[LGR Theme plays]
[fizz, sip]
Aahhh...
[typing]
When you mention platforming games for the PC,
it's inevitable a few games will be mentioned.
Jazz Jackrabbit, Commander Keen,
Duke Nukem, perhaps even Alien Carnage.
But arguably one of the best and most-remembered
is Jill of the Jungle.
The Jill of the Jungle games were released from 1991 to 1993 by Epic MegaGames.
Yes, that's the same company that is known today for Gears of War and the Unreal Engine.
Jill of the Jungle was Epic's first real success in the market
and a result of the use of the shareware business model.
Shareware was a simple concept
pioneered by Apogee and Epic MegaGames
where you would by or download the first part of the game
and then register the game to get the rest of the game
and get support for it.
Jill of the Jungle was thus divided into three episodes:
Jill of the Jungle,
Jill Goes Underground,
and Jill Saves the Prince.
Normally, you would by these extra games directly from Epic themselves,
but eventually the game was sold at retail,
either in individual boxed games or the complete trilogy,
like this one by Goodtimes Software,
later known as GT Interactive.
All three games actually fit on one 3.5- inch or 5.25-inch high-density floppy disk,
which I find quite impressive, and you'll see why soon.
The game itself is very straightforward,
if not straight-up derivative.
You are Jill of the Jungle, an Amazon beauty,
who must traverse dozens of side-scrolling levels,
attacking creatures and defending yourself
on the way from point A to point B.
Absolutely nothing you haven't seen before
and it's exactly what everybody else seemed to be doing
in the late '80s to early '90s.
But what sets Jill apart is that it is better than everything else.
OK, maybe not everything else, but it's very well done.
For starters, just look at the game!
The graphics are exceptional, with full VGA color
and smooth scrolling and animation.
At this point, most other games were still using EGA on the PC.
And while the game does support EGA and even CGA graphics,
the VGA mode really makes the game stand out from the rest.
This shouldn't come as a big surprise, either,
since the game was designed by the coding genius Tim Sweeney,
who is now the CEO of Epic Games
and chief architect for the Unreal Engine.
While we're on technical things, I have to mention the sound.
Jill uses Sound Blaster for the sound effects
and this was at a time when many shareware games
still used AdLib sound.
I remember hearing this game on a friend's Sound Blaster
and man, coming from Goodbye Galaxy's AdLib sound
to the crisp amazingness of the Sound Blaster just blew me away.
The sounds are all great and very classic for each action,
from tossing of the knife
[swoosh, electric guitar]
to that evil death laugh.
[evil laugh]
Each of these can also be screwed around with in the Noisemaker.
You just press keyboard keys and make lots of noise,
which was always a great way to annoy your parents.
[various sound effects]
And then there's the music.
[MIDI music plays]
Wow. I love this music.
Jill of the Jungle to this day is one of my favorite game soundtracks.
It's by Dan Froelich
and every one of the games that he's worked on
I end up loving the soundtrack
almost more than the game, it's that good.
It fits the whole game perfectly,
giving it a whimsical yet slightly sexy feel to the gameplay.
Not that the gameplay really needed any more help,
it's pretty much flawless.
At least I can't complain. I'm sure it could be different,
but I don't know if that would make it any better.
The controls are very, very...
controlled.
In fact, they almost feel too fight or predictable at first.
Each jump is very solid and the responsiveness is dead-on.
You never feel like you're detached from Jill,
at least when you play as Jill.
I say this because every few levels it seems like you play as another character.
Along your travels, you'll encounter areas
where you'll need to become a creature to pass.
Like a fish
or a frog
or a fiery bird thing that shoots sonic booms.
"Sonic BOOM!"
The controls are really different for each creature
and take some getting used to when you first transform.
These sections really do help to break up the monotony of the game
because at its heart, it's just simple platforming.
There's nothing bad about that, but it's repetitious. You can't avoid that.
And of course, there are plenty of different locations
to spice things up every other level,
and there are even little humorous references to other games.
Like Mario and Commander Keen
stating that they are retiring
due to their inability to compete
with how awesome Jill is.
But after a while, there really is just no avoiding the repetition.
This isn't really apparent until the second game,
which contains more levels and such,
but it really is just the same thing,
even reusing many of the same level textures and puzzles.
Oh, but wait, they changed Jill's clothes palette.
Totally different gameplay there, guys.
Well, there are a few other changes, content-wise.
You have sound effects that have now been changed
for no reason at all. I don't know why they changed these.
In each episode of Jill, sound effects for things like throwing the knife,
for jumping, for getting hurt, they're all different
and I don't get it.
You'll also get more boomerang throwing knives,
shurikens and other weapons along the way.
So combined with the other occasional changes,
it never feels like it's totally boring or anything,
it's just something you notice once you're done playing.
By the time you get to the final game,
you're thoroughly in a rut.
It's more of the same,
although there is a new map screen from a top-down perspective in between levels.
And then once you beat the game, you get a short text cutscene and that's about it.
Nothing crazy. No boss fights or epic monologues, nothing.
Just a simple "thanks for playing," basically.
And you know what? I don't care.
Because I had fun.
You can easily beat part one in a couple of hours
and the rest of the games in about the same time each,
with Jill Goes Underground being the longest
and probably the most challenging.
Oddly, there was never a sequel to Jill of the Jungle,
but there were some related games.
The first is Onesimus,
which is actually Jill Saves the Prince retextured
with some levels from the other games thrown in as well.
It was a Christian-themed game by Ark Publishing
and according to what I've read, it was either developed
alongside Jill 3 or very shortly after it.
It's nothing new. In fact, even though you play as a dude,
you still scream like Jill, and that's just...
a bit odd, to say the least.
[Jill scream]
So if you've played the Jill games, you're really not missing anything.
There's also Vinyl Goddess from Mars,
which was supposedly developed as Jill of the Jungle 2,
but was eventually abandoned and then picked up and reworked
by Six Pound Sledge Studios.
It takes so much of the Jill formula that I consider it the sequel,
even though it technically was dropped by Epic.
I highly recommend this one. You should definitely play it like right now.
There is also Xargon,
developed by Epic as well,
although it was designed by some different dudes.
Released a year after Jill, Xargon uses a very similar style and control scheme,
with solid platform sections transforming into creatures
and the same map as Jill Saves the Prince.
As far as I know, it uses a modified version of the engine
and even corrects some of the issues from Jill of the Jungle,
like being able to shoot when you're ducking and such.
And lastly, you also have the Jungle Pinball table from Epic Pinball,
which, of course, is based on Jill of the Jungle
with several things from the game,
objects, sound effects and things like that.
All of these other Jill-inspired games are great.
But for many, there is just no substitution for the original
Jill of the Jungle.
And it's not hard to see why.
Jill is PC platforming at its finest,
with gameplay that still holds up today.
[MIDI music plays to the end]