Jill of The Jungle - Gameplay

Gameplay

Jill of the Jungle is a platform sidescroller which was released during the same period as Commander Keen and Duke Nukem. Players play as an Amazon woman who can use various types of weapons and enhancements as she progresses through levels slaying monsters and finding keys. The first episode in the trilogy contains 15 playable levels, including a bonus level, each of which can be entered from an overworld resembling another level. The second episode uses 20 sequential levels without an overworld. The third episode's overworld is a top-down perspective, similar to Commander Keen, changing to the traditional platformer style when entering one of the 15 levels. The game does not contain any boss fights.

Various puzzles include keys, transforming into different creatures, and making jumps among others. The same graphics are used in the trilogy, except that Jill's costume is recoloured in each episode (green in Episode 1, red in Episode 2, and blue in Episode 3). Every episode has several unique music tracks and sound effects but some songs and sounds are shared between two different episodes. In some specific cases, a sound effect remains the same through the entire trilogy. The sound for picking up an apple is an example of this. Jill of the Jungle also offered a "noisemaker", acting as a sound test, in which each sound effect in the game was mapped to each key of the keyboard. This was carried on by Epic's later game Kiloblaster, which is advertised one time in the second game.

Between levels in the shareware version, the player encountered humorous messages that took a swipe at various popular game characters, such as Mario, Commander Keen and Duke Nukem. The messages usually described that they were retiring, supposedly due to being unable to compete with Jill.

Jill of the Jungle provided market recognition and allowed Epic Megagames to produce future titles, such as Jazz Jackrabbit, One Must Fall: 2097, and the very successful Unreal series of games. The game Xargon, a later creation of Epic, was very similar in terms of gameplay.