable idea, and the complete opposite of the creating a layout first and then applying a theme to it afterwards… it is, unfortunately, much harder to get right than that other option, especially in a heavily layout-focused gamemode like CTF.

The consequence of the way the level is designed is that it’s surprisingly hard to get around. Over and over, I’d expect to be able to go somewhere, only to discover the mask didn’t actually let me. Either I’d guess wrong what was masked and what wasn’t, or I’d be unable to jump up through a platform, or the jump would be just a little too high to pull off. I’m accustomed to multiplayer levels being more or less on my side: if I see what appears to be a path nearby, and it’s in the direction I want to go for some larger purpose (e.g. getting to a base or powerup), I expect to be able to take that path without much thought. Here navigating the level is actively difficult. This is especially dangerous if you’re being pursued by another player and you don’t have the time to stop and figure out how to move around because that will lead to your death.

One such area is the bottom right corner. Its proximity to the red base suggests it’s a either a way of getting to the red base or a way to escape from the red base when you’re being pursued. It’s not. Rather, it’s the only(?) source of electroblaster ammo, which is needed to get the powerups scattered around the level. All well and good, but the actual electroblaster pickups are hidden behind a wall of leaves, so the player doesn’t even know they’re there, and also it’s almost impossible to get out of the bottom right corner in anything approaching a timely manner unless you’re Spaz. Though at least it is possible.. by comparison, in the area surrounding the ice powerup, you can only move from the right side of the level to the left side if you’re Spaz. Likewise, the blue base is flanked by two cliffs which only Spaz can jump to the tops of. Any other player needs to climb a series of nearby platforms and hover over, which takes more work and only affords access to the base from the right, while Spaz can access it from either the right or the left.

There’s not a lot to say about this point, but there’s not a lot of ammo. Probably the most plentiful kind of ammo is ice, which is also the least useful. Arguably the most useful powerup, the seeker powerup, is hidden inside a secret warp, which gives a significant advantage to people already familiar with the map.

I can see what the author was trying to do here, and again there’s clearly a lot of work put into it, especially the luxuriously detailed graphics. It’s just unfortunate that it’s so hard to move around the level, which, again, is fatal when you’re being pursued by a rabbit from the other team.

There’s a lot of interesting experimental design work in this level, but I don’t think CTF is the best gamemode for it. The fundamental rule of any team-based gamemode is that neither team should be given an advantage by the level design, because it’s random who will be on which team. There are occasional exceptions to this rule, like in Assault levels, where one team attacks and the other team defends, but the expectation there is that at some point every player will swap sides. There’s no such expectation in CTF, so you want a very balanced layout. Most levels achieve this by being fully symmetrical across the vertical axis, so the left side of the map is the same as the right side but mirrored, maybe with some slightly different ammo placement but no other significant changes. Levels like this, where one base is on top and the other is on the bottom, are very rare because it’s very hard to do properly. The existence of gravity means that up vs. down is a fundamentally different question than left vs. right.

In this level in particular, the layout is extra unbalanced. The top area has not only the blue base but almost every useful thing in the level: carrots, powerups, even a shield. The bottom area has the red base, spikes, and a (broken) bottomless death pit. Worse, while the blue base area gives you a lot of freedom for where to move around, there is only a single path to the red base, and it’s very long in addition to being very linear. This means it’s much, much easier to hang around the area of the blue base, waiting for your chance to capture the blue flag or deliver the red flag, than it is to hang around the red base. That’s the kind of gameplay CTF levels should try not to deliver without a very good reason.

Anyway. Just moving around in the level is actually pretty cool, even if I don’t think it coalesces into a balanced whole. In other words, I enjoy exploring this map more than I would probably enjoy playing it, and I’d suggest trying to find a more appropriate way to express this same style. The level has a lot of things to do in it, and I’m always a fan of that, provided they’re there in service to a broader gameplay. Secret areas aren’t really in vogue for multiplayer levels anymore, because they they give too much of an advantage to people who’ve played the level before, so I’d suggest dropping the RF powerup/lightning shield area, but in general I do like the willingness to experiment. As for graphics, while this isn’t my favorite Tubelectric palette, everything comes together pretty well and looks good and intricate. Different areas look somewhat different from each other, which is another important thing to be able to do in multiplayer levels, to help players keep track at a glance of where they are in the map.

Basically, on a micro level, this is really good and I’m happy I downloaded it. There are lots of fine details, both visually and technically. What you need to work on is the macro level: how the different areas in the map relate to each other, how players move from one area to another, and why.

This is great and I love that it exists. There are flaws, to be sure, and Violet’s review does a good job of pointing them out. But there is a lot in here that is really creative, there is a solid story (by JJ2 standards), the levels are atmospheric, and overall it is challenging (for me) but fun to play. I’m really looking forward to episode 2.

incredible level pack with tons of cut features, the levels are huge and challenging yet still pretty damn fun.

The tool, in a nutshell, does what it promises to do, and what it promises to do is useful. So it’s a good tool, and if you would like to ensure the integrity/completeness of your JJ2 folder, this can help you do so.

I think it could go a bit further in offering extra help and doing so would elevate this from ‘it does what it promises’ to ‘this is a really nice tool’. For example:

- Also scan the Cache folder by default, or include it as ‘Additional Folder’ automatically if available in the selected folder, since JJ2 uses that folder as well and in many cases the tileset may be in there even if it is not in the main folder.
- Allow sorting the results by tileset filename
- Perhaps add a link per missing tileset to (for example) Jazz2Online’s search so you can download the missing tileset easily
- Look in the registry to automatically fill in the Jazz Jackrabbit folder as the default setting
- When scanning multiple folders, cross-reference results, so I can see if (for example) a tileset is missing in my 1.23 folder but available in my TSF folder
- Add a button with which one can then move tilesets around so they are available in all folders that need them

Right now the tool offers the base functionality to do what I listed above manually. This is useful, but the tool could also do it for you, and that would make it even better.

Playing these levels I was instantly reminded of Medivo 3, and I see now they’re by the same author, so that makes sense. Once again the most obvious issue with most of these levels is there’s no reason to actually play them. It’s much faster to use copter ears to skip almost the entire map and not notice any of the details of the layout. Not every level in this pack falls into that same pattern (the Labrat level has maybe the most detailed layout), but most of them do. Three possible solutions to this problem come to mind:

1. Have walls in the air so the player can’t get too high above the ground. A few of these levels do that, but often only once, which provides only a momentary break before you’re back to soaring over everything again.
2. If you’re going to make the level’s progression almost entirely horizontal, at least have it move gradually up instead of down. Almost every level here has the start higher up than the end. The reverse would force the player to pay some attention, and would give you opportunities to design ways for the player to get upwards, such as springs, platforms, sucker tubes, pinball flippers, cheshire cats..
3. Change direction from time to time. The best levels here—Labrat, and the sewers in Colonius—do this, but the rest do not. Look at the official JJ2 single player levels for contrast… they change directions all the time. It’s fine if your overall progression is to the right, because that’s traditional for 2D video games, but there’s no reason not to have lots of moments going up, down, and left along the way. And doing this forces the player to notice your level exists and think about what to do next.

I can’t comment on enemy placement because I hardly ever interacted with any, but I did notice there were very few pickups. Collecting things is the most obvious way to provide fun/rewards to a player, so it’s not something to skimp on without good reason. The boss battles are completely fundamental and added nothing.

The graphics are fine, anyway. I wouldn’t be surprised if the background (and sometimes foreground) layers were all copied directly from the official single player levels (the start of MedivoB supports this theory), but the walls are fine too, in that they seem to tile properly even in the hardest to use tilesets like Inferno. There’s nothing innovative or elaborate about the graphic use here, but it’s all functional, and sometimes that’s all you need for a single player map.

There’s nothing wrong with trying to make a short single player level. Queen’s Castle is a great example of how to do it right—this, however, is not. Throw out most of this and instead focus on doing more of what you did in the Labrat level, where there are actual level features to interact with, a floor that isn’t just a straight line,and a layout that the player has to pay attention to.

Very interesting content. My absolute favorite was the Megairbase level with the scripted Guardian. I remember playing the official Megairbase example level some time ago, which ended with just the sprites of the guardian and text saying something like “due to limitations of JJ2 this boss won’t fight”. It’s so nice to see the author eventually proving himself wrong in here!

There are some tilesets missing in the package (most of them unavailable on j2o):
deans.j2t
hh98night.j2t
hocus02.j2t
hocus03.j2t
UR-HOTEL.j2t

Also, it’s a shame that one of the coolest tilesets in the pack (Demo Zone.j2t) doesn’t have any example level. :-(

*** Download recommendation ***

I wasn’t very impressed with the previous version’s eye-candy near and on the sprite layer. The newer version checks almost all the boxes for me, including tolerable use of water and good use of energy blast.

Perhaps Dominator was referring to the tileset not being included in the download, because it isn’t. You should include tilesets that don’t come with the game in the zip file you submit to Jazz2Online.

This test is very generic, with the big hits – airboard maze, precise jumps, wallclimbing, RF climbing, you know the drill. It also doesn’t make much of an effort to look nice, and while it is commendable to not use a variation on Top Secret 3 yet again, this level uses Hotel Dream as if it were Top Secret 3, simply using tiles as blocks without any consideration to whether they were meant to be placed together or not. It does, curiously, seem to have a story (here it is in full: “Your Grandmother needs a medicine Go get it to her”) which is a cool twist. Unfortunately not much is done with that, though along the way you will visit a ‘hospital’ to pick up the medicine.

The description says ‘I saw everyone made a test then I said to do one too’ which is not necessarily a bad idea but to a large extent what happened is that the same test that everyone else already made was made again. There’s nothing new here (except for that minimal attempt at a ‘story’) and unless you have made it your life goal to complete every test under the sun there is no reason to play this.

Another generic test. Nothing distinguishes it from the gazillion other top secret 3-ish tests and this one’s pretty short to boot with only five tests, all of them seen previously in various incarnations in many many many other test levels. It also makes references to a command (!showwarps) that is presumably implemented with a server mutator, since no level script is included. The utility of uploading this to Jazz2Online is then questionable since apparently it is made to be played with a specific mutator that is not included or even mentioned by name.

Please don’t upload low-effort levels like this to Jazz2Online.

tileset “facepalm”
(EDIT: Rating removed—the rating has no connection to the recommendation, which has no connection to the review text, which has no connection to the upload. -Violet)

The basic maneuverability is fine, but some spots can require complex double jumps, etc. An energy blast, thankfully, can counter most issues relating to movement, but it’s not always reliable. RF climbers and wjers can gain a huge advantage here. Some spots here are one tile open, so you may want to play very carefully. A hidden passage is a treat for the initiated. Climbing up from 47,26 could be easier.

The theme and eye-candy are quite surreal and satisfying.

I don’t have any complaints about the item placement, except that there may be some minor imbalance.

Not a bad level, especially if you have some skills. I wouldn’t recommend this level for newcomers or those who want something very easy to play, though.

Quite a marvel visually, with the various tileset elements being juxtaposed together very effectively in the level to create a dark, spooky environment. The layout is also pretty nifty, with a cool not-quite-symmetrical design that offers a number of tactical options with the diverse set of weapons available. Download strongly recommended!

:O

Go on! Mr.cooba!

Pro level !

Wow! This tileset reminds me of Pezrock.
I really like this level! Good job Cooba!

OwO <3

beautiful :3

UwU love the levels dont really like the inf ammo script :D a solid 8.2 from me,

:D very very cool!