Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Second half of the winter pack, though not the better half. Let’s go level by level.
Cold as hell:
Well I’ve heard a lot of people saying it’s hard to make good eyecand for the inferno tileset. That means it’s not an easy tileset to use. I see you were trying to do something but the level still feels sort of empty. Some of the enemies were placed in a kind of glitchy way (skeletons). There were two parts where the paths split that was sort of good. Amount of secrets was moderate and the item placement was good. Default music. (Still better than choosing something that doesn’t fit).
Rating: 6.8

Spreading cold:
Easily the best of the 3 levels. Different starting positions with a kind of funny part for Spaz. Eyecandy is good (though the tileset isn’t really a winter tileset) like the diamondus levels you combine layer 5 and 6. Enemies are well placed as well as the items. You have to split paths quite a few times which adds to the replay value. Also I noticed that here there are far more places for only Spaz unlike other levels from you. There are a few tricky secrets which are a good idea. This is the only level with different music than the default and it’s quite nice.
Rating: 8.2

Without heating:
A really short level. It’s rather a boss level. Still you managed to squeeze some secrets in it. Not much to say here. Boss fight was really tough and long, anyway I wouldn’t have minded this to be a boss fight level only.
Rating: 6.2

21.2/3=7.06
Rating: 7.0
Download recommendation: Yes
Even though this isn’t the best it’s worth downloading because of the second level. Also fighting the boss is a tough challange which some players may enjoy.

Well since I have downloaded this “winter pack” let’s review it.
There is no story to it so there not a big need to put this and the second part in connection, but whatever.
Eyecandy is pretty good, though it’s the easiest to make good eyecandy in the diamondus and carrotus levels. I like the way you used layer 5 and 6.
Enemies are places well especially some of the flying ones. It’s not that difficult though after you realize how to kill them without getting hurt. Anyway if it’s hard there’s the easy mode. There were quite a lot of items as well as many weapon types which were later useful for some enemies and for secrets or destructable blocks. I like the fact that the level has a lot of secrets which were fun to find. I have to mention though that a lot of them are accessible for only Jazz as well as Jazz’s starting position being longer. That’s may not be so satisfying for players who like Spaz better.
The music was very good in my opinion. It really fitted well with the level.
All together I have to say this is the better half of the 2 part pack. I think it’s worth trying it, it’s medium length level which is fun and has quite and amount of secrets.

Though the design isn’t really for JJ2 because it’s a bit too tight at certain places but it’s really cool to replay these levels with JJ2. Also it’s possible to find secret places thanks to JCS so if you still have JJ1 you can get higher percentage. All in all it’s really fun and a lot of work seems to be put into it. End result a cool JJ1 conversion which is definitely worth a try.

I really like the concept and the idea of this level. Therefore it’s a shame there are parts of it that ruin my view of it.

First, the right side lacks a border. You most likely know it will cause camping, and while it can easily be taken care of in a JDC ODT event, it can make the level unusable in bigger games outside of JDC. I suggest you at least add an invisible border; that should help.

Second, it’s very hard to go up left from the lower carrot for Spaz, and I believe it’s almost impossible for Jazz or Lori. That makes it a dead end and therefore a perfect spot for an ambush, without any chance of the ambushed player escaping if he’s low on health.

Third, the upper middle area is too flat, and that’s not really a good thing for a level with RFs.

As for the good parts: The flow on other parts is really good. The eyecandy is simple, but great; one of the aspects of this level I like the most. The layout is not bad, other than the stuff I have already mentioned.

For now, I cannot rate it more than 7.8. I will give it a DL rec though, if you fix the bugs (and if the J2o admins fix reviews), I’ll raise the rating to something above 8.

EDIT: It appears I was wrong about the right border, sorry. I shall therefore raise the rating, but my other points still stand.

EDIT v2: Thanks for the spring, it’s really useful. I was wrong about the border (only the left border causes invincibility) but it looks good this way as well, and the flow is definitely better now :) Rating raised once again!

Not bad. The atmosphere is nice, the tileset adds to it. There’s eyecandy in the background; a bit less wall-based eyecandy but I suppose it’s enough. The flow is good enough, though the lower part is a bit too flat. Anyway, you get a 8.2 from me and a DL rec.

Played it in Rag’s server. A well-balanced level with good gameplay, flow and eyecandy; it therefore deserves a high rating.

A very good level with a nice flow, good gameplay, interesting ammo placement, a great theme, good music and overall a great atmosphere. It also comes in two versions, which is a very good thing in my opinion (I prefer the non-lethal one though, just so you know :P). Oh and it has OVER 9000 tiles; the level might be too big for duels, but it’s a great level anyway! You get a nice 8.6 and a DL rec from me, have fun!

A well designed level with a nice flow and almost no gameplay flaws (perhaps a spring at 78,68 would be a good idea?). The atmosphere is really nice, the music fits the level, although it could use more background eyecandy (yes yes I know, Rag said you don’t need to but it would still be great). One thing though: why the invisible walls on the left side? They can be quite confusing.

Other than that, it’s a good level! Make some more :P

A level not too bad, but not too good either. The gameplay and the flow is not that bad, however there are camping spots (most notably the fastfire warp, the tube on the right and under the left carrot). There’s a large open area in the middle and I don’t really like that, but I guess it’s fine for an ODT level.

I understand Rag asked not to base the level on eyecandy, but this one could have used more in the background – the repetitive brown wood tends to hurt eyes if you move around too much. Also, there’s a pit; I’m gonna leave it up to Rag to decide if it fits or not.

So what do we have here? A rushed level (the creator admits it) that could have been a bit better. Even small ODT levels would require a bit more work and that’s why I can’t rate it higher than 7.4. DL rec? I’ll think about it.

Not bad. The gameplay is fine, the flow is fine, although a few open and flat areas and lack of wall-based eyecandy makes it a bit too simple. However, it certainly fits Ragnarok’s requirements for an ODT level in my opinion and therefore it deserves a download recommendation and a relatively high rating.

Great prog, but when I open a .jlt file, then it puts my translation under the english one. If you don’t understand what I try to explain, here is an example:

I translated the English language to Hungarian and I saved it as a .jlt. After that, I opened it and it looked like this.

New Game | New Game
Load Game | Load Game
High Scores | High Scores
etc… | etc…
Új Játék | New Game
Játék Betöltése | Load Game
Csúcspontok | High Scores
etc… | etc…

Can You fix this, please?

Quite good though I’m not sure there were enough level ups to get the needed amount of TNT or coins.

For a first level it isn’t that bad at all, though it certainly is too easy. There were hardly any pickups, some layers were left empty, some parts were sort of boring and the rope part towards the end was too long. On the other side there were secrets (some were placed quite well), you could use the tiles as they were supposed to (which is quite a problem for certain level creators), some enemies were placed well, and it reminded me of the original levels.

There certainly would be a lot to improve on this level but as a first level it isn’t terrible. I’ve seen far worse levels that got similar ratings.
I can’t recommend this though, since I know others wouldn’t like it and you probably won’t even read this since you haven’t logged in for 2 years so what difference would it make anyway.

Well, this was the only level I didn’t play that was nominated for JCS awards, lets see if it’s worth the title.

Eyecandy
I’m not sure what the theme is supposed to be, and some of the ec style has tilebugs (incomplete tiles), making it look wierd. Using tiles that were meant for layer 4 being used in layer 3 in some places is somewhat annoying when you play the level for the first time. Hint: Don’t use layer 4 solid masks for EC on other layers, it’s confusing, unless you use contrast. Most of the ec functioned alright, despite being nothing special. I guess it’s supposed to feel post acopalyptic, though the background doesn’t suggest much. In a nutshell it feels random for me.

Gameplay

It’s somewhat unique, though a shame it doesn’t make any use of the frogs ability at all. This then basically makes the entire level a handicap gimmick. Gimmicks can be great, though having nearly no interaction with the environment or enemies, makes it feel a bit lacking. I could see it having more potential if it wasn’t just about dodging. Interaction is possible as a frog, just more limited. On the postive side, this level isn’t all that linear and provides an interesting challenge for a while.

There’s also the layout, which bothers me. You may die because of having no idea what is down below, and no clear indication of pits. And once you have finished it at least once, you can skip some parts of the level by falling at the right places, specifically, near the start of the level where you go down. There’s also some useless maze deadends. Gems are useless if you don’t want to aim for a high score, and even so, you’re more likely to get a high score from a sp pack than a single level.

The boss arena is a little too time consuming, though quite creative. To win this, I practically stayed in the bottom right corner, and jumped when he used his attack. It seemed hard until I used this strategy. Though admittedly, I had easy mode on.

Music
For a start, the volume of the samples is too high when it has led into the main thing, and the backing feels overdone. It starts off okay then BNNBBMBMBBNBFFBFBNBNBMFF-F-F-F. It eventually irritated me so much (and slightly ached my ears) that I had to change the music. I don’t really know if it fits, because if I had to change it, then I’d rather not listen to it. The boss music is good, though.

Other
What’s with the ambient sounds? To be blunt, they were overused because they were everywhere. They distracted as well as annoyed me so much I had to mute the sound, which I have never had to do before. Why does it sound like I’m in the middle of a noisy factory? I thought I was out in nature.

Conclusion
For a little different kind of sp challenge, you may want to try this. Completing it before will give you a significant advantages of playing the level. Some stuff is annoying, but fortunately, you can mute or change it.

Looks absolutely incredible. The layout combined with the concept makes for some interesting gameplay, and the inclusion of a regular version is a nice extra. Highly recommended.

Meh is a good noncommital word.

It can either mean, “Meh, this is all right, I guess,” or it can mean, “Meh, I’ve seen better.”

When I checked out this level, I thought, “Meh.”

It’s not really [I]bad[/I], per se…but at the same time, it’s not really all that impressive.

The level was big, and had a few multiple-choice passages, whereby you could shake off a pesky pursuer. In that respect, it’s good. The Layer 8 fade color, while not terribly original, worked decently enough nonetheless. There was a good amount of weapons, plus a few hidden powerups, so points for that.

However…

Let’s be frank. I was not a fan of the level flow. In fact, I HATED it. There were too many poles sticking down from the ceiling, too many singleplayer-esque pinpoint jump platforms, too many irritating spring traps, and it was rather easy to get stuck at the bottom of the map. I lost track of the number of horizontal pole platforms that would’ve been [I]much[/I] easier to traverse had they contained One Way events. The overall level itself was too dark. I didn’t like the musical selection at all (A better one might’ve been TRAUMATI.xm, or perhaps sunatbox.it). Eyecandy, while present, was nonetheless woefully deficient.

Would I recommend this level’s download? Let’s see: It has good size and some usable events. It also has horrible congestion-spawning layout problems and so-so atmosphere.

Let’s just say, “meh,” and leave it at that.

For a first release it’s not that bad but to be honest I didn’t enjoy it that much. What you did was copy one path and use it 4 times, that’s not original. Like you said it really reminded me of the original levels ( some parts) though those were much better.

Short level short review. Not bad, simple but good. Can’t really give a download recommendation because it’s too short for that.

I understand this is not a review since I’m obviously not reviewing my own levels :-) so perhaps this message should have been placed elsewhere…
Anyway. Its been a while since these levels were posted. I was wondering if anyone has had a chance to finish them yet.

For Abgrenv: I appreciate you took time to review the levels. But I really don’t believe it is possible that you finished much within a day. It would be extremely impressive if you even got through level 2 by that time. These levels are made to be difficult. That means you have to be able to control your rabbit and also play it clever. If you killed 12 queens you did something wrong. Part of the challenge is to figure stuff like that out (I can tell you they are not on a respawn timer ^^). But true thing is, that the first level may be a bit of a search from time to time.
I also have to apologise for the lack of ammo and other pick-ups. Like I said before, these levels are meant as a challenge. I would have liked to put more ammo, but over time I removed the bullets that could make parts of the levels easier than they should be. The same goes for the carrots btw.

last point: could anyone give me a description of where the glitches in warp areas are? I could not find any, but they should be removed in any case!
And could anyone tell me how far they got in these levels?
Merry Christmas everyone!

EDIT: Yes I can see what you mean about them being too hard :-) The main reason why I posted these levels at all is because I wanted to know whether it would be possible to find out everything for yourself without knowing how the levels were made. Maybe it’s too much indeed..

Last time I played them I finished 1-8 in 30min to an hour. But again: I know what I am supposed to do. And others won’t. Also, I finished every bit of every level without getting hit so i know it is theoretically possible. (Never finished any level without getting hit though… just little bits of them). I never finished last level. it’s a level almost completely existing of a boss fight with devil devan in which you need to flee and fight him over quite a distance. It’s hopelessly buggy and I just could not stop him from sometimes running off and never coming back. I thought I’d just add
it when I uploaded the others since its not likely to ever get better anyway. I’ve given up on it :-)

I think I know the warps you are talking about. Thanks, they will be changed!

Sorry about the pick-ups ^^ I never liked gems or food much when I played the official game. They seemed so pointless to me at the time. Guess it’s just a flaw in my character ;-)

Oh and I’ll tell you there are 5 queens in level 1 and no more. They only come back to life if you run away too far. It has nothing to do with a timer. Simply shoot the last queen from a distance until she backed off far enough (past the pillar) and do not run too far from where the other queens stood. Them returning to life also surprised me first time I tried it!

why cant i it open it it says creating new level and the tiles dont show up it drives me crzy :C