20x20x20 Challenge – A Night at Ardhis Sandscapes

 

Level by The Tiger

 

Walkthrough by manarch2

 

 

Outside Area

 

You start this level with sliding down a ramp; head right and pick up Shotgun Ammo along the path. Follow the left valley and eventually arrive in a room with some stairs in the middle. Don’t get up there but go around them and find a pedestal you can push and pull around the stairs on a marked tile near the entrance. You now can run upstairs and use the lever formerly protected by fire to raise a block in the previous area. Return there, climb up and jump up the slope in the small passage. Go right and turn when stepping on the different tiles since a boulder comes down, dash back in the left hand passage to avoid it and run up the ramp when it has fallen in a hole. First go right and pick up Shotgun Ammo and a Large Medipack from the pedestal, then return, safe and use the lever in the small alcove, drop down and quickly jump off the ramp and run over the trapdoor so that the boulder falls down in it. Don’t try to follow the boulder as this would lead to a total dead end. Use the lever at the end instead, watch the cutscene, climb up and retrace the cutscene all the way to the lowered block near the start. Follow the passage, drop down a bit, then climb into a crawlspace and drop down at the end.

 

The Caves

 

Slide down watching another cutscene and pass a closed door afterwards, soon two hydras will appear. Don’t run in the room but stay near the first and shoot it with the Shotgun when it starts spitting fire; three precise shots will be enough. Now run towards the second hydra and do the same to kill it too. In the passage behind the location of the second hydra pick up a Large Medipack; run out and climb the blocks directly opposite to the passage. Run diagonally on the right hand triangular ledge and jump to the opposite ledge near the wall, follow around and jump to the next ledge, climb up the block and monkeyswing on, drop on the balcony and inside you can find Shotgun Ammo and a Bronze Ball; a camera shows a door beneath opening. Drop down, enter and pick up Shotgun Ammo and a Large Medipack. Exit but don’t get shocked by the sudden appearance of another hydra; either kill it with the described method or simply outrun it. The lever opened the closed door you passed earlier when entering the caves; find it and run into the passage.

 

Opening Two Paths

 

Jump over the pit with two deadly blades in it; at the crossing go left (right is a dead end) and upstairs in a new room. Pick up Shotgun Ammo and a Small Medipack from the left and right pedestals, also notice two receptacles up some stairs. Return to the small crossing and use the lever to your left, this opens two doors but the ledge seems to be too far away so stand at the edge, make two large steps back, spring and press Alt to jump further, grab the ledge and climb up. On the bridge use the branch as a pole to get into that opening, then place the Bronze Ball. Enter the open passage, jump down in the pool and take a Small Medipack and Shotgun Ammo with you. Climb out and up the E ledge, jump to the crawlspace (noticing a closed trapdoor to your right) and climb back up to the second floor. Make your way to the W passage, use the lever to open the other two doors in the tower and perform that sprint-jump to get to the other side and find yourself on a balcony in the hydra cave. Use the lever right of you to see two opened doors during a cutscene. Return and drop down on the slopes of the tower, take jumps to and fro between then and aim for the right passage, eventually you’ll make it so run up the stairs again to the crossing, go left to where a door opened.

 

First Topaz Flacon

 

Enter the room and run onto the teleporter to get beamed into a new area. Pick up a Small Medipack from the windowsill, then drop down the ledges and you are facing a floating island setting. Ignore the icy slopes for now since they only lead you to a teleport back to where you came from. Jump to the S platform, then make your way to the larger island, jump up the block and then run-jump to the ladder, climb up, shimmy left around the corner and climb onto the ledge. Step on the ramp and jump up to the highest ledge, use the lever to flood a chamber down near the entrance (did you notice the setting having changed from snowy to sunny?) and drop to the N ledge with Shotgun Ammo; you can also get there from one level lower. Thereon drop NW to the first ledge you jumped to and return to the entrance of the floating island section. Run through the water wall into the pool and swim up to climb out. Now you can pick up the Gem from the pedestal. Since you cannot get back through the water shaft you have to jump down to the first floating ledge S, then back to the starting island. Place the Gem to your right to see an E door opening, jump there and enter the passage. Follow the platforms S avoiding a couple of blades while jumping, then jump to the SE rock with a midair turn, jump and grab the ledge to climb up. You have to get over to the N ledge, there are two possible ways. The easy but longer way: Push the pedestal onto the marked tile to raise a platform and then jump to the ledge. The harder but possibly shorter way: Try a sprint-jump to the far ledge. Either way climb up and grab the Topaz Flacon from the pedestal. Take a run-jump down to the W ledge with the open door, head through. You now need those icy slopes to exit this area – the only possible way to do that is to reset the switch located high up, so return all the way there over the S ledges, use it to change the setting back to snowy, drop back down and those ice ledges are back. From the starting ledge, jump to the E ledge with the open door, then on the first slope, from there to a second and then on the safe ledge, here you need to do another jump with a midair turn to the next slope and then jump to grab a ladder. Climb up and onto the teleporter, you get beamed in a small room.

 

Second Topaz Flacon

 

Run downstairs and the door opens in a well-known corridor. Head back upstairs, re-open the two doors to sprint-jump over to the other side, use the pole to jump in the passage where you once used the Bronze Ball and arrive in the room above the pool. The second open door is S of you, run upstairs to a deep room. The easy way to get down: Drop on either left or right ledge, then drop and grab the edge, let yourself fall and quickly wade through the swamp so that you can climb out N (or S on the island, as you like it). Follow the N passage, drop down a couple of blocks and arrive in an area with a seemingly but actually not deathly small pool. First open the N door with the lever to find a Large Medipack at the end, then return and pick up a Small Medipack and lastly the Topaz Flacon, two venomous spiders attack so kill them with the Shotgun. Climb back up all the blocks and return to the swamp room. Jump on the middle island, then to the NW block and from here with a slightly curved jump to the branch pole, then to the next, turn around (using the Back button) and jump to the higher branch, then to the ledge near the exit.

 

The Finale

 

Run downstairs after climbing up, make your way N around the ledges, follow the passage back to the cave and jump to the ledge using the pole, then spring-jump to the other side of the tower and head right in the room where you can place the two Topaz Flacons up the stairs. A trapdoor you might have noticed earlier in the pool room opens, so return all the way there using the sprint-jump and the branch pole again, enter the E tunnel and drop down through the open trapdoor. You land in a pool, swim down through the shaft and a message states “To be continued”. When you follow the tunnel further, the level ends.

 

THE END