PlanetJailbreak

Here's a shot of one of RevBillyG's maps, Babylon Temple. People have been asking me for more screenshots, and I'm doing my best to comply. The beta testers have been whipped into taking more action shots, and the moose is turning the crank on my hand-driven modem extra-fast to get some more high-resolution shots uploaded.

In the meantime, I've rearranged the gallery area of the site, and added a page of all the map screenshots that have been posted on the news page so far... but there are more to come!

I've just been speaking to mapper Hourences about his map for Jailbreak, Addien-Dwy. It's set in a spooky 19th century house, where a mutated child has been kept prisoner in the basement... until it escaped. In the library, it attacked the old man who lived there, it killed him and dragged his body off into the forest. The books are still scattered there. Elsewhere, in the greenhouse, and the caves, an air of dark foreboding hangs. Hourences tells me it's a "very scary place, dark place".

The release date for Jailbreak 200x has been set: it's Wednesday 26 May. That is in less than a week. Just in case you want help in counting down the days, we've made a banner that tells you how many days until Jailbreak fragging can begin: you'll find it in our forums.

And to help you pass the time waiting for Jailbreak, RevBillyG has made you a little treat: it's a replacement intro map that shows off the new version of the Jailbreak llama. This comes in two flavours: UT2003 and UT2004, just like Jailbreak itself will, and you can have the UMOD installer or the plain zipfile:

• Jailbreak Llama Intro for UT2003: UT2Mod installer -- plain zip
• Jailbreak Llama Intro for UT2004: UT4Mod installer -- plain zip

The UMOD version will install as the game's intro map. To revert to the default, simply uninstall the UMOD. For the zip version, you'll need to edit your ut2003.ini or ut2004.ini file with a text editor. Find the line LocalMap=NvidiaLogo.ut2, comment it out with a semicolon and add a new line for the llama map, like this: ;LocalMap=NvidiaLogo.ut2
LocalMap=jbintro2003.ut2Enjoy! Only 6 more days till Jailbreak busts out!

Here's a shot of what looks to be a fantastic map by ZedMaestro: JB-SavoIsland. It's possibly the first Jailbreak map that's modelled on a real location, Savo Island in the Pacific Ocean. But I'll let ZedMaestro himself fill you in on the detail:

It was one of the many islands in Indonesia involved in the Second World War. (Hence the turret wreck meshes). It was all part of the Japanese offensive during 1941 and 1942. After the attack on Pearl Harbour and Midway, the Japanese moved onto the Solomon Islands, the main battle being at Guadalcanal.

From this, the Commandos 2 (C2) (a strategy/stealth game) scenario was made, where the Commandos had to land on Savo Island and destroy the powerful cannons that the Japanese had built on it. It was one of my favourite scenarios, partly because the level was visually fantastic, and so I thought I'd convert it to JB200x (and CTF in the end).