Jazz Jackrabbit

Jazz Jackrabbit (1994) The first Jazz Jackrabbit game was developed and published by Epic MegaGames and released in 1994 for MS-DOS. Jazz had to rescue Carrotus princess Eva Earlong, who was kidnapped by his nemesis, Devan Shell. The shareware edition was extremely popular and the game was named Arcade Game of the Year by PC Format. Jazz Jackrabbit 2 (1998) Jazz Jackrabbit 2 was developed by Orange Games and Epic MegaGames, and published by Gathering of Developers in the United States, Project 2 Interactive in Europe and P&A in Japan. Jazz and his siblings, Spaz and Lori, attempt to retrieve Eva's stolen wedding ring from Devan. Despite moderate success in Europe, the game was a commercial failure for Gathering of Developers. Jazz Jackrabbit 3 Jazz Jackrabbit 3 (alternatively called Jazz Jackrabbit 3D: Adventures of a Mean Green Hare) is the cancelled game of the series. Spearheaded by Dean "Noogy" Dodrill (an animator for Jazz Jackrabbit 2) and coded by World Tree Games, it was being developed for the Unreal Engine 1 in 1999. As the game's alternate name implies, it would have been rendered in 3D. The game was planned for release on PC and PlayStation 2. Development of the game was ceased part way through in May 2000 as Epic Games was unable to find a publisher; an unfinished demo was subsequently leaked online. While only Jazz is playable in the demo, Spaz and Lori were intended to return as additional playable characters. Jazz was redesigned to resemble Han Solo. Eva and Lori are missing from the game while Devan Shell has been replaced by Dark Shell. Spaz appears as a non-playable character. ==Legacy==

Jazz, Devan and Eva make guest appearances in One Must Fall: 2097 in single-player tournament mode. Each character pilots a fighting mech that is suited to their individual personalities. At one point, Epic MegaGames was considering an animated series based on Jazz Jackrabbit, as evidenced by Epic filing a trademark registration for the name "Jazz Jackrabbit" on March 28, 1997. The application contains a description for goods and services which says "entertainment in the nature of animated TV series". In December 2010, Epic Games released development kits for the Unreal Engine on iOS. One of the tutorials for these devkits features Jazz Jackrabbit as a top down twin-stick shooter game. In 2017, a Jazz Jackrabbit easter egg appeared in Fortnite. In August 2022, Jazz Jackrabbit Doom TC, a fan conversion mod for Doom II, was released. It runs through GZDoom or LZDoom. ==References==