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Level: Castle Riverrun back home search
Author(s): masha
total rating:8.60 Gameplay &
Puzzles		 Enemies,
Objects &
Secrets		 Atmosphere,
Sound &
Cameras		 Lighting &
Textures
afzalmiah 9 8 9 9
Catherin 8 8 9 8
CC 9 7 9 8
Duncan 9 9 10 9
eTux 8 8 8 8
G.Croft 8 8 9 8
Gerty 9 8 9 9
Gill 8 8 8 9
Jay 10 8 10 10
Jorge22 8 8 9 9
Jose 8 8 8 8
Kristina 8 8 8 9
Loupar 9 8 9 9
MichaelP 8 8 9 9
Mman 8 8 8 8
Moonpooka 10 10 10 10
Obig 9 8 9 9
Phil 10 9 10 9
RaiderGirl 9 8 9 9
Sash 9 8 9 9
Tombaholic 7 7 9 8
Watck 8 8 10 8
category averages
(22 reviews)		 8.59 8.09 9.00 8.73

Reviewer's comments

"One of the first puzzles (the "pi" puzzle) is very hard to figure out, even with the scroll hint so I though this could be a complex level, but remaining tasks were not hard and the levels were nice to play. Some defects in the textures (in the room with the white arches the ladder is not marked in the pool at the bottom of the room) or the fires (wrong flame emitter for the torches) and another ones I can't remember well, but the game was fluid for me and I've enjoyed it. The first level of a genius of the custom level builders is always worth to play." - Jose (20-Mar-2012)

"I remember playing this level ages and ages ago and it was pretty fun. It was a nice castle with some challenges to do like some pushblock puzzles and some timed runs. Pretty classic raiding and a pretty long adventure. A really good level for a debut from a talented builder. Sometimes it can be pretty hard but luckily the walkthrough helps a lot. Nice rooms in the castle and not boring at all. Highly recommended to everyone." - afzalmiah (19-Apr-2011)

"Two levels (which are more like two parts of one large one) in a Scottish castle setting. The first level is based around a large bridge with two courtyards (which are your goals) to the side. Outside of the main area the first level doesn't have much too impressive visually, but it's all solid. The second level is based around the original concept of an underwater church in a large chamber, and there's a nice multi-leveled side-chamber too. These things make the second level have a couple of quite striking sights. Through the pack though the side-areas feel a little weaker than the rest, they're still okay but don't really match up to the central rooms visually.
The gameplay is quite varied and flows well. The mirror room has a nice twist as well. There's one puzzle based around Pi that I solved by trial and error, and even checking the walkthrough the logic seemed very unintuitive. Also, the second level suffered from a couple of invisible push-blocks and a couple of areas seemed to have a few too many flow stoppers like long ladder climbs and monkey swings. These flaws don't outweigh the more enjoyable moments though and there are some original ideas here." - Mman (21-Mar-2011)

"This level's puzzle is very interesting and thoughtful, although one of them is a little too difficult. I examined the scroll about pie again and again, and thought about many kinds of relationship about the pie and the pile on the wall(The blue delta, the red squire and a green right angle in a circle), but found nothing. In fact, the puzzle nearly kill me. It took me several months to tried different ways(played some other levels instead, of course). I tried to find a projection about the pile on the 5*9 squire, I considered the every single digital(3,1,4,1......), I even tried to pulled in the other four globes in the first globe room to help the five globes to form the pile. Finally, I admitted my failure and used the last solution:pushed the globes through the whole area to find the special five tiles(As Gerty, Obig and other players had done). I don't konw how other players feeling but I thought the hint in the scroll is too simple to understand the trick. Maybe author could put more information in it." - Watck (14-May-2007)

"I played this level at the same time I played the sequel (one at home, the other at the office), and I found the earlier release (three years to the day separate them) to be far superior to Part II. It's an architectural masterpiece reminiscent of Piega's works, and I especially enjoyed navigating the hub room that has to be flooded to complete the level. The underwater church is a thing of beauty, and the lighting is superb throughout. In short, this is raiding in the grand tradition, and I couldn't recommend it more highly. Gameplay is of medium difficulty, and Dutchy's concise but thorough walkthrough was a big help in keeping my net gaming time under two hours. In my opinion this level is as good as any now residing in the Hall of Fame." - Phil (27-Sep-2006)

"Well what a magnificent castle adventure, I thoroughly enjoyed every second of this quest from start to finish, it had me hooked right from the very beginning, with timed runs to master, which were achievable after a few tries, solving the globe puzzles and a mirror room, so you can retrieve your precious gems and key, all of which to help you in proceeding further and deeper into the second part of this wonderful adventure, for more gems and another key to find. Just seeing that submerged church was amazing, I replayed that fly-by several times, as I was totally impressed. In the second part, you will be flooding some rooms so you can pull some underwater levers and avoiding some spike traps. There was not too many enemies to overcome either and you will only encounter a knight, a few dogs, crocs and bats trying to block your path and doing there best in stopping you to complete your mission here. Overall this was quite an easy quest with lovely layouts with a great atmosphere to it. Lighting and textures were beautifully done, which made this mission a gem to play. I enjoyed my time playing in this adventure, its well worth downloading and playing it to see for yourself" - Gill (27-May-2006)

"What a debut level! Wow! Wonderful atmosphere, great but really hard puzzles to solve, especially the pi room one. (Still can't say if it was annyoing or just the best puzzle ever...) At the beginning there's a really hard timed run where you jump over blocks which really annoyed me and I thought of giving up on it. But I'm glad I didn't, I would have missed the absolutely amazing submerged church which would have been a loss." - Tinka (25-Oct-2005)

“Excellent castle level with well-balanced gameplay and nicely textured rooms. Unlike many first levels the author isn't trying to use every available texture in every room. So many rooms are large and almost sparse but attractive. A look I find quite appealing. The globe puzzle is certainly puzzling and the submerged church is great. Well worth playing.” – Duncan (18-Oct-2004)

“I feel divided about this level because I really liked it but at the same time there were things there that really annoyed me. Starting with the ‘Pi’ globe puzzle. Search for the root search for the root... What root? Is this a mathematics examination? Ok it's probably ahead of its time... ;) Yes I did read the walkthrough afterwards and kind of understood it (can you believe mathematics isn't every player's area?) but as I was playing I simply pushed and pulled all the globes until the gate opened. Tedious... In fact there were too many globe puzzles in the game and I don't know about you but globe puzzles aren't my favorite tomb raiding task. Level 2 is globally more varied but it also contains one problem... In the big flooded room I flooded it to the top before finding the almost impossible to find lever that opens the underwater church's gates. You can therefore perfectly well imagine how much I was lacking oxygen all the time that I was looking for it plus I had the big fish which there was no way of shooting always after me... Shouldn't it be a little more obvious? And should one be able to flood the room entirely before finding the lever and getting into the church? Ah one final remark... Right at the beginning when Lara faced the mounted tin man he went out and the doors simply closed leaving Lara inside and him outside. I believe there's some mistake there too. And the laser sight what was it for after all? Well after so much whining I also must congratulate the author on the nice outdoor areas and on the game as a whole because I still had fun with it. Challenging but not too hard. No problems with the textures an interesting mixture of TR4 and The Lost Artifact. Somewhat enigmatic. Interesting and advisable. That's it. My advice is for you to play this well built (apart from the flaws I mentioned) interesting game. Just be aware and don't make the same mistakes I've made. And do look at the walkthrough in the ‘Pi’ room... That'll save you some precious time. (August 22 2004)” – Jorge22 (23-Aug-2004)

“This is a very nice set of two levels that shows one of the most beautiful castle settings. First of all the bridge where the horseman's waiting Lara; the gardens where Lara find each key to open the bridge door the multileveled marble room and finally the underwater church (totally unexpected and irrational but charming). It's not a hard game in general except for the ‘Π’ puzzle that I had to ‘resolve’ reading the walkthrough. The enemies are mainly a lot of fishes bats dogs and the horseman. In her way Lara has to find keys and gems; and pull many levers (in and out of the water). It's a good game that's worth to play. I hope there will be another level to play in Castle Riverrun.” – Loupar (10-Nov-2003)

“A magnificent 2 level adventure a great fun with my recommendation. Though running against the clock happens time and again still it was quite an adventure. It takes place in a castle but there are halls with water pools. The sunken underwater church is wonderful also. Not too many enemies to defeat a knight dogs crocos and bats. You will have to find Horseman Gems and two keys. Watch out for tombs to be noticed with binoculars of torches hiding secrets quite often. Here are planets to push. In the great hall I could not get the point really but when I pushed them to the right place the camera flew by. I found four secrets the shotgun the UZI ammo flares a small medipack and a crossbow. Music added is just fine as well as the textures.” – Obig (02-Sep-2003)

“A nice debut level in an interesting castle setting. After the first fly-by I actually thought I would spend hours here exploring the grounds but even if it might seem big there are only a few solid tasks here and it's hard to get lost and you hardly spend around 30 minutes in each part of the level even if I could've spent less in part one - the 2nd globe puzzle took a lot of time to solve - and I still don't understand it. The 2 biggest highlights in the game are undoubtly the bridge at the start and the sunken church in part 2 where most of your time revolves around. I only found 2 secrets (shotgun and crossbow) of the 4. What could be improved here? Well there's always a place for improvement - like the room geometry could be more detailed the lighting - but the author will undoubtly get hold of these things as she keeps on building. Anyway - if you're in for a fun ~1 hour long castle level - give this a try - it's worth it!” – eTux (23-Aug-2003)

“This is a really good first level from Masha! Good looking surroundings timed runs a lot of puzzling (which I love the Pi-room was too hard to figure out for me though) climbing up in a high ‘cross-bridge-room’ with many doors to find out how to open swimming and swimming around a great looking underwater(!) church. Along the way you find two keys which you will need to open up the ending door in the first area. Masha has promised me another level if I review this one! :) So go on building I’m looking forward to the next!” – G.Croft (05-Aug-2003)

“Starting out with a flyby that shows just part of this magnificent castle the concept behind this level is fairly simple: collect two keys to open the exit. The quest for these keys takes you on a fantastic adventure though with pushable globe puzzles a mirror room of a different sort an underwater church and huge courtyards that you don't spend nearly enough time in in my opinion anyway. A few of the puzzles had me confused at first but the trick was to save first and then play around with them till I figured them out. A very fun level and totally beautiful to look at. Secrets found: 4” – RaiderGirl (04-Jul-2003)

“A great castle level and my favourite theme. Not long after the level starts you see a nice flyby giving you the grand tour of the outside areas I was pleased to see a nice camera work for once. As you progress there are timed runs to beat many levers to push and quite a few globe puzzles to solve. I didn't like the one with the many squares the scroll is supposed to give us a hint but you have to love math I hate them to solve it so I got tire of pushing the globes all around the room. Luckily there was a view of a door when one was at the right place. The mirror room looked promising but it wasn't that difficult after all. I was impressed from the church and the nice clock in the water. Weird looking fishes dogs and bats are enemies to be found. Lately more and more levels are released with great gameplay and this is no exception. Be sure to play it.” – Kristina (01-Jul-2003)

“A marvelously well put together adventure. Set in a Highland type castle with a horseman to deal with at the start but he leaves a scroll behind and not a gem so that was a nice change from the ordinary. Once into the level you get some brilliant timed runs and globe puzzles to solve to get two gems. Then make your way into a large water filled area with a cathedral in the depths of the water that was just fantastic with its added choir type music and was great to swim around wonderful atmosphere! Enemies were a few dogs one horseman bats and some really annoying croc type creatures who appeared at every move they were slightly tiresome as it just meant several trips back onto land to shoot them needles to say the need for all the weapons wasn't really necessary but some were secrets and we do like to have our Arsenal full don't we? LOL There were four secrets to find and all nicely hidden like they should be! The last part of the level consisted of many rooms with various tasks to do all of which were interesting and eventually led to flooding an area in order to pull levers to release a gem in the cathedral very nice and very original. When the two keys are found you can go back and end the level it seems it is to be continued and so ends rather abruptly I for one can't wait for the next scenario. I had a bug/problem in the level and I never did find out why I seemed to be the only one to encounter it it maybe that I didn't kill the horseman in the beginning and so later on a door wouldn't open I re started the entire level and killed the horseman and then the door worked fine so I assume it was down to that we shall never know! LOL A very enjoyable fun and exciting level much praise to the author I highly recommend it!” – Moonpooka (01-Jul-2003)

“The first level a great version of a Scottish Hyland Castle with two great timed runs and globe puzzles the second one was unique if a little slow to get done. But hey we've seen too many really simple globe puzzles so it's nice to see an author put more thought into them. Lighting is perfect and rooms are perhaps a little simple texture-wise but effective. The bridge area (and what’s seen in the opening flyby) is really good and enemies are a lot of mutant fish type crocodiles bats and a knight on horseback. The second level is underground. This looks really good. An underwater church with steeple and more croc-noids. Now starts a series of timed door and clever puzzles that had me rooted to the game throughout. The ultimate goal in both levels is to find the two keys that open the bridge door in level 1. An excellent level great fun highly recommended.” – CC (28-Jun-2003)

“A very promising double level debut indeed. Set in a spacious Scottish castle you are treated to two interconnected levels of about 30+ minutes each. And while they are not overly difficult the gameplay definitely draws you in and keeps you busy and entertained through timed jumps great flybys (especially the one at the start of the second level) fitting enemies (crocfish bats and dogs) very smartly hidden secrets (only found two of the four: Uzi and Crossbow) rather cleverly set up movable planets puzzles a torch puzzle an interesting course around a high structure which then fills with water and more. The submerged church is a really nice setting and the mirror room has a bit of twist as well. If anything I would probably complain that in part two it was a bit too much of move from one lever/door combination to the next but that should not interfere much with your overall enjoyment of the game. Looking forward to the promised continuation of this adventure.” – Michael (27-Jun-2003)

“This level stands out in a way. It seems that so many levels lately have been so insanely difficult it was a pleasure to play this. It starts off with a timed run (just hard enough to be entertaining while not so hard to be irritating). From there a puzzle which is quite original and I think I would have spent a great deal of time there except for the author's hint in this forum. After that the gameplay proceeds in a classic manner (I mean how many times have we done the old timed run over the pillars thing?). But the whole way through it is done with great care and everything is solid stuff - puzzles traps etc. The settings are all textbook with the exception of the underwater church which is really something to behold - other than the enormous box-like room which contains it. Another treat and perhaps the highlight of the level for me was the multi-tiered marble room - very well done indeed. Also worth noting are a couple of nicely done fly-bys. This one is definitely good for a go for some old-fashioned TR fun.” – Tombaholic (27-Jun-2003)

“For all the puzzlers out there that like a nice trap edge to it all this is the one you’re looking for. You think from the beginning you are going to get a normal Scottish castle level but it quickly turns around and after a deadly meeting with a horseman on a beautifully built bridge you are in for puzzles one after the other. There are timed moves movable object puzzles a torch puzzle a mirror room and more set in some great locations the submerged church with striking steeple in an underground flooded cave for example. There are actually two levels here but as they play to just on 70 minutes it feels like one really solid one I just hope you have more luck than me with the secrets as I only found 2 of the 4. I really look forward to many more levels of this kind from this new and hopefully prolific builder.” – Sash (26-Jun-2003)

“The title says it is a castle at least that is how it starts. The first enemy you encounter is a horseman on a horse there are also some nasty big fish dogs and pesky bats. Get the Castle Scroll and you know what you have to do. Although it was easier said than done as I had no clue how to solve that Pi globe puzzle (now I know though and it starts to make sense to me as well). So pushing the globes almost covering every tile was in order (boring). There is more pushing of globes in this level also a mirror room neat trick. But before you start all that that timed run was rather hard to do jumping over blocks so get into the rhythm. Took me some tries and when I finally made it forgot to save and got killed by a boulder LOL that is life. The second level was something else. I was blown away by that church underwater and the music that went with it. The huge room you had to fill what a grand idea. Finding gems in the first and also the second level Lara left the premises with still a key in her pocket. Found only one secret. 24-06-2003” – Gerty (26-Jun-2003)

“Firstly I have to say this is just my sort of level and I loved every minute of it. I wondered if this was going to be something a little different when the horrible horseman left behind a scroll rather than a horrible horseman's heart and I wasn't disappointed. It's a Scottish castle setting very nicely done. Once inside the castle after a timed run there are various tasks to accomplish to obtain two gems - a really interesting globe puzzle a mirror room and a timed run (tight but I managed it so you can too). On to a courtyard area to find a key and make your way into the second part of the level where you are treated to the most spectacular flyby of a sunken church. There's a fascinating series of interconnected rooms in this part in which you have more varied tasks to accomplish to obtain two blue gems and finally another key to access the end of the level. If the end seems a little abrupt that's because the story is to be continued and I for one can't wait. Apart from the initial horseman enemies only consist of the occasional dog biting your ankles or bat getting tangled in your hair so you really don't need all the weaponry and medipacks you get but there are horrible things lurking in the water so don't go swimming without checking first. I spent a wonderful couple of hours on this one and still managed to miss two of the four secrets. Highly recommended. 26.06.2003” – Jay (26-Jun-2003)
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