Blade begins

This entry launches the one and only Blade blog. Welcome aboard people! :)

First some answers. I do not thoroughly know who will read this blog over the time, and I won't assume that you readers know who is this guy Blade.

I am Blade, a character from Finland. Years ago, in 1998, I received a birthday present of my life. It was the PC platformer game Jazz Jackrabbit 2. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazz_Jackrabbit_2), sequel of the widely known classic computer game Jazz Jackrabbit. JJ2 offers its players a chance to make their own levels to the game and create new environments (tilesets) by drawing them for example with the modest painting program Microsoft Paint. I believe I started experimenting with JJ2 levels and tilesets because I felt the original levels didn't match with the outstanding graphical quality of the original tilesets. Epic MegaGames pretty much wasted all the superior 2D graphics because of rushed level design. In addition, the single player campaign is finished in few hours. Things led to another, and here I am, planning my 14th tileset, codename Castle of Cadavers :)

The reason this blog was created comes here. I feel the need of documenting the whole Castle of Cadavers creation process. Firstly, I feel like owing this to you JJ2 community guys because of the countless silent months I've been having over the years. Also, there has been very little information on the previous tilesets, and I would like to write the stuff to paper (or similar :) ). With this blog I intend to:

1. Record the planning and drawing phases of the upcoming 14th JJ2 tileset.
2. Tell about the problems and slowdowns I know I will encounter :)
3. List a lot of points of interest
4. Show many pictures of the coming tileset.

However, this blog is not all about Castle Of Cadavers. I plan to go through also my old tilesets one by one, and tell many interesting things about them you haven't even imagined before. One upcoming topic will be the Blade tilesets before the Aztec set (It's actually my third tileset! ;) )

Unfortunately I have some bad news to tell. I won't be updating this blog very often this spring. I must concentrate on the economy studies I have and the test in June will decide lots of things about my future. This is the reason this Blade really begins some time after 19th of June, 2007.

Stay on the same channel, maybe I still have some quick additions to the blog before June ;) Jazz Jackrabbit 2 forever!