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Sonic With A Gun - Released

Discussion in 'Fangaming Discussion' started by Violet CLM, Feb 4, 2014.

  1. Violet CLM

    Violet CLM

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    Here are a few screenshots... I talk about them (and the overall ideas for their respective planets) on the ModDB portal.
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    (download link again)
    (play online link again)
     
    Last edited: Dec 25, 2019
  2. Ell678

    Ell678

    Am I Annoying You? Member
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    I never played Jazz Jackrabbit, but this looks really nice.
     
  3. Retroman

    Retroman

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    This is epic! The combination of my two childhood games into one package!
     
  4. winterhell

    winterhell

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    I saw what you did there ;)/>

    The game looks awesome so far.
     
  5. Tichmall

    Tichmall

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    J.League PK Party, a "penalty kick" minigame.
    That looks excellent, and I'm a great fan of Jazz Jackrabbit in general. Does it have awesome S3M remixes of Sonic music as well ? :)

    Good work anyway !
     
  6. Violet CLM

    Violet CLM

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    Thanks for the kind words so far!
    Oh, I wish. Sadly what I know about music could not fill a floppy disc, and the range of music files JJ1 can play is rather smaller than the range of extant module files, since they need to be converted into Epic MegaGames' own music format and that conversion isn't always successful. Unless someone miraculously brings me readily converted files, the best I think will be possible will be taking midi renditions of Sonic music from VGMusic, converting the .mid files to .s3m, converting the .s3m to .psm, and then hoping for the best.
     
  7. Tichmall

    Tichmall

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    J.League PK Party, a "penalty kick" minigame.
    Didn't know about the conversion problem. If you ever want to try, OpenMPT can read the original Jazz 1 & Jazz 2 music files, and you can save the different instruments used in the tracks as wav files (most of the instruments used by Allen and Brandon for the games are simple wav sounds).
     
  8. Lord Nero

    Lord Nero

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    Let's Plays, Work and Animation.
    I'm REALLY looking forward to this release, I'm in no way decent at running DOS, and I'm more a fan of Jazz Jackrabbit 2 then the first, but the idea of bringing in all the memorable moments/set-pieces from one of this franchises biggest influences is just downright amazing (and surprising it took this long).
    This is certainly gonna be one of the first SAGE games I'll be Let's Playing for Nero Networks Countdown to SAGE 2014. :ssh:
     
  9. Violet CLM

    Violet CLM

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    There are a few factors at work here... most modding (for lack of a better term) is done to Jazz 2, which is a lot easier to make levels and graphics for. However Jazz 2 is more similar to Earthworm Jim and such than to Sonic, so it's a less natural fit, and it's only in the last year that JJ2's gotten a scripting language, which would be necessary for any really detailed Sonicization.
    Jazz 1, by contrast, is much more customizable in terms of its enemies and other obstacles, but imposes other restrictions (tiny resolution, only 240 tiles per planet) that make it difficult to work with. And it wasn't until 2010 that we got really good programs for editing JJ1 anyway--the 2003 level editor was pretty limited and managed to lose some data while saving. (This project was begun in 2008, so I know what I'm talking about there...)

    Anyhoo, four new screenshots and commentary are up!
    [​IMG]
     
  10. Graxer

    Graxer

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    I too am more of a fan of Jazz Jackrabbit 2, but this looks amazing and I really look forward to giving it a go when it is released!
     
  11. Mikel

    Mikel

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    Like Lord Nero and Graxer, I'm more of a Jazz Jackrabbit 2 fan, but this is showing off a lot a promise. I will look forward to this and give it a try when its released!
     
  12. InstantSonic

    InstantSonic

    Just add water! Oldbie
    HAHA, oh man! This looks incredibllllle. I can not WAIT to play this. <3
     
  13. Violet CLM

    Violet CLM

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  14. RetroKoH

    RetroKoH

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    I'm gonna preface my comment by stating this: I've never played Jazz Jackrabbit... nor have I really ever heard much about him/it until recently.Seeing him in this light... with the Sonic style... This has got to easily be the freshest, Sonic-related entity I honestly think I've seen in the almost 4 years I've been a part of Retro, and the overall Sonic scene, and I very much look forward to this.
     
  15. Bobinator

    Bobinator

    My thoughts on your posting Member
    Anything that gets more people playing Jazz Jackrabbit is going to be pretty sweet, in my opinion. I admit, in certain ways, it hasn't aged quite as well, such as the complete lack of any physics engine. But I'd still say that Jazz is probably in the top 5 list of "Post-Sonic animal mascots with 'tude", next to Sparkster and Aero the Acrobat.

    I really want to ask, though, Violet, just how you're actually making this. I know you're using the original version, but is there a level editor you're putting this together with, or something more complex? I'd also like to see some of the unused stuff you've mentioned, if you get the chance, please.

    More than anything, though, seeing what you did with Labyrinth Zone makes me want this thing in ways that probably aren't legal. I can't wait.
     
  16. Violet CLM

    Violet CLM

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    Jazz 1 is definitely cracking around the edges at this point, though by now I'm pretty sure I know more about how it works than anyone else in the world, so I may not be the most neutral judge. That said, @KingofHarts especially, Jazz 2 remains one of the greatest multiplayer FPS games ever made, despite its being a 2D platformer.

    There are quite a few separate utilities for editing various parts of JJ1, and I've used every one of them. J1E is the primary level editor (obsolescing J1CS, which could edit fewer properties and erased some data while saving). It handles level layouts, collision masking, tileset graphics, animations, object properties, and the like, as well as bonus level layouts. JJ1MOD (and its predecessor JGP, which I still find myself using some of the time) edits almost everything else, most usefully the individual sprites used in each planet for enemies and other objects. J1LES is a complement to J1E -- it lets you edit the basic level layout and very little else, but it's much faster to use than J1E, so I spend most of my time in there. And then every once in a while I pull out a hex editor.
    Let's see what I can think of off the top of my head... check out the "Tilesets" section at The Spriters Resource, which contains direct rips of nearly every set in the game. (It's missing the boss planet variations, which occasionally have slightly different graphics from the regular versions, for whatever reason.) Most of them are unsurprising, but for example Megairbase has some green striped tiles that were never used, and some sets (Turtemple, Pezrock) have some extra-large tree graphics. Jazz 2 also ships with a number of unfinished versions of JJ1 tilesets, mostly from the Jazz CD episodes A-C (including a stage at which Exoticus and Lagunicus were two parts of the same planet), though there's also a version of Marbelara with a bunch of brightly colored bricks that didn't make it into the final game.

    As for the game engine, hmm. The behavior used by the sliding wall platforms in Industrius has the potential to move vertically as well, which I use pretty much all the time. The game supports a sixth weapon type that never shows up in the official levels. (And sort of a seventh, in that you can select it but there doesn't seem to be any way to make it fire anything.) There's an unused behavior that works kind of like the Dreempipes turtles, in that the object sits still above water and moves around below water, but you can define the path it takes while moving. You can turn Jazz into one of the tiny turtles, but it's seriously unfinished/broken and I'm not sure if it's possible to turn back again. There are several more water colors/modes besides the two that get used in Dreemipes and Lagunicus. Probably some other stuff I'm not thinking of.

    Miscellaneous content... Jungrock includes an unused (in JJ1) sprite of Jill from Jill of the Jungle. Medivo has an unfinished secret level that can't be accessed from the regular levels. There's a third main Diamondus level, which was clearly made when the tileset had a slightly different layout than it does now. The first Scraparap level contains some partially deleted layout data that doesn't match any tileset in the game.
     
  17. Violet CLM

    Violet CLM

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  18. Bobinator

    Bobinator

    My thoughts on your posting Member
    So I just tried this. There was a time when I used to think I was good at Jazz Jackrabbit. That time has now passed.

    Seriously, though, this is some really impressive work. Hard as hell, I'm not going to lie. :P Maybe I better just swallow my pride and try the Easy difficulty, because I really want to see more of this game. You've done a fantastic job keeping the general 'feel' of the original levels, even if the game itself has a very different feel. In Jazz, your basic equivalent to the spin jump is just hammering the fire button and letting out a wall of projectiles in front of you, so that's generally what you have to do, I noticed, if you want to keep your speed up. Still, though, I've always loved this game, and I'm really happy it got more love.

    ...Now somebody needs to do Jazz Jackrabbit in Sonic 1. :P I'd pay money to see that.
     
  19. Violet CLM

    Violet CLM

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    DOWNLOAD LINK

    (It may be worth mentioning that I'm not a good Sonic player. A lot of you probably find the Sonic games easier than I do, and my level designs are going to reflect that disparity. I've never even managed to beat Sonic 2, and my playing leans more toward exploration than speed, so I prefer S3&K. That said, once you've learned the levels, you can breeze through them without taking much damage... kind of like Nimbus, I guess. SWAG is designed to get better the longer you play it.)
    I've thought about it! Probably not as a rom hack, though. I'm tired of small resolutions.
     
  20. Violet CLM

    Violet CLM

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    It's been almost exactly ten years since I opened the first Jazz 1 level editor and started working on what would become "Emeraldus" for Sonic With A Gun. And now I've gone and remade it in the more complicated Jazz Jackrabbit 2 engine! Enemies are smarter, screen is larger, and some new gimmicks have been added that were either impossible to implement in the Jazz 1 engine (loops/running up walls) or were introduced to Green Hill Zone after SWAG was released (ziplines from Sonic Mania). Features an all-new level layout copied from neither SWAG nor any actual Sonic games, though it apes them both in style. Here are some screenshots:

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    Download it here. Note that you'll need a registered copy of Jazz Jackrabbit 2 to play this level, as well as the JJ2+ mod, because this level makes use of JJ2+'s scripting language. (If you own JJ2 from GOG, you can obtain JJ2+ directly from them, in "Extras" on the website or in the "Beta Channel" within the GOG Galaxy client.)