Level reviews

"This level must hold a world record for earliest instance of flare bug. Otherwise, it's a fairly straightforward catacombesque level with a bunch of blue harpies to defeat as you find and retrieve a handful of golden spheres. Nothing particularly taxing or exciting, but it's short and doesn't outstay its welcome, which is always a bonus. There's a small issue with Lara's hands meshes, with weapons drawn the tactical gloves give way to wristbands, which I'm presuming might be from a LCTR-movie outfit instead. Nothing major, just an observation. 20 minutes. 08/24" - Treeble

"Flare bug, aaaa! Had to drop the flare everytime I wanted to see something (cause there were dark spots) and reload (cause there were no more flares). Aside of that the level is pretty, linear, and pretty linear. I wish there was a getaway sequence cause we approach the final item (not even pick it up) and the game ends. Still, buggy but recommended." - DJ Full

"This was the best looking level from Townsie Boy and also the longest, after 19 minutes you are almost able to grab the artefact but hit the finish trigger instead , which makes the battle with the 2 final blue harpies superfluous. Before that there was mostly easy plaforming , and different types of flipmaps well executed." - eRIC

"I enjoyed this raid easy enough. The set is well textured, too bad there are black areas that can not be visualized (bug torch). The mirror room was not really a mirror piece since Lara was not reflected in it. There were only harpies and some scorpions, quite easy to kill with the pistols (not found other weapons)." - Drakan

"A simple, linear raid through a classic setting. The rooms are rather empty, not unattractive, but nothing to shout about either. A couple of gameplay sequences present a mild challenge (slope jumps and a deadly floor room), although I'm not entirely sure that the mirror room idea was 100% successful as the safe tiles were clearly marked in reality anyway. There's a couple of secrets that shouldn't be too difficult to find. Unremarkable but pleasant enough." - Ryan

"A perfectly straight forward level here from Townsieboy. Structure isn't bad, and gameplay flows well enough. Blue-harpies everywhere to keep the trigger-happy occuppied. Lighting & texturing getting better over the author's previous levels too. Disappointing that the flare/binoculars bug wasn't resolved before release. The author is clearly evolving and getting there. Completed in 24 mins. Stiggy." - TheStig

"Oops, first thing I noticed that the flare bug kicked in and that means no extra light unless you throw them down. Didn't try to use the binoculars so it was a struggle as some parts are dark. What did stand out was the blue of the Harpies and the red of the two Pieces of the Eye. For the rest it is a nice little romp with some big, but somewhat empty rooms. I have to say that James is getting there, slowly but surely." - Gerty

"To my knowledge, this is the first level I've played by this builder, who seems to be showing a prolific bent even if he isn't exactly setting the world on fire with his ratings. Still, his scores are trending upward, which is a good sign. This level didn't get off to a good start, because the flare bug appears before you take the first step. For this reason I would not have been motivated to search for the first secret had it not been for the heads up provided in manarch2's walkthrough. As for the second secret in the mirror room, the walkthrough was less than clear on how to get it (some cardinal points in the description would have been helpful), so I let it go. While I wouldn't call this a particularly inspired raid, I had a good enough time for the nearly half hour I spent here, and despite the flare bug the lighting was good and the surroundings were of the old school and appreciated. Hopefully this builder will continue crafting his art, and we in the community will help reap his rewards." - Phil

"A half an hour level very easy to play with a fast and lineal gameplay. The adventure consists about find several balls to open doors, avoid some traps and doing some gymnastics. The first I noticed was the flare bug in the very beginning, but the effort with the lights was the best of the level. The rooms are cubes and they are very empty; the enemies were only harpies and a couple of scorpions; textures are correct, but very monotonous; I missed some more cameras (but really not necessary though) and another weapons and ammo. Enjoyable anyway." - Jose

"I enjoyed this level quite a lot. The gameplay of this level felt very tomb raiderish but sometimes there were parts that weren't as good but not too bad. The builder has used the original catacomb textures and I think the builder has used them well. They seemed to fit very well and there weren't any stretched or squeezed textures that I saw. The atmosphere was good but the lighting wasn't best and there were too many shadow bulbs. I did have a problem with lights, the flares don't light up and when you shoot with the pistols, there isn't any light. This problem is even more irritating because of the darkness in some areas. The only enemies were blue harpies and 2 scorpions. I liked this level and the builder has definitely improved with making levels and I am looking forward to more levels by this builder. Recommended." - afzalmiah

"Another classic townsieboy level - solid, but short, few surprises but also no real errors or issues, so a pleasent little raid for in between. This time the texturing is largely classic Catacomb style and you get to deal with a bunch of blue harpies along the way. And the way is one of getting and using many golden balls. Nothing really taking or mind boggling to do, but some diversity in the tasks and a rather sneaky 2nd secret in the improvised mirror room. A fun little raid, as always with this author." - MichaelP

"A little level with Catacomb textures where Lara has to make some actions in order to reach an artefact she couldn't pick up. The graphic, environment and textures are not bad, some areas a little dark and the lighting not always real. About gameplay-enigms: not many progress than the previous levels.. the hardest stuff consists of jumping between slopes and avoiding boulders and the hardest enigm consists of filling a room with water and then making the room as before.. the result in a too simple way.. besidess any object to find or switch to pull, the level is a sort of run among rooms and explore as a tourist. We find a mirror room where you can see on the other side crossbow ammo and a little medipack, but it seems there's none of them. Nearly sufficient presence blue harpies and a couple red scorpions. What a pity for some bugs: you can see the light of flares only once thrown to the ground and when you want to lighten by using binocular, the game crashes. Globally: ok for graphic, Tr1-Tr4 music, textures and the nice story, but I aspect more and more from this author.. I mean this isn't his first level, so I hope in the future he could create more complicated stuff, anything more ingegnious.. everything is always so linear.." - Steven Svorticher

"Very achievable level with a bit of climbing, jumping back and forth to reach one end of a burning gulley to another and some harpies here and there. Mainly it's a quest to find several golden balls to place in the wall receptacles to progress with the only real let-down perhaps being the lack of differing textures and the fact that neither the flares or the pistols work to illuminate dark areas." - High Priestess

"This is not an adventure, but another running from room to room, puzzles are too easy, gameplay is not quite creative. There are no challenging tasks to do. But it's a nice little average work. And it's one of the better games from this author. He has more capabilities than released in this level. The rooms are well created, the sound and lightning-effects fit well and are giving a hint what there could have been created with a storyline and a concept." - Christian

"I keep repeating myself about the builder, it really is time for something bigger and more elaborate, but he seems to like continuing his style and provide pretty short and easy levels. The gameplay here consists of some nice but never difficult agility tests and some decent but short puzzles (the flooding/draining one could be much better than it was) but it also is pretty uninspired and too linear to be enjoyable. There is a nice placement of enemies which all in all are easy to fight even with not finding any of the two secrets, of which one rather was rather luck to find (walkthrough wall). The audio used and the cameras were quite the best seen in a townsieboy level, on par with his "Desert Secrets", and all in all I quite liked the charm of this catacomb adventure; everything is decently textured, but the lighting is rather amateurish as it doesn't make any sense and it is too dark in many places. All in all this is a typical level for this builder that lasted 25 minutes for me." - manarch2

"A short adventure with some simple task in which you should find some puzzle items. Nothing special, but it's actually enjoyable. Textures and lighting were okay, the blue harpies were cool." - misho98

"A nice underground temple level of about 20 minutes duration. Lara has to find many golden spheres and throw some switches to find a lost artifact before leaving the level. This level was quite dark in places despite changing the settings on my graphic card. Also the flare bug reared its ugly head again so that flares only light when Lara has thrown them away. This is very tedious and results in Lara using many more flares than she would normally do. Annoyingly the were no flare pickups in the level. This meant exploring an area with flares and then reloading a savegame to repeat the process without flares. Enemies consist of harpies, a scorpion and a few rolling balls. I found one secret, the crossbow with normal ammo. This meant that nearly the whole level was played with the pistols which can be tedious when dealing with pesky opponents like harpies. But on the whole the game was enjoyable and can be played by raiders of all standards." - Mister-B

"This is a pleasant just under half hour dash through a catacombs style environment, collecting orbs, dodging boulders and fighting off electric blue harpies. Straightforward and readily achievable gameplay would make this ideal for new raiders and there's just enough going on to satisfy the more experienced player for the short time it lasts. Ideal coffee break fodder." - Jay

"This kept me interested, and I was glad it lasted for a half hour. A straightforward catacomb-type level that has a couple of rolling boulders for when Lara gets complacent, and a bunch of blue harpies. There is an immediate flare bug at the opening dark hallway, so I switched over to my own TREP-patched tomb4.exe with expanded buffers, and this took care of the flare bug, for an enjoyable raid. Lara did things in the correct order, throwing a ground-floor wall lever first, and then making a long climb up, but it might be frustrating to do the climb first. The author is on the right track, but could add more complexity, such as make the side routes longer. I didn't understand a "mirror" room, as maybe it isn't a mirror room, and Lara was supposed to get behind the barrier to pick up crossbow ammo and medipack, and this left an unresolved question mark. A pleasant outing for after more frustrating levels." - dmdibl

"This short level with catacomb textures has been built in the builder's usual style and is quite pleasant to play through. Game play is easy with minimal backtracking and also straightforward. There is a bit of climbing and there are several golden balls to be found in order to proceed. Fires protect some of them and Lara has to find the switch somewhere to disable them. None of it is difficult but there are two nasty boulders that got me twice. On the enemy side there are several Harpies and they can be blown up easily once Lara has found the crossbow with explosive ammo. Overall a good atmosphere but a few sounds where missing (the boulders were deadly and silent). The texturing and lighting is well done for the most part, but some areas - like the first secret - are pitch black and there is also the classic flare bug. Using binoculars in those areas results in an instant crash. It was enjoyable as always from this builder and I recommend it for a nice half hour romp, just don't expect something memorable. (26 min, 2 secrets found)" - Blue43

"The thing I enjoy most about all this builder's levels is how true they are to the original TR game - not just another clone of a TR4 level, but he has used a few custom objects and textures to give the original concept a new edge. The brightly coloured harpies made me smile, and they were the main enemies in the level - always enjoy them. The level consists of collecting of several balls and placing them in their slots. There's a lot of exploring and jumping etc, and the main traps to avoid were flames and rolling balls. I think there were a very small number of bad textures, and some lighting didn't blend in that well, but I thought the texturing/lighting was overall really good, and I thought there were a good number of textures used - not all the same. The sounds were original but were used at quite appropriate points such as battles or entering relevant areas. Perhaps the builder could use a water sound when filling up water rooms, and I would have liked to have seen a little more variety in the gameplay. Also, the ending was sort of disappointing as you couldn't collect an artifact." - sonnyd83

"Notching up at 27 minutes for me,this was by far the most creatively ambitious of all townsieboy's levels. It's atmospherically lit;competently (although not ambitiously) constructed;contains good enemy and music placement;and has a very smooth progression,along with a number of enjoyable (if easy) gameplay ideas (particularly the back-and-forth jumping to get to one of the important ball keys).However,much of the gameplay ideas were endearingly redundant: the mirror room which indicates a safe path which was blindingly obvious anyway;a sequence of ladders placed on all four walls of a room,which could all be bypassed with some elementary shimmying;several potentially tricky fire rooms which had nearby wall levers practically screaming "fire-extinguishing switch here!" at the player.None of this is damaging whatsoever to forward progression (nor is the easily-remedied flare bug);but it does result in a rather too speedy pace from one area to the next,with the player never once having need to pause and consider. Nonetheless,I still managed to miss the Secret;so some additional gameplay is possible,and the level remains my favourite of this builders so far." - Orbit Dream