Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Sounds pretty cool.

Even though this may be a first level, I find it overrated, and I’ll explain the bad points (because I’m evil and it’s easier to point out);

Game breaking bugs come first. I’m not sure whether this is an awful trap or a serious bug, but the bottom left corner with the shield is seriously messed up. Once I got down into the room, I couldn’t get back up, no matter what character. EVENTS WILL NOT work properly when placed in the complete left/right corners of the map. Also, masking issue.

I think mazes could be more fun providing the player still at least gets a reward for taking the wrong path, like some pickup. I’m not a big fan of mazes myself, though having a risk-reward scenario (if they take the wrong path, which may be more risky, they get a decent reward) could make them more engaging. There’s some of it in this level, though.

Some of the parts in the level are just plain cheap; Things you get punished for because you don’t know they’re there, or things where you must flail around because knowing some “secret” (unindicated area) is required to pass. This may be personal preference, because there are probably are players who don’t mind it, though I don’t find it fun at all myself, as it’s unrewarding time of play that can make the level drag on longer than it’s supposed to, and make you feel stupid.

Here’s an example of it in this level: Making players require to pass something thats invisible. While it may be okay as a secret, when you make parts required to pass that are invisible, players can become confused and lose their bearings, and lose interest in passing properly (and then just “cheat”). At some point I looked it up in JCS, only to find out the trigger was invisible to pass. Then you approach a ““trap”” which actually makes you pass the level with cheap level design as the trigger crate is invisible…seriously, what?

No support for easy mode: There’s events for hard mode, but not easy. And let’s be honest, this level is easy and gets way too generous with useful pickups, such as full carrots, seekers and the blaster PU (it’s a lot stronger in SP than it is in MP). Are players that bad at SP that a million seeker pickups and powered blaster somehow doesn’t make the level too easy? Perhaps a bunch of seeker pickups and the blaster PU could be carried over to easy mode.

Oh boy, the invisible walls/winds. They just feel really tacky and unnatural. And some wierd invisible poles. They seem to suggest that you can go there, or it’s empty…but you can’t. The wierdest invisible wall is near a warp secret. The solid tiles don’t even need to be there. Due to the nature of the level design, there isn’t much that can be changed about that other than giving it a complete overhaul. So I think at least changing the wind speed to 16 would look nicer, because it doesn’t jitter the screen. And just stack them to the left/right so Lori can’t kick through them. You could remove the wind/invisible walls where you wouldn’t fall out of the level. I disagree about it adding an atmosphere, because an atmosphere comes from the eyecandy, sound and music, not the gameplay style.

There’s plenty of useless pickups, like a bunch of coins, because there’s no coin warp (or at least, I don’t see one. If there is, why would you hide such a crucial thing? What’s next, hiding the exit?). Gems don’t do anything either, unless it’s treasure or they’re scripted to give some perk. It’s not really bad, though unecessary. Yeah, okay…they add score, but who cares about scores anymore? You’ll get a higher score from the original SP pack.

There’s an awful bug with Spazkick that allows him to spam kick at some bosses, killing them in 2 seconds, and this boss isn’t an exception. Though, it’s a relatively not well known bug.

The Witch placement is lol. You can simply run across it and not get hit at all, then there’s a wierd row of TNT. God knows what it’s there for, but it looks pretty tacky the way it has been placed and adds nothing.

Lori can get stuck inside some of the masks (by kicking through thin walls), which could’ve easily been prevented. Just patch them up with full masks and it should no longer happen. Right click and show mask should help (both in tileset and level). If it causes tilebugs, just put the correct fitting tiles onto layer 3, so it should look fine.

There’s no music, and more could be done with the eyecandy (like more layers, this tileset has tiles for it!). I guess the level creator got frustrated at trying to figure out the other layers, which are awkward to learn when you add movement to them. Tile width and height really helps for the other layers. Also, please don’t use untitled as a filename. It’s really generic, and could overwrite existing levels. Even if you can’t think of a name, anything is better than untitled (since it’s the default).

Conclusion

Compared to others players first levels, it’s not as half-baked, as there’s some effort to at least make the tiles look used properly, and a decent length of playtime. There appears to be some use of unused events that do nothing, which may suggest the creator is still exploring JCS (which is probably a good thing, even though invincibility in the walls and dim light do nothing). However, there’s a lot to improve on.

Anyway, that’s enough critique for now, and I’ve probably overwhelmed you already. Don’t take it personally, I just want to help new levelmakers improve at level design. Check if you’re a hardcore classic SP fan and if you like invisible trial and error gameplay, and don’t mind novice EC. If not, skip this download.

kinda jealous i didnt make it first

awesome lev testettstest

@Toni, I solved that problem, that shouldn’t be an issue anymore.

This is one of the best new levels so far. I enjoyed playing in it. Everything is great except that spring at red base as I told you. Move it 1 tile down and gameplay and moving is going to be just perfect ;) (low rate because of bad background). DR!

A level that looks abysmal (lazy eyecandy, tilebugs), has no solid goal/concept, and getting stuck at the bottom if you fall. They don’t even respawn, and you can “complete” this level in a second. Music doesn’t even work, or at least isn’t included. Please, work on polishing levels and concepts before releasing them.

This sure is interesting concept. Even though creating new tiles in-game is little clumsy in jj2.

Fun fact.: You can possibly get stucked in your own tile if you move while placing block.

fantastic level

pillars confused me a bit but otherwise i love it

It had been quite a long time ago for me to play some “home cooked” JJ1 Levels. I found this pack on JJ2Online and decided to try it.
I started to play and I was actually pretty surprised of that custom planet approaching screen of Carrotus! I really liked that and being extra motivated I started to play the first Carrotus level. When I started to play, I mentioned the great eyecandy! You really worked hard on it and I was 100% convinced that I would give you a high score for this pack on JJ2Online!
Sadly enough I thought that way too soon. The first Carrotus level was very frustrating for me to play. Especially because you always have to look around you before going anywhere. You’ve even mentioned us in the level description (“Look Before You Leap”), but that still doesn’t guarantee you won’t get hurt. I think that’s really bad for a JJ1 Level! In JJ1 you’re actually supposed to run fast, so it is really important that the levels are designed so that you can do a smooth run though them!
Overall it was really difficult, especially those shooting hoppers (birds) are very annoying. I really wanted to have more carrots in the stage. But either way: I eventually made my way out and got on to the second Carrotus level.
And now on for the worst part. I really feel bad about that second Carrotus level! I’m frustrated and even quite angry about how it was build, because there was NO WAY OUT of the cave for me! I tried to skip the level using the lamer cheat, but it didn’t work for me. Luckily I saw PT32’s comment about the air board in his review. I finally got out of the cave, reached the checkpoint and was really convinced that I would reach the exit in no time. But I didn’t! The second half was too hard for me. I didn’t make it to the exit and therefore I got completely stuck! At that point I stopped playing.
Believe me when I say I am an experienced JJ1 Player (I play it for like 18 years now), so I know what to do in the game, but this pack is way to difficult to play. Believe me: if these were JJ2 Levels, it would’ve been much better.

Having played only 2 out of 6 levels I have to change my way of calculating my final rating, but here it is.

• I won’t take the eyecandy in the rating, since I haven’t seen only the 2 Carrotus levels, so I can’t rate the rest. The Carrotus levels have fantastic backgrounds though…
• Challenge/difficulty gives you 0 out of 20, since I GOT STUCK.
• Item placement gives you 7 out of 10, the items are good placed, but I reduced the rating from 10 to 7, because of insufficient carrots for such long and hard stages as these.
• Gameplay gives you 0 out of 40, lowest score possible, because… well… of all the bad things you’ve just read.

That makes it a total score of 7 out of 70.
For the final rating: 10 ÷ 70 × 9 + 1 = 2.3.
NO DOWNLOAD RECOMMENDATION!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Don’t rate packs you haven’t played in full. Rating (2.3) removed. ~cooba]

What’s that?

An amazingly designed level with a toungebreaking title.. ah really you could just name it something simpler like Jungle’s Inside or… River Potato.
Allright aside of the jokes, this is a really great looking level, the tileset is perfectly used, creating a natural jungle environment with waterfalls and a river. Astonishing, it’s so peasant to just watch the image. I think I can assume you are at the very top of making eyecandies. There are a few things in the foregorund covering a little of the played area, but I didn’t find it distracting or confusing, even though the colors aren’t really different for the playable area.
The layout is, as usual, horizontal mainly it’s balanced. (Aside of that Toaster PU isn’t as good as BNC Pu, in my opinion, so maybe it would be better if RF was swapped with Toaster. However that probably goes againt your intentions.) I learned it very fast, it’s not complicated, so it won’t be a bad point for anyone, who sees it first.
I din’t try it online but it’s not complicated and it must be good for 2v2 and 3v3 (duels are agurable) It should be an usual fight like people has in other levels, this level is quite orthodox in gameplay, what to say. I’m sorry for not trying it
All weapons are in this level (except TNT and ice but those aren’t even necessary) No seeker Pu what is a nice point. There are enough ammos spread all around. I especially like the full carrot’s area, that it’s special, it probably makes the most difference to this level from other levels.
The music is nice and soft, perfectly fitting the environment, The only thing is that the track tiself is a little short, but well, it makes the size small so it’s fine. Okay, so it’s not from necros, whatever.

I’m assured this is a really appropriate level for the contest, it definietly fits the expectations. The (for me strong) bad point is that it’s orthodox and simple in layout and gameplay. Neverthless you will have a great chance to win with it.

RabidRabb

Nice Conversion you made one question Why didn’t you made the night version of Carrotus Diamondus?

Done some crap in the previous years, sorry about that.

7th Lava Fall (CTF Level):

Gameplay: This level is huge, the most annoying part to get back to the Red base is very hard to get. I Was searching to get at the Red Base and I done 2 warps, thats alot. Without Sucker tube and warps is impossible to get to each other. But the good thing is that level is very challenging and huge duels will be success.
base. 10/25 points

Eyecandy: Not much eyecandy. Just weird we are moving to right. That huge thing is moving to right, thats pointless. There is also something lava-like thing in the ground that is transparent. It looks very ugly. 9/25 points

Ammo placement: It has almost great Ammo Placement, but there are alot empty spaces and
WTF THERE ARE CHOCOLATES? 18/25

Bugs: I Didn’t find any bugs. 25/25

TOTAL: 10+9+18+25=62/10=6,2 – Okay, if you want CTF party with 32 players would be good, but if you plan to doing it just for 3 VS 3 or 2 VS 2, oh boy, dont do that

nice lvl

EXELENT!

It was indeed possible as Spaz with some RF jumping. I’ve fixed it now, thank you very much for reporting it so soon.

The file is fixed.so enjoy download it!

Jenny made her first level and uploaded it here.
Alright then, here we go with a review.

I want to get this of my chest first, this is overrated. Since both Master Sven and Laro B. are clanmembers of Jenny, they should at least give a review with a decent rating.

Now let’s talk about the level. The level is good, very good for your first level, you did every just fine, but the details are a bit swept away.

The level could use more eyecandy for example.
The layers 1 ,2 ,6 and 7 are completely blank. Layer 5 is barely used. I would like to see more tiles in there. Like the tileset gives. You could do anything with it, the tileset gives loads of opportunities to make something fresh new.

In spite of that, the gameplay is interesting. Few things I do not like though.
The TNT’s on the building don’t have a meaning at all. I also thought that I could pick up the gems in the start. Tried for 5 minutes before I realized there was no entrance to them at all.

Well, overall it is a good map, you spent time on it I see, and since your little experience of levelmaking, makes this a good level to play.

It’s fun, I liked to play it.

(I would like to continue my review tomorrow, since this deserves a more detailed review than this.)

EDIT: Changed the sentence a bit, maybe you will understand now what I mean.

+1 Review flame.

This is good considering this is your first level, keep JCSing and you will get better. :)

This is very good for a first level!

The gameplay is quite original and isn’t too hard either to make you stuck for hours. Some invisible walls in this level could have been done more graphically correct, but it also adds to the slightly confusing atmosphere of the level. The eyecandy is nice although I would’ve liked to see some more foreground eyecandy in the first part of the level. I recommend this for downloading for I hope many players will see this level and recognise Jenny’s JCS talent.
GJ!

Gameplay: 7,5
Eyecandy: 7,5
Originality: 7,5

Edit: A ‘decent review’ says nothing about the grade you give, Loon…

Error downloading file, sorry.