Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

The background is transparent, when at the top of the level its a bit buggy.

[Only in Single Player mode, very rarely (with a lot of lag) in multiplayer. ~cooba]

Introduction

After releasing Dreamless and making a start with Dreamless II, Snooze made a CTF level. This might be his last level for a while, but he will probably upload Dreamless II later in 2009. This level, called Destroyed Cassis Factory, uses 7th Lava Fall. Some people might not know what cassis is.. it’s just blackcurrant. In Holland we call it cassis. It’s also a drink.. just like miXXed up cassis. Anyway, enough talking. On to the review!

Layout

This level is symmetrical, and it’s pretty big in JCS. However, it doesn’t feel that big in my opinion. The layout is pretty easy to learn. There are some tubes in the level, and also some float ups in the middle. There are some RF climb spots (including the RF Climb spot 4 SJ) The bases are at the left and right sides. There are also turrets near the bases which make them easier to defend. And there are warps at the far left and far right.

Gameplay and flow

I’ve played a few 3v3s in this level, and I have to say that it plays well. The bases are easy to defend, but it’s also pretty easy to rts here. The tubes are really needed when playing here. I’ll explain why later. The flow is alright. It’s easy to move around the level and you don’t have to jump a lot (except when you use the tubes) And there are some springs that take you up.

Eye candy and theme

With a name like Destroyed Cassis Factory you expect something interesting. 7th Lava Fall is a tileset that’s pretty overused, but Snooze managed to make something original with it. The eye candy in layer 6 is original because it’s supposed to look like bent steel (which explains why the factory is destroyed) The layer 7 also has some of that. There is also some good usage of the pipes here. The layer 8 is also pretty original. The other eye candy is also pretty good. I haven’t seen a lot of levels with this tileset that had good eye candy. The level’s theme seems really good and original (although we’ve had several other factories like Abandoned Robotics Factory and The Zerox Factory) This level is different compared to those because it’s a cassis factory. I mean, who else could think of such a theme? (it’s a shame I didn’t think of something like this before because I really like cassis)

Placement of stuff

This level has 4 PUs. A Toaster PU at the right side, a RF PU at the left side and a Bouncy PU and Gun8 PU in the middle. The ammo placement seems good enough. It might respawn a bit fast but because there is not too much ammo (but there are some big groups of ammo near the Power-Ups) it’s okay. There are 3 carrots. 2 +1 carrots and 1 Full NRG. The +1 carrots are at the top left and top right (like I said before you can use the tubes to get them easier. But you can also use the warps.) The Full NRG is at the top middle. The placement of it is good as people can try to hit someone that camps it with gun9. And there are also some soft drinks and soda pops that are probably there for the theme. JJ2 doesn’t have something that looks like cassis but because I used soft drinks in 6 Hour Energy Drink Snooze can use them in this level.

Further comments

This level is probably not Snooze’s best level, but I think it’s at least one of his best CTF levels. I think this level is pretty fun and I wouldn’t mind playing it sometimes. I give this level an 8.3 and a download recommendation.

I did really like the eyecandy in this level! The combination with the foreground & background layer + the 3 warp spots in this small level make it somewhat confusing to play & learn.

When I saw the fix thing in the tileset i thought OMFG why I didn’t see that? But it was almost nothing to worry about ;)

Thanks for the nice ideas, Good teamwork!

1ws123

[Rating (3.7) clearance. It would be a definite plus if your reviews were understandable. – cooba]

Very Good Program
It works well and it does what it you said it does do,makes episodes excellently.
Also it will be very useful for people who want more style in their Single Player packs of levels.
I tested it myself and it works.
I l use always when making my Single Player Packs.
Thanks to it,the Single Player pack i m working on will be a huge success.
8.0 rating total

It cant work on jj2 1.24?
or is it my computers fault?
anyway i dont hav 1.23

Awesome pack!
It’s difficult to survive – and this rocks! Music is really good, and eyecandy.. I love it :-P

That’s what we all wanted. Of course, I recommend this pack.
Perfect work. I wish to type 11.0 :-P
~Galana

[Quick review. ~cooba]

I did realease the tileset, but the negative feedback on the quality made me delete it. I now only give the tileset to people who request it.

An update of Sonicnathan’s episode.
Eyecandy looks good. Gameplay has been improved, there is not as many invisible mazes as before. Crate puzzles are not too hard.
Loading a game in Area 51 causes Access Violations and Stack Overflows so a Save Point before that level would be a good idea.
DL Recommended!
Rating: 7.5

The weakest of the Agama tilesets. The drawing quality is lower than that of other Agama sets (although it is still pretty good), and the theme is not too justified. On the bright side of things, this tileset contains of a lot of originality and is ideal for creating an abstract level.

This tileset has a great art style. While it is not the most versatile set in existance, it is a very creative image of the concept of a “heaven”, and can produce very nice looking levels.

Easily one of the best tilesets ever.

This has a very random and platformy layout, combined with a generic tileset doesn’t help either. Not terrible, but I honestly wouldn’t reccomend this for a serious game.

This tileset has a very high standard of drawing. Although this tileset may appear easy looking at the tileset layout, this is one of the hardest tilesets ever as it requires the hand of a master to use at a high standard. A lot is possible with this set, so those with some JCS skills looking for something to be creative with should try this.

One of the most creative tilesets I’ve seen. The red colouring and innovative drawing style combined with a unique theme really make this a showstopper. Too bad very little can actually be achieved with this set, else I would have given a lot higher.

Although this review was written in January 2009 for a level released in August 2008, I still wanted to address what I liked and disliked about “Lost Luggage Landfill.” I will mainly focus on the gameplay aspect of the race level in this review, though I will make some remarks about the appearance of the level.

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Gameplay (9.5/10, 80% Weight):

On my first lap of this race level, I was a little confused. Upon further inspection, this can be attributed not to the gameplay, but the appearance of the level. After several playthroughs, I concluded that the flow, length, and potential for action in this level are likely the most balanced I have seen in a JJ2 race level.

Flow:

The height of horizontal areas and the width of vertical areas in the level switch from “wide” to “narrow” frequently over long stretches. The effect should be more noticeable with more than two competitors. The short symmetrical branching paths (side-by-side pipes) allow the action to split up so the racing can have some semblance of “defense” that is lacking in other levels.

The springs are properly placed throughout the level, and I was also pleased to see them used well with “dissonance” early in the level, in that holding right constantly on the upper path toward the beginning results in the player being pushed back a little by blue springs, which is adequate punishment for holding “right” brainlessly.

The overall route of the level is confusing at first, though there are arrows indicating where to go. In particular, when the route is reversed, it would be nice to have the arrow pointing at the pole route removed via the same trigger and have a different arrow pointing to the left to show the correct path to take for the confused user who is experiencing this flip in the route for the first time. This is again, an appearance issue, but it impacts the flow of the level the first time through. A difficult goal in making the “perfect race level” is making the primary route perfectly clear the first time around. This and another appearance issue I will note later are the only issues, and they are very minor.

On the ascents of this level, Spaz has a minor movement advantage in that he has a few more options to shave his overall time. In particular, his extra jump allows him to forgo the ice ammo over the spring just after the trigger-based crossover somewhat early in the race. On the other hand, neglecting to pick up any ice causes the player to miss out on some decent ice-based shortcuts that would otherwise make up for that time. Other than this and the boxed spring situation very early in the level where Spaz can access the bouncer ammo without the use of the higher green springs using his extra jump, there are no significant advantages for Spaz.

Jazz has a few combat advantages in this level. The slight horizontal descent after the “holes in the floor” area that follows the steep descent through three pipes can affords Jazz better control over freezing his opponents with ice while flying. Additionally, the fact that he requires a jumping punch to access one of the ice shortcuts punishes players taking the same shortcut or merely passing over. Again, these are about as minor as Spaz’s movement advantages.

Most of the shortcuts in the level involve a risk/reward situation. In some cases, (in particular the RF shortcut and the second iced spring shortcut) the risk scales exponentially with the number of players and players may need to think twice about using them.

There is one major “one-use only” shortcut that is probably best used the first time around because it bypasses destructible scenery the first time around. It is close to the point where the course flips around. Unless in the case of race over TCP destroyed scenery is not destroyed for everyone, players can essentially “do all the work” for someone else. It has to be destroyed when the course flips on the player, however, though by this time the player can just use TNT to destroy the blocks. This probably makes taking the shortcut on the first lap every time and then picking up TNT the optimal strategy in every situation, which is the only remotely significant flaw that I can see in this level’s design. To balance this out, you might be able to do something with triggers to slightly punish players who took the shortcut that are also trying to obtain the TNT on the same lap (or not at all, for that matter). This would actually make using the shortcut on a different lap strategic.

Weapon placement:

While combat is less important in a race level than the flow, it is still important to have good weapon placement in case combat takes place. I have nothing bad to say about the weapon placement. Where paths split, bouncer ammunition is placed at the top, RF ammunition (which goes both up and down) is placed in the middle, and pepper spray (which goes straight) is placed at the bottom. The toaster ammunition is placed in wide open areas where it is more effective than other weapons. I only comment on this to point out that this is a good example to look at if you want to know what good weapon placement looks like in a race level. Weapon placement can only be as good as the design of the level, and since there are several symmetrical splits in the level, there are plenty of opportunities to use these effective principles.
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Functional appearance (9.0/10, 10% Weight):

The tiles of the tileset are properly meshed together in all instances so no confusion will occur because of improper use of tiles. The first time around, the level was only a little confusing because I thought I was going back the way I came when I went right through one of three pipes, fell down a warp, and then went left through what looked at first like the same three pipes. This somehow made me think I was going backwards for a while and caused me to question my route throughout the rest of the level. This was not an issue on subsequent playthroughs, but it does reveal a slight lack of variety in that particular part of the level. Variety may trade off with consistency, however. Improving upon the overall design might require changing the first triple-pipe area that goes left. You maybe could just get away with changing the foreground in that area, though. The open view of space underneath it really should have caught my attention the first time through, but I did not notice it when I was trying to speed through the level. More holes in the background might look better, but the amount of holes should be kept reasonable.

I should mention again that the arrow pointing at the pole route around the point where the course flips around is misleading when the player is instructed to go back down. That arrow should be temporarily removed via trigger and a different arrow should appear that points left. It is okay to point arrows along the primary route of the level. You only need arrows pointing at alternate routes when you want those alternate routes to be obvious and they are not already obvious.
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Graphical appearance (8.0/10.0, 10% Weight):

No offense to the tileset creator, of course, but I feel the tileset limits the potential of this race level. The tileset is used very well to create the occasional view of space, and that is easily the best use of the tileset in this level. The “inside” areas contrast with this in that they are comparatively bland, though I could see that much effort was made to optimize the appearance of the level despite this. In short, the level looks good, but it is not eye-catching.
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Overall (9.3/10.0, rounded down to 9.2 to fit J2O’s rating system):

I really feel this raises the bar for race levels with regard to flow and weapon placement. The level is still very limited in its choice of landmarks throughout the course. It is still about as scenic as it can get with the chosen tileset, so I would at least like to acknowledge that some effort was made to make the level stand out aesthetically. You can only really make a race level better by keeping it this great over a slightly longer course and adding interesting landmarks that fit properly in the level, much like what was already added in the case of the space views throughout the level.

Any shortcomings in the “eye-catching” department of this race level are trounced by the excellent level design, which provides fun and balanced racing and combat at all skill levels. This is a short race level, but it has so many movement and combat options for racers throughout the level that races can be conceivably very different every time. I recommend this level as a worthy addition to any race pack on a server as well as a great example of how one should design a race level.

Good work on the level.

~ Derby

!IMPORTANT NOTE!

OSJ members PLEEEEEASE don’t review this, because we’re not low enough to do that. And because it’s cheap. And so on. :D

This level has really kept me busy over the past year. Must be one of the most often hosted battle levels I actually host. Music it entertaining, and the layout is fun to play around with. The palette is quite anyyoying but doesn’t bother me to much. I miss you Birdie, come BACK!

[Turn into quick review admins]

[Review changed to quick review. Okay. – Violet CLM]

[Did you somehow manage to miss a checkbox with “Quick Review?” next to it? ~cooba]

Wouter: i added some crucial tiles.. so it is also an improvement on the normal pallette. btw, the contrast from the diamondus 1 pallette is better too

Me encanto el pack, espero que se hagan mas, muy bueno fue

[Please write in English, or people have no way of checking whether the rating you gave makes sense (Original rating: 10.0) ~Stijn]