Revisiting Jill of the Jungle, the final recreation Tim Sweeney designed

And Sweeney is an outspoken company activist—whether or not you agree with him or not, and irrespective of the way you decide his sincerity and private incentives—in opposition to platform gatekeepers like Apple and Google, who many really feel leverage their positions unfairly.

So all which means Jill of the Jungle could be attention-grabbing even when it wasn’t enjoyable, just because it was the final recreation Sweeney (who was initially a programmer) personally designed.

Unreal, the 1998 breakthrough recreation that arguably made Epic Games’ present trade prominence potential, was designed by then-up-and-comer Cliff Bleszinski; Sweeney solely labored on it as a programmer, although, in fact, engineering was arguably simply as large part of that recreation’s success as its design.

Jill of the Jungle is a marvel of technical polish and what recreation designers name “juice”—all of the little further touches that add as much as make a recreation really feel nice and appear further—for its time. But it’s additionally a fantastically designed platformer, with amazingly artistic ranges.

I don’t all the time agree with Sweeney’s opinionated stances within the trade, and whereas many unbiased recreation builders champion him as a hero for standing as much as the massive platforms, I don’t belief his long-term ambitions any greater than I do Apple’s. But enjoying Jill of the Jungle, it’s abundantly clear why he’s been as profitable as he’s.

There merely aren’t many individuals within the video games trade who can declare equal mastery of engineering and enterprise acumen, and people who have each are sometimes fairly profitable. But Jill of the Jungle‘s refined and intelligent recreation design additionally proves that Sweeney understands the artistic dimension, too. There are even fewer individuals who have all three of these expertise.

The recreation is worth a spin only for enjoyable and nostalgia, even should you don’t care about its historic relevance. Maybe I’ve nostalgia glasses on, however I feel it has aged fairly effectively.

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