Level reviews

"Not sure what to feel about this. While I absolutely loved the Venice setting at night, something about the gameplay simply didn't click with me. There is quite a fair share of intricate geometry involved, it's a bit unusual considering what we're used to (it took me forever to find the alcove in the flooded room, and it was in a rather obvious place I had actually seen when entering the room...), but I'll chalk it all up to my old age combined with yet another stressful day at work (go, 2026!). The jumps over spikes in the second half-level were interesting and, again, required a bit more thinking than usual. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood for thinking today. 45 minutes, 1 secret. 01/26" - Treeble

"This Venice level starts off and continues to be a very dark and gloomy experience in terms of atmosphere, lighting and music as we first explore some outside areas and their buildings before moving onto the underground cistern/sewers and then back again. Gameplay starts off quite nice and easy with searching buildings and their rooftops and balcony's for items and switches with the odd dog or man to eliminate, but once we get into the cistern/sewer areas things become more obscure, challenging and sometimes tedious: for example the slanted ledge only accessible by a boat, the tight and challenging platforming timed run and the fun timed fire timed run, i say fun because it was the first time actually, but after about 3 times having to do the same run to lower or higher water it soon feel tedious or annoying, i much more enjoyed exploring the buildings and rooftops but at least there is variety in environments here. The second level(which needs loading up from the title screen) is very short, you start off in a cave outside a door with 2 torches that need lighting up but your mission to find another torch and fire to do this leads you to a very challenging spike infested chamber where you have to make your way to the top using tricky slope jumps and swing poles, quite fun if you like a trap platforming challenge! Overall this game was a bit of a mixed bag for me with a lot of enjoyable gameplay in some nice looking areas versus some boring/annoying or tedious gameplay set in very unappealing areas, in the end i was pleased to leave the general gloominess of this game behind despite enjoying several aspects of it." - John

"The incompleteness of this two-level demo does show in the fairly abrupt ending to both segments, but that aside this offers a more involving gameplay experience than other works in progress. You get about 40 minutes in an atmospheric Venetian setting with plenty of exploration and quite a few timed runs, swims and traps, and another 8 minutes in a sort of Complex Simplicity setting, which provides plenty of opportunities for Lara to work on her jumping skills, and it gets a bit devious at times, although nothing too frustrating. All in all, good enjoyment if you can forgive the slightly deflating ending." - Ryan

"An almost flawlessly lit and textured city intro and outro has a boring switch-filled cistern inbetween, which also has to be revisited. If you get to the last location without some pickups needed, which is very likely, it will imply even more repeating, and what am I supposed to think when everytime this happens I need to do the same fiery platform run for the flood flipmap? Not a good perspective for a level which otherwise could be twice shorter. Some doors never open, some keyholes don't have keys and while I now understand they mostly set the teaser boundaries not even supposed to be approached, then "I can't go here now" appearing ingame could also mean "return here later". The game also has one "innovation", Jesus Christ help us - camera is so close to Lara it's often hard to measure jumps, I don't really know how many times I died because of that, so I also don't know how people can even complain about constant flare usage when it appears a minor problem compared to this. The boat can be driven unlike in all Venetian levels so far, so I completely skipped it in the first playthrough. With TRNG Lara could for instance get a key from that boat to unlock the location exit, what would explain the boat as interactive. But the boat is also only used in a dark sewer, and only for a jump which wouldn't require the boat if the geometry was just one click less slanted - very, very forced design which seems like an excuse to use an object instead of using an object to fit the context. I still appreciated occasional spooky moments with mysteriously dead corpses and nice creepy sound, realistic architecture and old-school mafia combat, but I anyway ended up checking the walkthrough for easy things because I didn't really care about finding all the missed stuff myself. After teasing my beloved Venice with a cistern, the next level teases a castle with a dungeon, with as much sense as teasing a manor with a basement or a mountain with a cave. But I checked the equally gloomy trap challenge anyway and treated it as a secret bonus, fortunately too short to be rated as a separate level. SUMMARY: I'm afraid such teaser might repulse players who don't know what this builder is really capable of (I will play anything he gives me). Underthought puzzle arrangement, experimental features and weird remnant issues too obviously express the nature of beta. Since trxii is already miles further from this I will quickly forget it, pretty convinced whatever comes out of it will be incomparably more enjoyable. Recommended to wait for full version." - DJ Full

"It notices a good effort from this builder for a Venice adventure. Good design and architecture, well applied textures but few more. It's by night, of course, but even so the levels are excessively DARK. Even when you have unlimited flares (only in first level), I think most players don't like go through the entire level always with a flare in Lara's hand. The gameplay is not bad at all, but there are excessive switches to pull and excessive timed runs too (not very hard, of course). Where are the puzzles? When I finished the first level and load the second one I realized that there were only three flares in my inventory; I was playing a bit and using that flares, and when I got out of flares I sent the game directly to the recycle bin." - Jose

"Both of the levels presented here are demo's,and it shows. The first (Venetian) has a rather pleasing,if somewhat gloomy,appearance;but the often complicated progression became a little confusing after a while. For example,I arrived in the final area where a caption announced that the level had come to an end but that I could explore for some items if I wished.This I was unable to do as I had not managed to pick up the appropriate keys elsewhere in the level,and they were easy to overlook. The second,much shorter,adventure basically involves assorted acrobatics in a large cave;and is fun,fast moving and challenging. Put together,they add up to at least an hour of entertainment however incomplete they may ultimately be. The textures are placed well;camera hints are provided where necessary;and the atmosphere in both is completely immersive.Gameplay is generally of the 'how do I get out of this area and into the next?' variety;but there are some nifty acrobatic sequences;tight timed challenges;and loads of exploring and shooting. All in all,good fun for those who don't expect anything completely finalised." - Orbit Dream

"I am generally not a great fan of Demos or premature releases of Levels in any other shape or form, but this teaser has more to offer than many other complete levels, with about a 30 Minute raid on a very atmospheric Venice setting, plus an almost 15 minute bonus quest for a second mask if you choose to go for that. And then another 10 minutes of a real teaser with a few fun jump sequences around a high room in a cave. The no less than 6 openings in the final Venice mansion room are a promise of a much larger adventure to come if the author continues to stick with it, but even as it stands it is definitely worth a look." - MichaelP

"Well, it's a teaser. And it whets my appetite for the coming game and I'm going to make some words about the finished one that certainly will reach quite high marks if some crudeness is remade. For now we have two very promising, but unfinished levels with immatured graphics (water is not animated) and some inaccuracies concerning gameplay, that shows a lot of very good ideas, provides fun and also some challenges. But quite annoying is the unclear way to proceed after the boat sequence in the cistern where two possible routes are available. One area holds the items needed in the other one and if you visit the 'wrong' one first you'll have to do a lot of backtracking and to repeat some timed runs and flooding- and draining-sequences. But all in all these sequences show much creativity and good ideas. Let's wait for the final version." - Christian

"2 unfinished levels, the 1st in Venice, which gives a good impression. This level is very complex, with many inaccuracies in the placement of poleropes (including that in the cave with the boat). Lara also has a latency that can interfere. The water is not animated and it seems rather flat. The construction would require to put roofs on the outer parts because I do not find very pretty these cubic constructions. I think I had a bug with flipmap the rise of water, the water was not climb after timerun. I had to start over several times. That said it is a good enough level that the final version will be worth it to redo. The 2nd level is much shorter and is just a succession of jumps quite complicated to get to the torch. I expect the final version." - Drakan

"This is actually two tasters - one longish and one teeny tiny. The first taster lasts almost an hour and is set in Venice and a very nice version of Venice it is too, with its beautifully lit, muted tones and impressive architecture. The usual villains and their dogs prowl the city so Lara doesn't get much time for sightseeing, but there is a lovely mansion to enter at the end of the level, even if there isn't a lot to do there and no finish trigger. I would very much like to see this worked up into a full scale game as it certainly has a lot going for it. The second part only lasts a few minutes and involves some quite vicious traps with a predominantly spiky theme. Overall, rather enjoyable." - Jay

"Like another reviewer before the rather low marks are rather for the level's incompleteness than for it's missing qualities - it's rather beyond me why to reward an uncomplete and not quite polished level with 10s across the board when there is really more than enough to improve yet. Well whatever. At the start I didn't really think much about this level, you just find and use too many levers in quick succession and there's comparatively little else to do. Luckily, that changed when I entered the sewers, the gameplay picks up several notches and actually gets quite inspired with a magic hallway, a quite complex draining and flooding puzzle and quite a bunch of timed runs to solve. I really think this part is quite excellent. The last third of the first level, however, contains quite a few too lengthy backtracks that reduced the fun factor a bit, and it's really too easy to miss the first golden key in the sewers which makes it even more tedious. The enemies don't play a large role in this level and it's quite repetitive to always meet a dog and his owner again and again. The overall atmosphere might be a bit flawed from time to time with a couple of things to improve in the final version (somewhat boxy nature of the maps with no real horizon, unrealistic geometry, a few not very apt texture choices and several texture flaws, a tad too uniform lighting) but the builder did well with the choice of sounds and the cameras are also quite nicely done for the most part, with the occasional shake in between. As said before the first level ends prematurely after 25 minutes without a finish trigger, but there's a glance of another level with a medium challenging jump sequence with slopes and swingpoles (not utterly hard but not quite easy either at one jump at least), but it ends after just 5 minutes. Considering how fun the middle part of the first level was, I'm looking forward to see what the builder comes up with in the final version that hopefully sees the light of the day soon. Found one secret in a total of 30 minutes." - manarch2

"Gameplay & Puzzles: This game deserves more points as the middle section in the cistern is quite fun with its many timed runs and puzzles but as it's unfinished it's confusing towards the end, so many paths you can go and don't find anything to do anymore. We have to quit the first level at some time and move to the second, which also was quite fun for some minutes but as the first a bit incomplete. Enemies, Objects & Secrets: Good placement of enemies in this level, the object design is a bit barren and odd but probably that will be changed in the final version if there is one. There is one good secret. Atmosphere, Sound & Cameras: The atmosphere worked nice with some good musics, nice cameras and a nice mood. The architecture is good but a bit unrealistic, the star ceiling in the first area looks very odd as there's no skyline but only textures. Lighting & Textures: Textures were mostly nicely used but there are so many mistakes in the texturing, hopefully also changed later. The lighting uses too much the same colour in every room and especially the second level was too dark for me, but it's quite spooky. Total: 6,25/10, a final version will probably get much more points as there are good things here already." - Rambo

"This level was absolutely awesome to play and I enjoyed every bit of it and also it reminded me a lot of tomb raider 2 wich of course is always a good thing" - lokky99101

"Here are two incomplete levels that the builder didn't simply want to scrap, so he has presented them as independently playable adventures. And I'm glad he did, for a fun raid is provided. The first segment, in a Venice setting, is nearly a complete level on its own (clocking in for me at about 45 minutes) despite the fact that there's no finish trigger. It's uncommonly good-looking as well, and the lighting is quite player friendly. There's a fairly tight timed swim near the end that allows you to leave a flooded area and explore a lavish Venetian mansion. The second level is little more than an idea, and a grueling one at that. The climax of this nine-minute tidbit is a room riddled with slopes and spikes, with a couple of swingpoles thrown in for good measure. It's all a little bit darker than I would have liked. Contrary to the opinion of the earlier reviewer, I think these levels would present a bit of a challenge to the most hardened of raiders. That's not a criticism, however, either of the levels or the reviewer. Recommended." - Phil

"I really enjoyed your game. It brings up some old memories from Tomb Raider II. The changed look of the level is very welcome and beautiful in my opinion. The enemies are well placed and the whole atmosphere is nearly perfect. The new look you used fits perfectly and the puzzles are not to hard so this level could be played by any new player. And I really like the soundtrack because you put awesome games together. I can't wait to play the finished game." - Jadyn