Fasten your seatbelts for the ride of your life! JAZZ JACKRABBIT is coming towards you at light speed, and this little bunny carries a big gun. The evil turtle emperor Devan Shell has rabbitnapped the beloved princess Eva Earlong. Now he’s swiping all the goodies in the galaxy to support his plot of Galactic Rabbit Destruction! Lead the speedy Jazz on a wild treasure hunt spanning enormous areas jam-packed with major danger!

Jazz features ULTRA-FAST scrolling 256 color graphics, ROCKING Digital Audio with Surround Sound, and WHITE-HOT action from Epic MegaGames! Look out Sonic, this is one tough little bunny!

August 1st 1994 saw the release of Epic MegaNews #3, and its announcement of the shareware version of Jazz Jackrabbit. The initial release, with the APOGEE cheat code that they quickly removed for some obscure reason.

Time would bring two Holiday Hare freeware releases (what we’d call DLC nowadays), an expansion pack with three new main episodes, cameos in other games, a sequel with three expansions of its own, a plush doll, a GBA game, an iOS stick shooter demo, and nobody knows how many failed attempts to produce a third game in the main series. But that was all later. Today we celebrate Jazz Jackrabbit 1.

Happy 20th Anniversary, everybunny! I’ve dug up a bunch of links and posted them in the comments.

- Violet CLM