How to play Jazz Jackrabbit on Windows 10 or 11
OpenJazz: high resolution Jazz Jackrabbit
Inspired heavily by classics like Zool and Sonic, Jazz Jackrabbit actually was an instant PC classic. Although you can play Jazz Jackrabbit perfectly fine with DOSBox, you can also download the Jazz Jackrabbit Collection (CD version and JJ Holiday Hare), which runs great on Windows. But it runs in the original resolution. However, there's also a source port available that allows you to play Jazz Jackrabbit in ultra high resolution on Windows 11 or Windows 10 platforms: OpenJazz. It works with the following versions of Jazz Jackrabbit:
- Jazz Jackrabbit
- Jazz Jackrabbit Christmas Edition
- Jazz Jackrabbit Holiday Hare
- Jazz Jackrabbit Shareware Edition
Basic needs
So what do you need to play Jazz Jackrabbit on your Windows 11 or Windows 10 computer?
- One of the original Jazz Jackrabbit games installed
- Don't have the game? Download the full version!
- After that, get the OpenJazz game and library files
Install OpenJazz
- We assume you have Jazz Jackrabbit installed or downloaded, in this example the game is in c:\games\jazz
- Go to the download page of OpenJazz
- Download the zip file with the OpenJazz executable
- For 32-bits Windows: OpenJazz-2019xxxx-win32.zip
- For 64-bits Windows: OpenJazz-2019xxxx-win64.zip
- Open the zip file by double clicking it
- Select all files in the zip file and copy them (right click, copy) into the Jazz Jackrabbit game folder (right click, paste), in this example c:\games\jazz
Start and configure OpenJazz
- Open Windows Explorer and navigate to the Jazz Jackrabbit game folder, in this example c:\games\jazz
- Search for the OpenJazz.exe file, double click it to start it
- The game starts in a tiny window, but you can enlarge it by dragging the window corners to any desired size, or just double click the top of the window to maximize it
- You can enter full screen by pressing the ALT+ENTER keys. This might result in the game being displayed in weird colours. Press ALT+ENTER again to exit full screen mode
- Enter the main menu by pressing Esc
- Choose Setup options with your mouse or the arrow keys
- Character lets you change some features of Jazz
- Keyboard lets you change key configuration, default controls are:
- Arrow keys - move Jazz
- Right ALT - jump
- Space bar - shoot
- P - Pause game
- T - Slow motion mode
- Esc - Quit game
- Joystick lets you configure your joystick if you have one
- Resolution lets you change the window resolution, if for some obscure reason you don't have a mouse to enlarge or maximize the window
- Scaling lets you enlarge Jazz and the game graphics
- Sound lets you increase or decrease sound volume
- Gameplay lets you configure some extra OpenJazz game features
- Character lets you change some features of Jazz
- Press Esc several times to return to the main menu
- Choose New game to start a new game!