Xtreme Level Makers
Table of Contents
General Information
The XLM (Xtreme Level Makers) are a Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Level Group, founded during the good days of the now dead clan XSÐ (Xtreme Soldiers of Darkness). While the clan died somewhere during June 2004, the group lived on till the day of now, and is still one of the most active level groups around by releasing new levels at a regular rate. XLM’s main focus has always been pinned on activity and friendship rather than on quality. The goal of the group is to create a friendly environment for both new and experienced level editors, to learn and, mainly, to have fun. The group is led by Darksonic, assisted by Superjazz. At this moment, the other active members are PurpleJazz, Snooze, Birdie, Hitch, FawFul, St.Louis, Bluespaz7 and Anubis.
History
Like most groups’, XLM’s history is rather long.
Early Days and the downfall
XLM was founded when the clan XSÐ was upon its peak period. The leadership of the clan decided that it became time to expand its horizons, which made XSÐ expand to other games as well (StarCraft, Red Alert 2, Continuum). However, JJ2 would always remain XSÐ’s highest priority game since most members were recruited in this division. To add an extra dimension, Yasco decided that a level group would be appreciated as a nice addition, since many of XSÐ’s members were starting to move into the level creating scene. And in several days later, XLM was born. An intensive recruiting period followed and several members joined. The group submitted a few dozen decent uploads to J2O, and started to take a small place into the level scene, next to giants like OLC and J2LC.
The group was always intended to be a subdivision of XSÐ, so when the clan started to shrink halfway 2004, it became clear that XLM would follow the same path. At the end of May 2004, the last level of the “old XLM” was uploaded. XSÐ died and its members left to several other clans, but the faith of XLM was unsure. A lot of people left the group, and if it wasn’t for Yasco’s efforts, the group would have died out completely.
The Revival and the Glorious Days
The return came in November 2004. A group called OLM (which, oddly, stood for “Original Level Creators”) was started, featuring almost the same members as in the XLM period. This inspired ChippieBW to make XLM releases again, and rumours of XLM returning started to grow. Not all that long before that, OLM was taken over by XLM. Some people who left previously never returned (Chiyu, Scatman) while some new faces were added to the roster.
A happy period happened for XLM – the website got restyled, expanded, and finally it was constantly updated. The members also have improved since the older XLM, and a few levels by XLM members made it into the seventh edition of the annual Anniversary Bash. Some of the members suggested a group-wide project to be organised, and not so late after that, the general idea of the pack’s idea formed. The progress took four months, but the XLM Summer Pack 2005 was finally finished and uploaded. It featured many levels made with the Battle/CTF/Ground Force gametypes in mind.
The Rioting and the steady course
The Summer Pack itself wasn’t a too high success, and thus problems under the surface occurred. Cooba, dissatisfied with XLM as it was, decided to leave and created his own group, called Impressive Creations. The leadership of XLM wasn’t able to respond in time, so after a week several other people followed Cooba (Booshi, Satan and Snooze, later followed by Olsen and DoubleGJ). After then, it took several attempts to restore the peace, but finally XLM was saved. IC has been dead for more than 2 years now, and two of the members (Snooze, Olsen) rejoined XLM after that.
After that, the group calmed down once again with not as much uploads or during the Glory Days, but not as few as during the dead period of 2004. XLM remained sailing the same course until about March 2006, when another attempt was made to re-establish the glory days. The website got a new look and several new members were recruited (Birdie, Stijn, PurpleJazz, Bluespaz7, TripleJ, Saphir).
The XLM invasion in 2007 and 2008
The year 2007 has been a very good year for XLM. Some good level packs have been released in 2007, like Impressions and Impressions Z by DarkSonic, Memories by Hitch and Substracted Space by Birdie. Also, some good single levels were uploaded, like Ice Cream Island by Birdie. However, this is nothing compared to the amount of good levels and level packs uploaded in 2008. The first good pack from 2008 that was made by a XLM member was Legends by Purplejazz. Then SuperJazz uploaded Find It Out (including the previously uploaded Atom Heart 243.5, which is the best XLM level to date) Snooze uploaded New Ages III (but then deleted it) DarkSonic uploaded Impressions E: Evolution and Hitch uploaded Memories 2: Radiant Garden. But the biggest XLM release so far was uploaded in December 2008. Codename: Alliance is a pack with 17 levels and the levels were made by Purplejazz, Snooze and DarkSonic (3 of XLM’s most talented level makers) The levels from the pack got some attention (especially City of the Sn00zE) which encouraged Purplejazz to upload it separately. Another pretty big XLM release and the first Single Player episode made by a XLM member was Dreamless by Snooze. And XLM members also uploaded some good single levels in 2008. Levels like Device by DarkSonic and Snooze and Hall of Legends by Purplejazz (which was part of Codename: Alliance as well) It’s pretty obvious that 2008 was XLM’s year.
Website
Since the start of the group, XLM has always had a smaller or bigger webpage to support the members with information. It used to be a few pages on the XSÐ site first, which later evolved into an independent site, which had a few style changes over time. The current site is found at http://www.xtremelevelmakers.co.nr/