Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Foreword

People mostly dont review a new person’s first level, but i tried it, and i came to think that it deserves some feedback.

Eyecandy(look)

It’s quite simple, and similar to the basic design of Tubelectric, the background is nice, even if it looks like a copy of the original, least you was smart enough to do so. The edges of the walls and platformars are correct, and the walls themself arent mostly made with only one tile, you seem to understand how to make such. Anyway, if you put tiles to non-moving forground layers, make sure to put the nearby walls to it too, to make it natural. You even used some animated tiles, and used them fine.

Rating:17/25

Layout

With the walltypes, the level is separated to 3 near equal parts, alrtoung the things in it are’n like that. The two useful powerrups are close in the middle (horizontally) there are two carrots sort of like that it’s allright. However the corners on the level are a little useless, ammos are over the level, so you dont need to go there for that. Every place should have use in the level, it can be to get powerups, health, get ammo, hide or such. Yet the corners arent really good for even hiding. You should plan the level on the siginciant things, and the ways between them.

Rating:8/15

Gameplay

I didnt play on this level, just ran around like 3 times, and i think that it would be bad for battle because if you get hit with a 2dmg ammo, you slowly can get 2 carrots, and you become very vulnerable, with 5 hearts, it might be okay but still it would be just around the important parts of the level. However, i think it could be pertty good for pestillence or lrs, these gametypes can be good with places to hide, where people less likely go because it doesnt have much in it. The flow (the smoothness of moving) is generally fine, but in some cases are annoying, one to point out: the stairs with toasters. There are lots of random start positions, could be less, in my opinion. Oh, and one more thing, dont leave the very edges of the level open, its buggy.

Rating:17/30

Pickups

The first thing came to my mind was that there are too much ammos all over the level, moreover, all of them mixed. You should use like: one type, a big pile, in a room of the level, so if your low, of that ammo, you go there and reload it. Yet the placement of the PUs are pretty accurate. The ice PU is useless, you should put an RF or Toaster PU instead, and should’ve put it into the box of the fastfires. The carrots are placed right, but they are not enough, i would say the minimum is 3, but it could have 4 without any problem, too.

Rating:13/25

Music

I personally like it, though it doesnt really fit the level in my opinion.

Rating:2/5

Ending

It’s not bad, you are in the right way to become a good levelmaker.
I give you some notes:

You should play, and check other people’s nice levels, like FireSword’s Garden Brawl or Purplejazz’s Triton Armory to see how a good level is like, how it works, what makes it is good.
You could also read articles about how to make levels, of course if you understand english well. For example Blackraptor’s How to make decent (or better) MP levels
If you are determined, you can win the joy of having played levels!

5.7 out of 10

~RabidRabb

The original tileset in Super Meat Boy isn’t too bad, and it fits JJ2 pretty well.

Unfortunately, it’s been scaled and palletised completely naively. It’s now blurry, distorted, and full of stray pixels. The layout is also poor in places, with closely related tiles place far away from each other.

My advice is to just try again and put more effort into making it look as good as the original. If a tileset is worth converting, it’s worth converting well.

I made it for my friend. He is the inventer of this game mode.

TechnoPauluz:

Sorry,but this isn’t your frog hunt mode.
In this mode:
One player is hunter(spaz), and the other players are frog. Hunter must kill the frogs. If hunter can\‘t kill the frogs, frogs are win. If Hunter kills all of the frogs, frogs are win. Hunter has 10 minute for killing frogs. And hunter can collect coins for killing frog easier. But warps are helping frogs. Because frogs can go thought the warps but hunter is can\‘t. So it is not your frog hunt mode.

As far as I know, there are a lot of uploads of the Orbitus levels uselessly converted to JJ2 levels, without even using a tileset remake, or adding any new enemy, or anything. Cloning JJ1 levels to JJ2 is NOT a progression! It’s a REGRESSION!!!

[Don’t rate levels you didn’t download ~cooba]

It is surely versatile because of those square tiles and composable background parts, but it is lacking on color and shape. The cloud BG is dispixeled, the skyscraper ruins are clearly rescaled, the trees are not smooth enough, and the main ground tiles are nothing but irregular polygons. At least, the eyecandy tiles give it a pleasant touch.

[Don’t rate levels you didn’t download ~cooba]

This download has no use whatsoever as the level requires a private and, as things appear to be at the moment, not-to-be-released program in order to be played. Even if that were to be ignored, the level design is subpar and eyecandy nonexistent.

Roxel is totally right!

[Don’t rate levels you didn’t download ~cooba]

Zero Eyecandy,ZeroGameplay,Zero Fun….

Just edit the god damn original upload.

great episode

Prelude

Lithium’s third uploaded CTF level just like the last one, containing pits, Bannerwatch Base. To be honest i don’t really get what the name means (even after googling it) but let’s stay at that its a kind of headquarters in a drear planet. I’m referring to the modern look and the shuttles in the background. So let’s see!

Eyecandy

Generally good, not glowing, not deceptive, natural (get it right) and goodlooking. I definetly like the spaceships in the background. The structure of the walls and layer 5 backgrouns are systematic mixed with random what is a right method in making such things. The windows as transpalucent wall items is loveable. They even have light around it, you used Lights pretty fine. On the other hand, this tileset is very rich in elements, yet the level doesn’t utilize it. The level doesn’t have just some tubecovers at the foreground layers, it doesn’t include any eyecandy, not even on masked walls. Some people find foreground things in the playing area annoying so it might count as a good point though. Moreover you optimized this nice and kind of simple eyecandy for low detail.

Rating:20/25

Layout

Mainly its like two bases facing eachother, each side the falg and +1 carrot in the middle, top toaster and bottom RF. between them there is an open area. The top of the bases are very abuseable places, considering that people hardly can get up to hit, if its camped. I was really thinking that maybe, there was some sneaky way to get up or shoot in, but no, I just could get hit to blink, and then have a try. I would suggest to make a tricky way to backstab the camper like a tube from the middle to up (also leaveing unmasked the place between the top warps). ‘Bout the lower tight way, it’s hard to chase trough, shooting in with Electroblaster isnt effecite, but it doesn’t ensure you to get to the base so it’s somewhat fine. Let’s turn the page to balancing. The level is symmetrical so its solved, its a very lazy solution though to mirror the half. Also, in such a small size i think it would be expected to make it assimetrical. Anyway the structure is fair, easy to learn.

Rating:9/15

Gameplay

This is the most important part of a level, especially in CTF. To begin, you recomend duels and 2v2s because of the size, however i tried a duel and it was very boring. The reason was that, there were 3 carrots and the map is full of defendable places. You hardly ever risk your life with chasing/attacking because your enemy can just hit you, you can’t even go with him and block his way or something because he can just simply turn back. This thing partially affects 2v2s too. Despite there you can risk attacking the flagholder, you will still have a quite hard time, he will mostly have a huge advantage. So both Duels and 2v2s are slow and actionless (obviously unless ppl make lots of mistakes). What’s next? 3v3s which lacks of this bad probably. I played the most of that in this level, it can keep 6 players ‘cause of the plenty of PUs and carrots, the little backward here is the small size. The fighting is near pure mindplay so is definetly great, furthermore, the bases themselves aren’t strongly campable, what makes a good tactical, domination game.
Turning to the bad, the ways are too narrow at certean places. Sadly i have to mention the flow here because its bothering. I usually have to retry jumping up with the srping down at the RF PUs. There is a little chance to fail to get the flag, you occasionally run to a srping or fall down so its bad. I’m not reflecting to that its a total failure, because its just time to get used to it (like most things), only that, it can weightly decrase the people’s impression.

Rating:24/35

Pickups

Lots of armour all over the small level, you always have something useful. I’m personally more the fan of big ammo piles to reload, but whatever. The powerup choice is definetly awesome. BNC would be too powerful, seeker wouldn’t really fit, but here i find myself using RF and Toaster effectively in face to face combat. The PUs are hardly controllable, even decreasing the functionality of duels (but increase 3v3’s)(imo). The toaster PU’s placement is fine, yet The RF powerup freaked me out a litte bit, it definetly needs time to get used it. At first glance i didn’t get what’s with the +1 carrots, but they are good and original, i didn’t really like it at the begining, but the more i played the more i liked it. The full corrot is in the center if the map, with warps leading to it. I once shooted it down from myself, with spamming some RFs, was funny. What to say, greatly placed. Maybe the only thing that makes the top place bad to camp is that there isn’t too much ammo, i find this nice, but if you go there with filled pockets you wont have a bad time. Oh and you left there some Daamm tasty chocolates! NOM NOM!

Rating:17/20

Music

Greatly fits. I personally love it. By the way it is named “Cosmic Outflow” and is made by Falcon and Pulse in 1996 (you should add it, really, they deserve it!).

Rating:5/5

Ending

Nice Job Sir, it’s a good level. Probably would be even better if you took my suggestions into consideration.

7.5 out of 10

~RabidRabb

It doesn’t work for me in Windows 7, neither works in Wine.

Fix the MUSIC link. kthx

You weren’t a BETAtester, you played a duel after the level was released. However, I might add a thanks message including all the people who helped with 2v2s/3v3s and a duel on the first day :)

I want to rate this level a 9 since I tested it with a duel with sean.

One question though,why are the choco bars in there and i was in a 2v2 an i got a sugar rush is that supposed to happen?

Wow, this level pack was amazing! :) I loved it very much. :) The levels well built ang beautyful. :) The gameplay was really interesting. :) When the full level pack releasing? :) Sorry bout my bad english, but I’m Hungarian.

Oh snap, this lvl uses my old tileset, the very first one i made
How did you get it? I never even uploaded it to j2o… lol

Fun level btw, could use some more content though.
It has no ammo and the level is fairly small. There aren’t any goals, or rewards for surviving.

Yes I was looking for the bugs in the map, I didn’t noticed that the event 255 is missing.

This is a tribute level to the legendary QoB, which is just as frustrating as the original piece, but instead of being a huge maze, it has been made hard with the gameplay difficulty. For example puzzling boss fights, challenging races against the clock, fatal canyons, and much more. Eyecandy is average, but pays tribute to the original level.

Prelude
Surely not the first level but the first upload of Plumbe, Crystalline. The word itself means something consisting or made of crystal. Hm, the most logical story I can imagine behind this, is a spaceship, gathering minerals from planets. Sounds cool, even fits the level that way.

Eyecandy
The easiest thing in making a level, still it takes a deal of time. This tileset is quite popular, what to say, i didn’t ever try it, guessably it’s easy to use. Basically it differs from the exisiting levels, is natural and not chaotic, not overdone. With the lowest detail it don’t get way too bad, so it is okay, but probably the one thing you could improve in it, to optimize it for low detail (put all layer 4 backgrounds to layer 5, put layer 3 eyecandy to layer 2). It’s not that important, don’t misunderstand it. I didn’t find any tilebugs, so in my opinion it deserves a high rating.

Rating:23/25

Gameplay
Due to the big amount of ammo, in lead with the seeker crates (EDIT: well i think the seeker crates were fine, you shoudln’t have modfied that thing) and 2 damage PUs the game is full of action. Followed by a relatively small size (as it’s designed for 3v3 and more), but after a 4v4 and a 3v3 i can state that it is pretty much fun. I will mention certean places. To begin with, there is the Toaster PU’s area. it’s kind of campy but can be a trap too. The problem isn’t with that anyway. The trig scenerys block you from shooting in seekers (from the last version it’s partly fixed), and if want to prevent people from going in with tricks, you just need to make the walls of the entrances sharp like this . About the carrot: it’s hardly campable which is definetly a nice thing. Anyway if you shoot it, it usually sets to be in different places for different players. The place under the base is a little weird, there is a fly carrot for going up, which is only acessable for the team of that side. It’s possible to RF climb/WJ up there. Despite its only for the team it doesn’t help, it’s not faster than going up with the springs 15 tiles away, not even put you to the base instantly, you can still be shot easily. The flow is generally fine, yet needs some time to get used to, i rarely find myself hitting the walls, from certean springs. One note about the Team triggers, if nomovement is on and someone uses GMR to get to the base, he can avoid to touch the trig zones, this could be easily changed like this .

Rating:28/35

Layout
To start off, The bases are placed in the sides of the level in the middle height, connected with three main ways. The question of balancing is just a piece of cake, with the symmetry. Yet if look at it, every important thing is in the higher half. This doesn’t mean that the lower half is useless though, you may use it for your adventage, to hide, because people less likely come there. In the middle, the tube with the blaster PU and coinwarp is unique, i like it, even though it isn’t a crucial part of the level, you can access both the carrot and toaster with orher (faster) entrances. Well i don’t know if i missed anything, i already mentioned several parts of the level above.

Rating:12/15

Pickups
There we have RF and Toaster at each side, they are quite close to the base, as with that the spawns. If you died, you have a good chance to begin with a PU. More as a fact, than a bad thing, The PUs aren’t controllable as they are spread out in the level. The type choices are great, no upgaded Bnc and Seeker, the bouncy wouldn’t have too much use and the seeker one would be too strong. The rest of the 2 damage dealers are there, making the survival a little extreme as there is only one full carrot, which is in the center of the map (considering that the warps are the bottom lead to it). The seeker crates are pretty useful what to say, they usually fill your pockets on your way. You rarely have to care about running out of a type of armour, i think its a good point. However the bottom of the level doesn’t have much in it, it could keep some pepper spray, which is a great weapon in linear maps. I can’t deny anyway, RF is superior to pepper in chance of hitting. Each of the pickups are takeable without any tricks, although with electroblaster, you can get the blaster and the RF from below.

Rating:20/23

Music
Fits.

Rating:2/2

Ending
Well deserved to be in the national tournament mappool. Nicely done!
Playing a 4v4:
[13:59:20] [GpW]Kenny: if id rate this it would be 10
[14:03:26] KrytGpW: EPIC MAP

8.5/10
~RabidRabb