Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Okay, so I see that no one really liked the difficulty of it. My original plan was as you said: keeping the player on his toes. I guess I could add more food to keep the player rewarded/interested, but I get so sick of playing levels where there’s clumps of food/ammo EVERYWHERE. I’ll add more food in the future, but I want to keep the ammo placement roughly the same for ammo (-)s like myself. The ground tiles…yeah, I got a little lazy on that. I didn’t want them to look cluttered, though. I’d like the player to die once in a while, so why don’t I just throw in more food and carrots?

Lets just say this was the nastiest part of Hell. I’ll work on making the levels easier, but it seemed appropriate to have lots of dangerous areas to add to the atmosphere. What else can I do to add eyecandy? I didn’t quite know what to do in some areas, as the tileset didn’t afford a whole lot of stand-alone background/foreground. It seems I’ll have to create some =x

[Filter bypass removal. ~Cooba]

This was good for your first level.

EASTER FEASTA REVIEW:

EYECANDY: The Eyecandy was OK but there wasn’t much in the background or foreground. 6/10

GAMEPLAY: It was quite short. Finished it in about 5 minutes. It was quite confusing trying to find where I needed to go. 6/10

PICKUPS: There was lots of 1UPs in the Bonus Warp. The number of 1UPs have been reduced now, so I will increase the pickups score by 1. There’s not too many Gems which is good. There was some food. The pickups were placed quite well. 8/10

OBSTACLES/ENEMIES: Not too many or too less enemies. They were placed well. There was a Trigger Zone (TZ) used where the Trigger Crate was. I saw a message saying to use the crate if you don’t have TSF. You can do TZs in 1.23 as well. Just download the JCS.ini update from here: http://www.jazz2online.com/J2Ov2/downloads/info.php?levelID=105
7/10

TOTAL: 27/40 (6.75)

BONUSSES:

Since this is your first level and you spent 2 weeks on it. I’ll award an extra 0.2 for effort.

FINAL SCORE: 6.95
Rounded to 7.0
DR: Yes

This review probably isn’t good enough but I don’t feel like writing a huge review at the moment.

There is a prog converting any mod to j2b, just search for mod2j2b

Wow! Congrats! I like the Mario theme very much. The music is also nice, but there are two many enemy events. Also, the delay for the enemy respawn is way too fast. There were also numerous events of animation which i think were overused but overall, I think this pack deserves a 7.

[Rating (7) clearance. Please give more elaborate support for your ratings. ~Cooba]

Cooba…cmon man…why do you keep doin that to my reviews? I really do think this deserves a 7.

[I keep doing that because you never say enough in your reviews, simple as that. ~Cooba]

Quite challenging. Quite frustrating too. This level requires very good timing and strong nerves. That’s why it took me quite long to beat it, despite the level’s normal size.

Gameplay: 6.2

From one death trap to another. And that without a break, gets quite annoying after a while. The level’s design focuses on forcing the player to react fast and precise, because otherwise doom is certain. One wicked surprise hunts the other. So, traps are fun. But this level is something like a trap overload. The constant stress of trying not to die totally kills the flow. The very sparce collection of items obtainable adds to that effect. What’s left? An RF-jumping part, which annoys the unskilled player somewhat that resisting to type jjfly is more of a challenge than actually getting up there without getting thrown back down accidentally when you just reached the top.

Difficulty: 5.0

Overdone. Just. Too. Much. Stress. This level needs some breaks with less difficult parts thrown in between the utterly challenging ones, otherwise the annoyance factor just cranks up more and more. Some more items will help too.

Creativity: 6.5

Lots of unusual stuff, but unfortunately all done before. The sliding rock is obviously ripped off, the bat jumping has been done before too. Don’t get me wrong, using tricks and things others discovered is fine, as long as you give it your own personal note. Still, it doesn’t get boring, so that’s a plus.

Eyecandy: 6.0

Utterly dull most of the time. The possibilities of the tileset just haven’t been used enough. Sometimes, there’s some nice layer 5 work, and the occassional pillar in the foreground, but that’s about it. Add some stuff, be creative. Create some atmosphere. That’s the part I love doing the most when I design (which happens rarely though).

Design/Story: 6.5

The level starts right at the end of the last official one. I kinda liked that, though the story, which is revealed at the end, is kind of, weird. It seems Devan has survived, and is about to continue wreaking havoc and stuff. Okay I guess. The design could have some more of that “everything is lost” feel. After all you’re in hell. That’s just a personal opinion though.

Overall:

This would be quite a fun level, if it wasn’t so.. overly harsh, for lack of better words. For me, the perfect challenging level starts with some moderately difficult part, then throws in something hard, then gets moderate again. That way, the player has time to relax a little, and, which is the actual purpose of the game, have fun. Difficult and frustrating passages easily get forgotten when you have a “winning experience”, or get some goodies or something. Overall, “Demonic Dilemma” has problems, but potential. I also suggest getting a personal beta tester to play your levels and give constructive criticism before you upload a level.

Rating: 6.2
Download Recommendation: Looking for some frustrating challenges? Hell, yes.

~LF

Visual Appeal – 3 out of 5

Well uh yeah. This level didn’t really have any eyecandy. 95% of the time the player sees the background, which is hindered by the fact that the background layers are visible only at the bottom of the level. Therefore, most of the level just turns out bland and uninteresting. There was layer 5 set to align with layer 4, but it was used really rarely and didn’t have any real effect.Also, the walkable soil tiles could use some work, because most of the time there’s one ground tile used which just added to the blandness of the level.

Also, what’s with all the “pillars” on layer 1? They don’t make much sense moving slower than the layers behind it, and they just get on nerves. And on a closing note, the lightning didn’t help this level too much.

Playability – 3 out of 5

The gameplay itself also left room for improvement, and quite a lot of it. Firstly, I can’t say I enjoy the design of this level itself. The area with instakill lava and lots of seemingly random platforms was annoying, as they were too far apart of eachother most of the time, and the “pillars” on layer 1 just added to the frustration. Also, the spikes on the path leading to that area didn’t hurt me because you misplaced the Hurt events… The platform area apparently forks the level into two (or technically even three) paths, which is a nice thing and one of the few ones which are anyhow original.

The layout turns non-linear from that part, and the player has the ability to go for the nonobligatory areas and get stuff there. And here comes a complaint, why were all the pickups so sparse? I can understand that you wanted to limit on ammo, but the wide lack of food was just ridiculous. In the platform area, I had to destroy a wall of destruct blocks just to get two tacos?! Come ON. Also, the lower path becomes rather boring after a while, with all its random (and fairly ugly) bridges. Also, there are spikes in that path, and once again they didn’t hurt. Test your level before releasing next time.

Anyway, after one gets past the non linear part, there comes a challenge: the player has to RF climb up a tunnel. It’s been done before, and this time it’s not even moderately difficult. It becomes even easier after finding the RF pu in the non-linear area (what’s the point of putting such a powerup in the pack’s first level?) After that comes a rather generic area, with nothing outstanding (except for a big gem placed above a lava pool?) and with a few bugs (lizards don’t fall down when floor below them disappears).

Then comes another gimmick: Ride the rock. And once again it’s been done before (the unfinished TDI2 exploits the rock ride gimmick perfectly), except this time it’s not really as fun as it was in Moonblaze’s levels. After that comes some generic platform hopping, and the last challenge in the level: the player has to stompjump generating bats (which hang on platforms on layer 3… make the level less confusing next time). This is probably the most original part of the level, but still it failed to amaze me for two reasons, one being that I constantly do stompjumping in SP levels (and manage to run through some Invasion of Deserto/Rebirth of Evil levels in less than 5 minutes), and another reason being that in this level’s execution this was just frustrating. The bats end up being placed way too far off the goal, which made it difficult for Spaz (the author should’ve used a morph in the level), and they were also considerably too far of themselves in some places.

Anyway, after getting past that comes the end, and a fairly generic cutscene which explains the story which I’m not too fond of. And that’s the whole level really. Not too interesting is it?

• Could be much worse.

• Is fairly bad nonetheless.

Overall
This level is just average. Test your levels next time (make sure everything actually works in them, coughspikescough) and make them less frustrating. And I find this rather ironic, since I’ve seen you point out “this level was frustrating” in some reviews of yours even. Download reccomendation? I’m not sure. There are better SP levels to download out there, after all. Only download this if you’re extremely bored.

Rating Froggy or Birdie

To start:
This level are absolutely not particular and fairly small and with that no recommendation.

Eyecandy: (20 pts)
There is no forefront. There is a context, but that is absolute not well, only layer 8 was used to my idea. The paths are also not real particular.
Result: 6 pts

Gameplay: (20 pts)
Firstly you must choose or you play the level as a frog or as bird. Afterwards you must fly or jump a zone, between lasers and over pools. To end descend there are lots of Tuf Turtles. In that area you must find TNT to start the fight with Devan. Original considered, however there are already levels with a rabbit as frog or bird.
Result: 13 pts

Story: (10 pts)
There is no story. So this factor does not count your rating.
Result: N/A

Obstacle placement: (20 pts)
The level is short, but here and there very difficult, for example at the Tuf Turtles, where you must search TNT.
Result: 14 pts

Bonus placement: (10 pts)
The bonusses are placed badly. For example if you play on Easy. there are much too much carrots and 1UPs then.
Result: 3 pts

Total points: 36
Maximum number of points: 80-10(story)= 70
Calculating: 36/70*9+1
Final Rating: 5,6
Download recommendation: N/A

?O__O?

The base is not in tune with the other thing. Pitch it up a little.

WHAT!? I did exactly the same thing. Exactly the same, Exoticus changed. Good though.

Well, it’s looking good so far. I can’t review the level yet as I haven’t finished it. JJ2 crashed on me for no reason.

How many levels are there gonna be in the pack? Is it just gonna use JJ2 Tilesets?

About the re-spawning Lizards, surely it should work. I’ve seen it happen before. Have you tried putting a generator on the Floating Lizard?

There is a really annoying bug somewhere in the level. When the character shoots, I see no bullets come out. Why is this?

EDIT: I have just tested the Floating Lizard with generator on in JCS. IT WORKS! The Lizard respawns along with the Copter too.

Though I haven’t downloaded this and previewed it, shouldn’t this be in the picture/sound gallery? If this is a song for jj2, then uh… well .wav doesn’t work >_>

It worked fine for me, even the HH events.

[Rating (6.5) clearance. You need to explain your rating further than just “it worked fine”. ~Cooba]

The copter lizard didn’t respawn! Bad.

Bad. Just bad. I first played as froggie, which seemed to do fine. I died, and then I played birdie. I lost my bird, and since I don’t like it when it is neccesary to cheat, I commited suicide by the bat. Then, I respawned as birdie, and I wanted to play froggie again. But when I entered the way to the frog, I became stuck. Bad!

[Rating (3.5) clearance. Aside from one bug, this review said nothing about the level. ~Cooba]

Good.

[Rating (7) clearance. WHY is this level good? ~Cooba]

I hate password protected levels. :(

Good CTF-trick!
But it gets sometimes too annoyinning…

“If you hav itchy slipperfingers, remove them now.” was wery funny.

PS: if ya like hotels wait a sec, so I can finish my Kax-hotel. Then I upload it.

[Rating (7) clearance. There was not enough support for the given rating. Also, don’t delete the admin note once it’s put in a review. ~Cooba]

Good!
Nice things.

Too much eyes…
Too much 1ups…
(TIP: If ya use that much 1ups, please hide them! Too easy to find.)

[Rating (7.5) clearance. When rating, you must specify why were some things “nice”. ~Cooba]

You won’t know that Hidden Savanna is a very small level when you first play in it, but you’ll certainly feel cramped the moment you set foot in it. There is virtually not a single place where you can’t see a wall or a ceiling in this 105×80 CTF level.

I’ve played a little 1v1, some 2v1, and a 2v2 game to 4 points here…excluding the 2v1 game, I think it’s easy to camp at the carrot and the seeker PU in duels, since you have no team mate to attack the camper in your place. You’re a bit more at danger if you camp with just one or two hearts, but as long as you’ve got the ammunition (and the gung-ho attitude), you’ll give your opponent a hard time.

The flow is fast and smooth, which is fun, although the symmetry, size, and tileset choice of the level leans too heavily towards gameplay. There hasn’t been much attempt at breaking new ground anywhere, and there’s not much eyecandy either. It’s as simple as the level.

One thing worth mentioning about Hidden Savanna is its predictability. This level doesn’t require you to memorise much. It’s got a basic platform layout, and the suckertubes and warps are all easily accessible. The flag arrows really do count here, and you can deduce where your opponent is going just by the direction he’s heading for (honestly, many levels aren’t like this at all!). Tensions can run high when two or more players stalk each other, trying to guess where the other is going and getting there before them.

Long story short: Nice, small CTF level.

Rating: 7.2, and a download recommendation.

Oh, and Unknownfile betatested too (but he won’t mind).

Without having anything else to say, let me just comment on the custom boss music.

It hurts ears.