Level reviews

"A lot of this level feels like experimentation, as most of the rooms are massive, usually boxy and square in design, and without a whole lot of effort put into texturing. Entire areas (such as the beginning snowy cave) seem to be covered with a single texture and coupled with a lack of lighting effects makes it pretty difficult to navigate as you can't tell where one surface ends and another begins. The first pushblock puzzle seems to be bogus as well, you have to push it across a triangular slope and in my case it got stuck in a place I couldn't move it any more, so I had to revert to a previous save game and take a more methodical approach (ie. pull it on the slope, run around and push it past it). After a long sequence of ledge hopping to reach the top of a cave we start flooding it, only to finally reach a maze because why not - and what's more, on the way back it becomes an underwater maze, how fun. 45 minutes, 4 secrets. 09/22" - Treeble

"Yikes, this level certainly can't be faulted on titular grounds, it is completely frozen, and white. Too white, in fact, that it became unnecessarily difficult to locate crucial corridors important for progression, especially within the labyrinths. I had to strain my eyes to figure out where to go, because of the repetitively textured rooms, and that can hardly be called a positive outlook on the whole thing. To be fair, I did enjoy the shimmy sequences around pillars, which reminded me of TR Anniversary, even if it dragged on somewhat. Look upon this as a steep learning curve as the builder improved later." - Ryan

"There's a surprising amount of good gameplay here in this 2nd release from Klona Croft. Initial impressions however may put many players off as the texturing is un-inspiring to say the least and the lighting is mostly flat. That said it is nice to play rooms with such large scale and the final room with the column traversal sequence shows that while they need to improve where visuals are concerned the author does have a good grasp of what's required for gameplay mechanics. All I in all I netted 1 hour 10 minutes gameplay from the Frozen Cave Demo. Visually it wont win any awards, but I'd encourage anyone to give a try of this worthy 2nd effort, Stiggy." - TheStig

"I am actually surprised a bit with the very low scores this almost hour long level has received, because I found it to be not as bad as the scores and reviews may make you think. Indeed, there is much to be improved: the blinding white initial areas, the rather boxy rooms, the unnecessarily long push block exercises, the total absence of any camera hint (especially missed in the huge square cave where you go hunting for switches) and then of course the fact that you need to make your way through a few pointless mazes as well. But then again, the adventure does have a fairly decent flow with the initial decline, the hunt for the three balls and then the rather interesting series of jumps to perform in the huge cave, which was fun to figure out and an interesting design to then start filling the cave with several layers of water (even though it is untextured water, which ruins the impression). You also get at least 5 secrets to find (one of which is missing the one shot trigger) and a few bats and bad guys to kill, to despite the low scores I would rather encourage people to give this level a try and form their own opinion." - MichaelP

"Looking the previous level from this author, it seems that he/she is evolving properly. Still not an enjoyable level, but it notices an effort to do the things better. First part is monotonous, with all those white floors, walls and ceilings. Also I don't know how the waters in the small pool are very cool and dangerous and the remaining waters are not deadly. Moving blocks to reach high openings to get the balls were a bit repetitive. Second areas with the stone cave are a bit better, but the long time jumping from crack to crack in the big squared cave was not very funny; and the mazes in TR custom levels are already very seen and not very funny. The author should think a bit about something more than pull a switch and another and another. The long swims were very tight too. Also think about implement some cameras to show what's triggering could be a good idea too. The flipped water rooms in the big final area was a good idea. Continue learning and working with new and interesting ideas and sure that you can offer us better levels. Cheer up!!!" - Jose

"The author should practice more texturization and illumination. When I saw the name frozen cave I didn't thought that it would be literally done in the texturization of the level, it repeats a lot of textures and the illumination is poor. Practice makes perfection, try to find more textures and apply in your levels and practice doing more good challenges in the level to make the gameplay better." - Adriel

"Look beyond the wallpaper'd and boxy rooms.See past the uniformly white and uncontrasted lighting of most of the tunnels and passageways. Ignore the several huge and labyrinthine mazes (one of which is even underwater).Forget about the anti-climactic ending.What,then,is left? Well,not much,I grant you;but the huge cave with the rocky columns and jump/shimmy sequences was actually very well devised and hugely enjoyable to navigate around,and would have made for a fun 15 minute self-contained jaunt. Unfortunately,most everything else in this 70 minute level is simply padding(and not a little tiresome at that),and the cause-and-effect of several of the levers and switches is often irritatingly elusive. An improvement on the Author's first level,however; and I hope that,for their third,they will take more care and diligence with the texturing and lighting;for,when you inevitably get hopelessly lost in a huge labyrinth,it does help if it at least looks pleasing." - Orbit Dream

"Let's start from bad things (as always): too much running through mazes, too much pushables, misplaced sound, and the texturing is the worst one I've seen in a NGLE level. But it's still NGLE, and even if it resembles a wallpaper, I must confess it's a very detailed wallpaper. Concerning objects: a burning ice? For last time I saw something like this in Piega's "Sanctuary". So much for bad things. The last part reminds me sooooo much of crazy crack jumping from TR Legend that I felt it unique as for a custom level. I advise You Klona to use a faster shimmying anim, so this part will truly look like these speed jumps and should be much less tiring. Also, the whole raising water puzzle is done well, showing some advancement despite of poor lighting making spotting niches difficult - as clearly visible raising blocks covering following entrances give a hint where the next passage is. I didn't have to use any medikit there. And - no, I don't think it's not enough of them. I only used one in whole game, as manual targeting solves the problem with red baddies. Also found 4 secrets... and two Nothing Holes, one in the first maze (one needs to dozy in, as it's too low for Lara to drop in from crawling position), and the second one is right before the finish trigger. I assume these holes will have more use in full version of the game. And, on the contrary, I'm waiting forward to see the full release, as we have 91 demos so far, and only 9 of them already made it to a full version. SUMMARY: I feel sad every time I see a young builder give up. But I am happy Klona Croft seems to be one of these authors which don't get disappointed after their first fail. Because I played her first level, "Lyoko Exploration - Desert Sector (Demo)", and I can see a great progress in this second game. Keep it going, girl!" - DJ Full

"Frozen indeed. In marked contrast to the builder's last, brightly coloured level, this is almost unrelieved white and thus rather hard to play in some areas. I found I could either stumble around, not being able to see much detail and so missing important shimmy cracks etc., or light a flare and risk snow blindness. Consequently, I had to play it in short doses, which hardly helped to give a cohesive feel to the proceedings. This is quite long for a demo and there's the germ of a decent game here, but the surroundings definitely need a bit more contrast and I could have done with rather less block pushing through maze like passages. Enemy-wise there are a few bats and baddies in red jackets to shoot and after all that white I really did appreciate those lovely bright red jackets. You also get to use some of Lara's new moves to achieve some enjoyable climbing near the end of the game. For a demo, it's certainly promising and, with a bit of tweaking, could be well worth taking a look at." - Jay

"The huge cave at the level beginning is built too squarely and looks monotonous. The labyrinth is built tolerably, indeed, the monotonous brightness disturbs. One hears a wrong noise if the opponents shoot. The underwater way to the Ra cartouche looks substantially better than the nearly monotonously textured ice caves. In the ice caves stretched textures are not so remarkable, but in the gigantic cave which one enters if one has used the Ra cartouche it is very remarkable. Moreover, camera hints are absent. And here anyhow there are too many labyrinths. In the ice labyrinths one hardly sees something because it is too bright and the big labyrinth with the big cave gives absolutely no fun, because with the way back in the big cave one must dive the whole distance and this distance is quite unequivocal too long. In principle, it lacks everything. Whether it is now the lighting, or the Gameplay, or the level architecture, or the play fun, or or or. The jumping of edge to edge in the big cave is there still the most interesting one. Yes, it is only a demo. And, yes, a demo is there always to improve, perhaps, available mistakes. However, is it really worthwhile to mend all available mistakes? If the level builder made this, we would get a level which looks absolutely different. It is better anyway if the level builder builds an absolutely new project and immediately avoids from the beginning many mistakes which one sees in this level." - Scottie

"This was cruel...
I did believe after the interesting starting point the level can be good but after leaving the first room and entering the maze I was simply disappointed. I finally managed to get out of it, then realizing I have to search for three balls, which made gameplay bit better for me as the tasks where challenging but attractive. And last but not least the pillar room - 20 minutes of painful shimmying, jumping and dying, even worse than in the "Egypt Artefact" level. I've found four secrets, unluckily two of them you nearly couldn't miss." - manarch2

"Again a demo and this doesn't happen very often, I for sure hope this never will be finished. What is worse than walking around with flares all the time? Running out of flares and having to use the binoculars. Not that it was dark at my end, no it was the choice in textures. White and even then I could see that quite a lot needed more attention. This probably hasn't been tested, as there are a couple of pointers that should be revealed to make it more a better game as it is now. The first would be lighting, then camera work, also the pickups are not enough, lack of flares, medipacks and that almost invisible much needed round key thing. So Klona, you know how to use the editor, back to the drawing board to make a better one for us, one we can enjoy." - Gerty

"5 4 4 3 This is, as they say, a game of two halves. The first part starts in a large, fairly bland, icy cavern with little to do and large glaring white surfaces which hurt the eyes. There is little gameplay here and if I hadn't been reviewing I'd have probably given up and deleted the level. If so, I'd have missed a promising second half. Long, long block pushes will cause some irritation but the underwater lever sequence was nicely challenging. The last part in a large cavern was far better gameplay with good use made of the new moves. A case of"I need to go from A to B, except I don't know where B is and I don't see the route", lots of fun! The maze was a bit featureless which made the underwater swim a bit of a lottery but the timing to the breathing hole was nicely judged. Over long for a 'Demo' at about an hour. There's a lot of talent here, it just needs more experience. A better first part with more gameplay, cut down on the tediously long block pushes (that's cut the length not the number of them) and give your areas more 'decoration'. I think the next level from this builder will be very interesting indeed." - Diz

"This is one of those levels where there is obviously a very ambitious beginner builder and it is way more than a demo because of size and length. The level functions properly and there are no nasty crashes or other games stopping bugs, which is definitely a plus, but the room design, game play and texturing are.... well, let's call them the opposite of user-friendly. In the first snowy area there is basically one type of texture used and that texture is almost white. On top of it, the lighting is flat which makes it very hard to see and navigate. I fell off multiple times through holes in the floor because I couldn't see them. I guess this is the first time where I had to use flares and binoculars all the time in a relatively bright level. The second main area is a bit better as there are some torches, which makes seeing things a bit easier. A dive in an icy water hole (with health loss because of the cold) and a tedious block pushing were 2 of the rather unpleasant memories from that area. Other than that it wasn't too bad here as there are good tasks, like killing baddies, finding levers, jump switches and orbs. The third main area consists of a big and high room with broken pillars where Lara has to climb to several height levels and find jump switches, then set the room under water in three different stages and ends up in a maze. The climbing parts are nice as Lara uses the vertical crevice jump and backwards jump from pillar to pillar. Unfortunately there are no camera hints, so it is very hard to tell what happened after pulling a jump switch. The whole area uses basically the same stone texture for everything. That is particularly bad in the maze as there are no other orientation points, so unless one has a great memory, pure luck or starts drawing a plan, there will be lots and lots of running to finally find a door just to find out it needs a round stone key to open it. After a lot more running (this time with flares) the item is finally spotted on the floor. The pain isn't over then as this door only leads to yet another jump switch, which sets the whole maze under water. The exit hole, which can now be accessed, is in the previous area and if the player is unlucky or just failed to see the exit hole earlier, there will be lots of drowning and reloading which is neither exciting nor enjoyable. I finished a little under 1 hour and 20 minutes, found four secrets. Lots of that time was spent running around in that maze. I think the builder is talented and has the technical aspects of level building pretty good under control, but should put more attention to room design, game play and avoid repetitive texturing." - Blue43

"46 minutes of a dastardly adventure. Where to begin? I hope you have strong eyes or else you might get "snow blindness" - it gets difficult to discern the floors, walls, and ceiling, as well as the different planes of snow in the first cavern, with all the wallpapered white textures. Besides this you must conquer two large and dull mazes, the second of which is evil because you must find a pickup that highly blends with the ground it sits on, and then after you find the door it opens, the maze floods and you must swim your way out before you drown. There are also no camera cues to tell you what the next switch did, and this becomes a pain in the last part of the level. While the ledge maneuvers are kind of fun, there is way too much of it in the last part of the level where you spend a good 15 minutes scaling columns in a chamber. And then there's the frozen water which makes it impossible to not lose health when you go for the pickup or the switch therein. On the plus side the pushable block puzzles were somewhat interesting, but maybe a little drawn out. The author has much improvement to do across all areas, but at least the level is functional. A tip: start building with smaller rooms and bringing them together, instead of making large, empty rooms." - SSJ6Wolf

"This 'demo' has the duration of a normal level , a bit under one hour , and I had to wait a long time to have reasonable fun , in the final section : a big room with broken pillars that allows Lara to ascend it using the move where she grabs broken pillars behind her , in order to flood this room level by level to finally reach the end ; no water textures here. The texturing is quite poor throughout the whole level , lighting often does not exist , and this makes the level a bit painful to play especially in the icy sections as everything looks the same ; flares or the binoculars come in handy to distinguish the surroundings. Aside from the last big room which offers decent gameplay , there is maze like areas with some situations where one has to drag an icy block in order to reach an opening, and a timed dive in frozen water that may cost health. Camera work would have been welcomed to know what the jump switches do , I also noticed a couple of stone textures , I did not know if placing the icy movable blocks there triggered something. Found 5 secrets , one of them seems to miss the one-shot trigger. The author should also work on the script to name the artefacts in relation with the storyline. Bottom line , not very atmospheric level , looks that are not only basics but also painful for the eyes , and patience is needed to reach the end." - eRIC