Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

More frustrating than fun. I enjoy a good challenge but I found the majority of these levels too much of a slog to push through. There’s definitely some potential here though; don’t give up!

The level itself is good, layout-wise nothing very much out of the ordinary but quite solid, reminiscent of larger symmetrical levels like Medieval Skyscrapers with a few twists of its own like the pits at the bottom and the shields. Visually it’s a bit uneven; the background looks amazing and much of the rest too but the floating space ships (?) in the middle look less appealing.

The big gimmick of this level is obviously its superweapon, the Redeemer; a remote-controlled high-damage missile of which both teams get one and that respawns very slowly. It’s hard to say what its impact in a “serious” game can be as it is something you’d need to build new strategies around – my hunch is that it may be a bit too hard to outrun for how easy it is to control but maybe a skilled player will be able to deal with it more effectively, especially given the protection shields give. Either way it’s an addition that will make this level a lot of fun to play in JDC events and the like; it’s big enough for large teams and the redeemer adds a fun dimension to any game played in the level, though for extra mayhem you may want to make it spawn more often.

Worth checking out at least for the Redeemer, and also because it’s just a solid CTF level. Great work!

Simply amazing use of this (edited) tileset. I really like the purple rockets and it’s very fun to move around the map.

I’m not a fan of the campy placement of the Seek PU; otherwise this is a decent level with a rather surreal theme. Visually there’s some interesting ideas going on although it does look a bit contrived in places. The layout seems to work better as a CTF level as it’s more or less semi-symmetrical. I like how the base areas are designed.

Quite an enjoyable and good looking level that may have a good chance of making the ladder mappool next season. The carrot area especially is well designed with its multiple ways of attacking and defending it. The layout is solid although the red base seems to be at a favorable position in the level and is easier to defend. Regardless, try it out!

I think you did a great job on this, the layout is solid and I like the approach you took with the eyecandy. The redeemer is gimmicky but a lot of fun to use in populated servers. I don’t know if this is your best map but it’s certainly one of my favorites and I look forward to seeing it in future bashes and JDC events

Cool level, had fun playing here, espiecally because of the fact that the powerups respawn quickly. The coin warps here are one of the best that ive ever seen as I actually bother to hunt after the coins (unlike most other battle levels with coins)
The tileset is nice, colorful and rarely used which makes the level even more original

I think I’m going to replace my Tubelectric file with this one since it’s so well done. It sounds a lot better too. Fantastic job on this one!
10 +dl rec

Several hours passed since you had uploaded this, and I’ve already come out with a first review.

PROS
I appreciate your attemps to invent new mechanics and eyecandy. For example, those burners that heat the iron platforms so you can’t step on them without loosing one heart, some tricks with springs and an unobvious way to reach barrels in bonus room. In my opinion, this level is a lil bit better than Frosty Party since it is not crouded with respawning foes. And I’m glad that at least there are no bees and beehives in this abandoned chemical laboratry (unlike they were included into your winter level).

CONS
The begining of the level was so nice, so similar to original levels, that I was filled with hope for an equally decent continuation. However, all of my hopes were smashed when I faced those sadistic things you love to place in your levels. Now, let me list some of that issues:

-Numerous areas where you have to search for an exit for a long time or search it by looking up in JCS. This significally reduces the pace of the game and thus the conception of a fun and fast shooter is been ruined. Majority of the players won’t solve your puzzles, they’ll use cheats or even give up without trying.

-And again, those annoying pits that make you cheat to get out of them. That’s definetly not good.

-Maybe that wasn’t the only way, but once I had to kill floating lizard and capture his copter to go further. Probably it’s not the best decition as the lizard isn’t respawning, is he?

-Invisible Dest Scen blocks. The idea is good, but, as you can see, it’s easy to get stuck into them.

-Finally, I expected to encounter a boss, but there wasn’t one.

COULD IMPROVE ON
You should think how to improve gameplay. Maybe it would be better to make player solve puzzles in order to reach gems, while progressing through the level would be a way less exhausting? Thus the player will be able to choose whether he wants to relax or to complete a challenge. Few words about the pits in this and some other of your levels. Even if you were not going to use script you could increase the depth of pits and place two rows of CTF bases (row of blue bases and row of red bases) to their bottom. Actually the collision with them kills you in single player mode.
Good luck in future works!

Fun large and aesthetically pleasing map. My biggest complaint is that due to its size and similar looking decor throughout the map, I find it nearly impossible to memorize where all the carrots and powerups are placed despite repeated play. The chestnut ammo or whatever it is could also play a bigger role. Still great even though I’m hopeless here

First, I say thank you very much for the reviews. But I have to tell you about this level that:
1. Frosty Party is possible for all characters. In the point where you have to stay on a rope and do a big jump, this is possible for Jazz and Lori too. You have to jump then stomp bee in order to reach to the next area. This bee is generator event, so your chance to do this is infinity.
2. You aren’t required to get 50 silver coins to pass this level. There is another warp on the bonus warp. So if your silver coins are not enough, you can still continue to the next area. And, if you use Jazz or Lori, they are possible to get all coins, then you can enter to bonus warp.
3. I’m a beginner to making JJ2 level, and I haven’t been able to use Angel Script.
4. Also, I’m a beginner to use English. Sorry.

Amazing level! I really like it. 10/10 HYPE

Also, in my version of this level, I chaned tileset from New Diamondus 4 to New Diamondus 2 and used transition of level palette and ignorebullet code of Bilsy.

Lord of the Diamonds is cool, 9/10. In my version I changed tileset to Diamondus Garden and used Witch instead of Uterus as a boss. By the way, some goodies are replaced with witch magic that i can avoid.

This level is very good for me, 8/10. In my version I changed tileset and added AngelScript code.

Blacky’s Single Player Catch Up Review #4:

My time spent playing this map was in near equal parts awe and frustration. My advice would definitely be set up a checkpoint/lives system of some kind so you could expand the level, more routes and areas but less dead ends, less linearity but way more direction (I had no idea where to access the chaos realm and eventually ran into it by luck/accident for example, because it was hidden with no indication), spend the same focus and passion on eyecandy and actual level design as on the creativity of the scripting. You have done a better homage to Castlevania than I have with my sprawling colossal single player level, I have never been as hyped about something I rated in the 7’s as I am about this, I feel like the shortcomings in this level are a lot easier to improve upon compared to the stuff you did well, there is lots of potential here – it’s like a swing that was almost a grand slam but was ruled a foul ball or something. Looking forward to your next upload!

Blacky’s Single Player Catch Up Review #3:

I actually remember playing this before sometime, but neglected to leave a review so here I am experiencing it again! Whoo!

Having only played through The Secret Files campaign once, and a very long time ago, these feel like they should be the official Easter maps to me. They’re both great, my complaints are relatively minor so I’ll get them out of the way quick: There were times when jumping or tactical use of the Float Lizards enabled me to take shortcuts or reach stuff I wasn’t supposed to that way, like gold coins etc. There were a couple of tilebugs in the first level, a foreground bug with the frozen waterfall at 173,5 and a tilebug in the wall at 252, 3. I also got stuck on top of a trigger crate while riding the airboard in the second level and couldn’t get out without cheating.

Now, what I thought of these levels: They can be summarized by 3 S’s – solid, standard, and sexy ;). They’re pretty to look at, use standard jj2 obstacles and challenges without getting too experimental or using angelscript at all, and the layout design and gameplay is generally very polished. Any time something ‘new’ is introduced, you put a text string notifying the player of what is expected of them. I remember the first time I played this I got lost searching for trigger crates for several minutes, but this was my fault as I neglected to heed the sign stating that no Easter basket is empty. On my second playthrough, I paid attention and diligently searched every seemingly empty basket I came across – I was never disappointed. Likewise, signs are placed warning of the hazards of trekking over thin ice, and how to approach various puzzles and even the boss fight. The difficulty was fine, I think I played on Normal on my first experience so I replayed in Hard for this review. It was challenging enough to keep me engaged, but I felt you were awfully generous with the powerups and pickups so that by the end I was an unstoppable tank. I really liked that you gave me several options in how to deal with the boss, even if it was just typical old Schwarzy who cowered under the might of my powered up arsenal.

Some more variation (in enemies in particular) and innovation would have been welcome (and additional maps of course!) but it was a fun journey despite that. Now if you could make some Haunted House & Townhouse maps in this style, my memory of the TSF campaign will slowly be eroded and replaced with your levels :)

~Blacky

Blacky’s Single Player Catch Up Review #2:

I was having fun playing this but it took me less time to complete than it did to cook up a bowl of ramen :(

Not sure how to rate this, but it was a glorious 5 minutes.

Blacky’s Single Player Catch Up Review #1:

I decided to review this whole pack since I haven’t played the earlier levels seperately before and they are included in the upload with the newer stuff. I’ll give out my general thoughts first and then specifics about each episode.

I enjoyed these maps but they are too easy! I get why you made the difficulty this way since its your take on the original Jazz2 singleplayer levels, but they were less engaging for me to play since I’m already familiar with how singleplayer works and used to playing more difficult custom content. They are pretty standard maps, without angelscript but not without creativity. What I really liked was all the secrets you put throughout the pack, the most fun I had playing this pack was finding them. I liked the occasional puzzles, gemstomps, and weird textstrings (the ones I could read at least…), and got a bit of nostalgia for the original single player campaign. The eyecandy is generally average throughout, but never bad. My biggest complaint with it is that it sometimes looks bland when you don’t put enough tile variation in places. I already said I thought the gameplay is a bit easy, but I like that you bothered to use difficulty modifiers. I didn’t like some of the ways you chose to increase the challenge by placing regenerating enemies or making it confusing to know where to go by obscuring stuff. I thought things could’ve been indicated better in general, especially events since you used things like sucker tubes and warps without visually telling the player that they are there. Both the Schwarzenguard and Robot bosses were too simple – all you need to do is buttstomp repeatedly to win. Now onto specifics:

Castle Maps

My favourite here is either “Kurva Denevérek” or “Toronyugrás” .In general I thought these maps were too easy and breezed through them. The only time I felt challenged was when I had to stop and figure out where to go, since some of them were quite mazey. I thought there was too much reliance on hidden passages obscured by foreground, and lots of times I just happened to stumble onto stuff since there was no indication what to do or where to go. Unlike finding the myriad of nice secrets in these maps, this didn’t feel rewarding since I had no way to deduct that a warp event or a one-way would be there, or a hidden passage within a hidden passage was the correct route to progress. None of that bothered me until the final castle map, where I felt it got too out of hand. The music in that map also drove me nuts while I attempted to figure out what to do – I reached a dead end near the textstring “a nyilak hazudnak” and unsure of what to do, hit the savepoint through the wall with gun9 and promptly killed myself. Not long after I got stuck inside of tile 224,36 and had to kill myself again. I’m not sure if that was the correct strategy to hit that savepoint or if I had skipped a portion of the map by doing that (it looks like I did?), since I kept getting stuck inside of the destruct tiles in the next segment and, slowly driven insane by the music, ended my odyssey of finding the exit to this map. The visuals in these levels were decent, mostly tilebug-free (occasionally I ran into a foreground layer ec bug or some tiles just looked weird), my only real complaint regarding them is that the tile placement got repetitive at times and looked bland.

Carrottus Maps

I enjoyed these more than the castle maps, its hard to choose since I liked all 3 of them but the second map is probably my favourite. The layouts were better (more straightforward while not necessarily linear) and the maps looked prettier. There was less single tile spam throughout these like at the end area of the second (evening) map, I had no problems here with the visuals besides what I mentioned above and that the rain in the third map looked bad. The pumpkins could use some consistency though, sometimes they are solid and sometimes aren’t, not a big issue however and I’m guilty of doing this myself :P The boss fight here was tedious, because it wasn’t ever a challenge (all you need to do was buttstomp) but it took longer (all you could do efficiently was buttstomp). Maybe some platforms and other hazards could’ve helped complicate the strategy a bit.

Labrat Maps

“Madárka – Madárka” is my favourite map in this pack so far, the difficulty was engaging (I almost died!), and I struck the motherload of all purple gems when I entered the coin warp. I got stuck in the beginning of the third map, I played as Spaz and hit the morph so I could uppercut the destruct blox. It turned me into Lori and never respawned :( There was a sucker tube in the top right of the level that shot me out directly into spikes, it was the only way out of the box I was in and I was at 1h and died. When I respawned at the last checkpoint I was Spaz again, and could reach the water shield without finding the tnt and get through the box puzzle area without having to solve it. Overall I thought these were pretty ordinary Labrat maps, I enjoyed them but wish they could have some more of the creativity present in the Castle maps but without the issues I had.

Overall I think these maps deserve a 7, which I think is fair because they are well done for the most part but not exceptional. There were aspects I really liked and some things that I didn’t and also which annoyed me, and sometimes I ran into bugs and had to cheat. I think your work is best when you combine the experimental creativity you used in the castle maps with more consistent layout design like the Carrotus maps, while avoiding the frustration of the third castle map and the generic-ness of some of the Labrat map areas. I would still definitely recommend this pack to players who are relatively new or just starting out with exploring custom singleplayer content, I think I would’ve enjoyed this more myself if I had played it several years ago instead of at the point I’m at.

~Blacky

Thanks to this handy little tool I patched a collision in pinball2k15 that involved the bottom right +1 carrot. Very useful!

Can’t stop being surprised by the realism of the levels based on beta-diamondus tileset. Those winding caverns look fantastic!