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Jill of the Jungle
chaoswolf820
Posts: 734 Arc User
Gears of War, Arkham Asylum, Mass Effect, BioShock, Deus Ex, Borderlands, and hundreds of other games owe their very existence to one woman.
Jill of the Jungle.
Without this high-jumping, knife-flinging Amazon's adventures (released as shareware in 1992), Epic MegaGames would never have gained the market presence and the initial income to become the successful company it did, and thereby later develop Unreal, and with it the Unreal Engine that tons of modern games are built upon.
On top of that, Jill was, by many accounts, the first well-known PC-exclusive female action-game protagonist. Sure, there were a couple girls in the 80's, such as Samus Aran of Metroid fame, but they were either console/arcade games and their ports, or passive puzzle/strategy games, not action games - ladies like Lara Croft wouldn't appear for a few more years yet.
She was created as a direct competitor for another PC-exclusive action-game character, the famous Duke Nukem, who, as we all know, later went past his shareware roots and took the leap into 3D games. (admittedly, Duke Nukem 3D did lead to Duke Nukem Forever, but taking the good with the bad is inevitable, I suppose.)
Yet, unlike her rival Duke, and in a very ironic light considering what her presence led to both for her parent company and gaming as a whole, she's been largely forgotten, left to fade into the realm of no-longer-sold abandonware as a little-known relic of gaming history.
So, I figured, maybe I could give the girl a bit of honor myself, in the form of a Champions character with a replica/homage costume.
But I have a problem. Being a Silver, while I have a number of characters, I don't currently have any spare character-slots with which to create a new character.
And while I have plenty of image-references based on domestic and foreign box-art and even sprite-sheets and menu-screen closeups, I'm not sure just what "look" could fit well with the character; every idea just keeps escaping me.
Why? well, mostly since, unlike later game-girls such as Lara Croft with her long braid and big round... sunglasses, Jill kinda lacks in "iconic traits" due to the software-necessary simplicity of her game-sprite, leaving the box-art to be the main conveyor of her look, and the box-art, as you can see, isn't particularly consistent from one box to another. Plus there's the dilemma of not being sure what Archetype (remember, I'm a Silver, so FreeForm is right out) could fit her.
Anyone got some ideas?
Jill of the Jungle.
Without this high-jumping, knife-flinging Amazon's adventures (released as shareware in 1992), Epic MegaGames would never have gained the market presence and the initial income to become the successful company it did, and thereby later develop Unreal, and with it the Unreal Engine that tons of modern games are built upon.
On top of that, Jill was, by many accounts, the first well-known PC-exclusive female action-game protagonist. Sure, there were a couple girls in the 80's, such as Samus Aran of Metroid fame, but they were either console/arcade games and their ports, or passive puzzle/strategy games, not action games - ladies like Lara Croft wouldn't appear for a few more years yet.
She was created as a direct competitor for another PC-exclusive action-game character, the famous Duke Nukem, who, as we all know, later went past his shareware roots and took the leap into 3D games. (admittedly, Duke Nukem 3D did lead to Duke Nukem Forever, but taking the good with the bad is inevitable, I suppose.)
Yet, unlike her rival Duke, and in a very ironic light considering what her presence led to both for her parent company and gaming as a whole, she's been largely forgotten, left to fade into the realm of no-longer-sold abandonware as a little-known relic of gaming history.
So, I figured, maybe I could give the girl a bit of honor myself, in the form of a Champions character with a replica/homage costume.
But I have a problem. Being a Silver, while I have a number of characters, I don't currently have any spare character-slots with which to create a new character.
And while I have plenty of image-references based on domestic and foreign box-art and even sprite-sheets and menu-screen closeups, I'm not sure just what "look" could fit well with the character; every idea just keeps escaping me.
Why? well, mostly since, unlike later game-girls such as Lara Croft with her long braid and big round... sunglasses, Jill kinda lacks in "iconic traits" due to the software-necessary simplicity of her game-sprite, leaving the box-art to be the main conveyor of her look, and the box-art, as you can see, isn't particularly consistent from one box to another. Plus there's the dilemma of not being sure what Archetype (remember, I'm a Silver, so FreeForm is right out) could fit her.
Anyone got some ideas?
Post edited by chaoswolf820 on
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The rest looks like it's all there. Give her some tights, use the body paint skin to give her some flavor, the arm band thingy, those fur strap boots, a knife on one thigh, some tribal looking necklace. You could give her a belt with some satchel thingy too, but I prefer the no-belt look.
As far as powers, I'd say maybe Night Warrior? She won't be throwing knives, but it'll be close enough. Might be okay with Unarmed or Might as well, but I don't know what all she does in the game.
Actually, looking at the sprites it seems she doesn't have an attack animation?
It was a simply-made game written on a low budget and made to fit on a single floppy disc. Elaborate animations weren't within the file-size/art budget. Heck, the knife she throws is just a static icon of a knife, not even spared the art assets to be pointing in the direction it's thrown. The giant stone-breaking Krull-the-Conqueror style shuriken-blade thing she uses in a couple levels has a little animation, but it's just a two-frame spin effect.
Granted, two of her other forms, a phoenix and a fish (the third form, a toad cannot attack), have attack animations of a sort - the phoenix and the fish can shoot rings of fire and weird shrimp-like bullet-things, respectively - but Jill's natural self just has movement animation.
I considered using the primitive-looking Cudgel weapon-unlock with the Single Blade powerset, even if it's not 100% accurate to the character, but I'm not quite sure fits...
I really put myself in your shoes and went straight to the Costume Creator. My approach: total cheesecake. I remember the game, but didn't really play it, as I was more interested in Wolfenstein 3D and the Secret of Monkey Island then.
I went with Blade here, with the cudgel, but in retrospect the Devastator should be better for it, with a giant stone axe. The Devastator was a giveaway with the Alienware promotion, along with the fur bikini here.
I actually like this design a lot, if you don't play her, let me know, because I might.
More action at Champions Online Comics @ http://co-comics.webs.com
...the Cudgel seems shinier than I remember, kinda metallic. Could've sworn it used to be kinda flatly-colored, to better emulate wood...
Kull the Conqueror is about a barbarian king in the pre-Hyborean era of Robert E. Howard's Conan world.
Krull is about a prince's quest to save his betrothed from an evil alien overlord, using the Glaive, a massive, magical, five-pointed throwing blade.
The two are in no way connected.
</pedantic movie nerdrage>
@flamingbunnyman in game. Formerly @Roderick in City of Heroes.
It also looked like a chicken leg to me. Back in the day when I was using Form of The Tempest on an unarmed character, and the animation still caused weapons to show up, I had an obese version of the character that would whip out these meaty, greasy drumsticks whenever he got charged up to fight.
Anyways, here's a fairly straightforward interpretation of the design - Devastator, with the only unlocked piece being her (extremely common manimal drop) axe.
I haven't even see the movie's box-art in twenty years, so sue me.
Her pose kind of obscures it, but I'm pretty sure it's the "Pouch" belt.
And I'm really not trying to nit-pick the whole thread, but the axe drops from Sasquatch in Canada. It is still a pretty common drop. If you want to search the AH for it, I think it's "Heavy Tribal Axe".
I was just teasing. I probably could have been more obvious.
@flamingbunnyman in game. Formerly @Roderick in City of Heroes.
I like the first one best, but unfortunately wasn't able to get the Tribal Bodypaint on her legs because it forces the smaller briefs on you, so that's what the second one is there for. Had to use a belt (Satchel, I think it's called) to cover up the hole left by the small briefs.
The top of the bodysuit was made using the Armor Tight Basic with Classic Diamond pattern on it. The top part of the pattern was colored with the skin color to create the plunging neckline.
Not sure which, if any, of these pieces are premium. Most likely some from the Variety Pack, but I'm not completely certain.
Any particular powers/AT you'd suggest for her? I realize the attack methods in the game itself were highly limited for various reasons, so don't feel like you'd have to limit yourself to that, just aim for stuff that would "feel right" for such a character.
The foreign box art cracks me up. It looks like she just popped a Xanax.
The pre-trilogy-compilation boxart makes that look normal. Looks like something the folks from South Park would make.
Did some mix-n-match of ideas, presented here, some fiddling around to see what looked cool, and got this.
Opinions?
Ok, so I didn't quite go for the "CARBON COPY" if that's what you were wanting. But my own little twist on the character and tried to make her more realistic looking. I think I came up with a pretty nice overall design. She's all yours if you wish to utilize it.
I basically started with the boots(because there really isn't anything else to take in this category for this character.) From there I tried to make the rest of the look match up with them. Flowers were added to make her more at one with nature, but are easily removed if your not into that sort of thing.
I also took at look at the Heavy Weapons and Single Blade Weapons I have and felt like these were 2 of the top choices that went along with the look(These were not the ONLY choices that COULD work though.)
Heavy Weapons
Single Blade Weapons
Edit to Test:
You did a pretty great job with that outfit, might I add.
Why thank you good sir.
I do know about the 4 image per post rule. My question is, are we still able to post Save Files at all? I see down in the "POSTING RULES" that is says we can't post attachments. So how do we go about sharing costume save files these days?
For the OP: 1:57. Whenever you get a Cosmic Key of Power, you're hereby obligated to yell "Yeah!" in Zone Chat.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/10og8sf12169lcc/jill_SFX.zip
Good thing I have the sound-effects, then.
I mean, I wouldn't bother wasting someone ELSE'S Zen on those things, let alone my own, but it's good to see I've got the audio option.