Level reviews

"The author's debut level and in many ways it's quite obvious it's a tut1fied take of St. Francis' Folly. The titular tower involves an obnoxiously long ladder to climb only to slowly work your way to the bottom by facing a couple of side room challenges. Nothing ever too taxing, although the fake walls and floors were a bit unfair. 20 minutes, 5 secrets. 10/25" - Treeble

"Very, very basic level with no lighting and buggy cameras. Nice idea of how to avoid damage on a monkey swing, that could be put in a better level You can play this one cause it's short, it won't hurt I guess. Unless you get hit by one of those massive boulders..." - DJ Full

"This is a debut effort and it some respects, it does portray a few beginner hallmarks: bare, square and empty rooms, repetitive texturing, extremely tedious ladder and monkeyswing sequences, flashing cut scenes that gave no useful hints and generally mediocre gameplay. I did like the secret placements, the enemy usages and the kind of hub room concept as a hub for gameplay, like in the original St Francis Folly level. A bit underdeveloped, but I have seen worse debuts." - Ryan

"I replayed this level today in a doomed attempt to recapture the magic of my exhilarating first playthrough, suspecting that it was somewhat underratedâ€"if justifiably so; but I stand before you admitting that its ratings are actually a quite accurate reflexion of the gameplay experience. Some neat sequences involving boulders, and the author's invention of Invisible Wall Ninjas, are not sufficient to raise the level's quality to average (much less above it), given the pervasive presence of so many typical beginner's mistakes and the fact that walkthrough walls (and at least one fallthrough floor) form pretty much the core gameplay element here. Still worth a look if you haven't played it before, preferably with a friend who laughs with you at the silliness of it all." - Mulf

"A debut level here from Potter which plays considerably better than it looks. There's plenty of beginners mistakes here though there's also some interesting ideas here and there. The author really needs to revisit the editor manual though and put a little more time into crafting their rooms. One for completists really. Stiggy" - TheStig

"A debut and as with most newbie's there are beginner mistakes. Very bright as well, I might add. A plethora of pick-ups and rather good use of enemies. I liked the boulder trap." - Gerty

"A short level , a first from the author which certainly had the joy to see that a real level could come out from his brain and hands. A TR1 "Greek" setting evocating the St Francis folly concept , and with ninjas as enemies. The things the player has to do are not complicated , mostly Lara's basic moves and a few rolling ball traps , the most difficult thing was to not be aware there is"walkthrough" textures in a few places. According to what you have already seen from the presentation page , the looks are not too nice with the rooms generally too bright, but we have seen many first releases which were less good than this one in that category. The pickups are too many , the secrets too easy, and the cameras rather unnecessary. A playable level without many problems." - eRIC

"This begins in a room which greatly resembles Tomb Raider 1 in terms of it's texturing, although having pillar textures is no substitute for real pillars. There's mistakes including a hole with texture over it, and stretched textures over doors, spikes should have holes in the textures to keep it realistic. There's more gameplay elements here than his other 2 levels, including rolling balls, baddies, levers, jumps over a deep pit, spikes, all the classic TR components. I like the long ladder as I've always liked having big drops to jump down! There a really deep pit near some water further on, I think this area is underused - you could have had a rolling ball chasing you all the way down the staircase to the bottom for example. The room with 'Thor' over the door is the worst one in the level as it has unmarked rolling balls over a switch and cartouche item. Then we have a monkey swing room with spikes but the spikes seem to have invisible tentacles right up to the ceiling as Lara dies if she swings over them - dozy had to be used to get past this. The cartouche is placed and the level is complete, just watch out for the zombies as they'll push you into the spikes! The lighting isn't done very well and stands out too much where it is present. Also, the sound effects chosen when things happen are not always well chosen - e.g. if there's a very deep pit, there should be a sound of danger, rather than something new or interesting ahead, I still like the TR sounds though. At least sound fx are present in this one. I have always wanted to see a TR1 style level built using next gen editor, but the bland lighting really spoils it a little, but I still feel this debut is his best work of his 3 - he should use this as a starting point and use more advanced features to create a next gen TR1 style levelset, I'd really enjoy that! Net gameplay 35 minutes." - sonnyd83

"Not a bad debut, but still with a lot of defects to be a good level. There are not puzzles and the gameplay is based about pulling switches and avoid some boulder traps. The enemies inside the walls in the final room was really strange, and I don't know the need to place all that useless pickups. There are some cameras you can see only for a milisecond, textures are monotonous and sometimes bad applied. Lights are not worked in many places. A lot of things to get better." - Jose

"Clearly a simple debut level with things like a really, really long ladder, and a fall-through pathway for Lara to break her neck, or ninjas hidden behind walk-through walls, or a lever behind a walk-through wall. Double doors are hinged in the center, not at the walls. Some elements are deliberately meant to echo TR1 St. Francis, but the similarities are nebulous. There are a number of oddities such as four serial doors opening together (and if Lara looks there is a secret). This is mostly a mishmash of the author's experiments. The fact that one can play through this is something of an afterthought." - dmdibl

"A debut level that is not without its moments. I liked the initial use of boulders to spice things up, decent enemy placement and the nice addition of 5 secrets along the way. What spoils this 25 minute experience are some odd choices: the fall through floor and walkthrough wall (always a big No No) and very, very long and tedious ladder climb and monkey swing passages. But clearly the builder has figured out the basics and is able to provide a fairly solid small adventure which is worth a look." - MichaelP

"Short, bright (mainly) and uncomplicated, this level betrays its origins as a debut in certain respects, i.e. large empty rooms, overly lavish pickups and embryonic gameplay, but we've all seen worse from new builders. Texture-wise, it's a St Francis' Folly clone, not badly done, with ninjas to battle, cartouches to find and some simple climbing and swimming, spikes and boulder traps to avoid and some easily found secrets. Experienced raiders may be inclined to try something else, but for newbies it would be ideal fodder and, as a debut, it's definitely nothing to be ashamed of." - Jay

"The builder's first level actually appears to be better than his second. In fact, the first 5 minutes are quite fun, apart from the MASSIVE ladder climb. Gameplay is both basic and unfair. Run through a walk-through wall (which looks no different to any other wall), pull a lever, run through newly-opened door. I would have given a 3 for gameplay if it weren't for the walk-through walls. There are few objects and secrets were easy to find, but I found the use of enemies quite good. I also this it was a very original idea to have them 'inside' the walls, to make it seem as if the walls were shooting at you. Very little atmosphere was created, and again, the builder goes too far with camera hints. They insist on showing you the door that opens when you pull a lever, even if it is right next to you. Finally, the lighting was either non-existent or just dark, and texturing started off quite well, and got worse through-out the level. Even if this level was better than the builder's second attempt, I would not recommend it." - Cory

"I agree this level is rather crude in its appearance, but a certain talent can clearly be seen here. The gameplay is not overly taxing but has its moments, like the slope sequence with the boulders or the pillar jumps where at one place spikes seem to prohibit you jumping further... However, I absolutely disliked that the level contains many walkthrough walls that were simply annoying to the players, at least the builder tries to give more or less helping hints to let the players find them. The textures neither are too badly applied (the biggest problem was that they were often wallpapered) and the large tower that resembles St. Francis Folly was done okayish, the problem only was that the builder didn't care for lighting as most of the time it was simply non-existent, but partly he put in some very dark spots so that one couldn't see anything. The cameras didn't work well for me as each of them only lasted a quarter of a second and thus I could never see which door opened. Also, the secrets (except one, which I still didn't get) are way too easy to find and the ninjas really didn't fit in this Greecian setting. The idea to place some of them behind a walkthrough wall near the end and create the feeling the walls shoot at you was nice though. Resumingly this was a level that can clearly be identified as a debut but I hope to soon see his skills growing." - manarch2

"Very much a beginners level,replete with all those inherent weaknesses we're now so familiar with: huge,empty rooms;walkthrough walls;a multitude of superfluous pick-ups;stretched and repetetive textures.The gameplay perks up briefly with a reasonably good rolling-boulder slide,but is otherwise obvious and uninvolving.Despair not,however;this level is worth playing for the remarkable Finale involving Invisible Wall-Ninja's.If you've never encountered such oponents before,you really shouldn't miss this superb opportunity!" - Orbit Dream