Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

There are a handful of things that don’t wow me in this set. The silver pots are the big offenders with their surface area to color depth ratio. The giant moth or butterfly with its incongruously black outlines. The destruct blocks that are too colorful to make out their specific markings. And…….. that’s it, honestly.

Again and again while scrolling or playing through Rainbow Runner, the impression I get is "these tiles could be a tileset all on their own." You could totally have a Waz-style set with the hamster tubes, or the "blueground" of course, or the clouds and rainbows. But instead they’re here all together in a giant kaleidoscope of everything that could possibly be related to the concept of rainbows. You can be most of the way through the level or set and suddenly there’s an entirely new set of tiles you’ve never seen or dreamt of before. It goes on and on, new trick after trick, cute animal after cute animal, and yet never sacrifices quality for so much quantity.

It’s hard to know what to write for this review that isn’t just listing things in the tileset and saying how cool they are, so maybe I’ll do that. It’s a damn shame that six months later nobody else has bothered to write a review for this, so I’ll have to. Let’s talk about the clouds. They’re based on the same flat color design that bothers me in other tilesets, but here they work beautifully. They’re soft and bubbly. The option of unmasked rows of clouds against the flat background keeps things fresh and interesting, and so do the curvy and bubbly edges at every possible angle. The masked cloud rows look especially delicious when set against the unmasked ones, but even without them they’re still great, reminders of how many tilesets we’ve seen that failed to have clouds of any quality at all. And there are giant clouds too for hanging around in the foreground.

The blueground is lovely in a Skulg sort of way, and works well with the floating background trees, but what really makes it stand out is the giant staircases which I’ve never seen in any other set. Castlevania’s tiny background stairs can sit right back down, these are the real deal and they work perfectly and look phenomenal. Besides that, all the tiny little roots coming out of the bottoms of the ground reinforce the idea that these are floating platforms ripped up into the air—as they should be, up in the clouds—not just regular earth that happens to be cut off at the bottom because video games are weird. Coming up with the exact three colors of grass to look great together must have taken some time but it paid off, even though one’s green it’s not a default grass green by any means, it’s something much more interesting and fantastic.

The animals! I’m sure many of them are space fillers, like the flowerpots and other such tiny little objects taking up a tile or two in a larger section, but they’re emblematic of what may honestly be this tileset’s most distinctive feature: there are so many individual drawings. It would be impossible to catalogue them all were it not for the fact that Blade actually drew them all. It’s the exact opposite of a Raging Inferno with its single trident to distract from the tileset’s two or three textures. It’s luxury, vast, unending. The theme is rainbows and yet there is more of everything than in any dedicated tileset. And then somehow on top of all these other tiles there are animations too, scores and scores of them, territory basically untouched save for RainV and that was probably originally drawn by professionals. Not only does everything look incredible, but there are so many things that nobody else would ever even have thought to draw and include.

Over the years many fun and memorable levels have been made from limited tilesets, using flipped tiles and transparency and other funny tricks to make much out of little. Rainbow Runner presents the opposite challenge, providing so much bounty that we must learn to reduce, to find ways not to use every single element on screen—or even, perhaps, in the same level—at the same time, lest the player be utterly overwhelmed. I hope it is a challenge that somebody shall soon take up.

The background layers of Aztec 2 have taken on a life of their own since the tileset’s release, to the point that going into this review, I was crafting a narrative in my head about how they completely outweighed the rest of the tileset and people mostly struggled with how to use its vast variety of themes. But that was wrong! There are at least half a dozen levels that use Aztec 2 as a tileset primarily or exclusively. I just forgot about them somehow.

Maybe it’s just me that finds it overwhelming. Sure, there are a few sections that don’t need to be there because they hail from a time when layer 5 couldn’t be trusted as a reliable source of 1/1 layer speeds, but even putting them aside, there’s still a whole lot of stuff in here. But it’s not confusing, hard-to-use stuff by any means. It’s not all blocky (except the first section), but it’s all close enough to blocky that it’s easy to tell what goes with what. Tile order is pretty easy to follow, I can’t spot more than a handful of tiles that had to be shuffled into the next section to make the grid work. And besides being easy to use, the different tileset components (blocks, pillars, branches, foliage, etc.) all have lots of options for tiling in elaborate ways. There are a dozen or so different treetops. Rocks have short and long slopes at every angle. Tree branches can be diagonal. Water offers more options than any other tileset ever.

So why am I still kind of lukewarm about Aztec 2? Ultimately I think it’s the flat colors. They work fine for the water, which needs to be no more than a tint so it doesn’t obscure the actual gameplay behind it. Fine for the background mountains, which similarly shouldn’t be too distracting. The foreground foliage I can live with because you can have a lot of borders to break up the flat insides. Nothing is as flat as in Islands. But it’s the main blocks and the cave sections that don’t appeal to me, and they do happen to be the main building blocks of the whole tileset. They don’t look very solid and they don’t look very interesting. You have to put in a lot of time to make shapes that aren’t just rectangles, to keep things attractive, and granted you should be doing that all the time anyway, but it’s also easy to think that structures made of lots of stone blocks should be rectangular. It’s easy to get sucked into making sections of Aztec 2 levels that are nothing more than seas of undifferentiated brown.

Is it fair to criticize Aztec 2 for making it possible for level designers to not put in enough work? I’m not sure. If you stick to the more decorative stuff, the trees and the water and the gems and things, I’m happy. But it’s hard to make that carry an entire level. So do you combine with something else, and in so doing, sort of perpetuate the Aztec 2 Background Mountains issue? I dunno.

Aztec 2 is very cool. It can do a lot of things very well. It’s absolutely packed with cool little features and single-tile drawings, the antithesis of a tileset that’s nothing but textures stretched across shapes. It would be great to love it. But the flat browns are a turnoff for me personally.

This leans heavily on some elements that generally turn me off—trigger crates with unclear targets, dark lighting, general difficulty discerning where to go next—but by wrapping everything in a haunted house it ends up working really well! It’s haunted like disconcerting haunted, like you never know quite what’s going to happen next. Floors collapse under you, crates fall from above, doors open mysteriously. It’s really good use of atmosphere (in 1999!) and near-flawless use of a fairly complicated tileset. And the moment-to-moment gameplay is good too, with cool uses of gems and enemies that pose a good challenge (even if the darkness helps them a lot). Not the longest level in the world, but one with a lot of craft to it. A disconcerting pleasure to play at 1 AM.

oh, the end of the level seems to be messed up though, there are activate boss events but no boss, weird.

A very interesting palette choice for the given tileset. It looks very retro and cool, well done! The layout is decent and plays well. However, I don’t like that there’s only one entrace for each base. This makes it easily for the opponent to defend where you might as well die before you can take the flag with you.

Probably Dragusela's best level yet. I love the atmosphere created with the combined tilesets, especially the fountain in the middle is cleverly made. The layout is very open so there aren't many places to hide. I'm looking forward to see more levels like this in the near future. Keep up the good work!

Gorgeous visuals, plays very well, it even has a command to stop the color changing for those who might find it too distracting.
Amazing stuff.

Very nice atmosphere, interesting tileset mix, fluid gameplay and suitable for 1v1 and 2v2. Totally recommend

This is one really big pack I have to say. The fact that you came up with it in a single summer, and as a KID!! Pretty impressive.

Like Bloody_Body said, levels are really unique. There are some tradiotional as far as layout and gameplay goes. You can’t really go wrong with those if they are competently made, which these are. Then there are the gimmick levels, 2 of them involve dropping through the whole level trying to get pickups and avoiding spiked balls and level hazards, I think the second one is better, since it’s shorter, the first level that’s like this goes on for a bit too long, also the lighting and arrows made up of destructuble blocks guide you away from harm, which is neat. Other gimmicks involve teleporting back and forth until you unlock the intended path. There’s even one that serves as a "credits roll" level, where you go in a straight line, picking up all the ammo types you’ve encountered during the pack, then you teleport and continue on foot doing the same with the enemies you’ve encountered during pack, I think it should have been after the final boss (unless I’m misunderstanding it as a concept)

My issues are pretty similar to the other review, mainly that texts aren’t in english, so most people will not understand, which is pretty bad if the texts are actually hints helping the players progress.

Some of the gimmick levels can outstay their welcome (the teleporty ones in particular)

Tilebugs, I normally don’t notice them, but here there were some pretty obvious ones. It’s most noticable on Carrottus, Hell and Damn levels.

Still this is a rather unique take on level design, especially considering if this was uploaded when it was created, I’m pretty sure it would have caught a lot of attention. Especially considering that you were a kid when you made these. It’s impressive, download recommended.

I very much enjoyed the first and the third level; the second one, a little less.
Some custom music would’ve been nice but the vanilla track choices aren’t bad either.
You can tell this is a Slaz level from its gameplay gimmicks. Some are great, others not so much, but all of them are very creative nonetheless.

Download recommended!

3 levels, each scratching different itches, and rather inconsistent difficulty compared to each other.

Let’s start with Jungle Town since it’s the first map. The gimmick is that you can’t use your weapon, unless you get a special pickup that give you 1 shot (generally needed for destructable blocks) or you get the 3 way rockets from the coin warp. You also get multiple birds (I believe they respawn, unless I’m mistaken). Logically the difficulty is worked around this handicap, and does it so mostly successfully. The only issue is when you are supposed to shoot the destructable block you have to go running back and forth to get the 1 shot pickup, which adds padding to an already big and long level. Thankfully this particular level has a layout that generally nodges you in the correct direction, though due to the already mentioned lenght, you might get some fatige by the end. The level like the other 2 has an open structure, letting you do the exploring until you reach the path needed to progress, where you’ll generally be required to find a trigger crate or a 1 shot pickup. While the level is well designed, I think it should have been divided into 2 seperate levels, since the scenary will start to blend together, and being lost in an average sized level compared to a giant one is quite the difference.

Now for French Town, you can shoot in this level, so the difficulty is ramped up accordingly, but it stays well manageable. 1 thing I need to mention before anything else, is how cool the background for this level is, it’s basically a wide shot of a city (presumably in France). I wouldn’t normally even consider an idea like this, but I think it fit in very well, and looks unique. Now for the gameplay. You’ll be doing quite a lot of trigger crate hunting. Unfortunately this can sometimes lead to frustration, since you often have to enter sewer areas, and due to the tileset used, the manhole covers often blend in with the grass, so you may end up running around looking for the correct path and missing it multiple times. The level ends with a pretty fun boss fight. Luckily the level is shorter than the previous one, so it ends roughly at the time it starts to wear out its welcome.

Unfortunately this can’t be said about the final level. The biggest positive is definitely the music, which is my favorite track from the original game (Dark Groove, Hell2 level). This isn’t to say the level isn’t good at all, but there are some really big flaws in my opinion.
Number 1 the massive difficulty SPIKE, pun intended since a lot of it comes down to the spikes, they are placed in such positions that you have to make perfect jumps to avoid them which is hard with the often cramped up spaces they are placed in. Unfortunately due to the level having probably the most confusing layout out of the 3, means if you don’t know exactly where you should go and how to get there, you will be traversing through these spiked areas constantly while trying to find out where you have to go next. Add on top of that, some enemies respawn.
Number 2 is the layout and the trigger crate hunting. Even though the level may look smaller compared to the first one. I’d say it feels twice the size. The high difficulty does add a lot to it, but what doesn’t help either is how you may find a trigger crate on one side of the level, and then have to retrace your steps back to where the crate opened a new path on the other side of it. And since on your way you meet multiply trigger blocks, you won’t really have an idea which one it does open up (yeah you get text messages, but on your first playthrough will you really remember where the mentioned area is?). At one point you are required to defrost a frozen spring, so you have to go look for flamethrower ammo. The funny thing is when I got there, I couldn’t pick it up, because you have to jump from a vine/rope so only a double jump will work, which Jazz doesn’t have. This leaves your only other option as far as I could tell, getting hit by the Floating Sucker enemy, which launches you high enough to get the ammo. Of course there’s a 3rd option, but you might not have that option due to circumstances. The 3rd option is using TNT and letting the explosion throw the ammo down where you can pick it up. There is a big reason why this may be out of question, you may not have TNT anymore. Maybe you are wasteful and used it when not necessary (you get maybe 6 from the previous level) or more likely, you killed the deflated Floating Sucker with it, since when it hits the ground it will be so low that crouch shooting will still have your shots going above it, so you can either ignore them, or kill the with TNT, since no other ammo will hit them (yes, even the seeker ammo won’t register it walking around on the ground). So unless you play as Spaz or are lucky, you’ll have to take damage to get an item needed for progression, which would be fine normally, but the level is already difficult enough. There were also some areas where I had no idea how I was supposed to progress.
Edit: 2023.01.23 I was informed that the intended way was to buttstomp the Floating Sucker. Fair enough, since it respawns, it can get annoying if you don’t know that since if you shoot it by instinct it will fall into the spikes where you can’t kill it without taking damage, or you can run back far enough where it will respawn as a Floating Sucker. (I guess I was impatient at that point and didn’t even consider buttstomp an option) This also does justify some of the respawning enemies since now I actually realised they serve a purpose. Since those high areas can be reached with buttstomping, though in my opinion some require too much precision.

Number 3, the moving platforms. I don’t know if the intention for them was to work like this, but they are extremely annoying, and make platforming a crapshoot basically. You barely get any control over your character whenever you land on these moving platforms, since they will catapult you off themselves unless you are standing next the wall, but since you can’t just through them since the One-Way funcion wasn’t added to them, you have to try your luck by going to the edges and jumping from there which requires far more patience and precision from the player than it’s realistically worth. One of these examples is the frozen spring area. If you return from where you picked up the flamethrower ammo, you’ll eventually have to somehow jump up to the area with the frozen spring. It’s in the area where the gold coin is, even getting back to that point is questionable since in the underground area I have no clue how I’m even supposed to continue, there’s a long strech of spikes with 2 Floating Suckers and a very tall wall with a Normal Turtle on it. I have no idea how you are supposed to get back up there when returning. I ended up using JJFLY and JJINV cheats to see through to the end, because I had very little fun that would justify me to find the end of the level through normal means. And judging by the boss arena, I think I made the correct choice. Seriously? Bubba boss in a small space with springs covering the ground, walls and ceiling with 2 pinball bumpers? It is quite a shame because otherwise the level is pretty, and like I said, at least the music choice was awesome.

Still though, I think the first 2 levels were good enough to warrant a recommendation, since those were well worth playing through.

The 3rd level would need some changes to be enjoyable because as of now it’s a confusing frustrationfest. Maybe I missed something or assumed the wrong path as the intended one, but then it should be made more obvious. I’m sure it’s not that confusing for the actual level designer, since they were the one to come up with the layout and different ideas, and spent who knows how long creating the level. But if possible either simplefy the level a bit, make more deliberate methods of shoving the player in the correct direction and if possible don’t have the trigger zones and trigger crates be 2 levels worth of distance from each other.

But like I said, the other 2 levels are good in my opinion. So this pack get’s a download recommendation.

Edit: 2023.01.23 Due to some of my issues being cleared up for me level 3 makes a bit more sense, Navigation can still be tricky and frustrating, but certain choices at least have a purpose rather than being oversights. Due to this I’m bumping the score up a bit.

A non-linear level with a funny little storyline using a recent tileset. Mainly traditional JJ2 gameplay with only slight variations of existing enemies and obstacles. Quite easy for the veteran player but fun to explore for anyone. Nice that the final 3 gifts have arrows pointing towards their location, really improves the flow for completionists!

I always enjoy playing this when it comes up during JDC events

The thing I like most about this level is that it feels like a good looking level made for all skill levels. it’s probably enjoyable for anyone to play. Something very suited for the holidays. Since I get that vibe of this level I also have some nitpicks and tips to make it a more enjoyable experience for everybody:

1. Most of the Rabbit messages were a bit strange or unfunny. I would refrain from using (inside) jokes that most people would not understand. I personally liked the informative messages the most by far. And this is my favourite text box in a SP level yet.

2. I’m not a fan of the mechanic that allows you to finish the level before getting all the packages. I really felt like I needed to get them all and that it outright felt like cheating not to do so. That said, It also took me 30 minutes just to find the last package. Others talked about an arrow, I agree this would be helpful. But I would also be fond of combining that with collecting all the packages. (and make the bottom segment easier for easier difficulties, see #4)

3. For me the UI for the package counter lacks a tiny bit of polishness. I didn’t expect it to be there. I didn’t notice the UI until i collected my sixth package. I think what would really help is if there was some sort of temporary icon/text flash whenever collecting a package, so you really notice that the counter goes up. Maybe a temporary text size or colour change would really help. Similar to how other games handle stat counters.

4. I’m pretty sure that jumping from tiny hook to hook in succession (mainly in the bottom area) is too hard for casual players and should not be part of Easy and perhaps Medium difficulty. Casual spaz players will definitely get stuck here. This isn’t really your fault since this is a trend that has been going on for decades now and with even the most respected SP packs (HH, Devres, etc) are brutal when it comes to these designs. Most leveldesigners tend to only look at difficulty with the amount of carrots or enemies given, but not take into account very difficult platforming obstacles (often combined punishing with pits/hurt events) where casual players are most likely to give up. As i’ve been watching a lot of casual random JJ2 streams it’s very easy to overestimate rabbit control and the intuitiveness of casual players, I’m talking about players that get stuck in TSF, yeah it really happens more than you think. Sure, as of now you don’t need that package to complete the level, but that’s also stealing completionists of their fun. Which is a shame, because I would really like to recommend this level to new players, and I think that’s almost possible, but with parts like these they will get frustrated over the whole experience.

5. Same thing goes for the package at position 10,77. I understood how to get there by buttstomping because of a hidden ice block, but I assure you that this visual queue is too hidden for a lot of players. Maybe collapse scenery is a better option here. Post review I also noticed the stomp scenery at 222,175 in MLLE, which is even more vague, definitely needs a better clue or nobody finds this.

6. Most secrets are cool, some are a little confusing. Overall I enjoy it more when you can see what you are collecting, but often in this level you have no idea what you are collecting. There is a secret at 246,147 with a carrot and a hor spring, but since I was full health i was completely confused as to what I’m missing out on. If there is a horizontal spring inside a wall and I don’t gain anything I immediatly think I should freeze the spring. I’ve had this a couple of times where I felt a bit dissapointed when I could run into a wall and only found something like 4 food pickups. Perhaps it’s because there is no coin warp. With coins it feels different because the game gives you a very clear audio queue and stat counter. 4 Coins in comparison feels a lot more exciting than 4 food. Maybe the best policy is to only put gems and coins behind foreground secrets for that reason, or script something that makes it more noticeable and exciting than it currently is.

7. The level is great for what it is but I also want to note it’s not a really ambitious. For me personally I would have also loved if the boss fight had a change of scenery like Treylina mentioned. Another downside for me is that the level itself also lacks memorable landmarks, which is an issue when running around a map collecting stuff. While searching for the last packages I often got lost in the maze. I can safely say that the change in scenery, caves and open area’s were not enough to really make sense of where I was and where I need to be. It maybe would have helped if paths were blocked off after collecting the needed package.

But even with these nitpicks I highly recommend checking out this level. It’s a fun festive level and very enjoyable for most players.

2022-01-08: A lot of feedback has been used to improve the upload, see the changelog. This is why i’m adjusting the rating a bit.

I’d say this is probably your best level so far. Still a lot of the issues your previous levels have had are present.

Them being lack of difficulty due to big open areas with very scarse enemy placement. Along with item placements.

The level feels like the layout has been 95% complete, while item and enemy placement are only 50-60% complete. Which is a shame, because the actual level layout is pretty good, reminds me of the original levels though more linear.
More item pickups, a coin warp with coin pickups, more enemies would have all added to the score of the level.

Luckily the level is still pretty competent. You tried to vary enemy types, and luckily you didn’t overload the player with 80+ ammo at the start of the level. Ammo is far better spaced out and placed much more liberally. There are also a couple of secrets, though I found 2 which were empty (which is why I feel like item and enemy placement is only 60% finished).

I appreciate your effort to keep making level, and you are improving. My personal score would be 6.9 but I can’t give that score, so here’s a 7/10.

It’s a rather simple and short level that could’ve been better with more pickups and more enemies. Albeit rather unremarkable, I can tell that Spyro really tried to make something nice. Can’t recommend it though, unfortunately.

Cute level!

Alright, here we go…the somewhat devils advocate. I put N/A so people will read the text, not the number.

TL;DR: It’s a solid, expansive map with attractive visual flair, but don’t expect any boundary-pushing gameplay with spectacle. It’s mostly traditional (albeit trickier) gameplay with an extra coat of paint and context. And perhaps that’s your jam!

EDIT: This review is a bit outdated. Will update once I’ve played the new version.

The long version:

**WARNING: Spoilers below. **

_{Disconnected thought dump}

The NPC dialogue was silly (and somewhat cute at times). It added some life to the world.

The gameplay certainly fed my " Let’s explore the heck outta everything! " instincts on a first playthrough. I liked challenging myself how much I could defeat with blaster alone, though I did occasionally use other ammo for enemies in super tricky spots.

Nice to see this set finally used, and the extra Christmas aesthetics are a fun little flair. The water layer reflection also makes its debut in an actual level! I’m not sure if it would move at this temperature, but who cares this is a cartoon rabbit game.

Was hoping I could unlock more areas (maybe secrets) by freezing springs. I never really use ice in single player. Maybe there was but I wasn’t looking hard enough.

Those bastard tiny dragons blending in with the scenery…

The bossfight was…underwhelming. All that build-up. And then it’s just a bog standard xmas Bilsy fight and we come to an agreement after defeat.

_{Quality of life suggestions}

Minimap: Such a large, expansive map would benefit from telling you where you’ve already been, and where to go next. Maybe even hints for the next missing present? It’s not exactly fun when you’ve almost collected everything and you’re navigating for miles on end through dead enemies, just to find one or two missing collectables. coughs in Spyro flashbacks

OR an arrow that points to the next missing present, akin to treasure mode pointing to exits once you have enough. More simple and doesn’t really cover the already explored areas, but perhaps way easier to implement?

More checkpoints: While I never died, lesser seasoned players may do. For a giant level, it could be really cumbersome to die in some places. In that case, it’s probably better to put the boss checkpoint just after the hole to avoid the long falling sequence (maybe one slightly above the arena?).

Warpable checkpoints before you’ve collected the minimum amount. Because big map and collectable items, yadda yadda.

This is really minor, maybe a trigger scenery tile that changes in clear sight when you destroy the trigger crate? Would give players a clear idea what it does. I almost forgot myself…

_{Spectacle suggestions}

As you descend into hell, the surrounding environment would slowly transform into a firey hellscape, setting the mood and realization that something is off.

Give the Bilsy bossfight/arena more spice. Add fire hazards, floating platforms, bubba, idk. Maybe he could leave a temporary, hazardous trail of fire as he warps away, and he aggressively warps to your position? Or, maybe these ideas are better left for an extra phase, instead.

A tougher, extra boss phase would’ve give more experienced players an incentive to collect all presents (and the PU reward would still stay). This could delve more into the story, too. Who knows…maybe we could end up fighting Santa himself, mad about his dirty secret being revealed.

_Bugs!
You can get stuck between the tiles at 113, 104 and 163, 125 (in-game pos). Any other sections masked like this will have the same potential (so I won’t label them all unless asked). No big deal, debug or cheat mode will help and it takes a lot of fiddling to trigger it.

Super nice! This looks great and is fun to play. The non-linearity is done well, in that you don’t get lost too easily and come across the important parts of the level more or less naturally. There are some nice Christmas-themed custom events (I loved the falling Christmas balls) and there are small secrets everywhere which makes the level fun to explore. Overall it definitely has that holiday vibe and it’s nice to see that Jazz Jackrabbit games can still deliver that in 2023.

The (medium) difficulty felt just right too – you can’t just run around willy nilly, but it’s also not too challenging. There’s even a small story to the level which is nothing too special but nevertheless executed well.

This is a great level and you should play it!

Not much to say honestly, this is a damn near perfect level, with an insane size, gorgeous eye candy and level design crafted to near perfection.

The whole open ended nature of the level is greatly appealing to me, reminds me of Silent Night level made by Slaz. Here you need to collect gift packages instead of coins. Aided with a very soothing soundtrack to the level, makes for a great overall package.

My only complaint might be that for a level this big, some extra checkpoints would have been nice, other than that, this is a perfect level in my eyes.

Definite recommendation.

Over the years JJ2 has seen an explosion of multiplayer gamemodes. Sch wizards as BlurredD and EvilMike wove together arcane contraptions of sucker tubes and trigger scenery to create levels that, even when played in vanilla JJ2, still followed the scoring rules of Team Battle or Last Rabbit Standing or the like. JJ2+ canonized these, and others with more complicated rulesets, from Pestilence to Headhunters. Mutators expanded the playing field still further. But somewhat lost in all this was the idea of single player gamemodes.

In general there have only ever been two goals in single player levels: either get to the exit (which may involve a boss battle), or collect all items (usually coins). Within collecting levels there are two subtypes, one where collecting everything makes you win immediately and one where you have to go to a specific place afterwards, but they’re largely the same thing.

But there’s a third mode that’s lurked around the edges, only making an appearance every once in a while: horde mode. The level design stays constant, but enemies keep appearing, and either they die or you do. A major example is TDI_07.j2l from Moonblaze’s “The Demon Invasion,” where a regenerating coin and an invisible coin warp serve as a countdown timer. hgfDiamondusColosseum.j2l from happygreenfrog’s “Operation Cleanup: Turtle Terror Revisited” uses scripting to implement an enemy quota, so the level will not end until you’ve killed enough (regenerating) enemies. Both make the assumption there must be some sort of measurable goal that the game itself keeps track of for you, or else why would you bother?

The Lapidarian Chaparral says screw that noise.

The Lapidarian Chaparral decides that you, the player, are in charge of keeping track of how well you’ve done and whether you’ve accomplished whatever goal you might choose to set for yourself. It demands you make up your own emergent gameplay. It puts itself in your hands as clay to be molded into whatever experience you prefer. It is single player by way of sandbox. It is, in a way, a metaphor for JJ2 and JCS as a whole.

Sure, with some work Lark could probably piece together a complicated system of a generating coin, an electro-blaster SCE, and various belts, animated tiles, bridges, and so on, that periodically dropped a coin into a pseudo-random spot in the level, so that you have to keep moving around to find the next coin. It would be pretty cool. But there’s a boldness to giving up on that altogether as irrelevant.

Sure, the concept still has some limitations as implemented. In the current version of JJ2+, regenerating enemies and pickups don’t give points, but pickups spawned from regenerating barrels do, so if score is your goal, you should focus there. Sure, certain areas are purely safe, so if your goal is actually to set a stopwatch and see how long you can last, you’re just gonna hang out next to a carrot and walk away from your computer. But does Lark really want you to do that? More importantly, do you really want to do that? Or do you want to blast turtles?

Anyway. Cool to see Jungrock. Level looks nice. Didn’t notice any bugs.

Gosh. Lark. Long time, kid. Thanks for dropping by. Happy new year.