Jazz2Online news for April 2013

Permalink Anniversary Bash 15 April 7th 2013

Source: The JCF

Will begin on Friday the 12th.

Specifically, the bash is aimed to begin around 4pm UTC/GMT. It will begin with a pack of twenty Battle levels, and will switch to a pack of twenty CTF levels sometime more than twenty-four hours later. The server will be unpassworded and will not require clients to run JJ2+ in order to play, although you may want to run it anyway for its improved network code, spectating support, etc.

Click here to download the levels, tilesets, and optionally music files in advance, rather than downloading them through JJ2 later on a need-to-have basis.

 

Permalink Poll change April 3rd 2013

Favourite new JJ2+ feature?
/ready 3 votes (7%)
Scripting support 28 votes (73%)
Fireball gun 2 votes (5%)
Anti-gravity 1 vote (2%)
New lighting events 2 votes (5%)
Other 2 votes (5%)
Total votes: 38

Well, that’s unambiguous. Looks like anti-grav didn’t get a big turnout, but then it is noticeably unfinished. In any case, it’s definitely time to move on and ask something else! So what’s the best JJ1 episode? Even if you don’t have the full version of JJ1 (and if you don’t, uh oh), you’ve still got three shareware episodes to choose from, plus plenty of youtube videos to help you out in identifying the rest.

 

Permalink EA announces new Jazz Jackrabbit Arcade Beat-Em-Up April 2nd 2013

Beloved publisher Electic Arts (“EA”) has just announced their purchase of the Jazz Jackrabbit license in order to create a new arcade machine-style beat-em-up game. Up to four players may play in a single game locally, and while no online multiplayer gameplay will be available, the game must be connected to the internet at all times to better facilitate ingame purchases of new weapons and fur colors, to perform lightning-fast Blast Processing serverside, and to show you constant updates about what your Origin™ friends are up to. If your internet connection cuts out for more than thirty consecutive seconds, you will receive a “Connection Timed Out” warning and all your save data will be inadvertently erased.

Although only four characters will be available at game launch — Jazz, Spaz, Professor Lapin, and surprise cameo Duke Nukem who was in need of a new game to call home — EA has also discussed plans to release a series of non-posable Jazz Jackrabbit series action figures, which will add new playable character data when scanned by the game.

Early information about the game’s plot suggests that it will revolve around rescuing a new female character named Bunnita Harekeesia, who will have been kidnapped by trolls.

 

Permalink JJAA April 1st 2013

Today the 1.25 council is excited to announce a shift in focus. Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Plus has been a fun project, but I think we can agree as a community that there is nothing more to be done on that front. The true future of gaming is on handheld and mobile devices, and fortunately for us all, we happen to have a handheld game all ready to work on! Introducing, then….

Jazz Jackrabbit Advance Advance

We look forward in the coming years to coding such fine new JJAA-exclusive features as:
  • Dynamic weather and palette systems based on real world meteorological patterns!
  • New multiplayer gamemodes for up to four simultaneous players, including Jailbreak, Assassination, and Hotel!
  • Custom levels that can be played by inserting an additional cartridge into the console!
  • A special “walk” mode, for those who can’t handle JJA’s blazing speeds!
  • A tool to import new level graphics directly from official JJ2 tilesets!
  • Definitely not Eva Earlong!

If this project doesn’t work out, we also have plans to mod the iOS Stick Shooter UDK Demo to increase the amount of blood, and possibly also make its background music the JJ1 Tubelectric theme instead.