Only people who suck at them find 'em ugly to look at (no offence)
It's also because 1000 tests that use the top 3 tileset look the same. There are tests that actually look preety good with that tileset. 555 has made tests with several other tilesets (con lava, el facilito,etc.).

Most tests look rather ugly to me, but I do enjoy the gamemode itself enough to offset that.

Completely wrong. I suck a lot in tests but I do find some tests looking good. But most of the test's tilesets are just plain, hence making it look ugly.

To me, the game mode seems like ugly. Not its appearance.

I think it's an interesting gamemode, but it's hard to make the levels look any good, since the generally agreed upon way of signifying the places to avoid is large solid-colour blocks.

You know... gameplay=/=eyecandy. Many test levelmakers don't bother with the EC at all, or when they do, it's very basic. I will be an exception to that, though working on my tests hasn't been on my mind right now (atm it's tilesets, which is great because we definitely need more good new ones). I'm an average (maybe a little bit above, idk) test player.

What. Tests are one of the most played online gamemodes to this day.

Everyone ignores them on J2O however :p

Which is a shame, because Dust: An Elysian Tail was a gorgeous looking game for the most part, and the game in and of itself was very good a lot of fun. Solid throughout, the only things that really needed improvement were the RPG elements and NPC animations.

Then again, most of the press was fine (Except for sites like Kotaku, which lack any credibility IMHO.), it was the general public that was being stupid and reacting knee-jerk like "OMG FURRY GAME RUN AWAY". Despite that with that logic, Sonic, Jazz, and whatever other game with an anthropomorphic character would be a "Furry game" or "By/For Furries". Obviously completely ignoring the Don Bluth inspiration. This is coming from the same people who think Furry=Automatic Porn (regardless of content or context).

1. I wouldn't mind the increased filesize, nor JJ2+ basically being TSF. If it were an anims.j2a edit, would that exclude it from being packaged with JJ2+?.

2. Good Idea, thanks.

Yeah, the story behind the NPC animations is that Dust's frame-by-frame animations took up half of the RAM on the XBOX. Another animation method had to be used for the rest of the game to fit in RAM. I think if Dean had tools like Spriter or Spine 2D he would have used them, maybe even for the main character if he had the foresight to see that limited RAM would become a problem.

Even if they were released today, I don't think Sonic or even Jazz would have fallen under the furry stigma. Neither Sonic or Jazz (with the exception of Eva and Lori) used Petting Zoo People character designs, whereas Dust did. It's totally possible to create an anthropomorphic character design and not have it come off as furry, even to the most adolescent of the gaming public. Just avoid putting an animal head on a human body. (Well, there's other design elements that should be avoided and utilized too, but I don't want to feel like I should have started another thread.)

It wouldn't be included with plus because 1.23 and TSF have different anims.j2a files. It's not to do with it necessarily being an increased filesize, it's that JJ2 can load a limited number of sprites, and that it would be put to better use by actual new big features.

I wonder if that cap could be raised? Is it a case of how many frames it allows, or is it more a case of how much memory can be allocated to sprites?

I've done a little bit of assembly hacking before with another game (been writing something similar to plus for Terminal Velocity/Fury3). In that case, there was a limit to the screen resolution in the engine itself due to it only allocating so much memory to the framebuffer, so I was able to increase that, and boost the game's res up to 640x480 from 320x200. Totally different thing, I know... just a similar concept.

It was raised, from 5000 to 15000. Which is about twice the number of sprites in anims.j2a.

Ah, I see. Cool.

1.I suck at tests, i have probably finished 1-3 in my entire life
2.As I remember, I have never won a 1v1 CTF match
3.It was my first PC game which my dad bought when I was a child; the official JJ2 christmas version, lots of levels were unfinished and crashed because the developers were too lazy
4.Always played the game at easy mode...

1. i suck at hotel
2. i've played jj2 for over fifty hours a week at times around 2006-2008

When I think about it, sucking at tests is more of the norm than the exception. Those who pass them are often the regulars. And then being surrounded by those players makes you think you're exceptionally bad, when in truth you've barely practiced compared to them.

I played tests regularly once upon a time, but never improved at all even though I was regular.

I guess it's time I made a confession... I'm really bad at finishing my projects and I'm a terrible procrastinator. I still have it in my head that I'll eventually release Devan's Secret Weapon. Despite the fact that it's more vaporware than Duke Nukem Forever or The Last Guardian ever were.

Also, I still boot up and play through my old levels from time to time, including the unfinished ones.

Same here. I have a crapload of unfinished projects.

Somehow I feel procastination is the norm, though. You'll hear so many people start projects or "new years resolutions", only to never continue on them. Take a drink on the level progress thread by how many levels/tilesets there are not released. Or people posting level project threads...which pretty much have all failed. Or the comic threads that consist of one page.


New years resolutions are dumb. Why wait??!

Why is New Years so special? If you want to accomplish something, might as well do it whenever. ;-)

Yep. I've got an original 3D puzzle-platformer game that I started with a friend for our senior project that we still want to finish and release as an Indie. I've got a novel that I wrote several chapters of that has been sitting mostly unwritten in my head for years. I've got a board game design, and even components, that needs to be fleshed out and playtested. I've got ambitions of learning Unity, Android programming, music composing. And beneath it all... the JJ2 levels I never finished, the episode I never completed, always sitting there... always waiting. It's so easy to start a new project, but why is it so difficult to commit to finishing something?

I think I spend far too much time on JJ2 in general, especially in JCS.

I enjoyed playing the game growing up, met lots of awesome people, and am extremely impressed by all the features that have been added by JJ2+. That being said, I think the game is terrible as a multiplayer/competitive game.

Sometimes I think that is secretly a popular opinion, just that those who do think so, don't say it.

I mean, why do so many have memories of playing SP, but not online? Many lose interest soon after playing online.

Online play would be actually good with better character and weapon balance, and removing the blink mechanic from CTF (the noblink command sucks and knockback would need to be removed/altered from some weapons), along some other team gamemodes.

The fact is, 98% pick Spaz and everyone flocks to the seeker pu and anyone who controls it, wins. Many weapons are highly niche, or pretty much useless (aka TNT and ice). Forget controlling ammo when you can just flock to the base/control point like dead flies on paper. When everyone tries the same strategy, it's not that fun anymore.

And somehow, I don't find the random factor of not knowing where anyone/most people are to be that much fun. It feels like I am out of control. I can't prepare to dodge the guy running way off my screen. I can only hope he's not there. I have to spam ammo in the hopes I hit someone. I am playing a 2D platformer roulette. Let's not forget everyones favourite - warp target camping.

So yes, I have a utopian vision where I can fix virtually all the problems with online JJ2...with mutators, probably. But I doubt that would bring players back. Some of that can be done already though. But people don't like change.

I have a similar opinion.
I find the competitive modes pretty boring too TBH. Co-op and single-player are what keeps me coming back to the series.
Although I will say that CTF would probably be pretty fun if I could play with some people around my (Very low) skill level.

The best way to start out is to go on the public servers where non-plussers hang out (The Server and puke nukem battle) and then stomp them.

That's how I started - I went beating everyone in Zeal Alpha(RIP) and The Server. Most players in public servers aren't very good.

1. I actually think Jazz Jackrabbit Advance is a flawed but decent game and i've beaten it many times

2. Lori is my favorite character

3. I tried working with the Jazz3D engine cause i loved the demo and wanted the game to happen but i sucked at using the editor xD (didn't gave up though ;-; )

4. My sister pwned me in Jazz 2 local multiplayer ;-;

Hmm..lets think of more confessions.

I used to rate how good a level was depending on how copter biased it was. Maybe not that unexpected, but still shallow (there's so much more to levels!).

I'm not sure if I even enjoyed the original SP campaign. I think I just played them because not many other games appealed to me at the time, or that was the only choice. Yet something kept drawing me back to it. I guess animals just appeal to me more, because in fighting games, I'd always pick the animal/non-human characters. And yes, the TSF and Chrismas Chronicles level design are worse, so much copypaste and dissapointing coin rewards.

I don't know if you can even call this a confession, though I have no sexual interest in Lori. Cute - sure. But I'd figure I mention this anyway because some people have this preconceived notion if that a character is "bad", they must be using them because they're "sexy". :rolleyes: Sex appeal and games do not interwine for me, it's distracting. And really - anyone who uses Lori for that reason dissapears from the game soon after, or switches back to Spaz.

I also occasionally get sad about the dwindling of the community.

I had two Jazz related dreams two days in a row (I am pretty sure that's now how you say it. Please correct that sentence if you know how to).

The first dream was about "Jazz Jackrabbit 4". I can't remember the logo pretty well but it had the JJ2 sprites of Jazz, Spaz and Lori. It apparently was just JJ2 but with a smaller resolution and more voice lines for each character, even Spaz. I remember the level being greenish with a blue sky and I guess it was multiplayer since there were all three playable characters. This thing was supposed to be on J2O downloads page. It's the first time I dream something J2O related. (Then I became John Cena, blew up a building with the help of the old man that gives you the sword in the beginning of the first TLoZ game and ran away from the police. Not even joking, that's what I dreamt. It was a pretty lucid dream.)

The second dream was a little more obscure. From what I can remember I was Jazz and had the JJ3D model but for some reason I was yellow-greenish instead of green (It actually looked a bit like Slaz). The rest of the dream was a big blurry mess.

I've had a Jazz-related dream before, too.
In the dream, I was using the Unreal Engine, and then this window popped up of a spinning 3D model of Jazz. And then suddenly, I was in the level I was looking at. Lori and Spaz were talking, and then Jazz walked in. Apparently they were waiting for Rayman. Rayman falls out of the sky, and I find out that I'm Rayman.
And then suddenly, I'm in my house. I walk out of the room I'm in, only to see a fire demon, who I then shoot with a gun that I suddenly have. And then I woke up.

Food for thought, the last time I had a Jazz Jackrabbit dream, I wrote it into a fanfic. (warning: very old)

I never had any Jazz rabbit dreams.

At least it's a solid group of people, with additions and losses every now and then. Imagine if people like PewDiePie, Markiplier or Jacksepticeye would suddenly start playing JJ2. I think the community would explode, and I don't really want that either :P.

It's been a while since my last confession, but I don't think I have sinned between then and now. Well...

- I shouldn't make evil tests anymore, although I know I can't keep the promise xD
- I still haven't done anything after completing Egy Test Part II
- I'm not really active in-game anymore, even less so on this forum

I suppose it depends on what people are willing to put up with; admittedly communities like CGTalk have spoiled me. I understand that it's mostly teenagers here (which for such an old game is surprising) but I suspect getting random PMs in your email telling you to get cancer and die is where a lot of people draw the line for online communities.

More confessions? This past week was the first time I have ever, ever purchased game-related soft goods. I bought two Elite: Dangerous baseball caps and a Jazz Jackrabbit t-shirt, which is what made me think about visiting here again.

The thing is, the more only good players there are, the harder it is to get into the game for newcomers. The good players then lose interest and leave, and the community shrinks further. The not-so skilled players get stomped, so they lose interest and leave quickly, or barely play.

People like to play games they're good at, thus making JJ2 hard to get into.

Gamerz is actually still working on his "Jazz Jackrabbit HD" thingy. Appels (who's still talking to Gamerz for some reason) gave me his project, "Jazz Jackrabbit 1.exe", made in GameMaker: Studio. For now it's just a platform with some absolutely awfully done sprites and terrible buggy physics. I can upload it somewhere if anyone wants it but why would you want to play such a thing?

On the contrary, solely based on gameplay merit, JJ2's online multiplayer component remains one of my favorite gaming experiences. It strikes a near-perfect balance between mechanical skill with tight movement, tile-perfect trickshots, and a high speed ceiling, while most of the combat itself isn't based on mechanical skill but sheer tactical play. JJ2's gameplay is all about area control and denial, rather than straight up deathmatch. Things like hunters having a disadvantage due to running into enemy territory makes for tenser situations, and having a good read on your opponent's playstyle/priorities is a massive component of skill in the game.

Sure, this means that gameplay can slow down quite a bit when neither side wants to risk giving up control over territory, but this isn't any downside unique to JJ2, as it's present in almost any game regardless of its design philosophy. Non-duel games solve these issues by delegating roles to different players, and different roles have different priorities over which powerups to control or positioning to take. The inability to totally control your enemy's movement also means these roles need to change on the fly, which virtually necessitates players understanding how to be versatile and not rely on a single style constantly.

In addition, nearly nothing is designed to use randomness. Pickups and powerups spawn with clockwork precision, weapons use deterministic algorithms to determine their behavior, and the only two remotely random things I can think of mechanically are bouncers going through walls and walljumping. Neither is strictly random either, merely chaotic; the output is incredibly sensitive to the input and so can vary wildly with only a little change in the starting values. With near complete absence of randomness in the game, information and communication is the be-all end-all of competitive: knowing where you enemy last was and predicting his next actions, keeping track of respawn timers for every controllable resource on the map, keeping track of enemy's hearts and ammo supply as a form of risk assessment, and various other smaller tidbits.

As far as online multiplayer and competitive goes, the biggest dealbreaker has always been that JJ2 was never designed for it; it just happened to be a pretty good concept. Netcode is atrocious and incredibly unreliable, and the nature of the game means that having a very small player base keeps regional play from being feasible; virtually everyone plays on European servers, making it a very inconsistent and non-level playing field. Packets frequently go missing resulting in missing carrots or powerups for specific players, and constant desyncs of hearts and shots. JJ2's online component isn't a bad game, it's just a fundamentally broken one. Very little about it works, and that's the most infuriating thing about it.

As a concept and in practice JJ2's competitive gameplay is still my favorite of almost any game I've played, it just never friggin' works.

(so sue me I'm 2 months late to that discussion)

Well...better not to repeat myself on my issues with online play.

I don't think the netcode is as bad as people make it to be. Carrots and PUs not spawning and 3HKs are rare. Even playing against 250 ping players isn't that annoying (yes, those Americans). If people are really laggy, chances are their internet sucks or the bandwidth is being eaten by streaming video/music/torrenting.

However, the movement prediction netcode is terrible. That's why I refuse to take streetfight seriously. Fun but incredibly unreliable.

Necrobump because this place is too stagnant and I just remembered an unpopular opinion I have.

The story of Devres doesn't interest me. The pacing is bad by dumping exposition every few levels/moments rather than letting the player find out gradually, and there's not much reason to care for anyone since everyone feels so anonymous and impersonal, including you. And I will not get over that you are supposedly meant to be a random soldier, yet you're still Jazz/Spaz/Lori. Pretending limitations aren't there is the easiest way to kill immersion for me. Slightly off-topic, but it relates to how much I dislike alternate skins/models with no voice modification.

In fact, because I found the storyline boring (and most found it amazing), I thought I didn't care for story in games at all. Until I realised I prefer storylines based on character interaction and getting in touch with the environment.

Regardless, it still holds up as one of the best SP packs today for its sheer innovation and challenge.

Lori is ugly to begin with.

delet this

Why? Have I not the right to express my opinion (confession)? Provided that it doesn't include any explicit content?