Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

This level has got the best eyecandy I’ve yet seen with this set. The level might look insanely large in JCS that would fit only like 8vs8, but practically it’s probably fine for a 5vs5 even. Fastest route from base to base takes under 10 seconds even! Thanks to a neat flow too. Pickups come with a reasonable amount and variety. D/L and host!

Thanks this was really needed
I’m a good programmer of php so, understanding this script was pretty easy.

Download recommendation: YES

Note: change this socket address to “jazz.digiex.net” to make the script work.

EDIT:
I am sorry to say this, but this script DO NOT work with JJ2+, and the error is “Malformed package”. This ONLY work with non-plus-JJ2.

Please fix this, I am trying but getting nowhere.
Please explain the different bytes or binaries and how to get it work.

Great work Cataphract PT!

Good theme, also nice to see someone using this palette of the tileset. Not too keen on the layout though, from the looks of things it seems a bit red biased due to being so much easier to defend than the blue base, and tunnely layouts like this are a bit cliché, however it was fairly fun to play despite being a bit confusing at first. D/R.

Sanguinary Sanctuary marks the first release of well-known community member cooba in well over a year, and also his first release since the disbanding of his levelgroup IC and his joining of the well-known yet relatively inactive OLC. So, to add some special flair to the occasion, here’s the first actual Jazz2online upload review I’ve written in give or take four years, a good deal of which I was near completely inactive in the community myself. I wasn’t going to review the level at first or not this soon at any rate, but after having the pleasure of playing it online this evening in a game with FireSworD, Bobby, PurpleJazz and others and having a bit of time on my hands I decided to take a stab at writing something on it. So, without further ado, let’s take a look at this baby shall we?

What we have here is a 245×64 (amusingly very close to JCS’s default 256×64 level size) symmetrical capture the flag level using the old but cool Dark Reign tileset by Waz. I think the first thing a lot of people will notice about this level is the sheer size, and yes, this level is indeed quite large. This is actually a very good thing in my opinion; I like CTF levels of a decent size and we need more of them, as this is obviously good for JDC events, thing like the Aniversary bash and big team games in general. That said this level is probably best played in games with six players or more, maybe even preferably eight or more, as said game that I played here was a 3vs3 and while it generally progressed quite smoothly staying alive with the flag proved to be quite easy with only two people chasing you. Still this can also make for some fun games, which indeed it did, so playing with 6 dudes should still be justifiable here.

The entire map plays pretty horizontally and there’s basically three different horizontal levels to the thing with shafts with springs and vines allowing you to move up and down between them. The layout in general seems pretty conventional and at first glance rather unexciting, and while this holds true to a degree it does make use of a few clever ideas and if not the most original still manages to be very solid and fun to play. There’s a lot of space to move around in and the level generally doesn’t get too cramped to allow a generous amount of freedom of movement. The flow here is pretty decent but still leaves a few obstacles out there in the open for you to jump over, which is actually a pretty good thing in my opinion. Instead of just having perfect slopes and float ups to smooth things out and have a perfectly flowing level, I like it when a level designer is actually bold enough to throw a few bumps into his levels to force people to actually put some more thought into getting around, instead of just holding right or left all the time, sometimes hitting a convenient spring or suckertube along the way. The level is inherently neither Spaz- nor Jazz-biased. Spaz can make use of some tricky RF jumps to travel up and down the level faster (which do seem annoying to miss as Jazz but not so good as to be truly abusive) and has some advantages with a few tricky jumps around the middle section. However, all those horizontal surfaces make it very easy for Jazz to move across the level from left to right quickly. I played this as Jazz and after getting over some initial awkwardness, mostly in avoiding some obstacles in making my jumps, I was actually able to move around quite quickly. In fact I beat Spaz players from base to base several times just by bombarding them with Seekers while smoothly coptering over the middle area, or was able to kill them by coptering over the full energy carrot area and shooting Bouncers down below me. cooba also used a nice little trick where he puts springs above bridge events (which no longer crash the game thanks to jj2+) and triggered tiles set to dissapear when the level loads, effectively making the springs float in mid-air and letting you walk a tile under the springs without hitting them. Very clever.

Event placement, as expected of a weathered level mapper like cooba, is pretty much top notch here. With the level being symmetrical the base placement is pretty standard, with blue and red bases in about the vertical middle at the left and right sides of the level respectively. The bases are reasonably out in the open, each being placed in a sort of broad hollow in a relatively open corridor and accessible from either left, right, above or bellow. cooba told me he wanted to make this level a “base camper’s hell”, and while this may not be entirely true (there being a decent amount of ways to defend with the flag if you’re clever), you can still be easily nailed by RFs, Bouncies or fastfire Pepperspray if you’re not careful, so defending certainly isn’t a no-brainer here like it is in levels such as Security Breach. Being ready to score consistently without getting hit certainly is hard. I especially like the little shafts with the vines right above the bases. They seem like an easy place to be ready to score, yet they’re actually so high up that it’s hard to see what’s actually going on at the base and it’s also hard to attack from up there (Bouncies going down the shaft have a depressingly tiny hitbox) while it’s easy to BE attacked (i.e. Seekers, shooting Bouncies up the shaft, Electro Blaster). Weathered Spaz players can also RF climb up the shafts from the bases to gain quick acces to the one health carrots above.

Speaking of carrots, this level has five of them: that’s right, you heard me, five. There’s four one health carrots and one full energy carrot. Let’s tackle the full energy first. It’s located in the top middle of the level, in a sort of pit flanked by two high walls through which people can bombard you using the Electro Blaster. It looks pretty easily campable on one hand but on the other hand campers can easily be attacked there as well as I described above, so there’s nothing really wrong there. There are two one health carrots located at the left and right of the middle area, and two more located in an out-of-the-way area above the shaft above either team’s base, as I described above. There are actually a number of warps which lead to several of the carrots, which might be easy to miss for some people. They are signified by four large gargoyle statues: there is one a slight walk either left or right of each base, and there are two in the bottom middle of the level. The warps at the bottom middle of the level will take you to the full energy carrot, while the warps at the bases will take you to either the left or right middle one health carrot, respectively. I personally found the warps at the bases the most useful as they allow you to quickly mise both middle one health carrots as they’re quite close to each other. The warps to the full energy also provide a useful way to access the otherwise pretty hard to get to full energy carrot as well, though.

Weapon-wise the level offers you all you need for a healthy bit of carnage, yet is still conservative enough for you to warrant some ammunition economics. Available are Seekers (in small amounts), Pepperspray, Electro Blasters, two Bouncer Powerups and an RF Missile powerup. Apart from the ever-present Seeker Missile, generally the best (most broken?) weapon in the game, the RF Missile and Pepperspray look to be pretty dominant in a horizontal level like this. The Toaster, always a melee-favorite, is noticeably missing, though cooba tells me he did this on purpose, and having to actually think about what weapon to switch to in close quarters instead of just mindlessly spraying fire all around isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

The Bouncer powerups are placed at the far left and right end of the level, and have to be accessed by going up a semi-narrow shaft with vines. Interestingly enough, you can exit these shafts at the top and go directly into the gargoyle-warps to the one health carrots, from which you can go to the lower middle part of the level, where the RF powerup is located. This is a pretty clever idea, considering it allows you to both heal yourself and restock your ammo if in trouble, or to just go for a quick ammunitions run after getting killed before going into battle once more. The RF missiles are clearly the most abundant in this level, as cooba makes some clever use of MCE events to place two +3 RF ammo pellets in a single tile allowing you to stock up quite quickly. There is only a small amount of Seeker ammo in the level which promotes economic use of this weapon; I was personally out of Seekers half the time and had to go a bit out of my way to restock, considering the Seeker ammo, while not completely out of the way of the level’s commonly tread routes isn’t so near to key camp spots to just be able to restock the things at will. A last addition I want to mention are the Fastfires, which are present in clumps of five at the left and right bottom corners of the level. These represent an interesting choice for players to take or not: you can either forego them and forsake the possibility of nailing people effortlessly with Fastfire Pepperspray, or stock up and risk emptying half your magazine of Bouncers with a single press of a button. Personally I can’t resist the temptation of trying to machine-gun people with Pepperspray in flat levels like this so for me the choice is clear.

The overall visual style of the level is quite good-looking and very compelling. Earlier this evening I remember cooba giving a general description of the theme he was going for, which went something along the lines of “a decayed, decrepit place, abandoned since the dawn of time” with “dark mountains and an ocean of lava” in the background. Overly dramatic as that may sound, and with the coincidentally convenient weaponry and CTF bases lying around taken as a given, I don’t think anyone here will argue with me when I say that Sanguinary Sanctuary looks pretty damn good. cooba makes very effective use of Waz’s 400-tile Dark Reign tileset, and while the set makes it a bit hard to strongly break the mold and create a unique visual look with it (I know, I’ve used it in the past) cooba still manages to churn out a level with a reasonably distinct look.

Spikes portrude from the floors and ceilings, ragged curtains hang from tarnished stone, and an impressive variety of pillars, bridges and arches make for some good-looking and well-structured pieces of architecture. Not a single space is wasted as even solid floors have contain network of chains and pillars for you to gawk at. The aforementioned mountainy background looks pretty nice and it took me a while to notice the “ocean of lava” positioned underneath the mountains actually moves at a slow rate when you’re standing still. cooba also used some cool tricks with the tileset I haven’t seen before such as the broken wooden bridges in the middle of the level. I especially like the giant brickwork skull in the background of the full energy carrot area, a la Toxin Twister and very cool looking, it makes for a recognizable landmark within the level and adds to the theme very nicely. There are a good amount of nifty little details, like the gargoyles signifying the warps to the carrots shimmering slightly if you look close which is a nice touch indeed. Apart from this there’s sadly no other tricks with ambient lighting or even a basic 80% start lighting setting or whatnot, which is a shame. Just about everyone plays online with lighting disabled anyway but I still think it’d have been a nice add to the atmosphere.

The overall visual style may look cluttered and confusing to some people but I generally don’t have much of a problem with it. I found it perfectly playable in high detail but for those who prefer a faster framerate or a cleaner look cooba actually made the level fully compatible with low detail, with no noticeable layer 5 cheating or weird backgrounds that suddenly show like you find in some other levels. In the end the whole visual style makes for a good-looking gothic, dreary, decrepit sort of setting which is very well realised.

For his music selection cooba makes use of a nifty jj2+ feature which allows mp3 format files to be used as background tracks. The music used here is a nifty little mp3 track simply called Ether, released by Damballah, a music project by Michal Moskal under the Polish Kaos ex Machina netlabel. The overall sound of the music is very sullen, dreary and menacing and in that it adds rather nicely to the overall feel of the level. At first I personally found it rather repetitive and honestly a bit dull, and while part of me still thinks that I do feel that cooba made a good choice here as the music still does a very good job in adding to the level’s overall dark and foreboding feel. He told me the level was at first gonna use Shutdown.xm, an old trance/industrial module by Teque, which would’ve been decent but honestly sounds too “techish” for this level to me (if that makes any sense) so cooba made the right choice here in the end I’d say.

When thinking to myself what kind of rating this level’d deserve I was at first somewhat undecided between a 7.5 and an 8.0 (this being in my current opinion the highest mark a single-level release can get unless it STRONGLY manages to impress me), yet I was already leaning towards an 8 simply because of the sheer amount of work that obviously went into this title. After playing this in an online 3vs3 game tho’ I found the level was actually a lot more fun and interesting to play than I thought, so I now feel an 8.0 is fully justified. This is pretty much the rating I feel is deserving for levels I’d actively go back and play a decent amount and Sanguinary Sanctuary surely fits this criterium. I might actually go back and raise the rating slightly after playing this more (though at the moment I mostly subscribe to the Aiko school of reviewing in preferring to only give out whole or half points) but at the moment just go and take a high and VERY well deserved eight points!

In conclusion, Sanguinary Sanctuary is a good-looking and very playable CTF level, that everyone should consider for their 3on3 games and beyond, or for just hosting on a public server for the heck of it. It may not be the most innovative or exciting release ever but it is a very solid product indeed and it’s obvious a lot of work went into it. Everyone, go download this level now!

this is very scary how make you it
this IS GREAT i give it an 10

No, but seriously, this is a pretty good level with some nice EC tricks and smart use of bridges. The layout is a bit different, and has some interesting stuff (like the warps above the Bouncy PU) and some nice RF spots (always good to have)

Very good level, surprised at the quality.

P.S: Why does this music remind me of Hailfire Peaks from Banjo-Tooie?

Congrats u bagged a 8!!!
Because…
Levels=2
baddies=5
storyplot=5
setout=4
divide it all by 2(I know you don’t
want to
Oh i didn’t mention that it was out of five OOOPPS!
oh yeah type in numb linkin park on ur search engine THE SONG ROCKS!!!

[Review changed to quick review. The only content in this review was the number list 2 5 5 4, and the upload was barely discussed. – Violet CLM]

The level size is 245×64, and yet you once thought a level of 200×200 was only fit for sp. It’s heavily patterned ec-wise. The gameplay does not justify the level size, and the layout may be too overcomplicated (UNLESS THIS IS IN A BIG GAME/EVENT). Some parts are amazing but others are redundant.

Bad Tile Set,
The tileset lights little…

When I downloaded this level pack, I thought that some of the ideas you had for the story were quite interesting, and the pack sounded quite fun. Erupting volcanos, tornadoes, floods, fights; It sounded as if the pack had all the elements. It even has an interesting (although slightly confusing) story line. Inside there are 22 levels, so you would think that this was going to be a lengthly episode.

However, when I started playing, eveything started to get very uninteresting. Most of the levels had bugs in the gameplay, and one particular example of this was the flying rocket boss, which was extreemly fustraiting and hard to complete, and in some cases doesn’t work (although that is typical of the robot boss). Also, I was forced to cheat (yes, oh the shame!) on the first Tuf boss level because the turtle shell got stuck inside the area, doing no damage to the boss no matter how many times he touched it. Several of the levels were also linear and almost all of them were too short, so the pack didn’t flow quite so well.

Several of the levels had very poor eyecandy (the tornado ones in particular), and there were tile bugs in almost all the levels.

But enough negatives and more positives. Although they were short levels, there were one or two well made levels. The lava level had a good “fall in and die concept” which was not overused, so it wasn’t too fustraiting (unlike some of your previous levels). Also, there were some logic (although they were quite easy) puzzles in there too, which shows a variety of difficulties. I also like some of the objectives you had to achieve, such as destroying bases. Also, the whole concept of a pack that uses all of the elements is quite original I think, so you have tried to be creative.

PROS:

Creative concept
Puzzles
One or two well made levels

CONS:

Too short levels
Too fustraiting in places
Very very buggy

OVERALL: Although the idea is good, I think that there is too much room for improvement to rate this highly, so overall, it is quite average.
RATING: 6.0

DR: Maybe. If the levels were better quality and there weren’t so many bugs, I would consider giving this a reccommendation.

jjlover001 has once again provided a fun single player pack, although once again has provided few major unique points.

Gameplay: 6/10
This is again a bit too easy. The carrots are somewhat more reasonable than jjlover’s previous pack, although there is still too much ammo, and the sheilds seem a bit unnessecary. Please don’t make the carrots generators though, and maybe make the enemies generators, especially in the parts of the levels that you have to visit multiple times due to triggers. A couple places also are just a bit akward. For example, a low ceiling with hurt events on the ground, or a place where you get chucked straight into some spikes automatically. The biggest problem here is the fact that there are so many lives and save points. Since events reappear whenever you die, a 1up anywhere near a savepoint means there’s practially no way to lose. However, the gameplay is consistantly nice, albeit easy. The events are placed well, although there are a few too many enemies. Since killing enemies can create events such as gems, carrots, or fastfires, having enemies in simple places can make the game easier, not harder. I like the fact that he chose fairly difficult enemies, such as monkeys and bees, as themes for his levels. When you do things like this, and add quality, no quantity when it comes to enemies, your levels can be quite fun. Hurts and rocks are also good, and jjlover did use these well. The gameplay could also be improved by adding unique stuff. The platforms place was kind of unique, although there were so many diffrent platforms that it was hard not to land on them. The catepilar was also a nice touch, although it did not effect any difficult sections of the level. The witch also was fairly neat. The End boss was also a bit of a let down, as I was able to kill it using only my blaster and not losing any health. Add a couple enemies in the final boss section, and maybe some spikes on the ground or something.

Eyecandy: 7/10
It’s good, but bland. The same tileset is used throughout the entire set, which begins to feel a bit monotonous by the end, although it’s not too bad because it gives a unified feel to the set. Biggest place that could be improved here is reason. The platforms are frequently just floating in the air, and there are a few sucker tubes in the middle of nowhere. If you can make it so the platforms look like part of the environment that naturally occured, and belongs where it is, it will look a lot more impressive than if the platform seems to be there for the sole purpose of gameplay.

Buglessness: 5/5
I encountered no problems. Only comment here is that gun 2 can be shot through walls if you run fast enough, so its possible to get some power-ups, birds, or shields without figuring out the actual secret. There are ways to prevent this, which you should be able to find if you look around other people’s levels.

Notes: I like that there is somewhat of a plot, although it would be much more interesting if you developed it more, instead of just saying, go here, fight this bad guy. Anyway, far too many people don’t even try adding a plot, which can make playing through the levels somewhat pointless. Your english is fine.

Overall: 18/25
18/25=72.0%=7.2/10

Keep up the good work. Your level are quite nice, and if you add any kind of unique features, you could become a truly great level maker.

i wouldn’t call it remixes, if i were you :[

(Review part of a review exchange. Yes, this review is very late, I apologise.)

Dubbed Marine is the latest effort by arising level creator Crimiclown, who continues to improve, which is shown clearly in this level. This uses the steadily becoming overused WTF Borealis, although this level seemed to be a breath of fresh air in the looks department. The theme is a clever idea and is well executed, instead of the usual “factory” approach with the eyecandy made with this set, Crimi used the tileset in a more clustered way that gives the feeling of something more organic and lifelike; rather than something really neat and organised; yet it still retains the feeling of something man made, however you still get a feeling of decay in the environment as many things begin to lose their shine; like with the brown rotting areas in the walls and the falling ice flows. Combined with the music, you get a very ambient level which stays true to the idea of a lost submarine in every aspect. Bravo Crimi, top marks in this area. =)

Speaking of clustered, this stays true in the gameplay too. The whole level is tightly packed, which although is part of what makes the theme so great, it sacrifices gameplay a bit as with anything with more than 4 players will be horribly claustrophobic, trust me. A bit of a shame really, as the layout structure seems better suited to that of larger games, which unfortunately will get rather messy since there is little room to dodge bullets. However, it’s still a very solid level with an intuitive layout and design, so if you decide to play this level (which I highly suggest), play in 2vs2s.

Moving on to placement and layout design. This is a symmectrical level; although a popular layout type in CTFs today this one felt different from a lot of generic CTFs I see being made today, despite having a seemingly standard design. The carrot situation is fairly normal, a Full NRG in the middle and a +1 in each of the upper corners. Nothing overly creative, but no real complaints so no problem here. The Power up placement was pretty interesting here. This level has 3 of them; 2 Bouncer and 1 RF. The RF PU is in the bottom middle, underwater which requires gun 9 to get at. I’d have much rather it be Toaster though, as it’s quite hard to really run around and use RF to it’s full potential here due to the cramped spaces which will cause you to accidentally bounce of walls with it a lot unless you don’t meaninglessly spam it. Still, does provide a few good uses such as chasing people trying to get the +1s down the long passages. However, it is the Bouncer PU placement I find the most creative. It is placed almost right next to the bases, which could be considered a bad thing as it means base campers will have a consistant source of ammunition, but it works here and saves the pain of running far out of the base desperately searching for a necessary power up, and makes it more challenging to be RTS here. The water was a really important gameplay aspect here as it prevents movement between between the bases from being a few seconds which would be anarchaic. It is possible to go around the water, although the route for doing this is a bit longer so this balances it out. Everything else is solid enough, no real huge design flaws except it should probably be made a little bigger so it can be played better in 3vs3s.

In conclusion, a very solid CTF definately worth your time, I highly recommend downloading it and having a few games in it. It offers a lot of potential fun, and really shows what Crimi is capable of, I see a bright future for him in level making.

I really encourage people to make more levels like this. There are too many open and tunnely levels already. This one uses narrow paths and gives an ‘indoor’ feeling. The flow might just not fit everyone, but the purpose of water in this level makes the gameplay interesting. I also have nothing to complain about in eyecandy or other environment.

[23:25] <@BlurredD> Interesting fact: part of my fix for preventing the flag bug which caused “[player] captured the flag” spam messages apparently created a side effect where smoke rings can to wrap around a level and rise from the bottom. Oops.

Hardly anything has been changed in these remixes (if you can call them that).
Easter Remix sounds the same except some very annoying beeps have been added.
Weird Personalities Remix sounds worse than the original song. Some very bad horn sounds have replaced it which makes it sound nothing like the original.
Rating: 1.0
No recommendation.

something like one sample changed in this duplicate, plus some really crappy beeping added. do not like.

not sure if it shouldn’t be deleted, actually.

Olsen… Olsen… Rings a bell. It’s been a while, I remember you from back in the day… BrainFart and such. Good times. Well, I’ve seen the level, time to hand down my verdict.

Gameplay: Mediocre
Cloud Connected, a CTF level that takes place in the higher planes. The level is fairly small (101×64) and nearly symmetrical. It is nearly symmetrical since a route opens depending on which team you are. More on that later.

This level consists of a few platforms and a bottom. The bottom is very simple and simply leads back up through the use of a sucker tube. The platforms are nicely divided, though the flow in some places could be a lot better. For example, when arriving from any side at (51,38), you don’t wanna hold the arrow keys, ‘cause that’ll result in your undeniable downfall. I think it’d be better if you put some one-way floors in that ceiling you’ll bump into.

The bases are something else. First of all, the bases are on a little plateau, so when you just run into the base, you’ll find yourself missing the flag. Instead, a small well-timed jump should get you your precious flag. Then, on the way back, you’ll notice one thing. On your side of the level, there’s a gate that is closed on the other side. This is decided by triggers, depending your team choice. Behind this door, at the top of the level and not far from the flag, is a +1 carrot and a Bouncer PU. The carrot can be shot down if you, for whatever reason, want to make it accessible to the enemy. If the door is closed, The Bouncer Pu can also be acquired by using the Electro Blaster… or just going to your own side of the level.

Next to the carrots, there’s also a full NRG in one of the tubes in the middle of the level. There is one downside to this, since all tubes have a common exit. Therefore, it’s easy to predict where the enemy will end up. Thankfully, you can also (partially) heal at the private base, so that clears this problem quite well.

The level features two Bouncer PU’s (one for each base) and a Seeker PU with plenty of ammo to make sure you’ll keep on blasting. With this amount of carrots, that’s a good thing.

Atmosphere: So-so
The level uses the Dreamland tileset, which isn’t very rich in original tiles. In fact, it lacks quite a lot of tiles that should be included with such a ‘curvy’ tileset.

For example, Olsen makes use of some of the ‘cave’ tiles. These tiles are nice on their own, but they do not connect to any of the cloud tiles, which is the main ground for the level. This is a tileset design flaw, but it could have been helped by using layer 5. Unfortunately, Olsen has decided to use layer 5 for another batch of background clouds. Luckily, this looks very nice and hopefully distract you from the many tilebugs that are made using this ‘cave’ tile.

Olsen creatively uses translucency and brick tiles to add eyecandy to the walls, which are otherwise very bland. Using translucency to make the bricks pink is a really nice addition.

Overall: Okay
This level has a few minor design flaws concerning flow and predictability, but it’s very fun to play in nonetheless. If you can’t be bothered by a few little tilebugs, this level should be in your folder as of today.

Download Recommendation: Yes
The level is certainly fun and quite ideal for duels or 2vs2s. Try it.

Score: 7.3
It’s hard to judge a level like this, since it’s both fun and has those few minor flaws… Though, if you play this a few times, you’ll be sure to see that this level is actually quite fun to play in.

Frost a.k.a. CrimiClown

Good level. Great eyecandey. Music was nice. Flow was ok. Blue seemed easier to get to because is was at the bottom. Good ammo. Enough carrots. Powerups were ok. Good level! Recommended.

The blocks are pretty generic and plain. Which comes to my main about the tileset: the general lack of detail. All the tiles are too basic and lacking in versatility to create anything with it, nearly all the basic requirements of a tileset are not here, not even slopes. Also, the palette is messed up. I’d use a better program next time.