Eye of Eve - unauthorised walkthrough written by Michael Prager

(with lots of help and input from the forum threads, namely Vinci, Magnus, Kristina, Drew Pizza and eTux)

Note that I did spend enough time to believe most of it should be covered in this walkthrough, but if you play it and find other ways, let us know and we will amend the walkthrough accordingly. Similarly, many of the sections may not be very clear, so ask and we may be correcting some of the wording to improve that. Alright - off we go

1. Boulders

There are (at least) two ways to get started. If you ignore one hand, you can immediately jump with a right turn and twist and grab the edge and shimmy to the left and let all the boulders pass. Quite easy - considering what else is there to come. Then monkey swing above the boulders. Sprint around the corner and time a jump without grab into the big room.

Alternatively you can take a shortcut to the pool. When you start the level, keep jump and left pressed. Hold the jump key and when jumping forward steer just a little to the right. When you land, immediately sideflip to the right, when you land again, you might need to correct just a tiny bit to the left and side flip back to the left onto the block before the boulder hits you. Tricky but can be done. Now you can jump across to the other side (watch out for more boulders), use the climbing wall and shimmy back across to the higher ledge. Go into the left opening, jump across the waterfall and pick up Hand #1. Drop into the pool and continue with Section 3 below.

2. Big icy room with 'spaceship'

Lots to do here but for now ignore most of it and just climb up the obvious block nearby, jump the first ledge and on to the next (tricky - make sure you jump and grab on the very right side). 180 degree turn and jump into wall opening and then up to the next ledge. Running jump along the wall downwards. Then a tricky diagonal jump with twist to the sloped ledge. Slide down and grab, shimmy round the corner and follow the path to the back wall. Find the eye texture in the center and pass through it into the water. Get air at the top.

3. 'Greenhouse' with Palm trees and Mummy room

Swim the long way through the pool avoiding the currents (see textures) and ignoring the demigod (remember it though as you will be back). Swim up at the back right corner and you are thrown out by a fountain. Kill the crocodiles.

You can do the next bit now or later: Find the palm tree without a slope below it. Stand on the tile and side flip to get up across the low railing. Then jump the nearby ledge on the wall and onward to the bigger platform (long running jump with a dive will do the trick). Walk out onto the ledge and see spikes come out. Make a very tricky corner to corner long running jump and then jump across to the lever. Pull it and get down through the opened grate on the right. Time your path through the mummies and fires and pull the lever to open the doors outside behind the three levers. Make your way back up through the other opening via a backflip and jump to the climbable wall. Now you can go down and jump up to the three levers and pull them so that a trapdoor near the exit door rises, which will make the timed run a little easier. Remember the mummies too as you will be back (if you choose to). All of the above is not needed (at least for now) though, as the timed run can be done without this.

Now go for the timed run. Go to the lever (sloped 'transparent' block) and jump up once so that you can run rather than wade in shallow water. Pull the lever and run to your right, curve to the left making a jump to the left of the fountain, another jump across towards the three levers and jump and pull up and quickly go to the right and through the opened door. If you have raised the trapdoor on the right side of the door you can run and jump to the right of the fountain (instead of left), jump to the slope and from there to the trapdoor and then across to the door. This is a little less tightly timed.

4. Getting a Hand...or four....around the 'spaceship'

Go immediately to the right. The next (very) tricky jump awaits: backflip onto the slope and forward jump and grab the little climbable ledge (sounds easy, but is not - keep trying - some say it works best when make a diagonal running jump to one side of the slope and then jump with twist and grab). From up there make the rather unobvious jump towards the middle/center of the room (ie across the icy slope that's in the way) and slide down a little to a brown ledge. From there turn 180 degrees and jump to the right, grab the edge of the ice and shimmy quite a long way around the corner until you can pull up to a safe spot. From there continue with a running jump in the same direction and you will land on a brown ledge. From there it is another tricky curved running jump with grab to the glowing platform and you can pick up Hand #2. The next one is easier now. From where you are jump to the ice on the left and shimmy to the right and pull up. Make your way around the perimeter and collect the Hand #3at the 'great and cool' texture. Now go back and watch the left ice wall high up. When you see a 'V' shape at the top jump up and grab right in the middle of it and pull up. Drop down to Hand #4 from there. You can make your way down by repeating the trip to the glowing platform and dropping down ledge by ledge from there (likely you need to kill a few harpies along the way). It is also possible to get Hand #5there. Jumping over to it with a curved running jump does not immediately work as you hit the ceiling but keeping 'action' and 'up' pressed, Lara will still jump up from the slope (if you get it right) and you can grab and pull up and get the hand.

5. Going down...

Now go to the hole in the ground that we have so far neglected (other side of the room). You need to time a jump into the hole so that you land on top of the structure right below it. Then slide down backward on that side, grab and drop, grab again, pull up and jump with twist, shimmy to the right and pull up. Now you can jump across into the opening and after a few more jumps exchange your first four hands into Gem #1 and Gem #2.

Now jump back up and through the side window to the middle structure where you will meet two flying sharks. Make your way to the ground (for example through the hole with a slide and hang drop) and collect the crossbow and Hand #6 with your two gems. Use the hand a little further to get the lasersight.

6. Elevator trip to the urn

At the bottom, shoot the light blue stones and then push/pull the darker one towards the elevator across the spike marks on the ground. When you place it under the eye tile at the ceiling you will be lifted up to meet two skeletons and an urn. When you step out from the elevator on the left is a ladder. Climb up and shimmy to the left. With a backflip and forward jump with a slight left turn (no grab) you can make your way up to the next ledge (tricky). Don't advance to the tile in front of the eye (there are spikes, but you can actually get there from the other side later from near where the sharks were for a few more arrows), but climb up further, shoot the window with crossbow and lasersight and collect explosive arrows. Kill the skeleton inside and go back down. Let one of the skeletons break the urn while hacking at you and a demigod will appear. Kill him (and the skeltons) and he reveals Hand #7. Now move the block from the elevator across the fire close by to turn off the other fire and pick up Hand #8. Next, jump with grab at the 'V' of the triangular window near the hand (a bit tricky) and jump down to the top of the high pillar (again tricky) to pick up Hand #9.

7. Even more hands down below...

Now go to the right of where you found the lasersight and see the eye in the ceiling. You can jump through the ceiling wall and pull up, push a block and climb out to emerge where you got your first two gems. While you are here you may want to use your next four hands to exchange them into Gem #3 and Gem #4. Retrace your steps to where you killed the sharks and notice that a fire on one of the ledges above has gone out. So jump your way up there to where the fire was.

From this tile jump into the hole in the North-West direction. Then sideflip to the right to the next higher ledge and jump up and grab, shimmy a little left and pull in even higher. Walk to the left, pull up into the next opening on the left then turn, hang grab and shimmy to the left, around the corner until you see a small opening right at your feet. Pull up and do a backflip with twist and grab to make it to the other side. Drop and grab again and pull up into the next room. Go through the eye texture and keep jumping after every eye you pass and you will end up right in front of Hand #10 - so pick it up. Next is the monkey swing to the left with yet another little trick. Go as far as you can go and when you drop keep action and up pressed and even though it is a slope, Lara will (sometimes) jump and pull up the block. Kill the two demigods in the room behind this for Hand #11and Hand #12, which of course you will use right away to open the door. (You could waste another hand here for a big medi if you need it, although it is not even a secret). Now make the very same trip again and shimmy a little further this time until you are opposite another hand in a crawlspace. This is a jump that seems to be impossible as you hit the ceiling on the backflip, but you can use a few tricks here. Press the crawl key, action and up and Lara will stand up on the slope, kind of 'caught' there in mid air. Now press the right key and do the backflip twist, drop, grab, pull in and pick up Hand #13. Getting down is equally tricky. Crawl over the red eye and drop grab sort of in between the two floor tiles and you will drop deep down but when you keep action pressed Lara will still grab the edge below. Phew! Shimmy to the left and pull up on the ice and make your way down safely.

8. And now for the really challenging bits...

Make your way to the 'shark place' and jump up to the previously burning tile and onwards to the 'X'-ledge in the general direction of the window door above. You can now run jump and grab across to the right side of the bluish ledge between the white ones (on the East wall). Very tricky but can be done [I am told - as I did not make it yet - still trying...]. Step on the white tile on the right and time a running jump with grab above the sloped white ice ledge to the one right behind it in front of the hand receptacle. Also a bit tricky but not so hard to do. Place the hand to open the window door. Now grab the edge pull up and slide and jump across and make another jump to the previously burning tile. Jump from there into the hole to the left (as before) and make the sideflip upwards and pull up as you did before. This time don't go left but turn and jump across to the white ice block (flat corner tile) and from here you can reach the open window with yet another tricky jump. Here is how I did it: Stand sort of in the middle of the North West triangular corner. Face the North East corner. Make a simple jump forward to that triangular corner and hit the jump and left key and you can make it into the window. Pick up Hand #14 and Hand #15 and make your way down to the ground.

Thought this was hard - well there's more: Jump through the eye ceiling tile again and make your way up the two ladders and pull up. At this highest point you can crawl through a narrow crawlspace and around the corner you reach a short slide (you could also get here by backfliping from below but it is a tiny bit easier to manage the jump from up there). Again this is very tricky. Make a slide jump with left turn to get through the opening on the left. Once you get through do not slide but immediately jump again with a turn to the right (just keep both buttons pressed) and you can make it to flat ground near a small medipack. Pick it up and time a comparably easy jump to the crawlspace ahead and pull up to find in there Hand #16. To the right you would be able to go back up to the 'spaceship' but there are spikes, so turn left, climb a block and make your way back to where you picked up the medipack. From here you can now drop down to a triangular slope in the corner and jump through (!) the wall and land in a two square room. From the other square you can jump out to a larger flat area and drop down safely from there ledge by ledge.

9. Unfinished business above ground...

Go to the 'shark area' yet again and towards the long ladder on the left side (West). Angle a running jump towards the peak corner of the triangular slope, keep the jump key pressed and steer to the right. If you get it right you will flip back and forth between the two triangular ledges (one with the eye texture). So keep steering right to make it into the safe opening. Ignore the ladder which is really just there for looks and instead jump with grab to the white high ice ledge opposite the ladder. Turn to the left and jump up to the next ledge from which you can reach the lever above which opens the trapdoor at the top which will bring you back out. Two jumps back down the same way to the white ledge and then two easy jumps upwards and a third one to the triangular ledge in the corner and emerge in the 'spaceship' area.

Two things to do here. First deal with the demigod. Climb up where you emerged on the brown block, ice ledge and next brown block. From there use the crossbow with lasersight and kill the demigod (make sure he does not die on one of the tiles with a current as you won't be able to pick up the gem then). Repeat the trip to and through the pool picking up the Gem #5 that the demigod left for you along the way and emerge in the 'greenhouse'. Make your way down to the red mummies and blast them away and pick up Hand #17.

10. The End...

Go back down now like you did before, as you should have everything you need. Place all the items in their receptacles (three gems, two hands) and the double door opens. Look down to see another eye tile. Above it is an invisble ledge which helps you to jump across safely. Pick up the Guardian Key, which next to the two spare hands you still have is your prize and exit the level through the door - waving good-bye to the dragons and giving the approaching ahmet a big hug.

Secrets registered: 5.


Edit: Want to just make it through the level and don't bother to collect everything?
I would probably recommend you go for the following Hands as per above walkthrough:
#2, #3, #4, #5, #7, #8, #9, #13
Six of those can then be changed into the three required gems and with those and the other two you can exit the level.

APPENDIX:

The following notes were submitted by Robin Burgess (E means "there is" or "there are"):

Section 1:

(Some notes about certain bits - a bit disjointed, I’m afraid [1st section, espec.])
The 1st ‘jump series’ in starting cavern (made more difficult bec E no time to ‘look round’: all ‘looking’ or assessing must come in the intervals while Lara is jumping & dying! - or the few places where one can ‘hang’) - For me there were 5 jumps involved (achieved only after approx. 50-60 attempts [this is how hard this is!], prob. b of jumps from the starting position, with the rest from ‘interim’ save attempts):

(1) Immed. ‘control’ is given to us by the computer (no delay whatsoever, so fingers on appropriate keys as game is loading from title screen) sideflip to the left (you land on ‘block A’ [identified by the ‘half- circle’ symbol], where E a ‘hot’ lava slope forward left, so a left jump next is ‘fatal’). (2) Immed. jump forward with a v.slight ‘nudge’ to the right (cannot sideflip from block A as have landed on a slight slope & Lara is ‘adjusting’ her position - any delay is fatal (land on the next block down, ‘block B’).

(3) Immed. sideflip to the right (w/o the slight nudge right, the boulder that lands on block A would catch us - as we are in the air, we see the boulder that hits block A just miss us. We need to land on a flat ‘circle’ sq ‘C’ (we’ll land on the RH side) such that we don’t have any ‘adjusting’ to do, yet fairly near the back of the sq. (Ducking here won’t prevent another boulder from hitting us.)

It is at this point that the walkthrough says that we can (with a little adjustment to the left) sideflip left onto what I think must have been block A (as block B has a further hazard - see next para). I could never quite make this jump. Nor could I reach block B with a direct sideflip - I always fell just short. I always found that any ‘adjustment’ meant that the next ‘central’ boulder hit ‘my Lara’!

So for me: (4) The next tricky bit is to ‘run round’ in a v.tight LH curve (all on the ‘circle’ sq C), so that we can jump back (jumping forward) to the LH side of the great slope. We are trying to land back on block B (block A is too high up?), but if we cannot take avoiding action, a new boulder runs down the ‘hot’ lava slope ahead, onto us. We need, therefore, to land at the extreme RH (‘down’) edge of block B, so that (5), we can immed. sideflip to the left to land back on block A, when we are at last safe. [Relief; pat on back.] (Confirmatory music is heard. This has all taken only 9 seconds!)

Note: E a ‘circle’ symbol on one ‘sloping’ sq. If we go onto this (with the intention of sliding down to the same ‘circle C’ sq we have been on before, & then safety dropping to the slopes & passages below) a check shows that the boulders that have lined up in the passage below - where we have to monkey swing over them, but then avoid them when we hit the next ‘circle’ pressure pad below - all roll forward out of harm’s way in that passage. This sloping ‘circle’ sq ‘clears that path’ for us.

[E one boulder still above, which is triggered when we hit the flat ‘circle’ sq en route to the ladder on the far (RH) wall. It, also, will be swept ‘out of the way’ below if we have been onto that sloping ‘circle’ pressure pad sq.] The walkthrough says here that we can ‘shimmy back across to the higher ledge’. I don’t understand this, but we can use the wall ladder to climb to the right, to reach the highest ledge in this cavern. Note, when we reach the top: (a) that E 3 vertical ‘ladder’ sqs side by side in the roof (when look down the slope), (b) that if we try to R&J across the top of the slope that the camera stays behind Lara - suggesting significance? & (c) that E a hole top left, above the 2 further ‘circle’ sqs we can see.

After many attempts, we discover that it is possible to R&J to a stable sq @ the top left of this cavern, by the 2 high LH ‘circle’ symbol sqs. From the furthest forward block here, we can J&C to the LH-most of the 3 vertical ‘ladder’ sqs [see (a) above], & we could then backflip from the ‘ladder’ onto the same stable sq we reached with the R&J across the slope. This would suggest that if we could have reached this ladder by a different means (the walkthrough’s ‘shimmy’?) then this would have been the next move. I cannot find another way (to shimmy?) across this cavern, either above the slopes or near these ‘ladder’ sqs.

Section 3 - in the pool room:

The v.difficult ‘corner to corner jump’ can be done a different way, but I think it’s probably even more difficult! - although I still haven’t yet been able to do it the ‘walkthrough’ way! The first important point is that the horizontal spikes mustn’t be deployed. (So don’t go onto the ledge that triggers them.) It is possible (after a very large number of attempts!) to reach the ‘target block’ by doing the following: the lighter coloured paths in the pool indicate that provided Lara is not ‘wading’ (we can jump up in the air to stop this happening where the water is sufficiently shallow), she can run ‘normally’ - even sprint.

From halfway along the path from the switch (that we’re going to use for the timed run), we can run fwd, jump to the tiny triangular path section that is ahead & slightly to the right, and then continue the ‘running jump’ theme by running round to the right and taking a 2nd jump that curves to the left, to grab hold of the ‘target block’. (nb. It is v.difficult to do this w/o hitting a deeper section of water somewhere!)
The ‘mummies’ room: much easier than it seemed. Going along the RH side of the main area, then found that if Lara hangs off the far end & we wait for the flame to go off, we can hoist up, go to the lever, pull it, & back off to hang again, then shimmy a little to left, & leave the room just as easily.

Section 4:

(Dealt with the 2 white screaming wyverns first.) I like the way that often when you have achieved something v.difficult, you are given some ‘confirmatory’ music - such as after you have at last managed that ‘impossible’ backflip & jump forward to catch the mini-ladder (another 60-70 attempts!) to get you up on the first bit of v.high ice, then started the shimmy to the right. (And also the jump over the ice hill to the long ledge & then also after the difficult curving jump and cling, to reach the translucent ‘hand’ platform suspended in mid-air. [The ‘secret’ sound for that, as for the ‘Great and Cool’ message.])

Note: After retrieving the 4th ‘hand’, on the ledge that we tried for a long time(!) to reach directly from the paved area (jumping over the highest point, using the slope above the paved area to boost the jump, curving to the right, ETC!!), E a quicker & much less irksome way to reach the ground, if you don’t mind losing half your health in one go. From the ledge, face the paved area/‘spaceship’? & jump forward, to the left a bit, so as to land on one of the sloping edges of the latter. We can then slide down to catch hold of one of the (several) horizontal edges, then shimmy a bit to the right.

E a raised section on the ground below. If we can position Lara directly above the v.highest point, then we can drop with only half the health-bar’s loss. (Miss the centre-most point by just a little, & the amount of health loss increases sharply. It is probably worth doing the jump again - espec. since E so many[!] jumps we have to re-try in this game! - so we can reach the very centre.) This means that (although the ‘confirmatory’ music in one place on the slope of the ‘spaceship’ suggests that we are intended to repeat the earlier trek) we don’t need to try (interminably!) to jump for that ‘mini-ladder’ again, to shimmy round to the ‘translucent’ platform, with its accompanying difficult jumps.

Once on the ground, we can climb up to the block from which we can attempt the ‘curving right RJ&C’, to reach the 5th ‘hand’. This is yet another jump that seems unnecessarily difficult. What it means is that when we succeed at such a jump (with its odd [illogical?] ‘hoist up action’ at the end), we v.quickly save, as we cannot be sure we would ever be able to do this jump a 2nd time. [nb. Did manage it a 2nd time!] (The same was true for the very opening jump sequence, the jump to the ‘spiked block’ in the pool room, & the backflip [or forward & somersault - both were tried endlessly!] to the ‘mini-ladder’.) The long swim, the ‘mummies room’ & even the pool room’s timed run were [almost!] ‘straightforward’ by comparison!

Section 5:

It seems that E another way to the vast underground cavern: we can go to the smaller hole, @ the corner of the central paved area. We cannot cross the spike trap in the room below (I cannot, anyway!) but if we go onto the 2nd corner block (the first is where we drop down) from the direction of the spike trap (for some reason it has to be from this direction?), then suddenly we drop through a vertical space ‘into’ the cavern - ‘half an inch’ is lost on the health bar [sorry about the non-metric measurement, but in this case it is exactly ½ an inch!]. (This is similar to the ‘eye transporter’ idea, but E no eye in this case. This doesn’t seem to always ‘work’, moreover. If we ‘hoist up’ onto the block, it seems to work most times, whereas only sometimes by jumping onto the block. Odd.)

The energetic ‘end of game music’? from TR4 then plays as the 2 floating hammerhead sharks(!) appear. They seem to get stuck in the scenery quite easily, though, so they can be easy to deal with. The location we drop down to seems to be where E several ramps all in a kind of circle, pointed towards a central sq of ‘snow’. (This is fairly new to me at this stage of the game, but I imagine this is a fairly well-known spot. Further investigation, in fact, shows that the spot we drop down to on the ‘floor’ some distance below is indeed directly below the block from which we fell, in the room that is below the ‘spaceship’. In fact, the structure to our right when we drop down by the ‘regular’ route is the outside of this same room. Ah. I see that when I reach the spot we ‘drop down’ to, the sharks are triggered at this same point.)

Going down ...
I don’t understand the directions in the walkthro’ once we have reached the top of the ‘structure below’ (ignoring most of the alternative route above).
But we can easily reach the place to use the 1st 4 ‘hands’ (called ‘red coins’ in my version, btw) by sliding forwards or backwards down the slope nearest the LH ice wall (assuming we are facing the same direction as when we dropped through the hole above). This slide means we drop neatly directly onto a block below, next to a sloping ‘hot’ face. From here we can R&J into the opening opposite, then make our way to the ‘4 hands’ location. (No twisting, grabbing etc is necessary at all. I have noticed E a place where you can drop & shimmy right some way, but to no avail.)

Section 6:

The EX XB bolts aren’t needed for the skeletors. We can jump to the block at the right in the next room, & use the laser-sighted XB to zap their heads with ‘normal’ XB bolts (one each only is needed - seems a bit mean, but ....), when they start running round like the proverbial headless ....! We can also zap the ‘guardian’ type by staying v.close to him, & constantly shoot at him while changing position - it takes a bit of time with the pistols, but perhaps is worth being able to save those EX XB bolts for an emergency.

(nb.1 From picking up hand 8, we can make the jump & hoist up to the ‘V’ of the triangular window easier by a J&C to the ‘V’ while a short distance away, & then using ‘crouch’ to hoist up. nb.2 We could have reached the room with the ‘guardian in the vase’ & also the room above that, leading to the 3 sets of XB bolts, through a crawling gap from near where we encounter the sharks. We could therefore have had the EX XB bolts earlier, though we must also use the elevator, as we need the moveable block above. In fact, if we had reached the ‘middle height’ [‘shark level’] from when we first dropped down from above by a different route - possible at the far end of the structure that we drop to, where we can avoid activating the sharks - then we could theoretically reach the EX XB bolts before all of these enemies.)

Section 7:

Ordinary XB bolts used against the 2 skeletors guarding gems 3 & 4. Noticeable that they can make the leap right across their lava pit, despite the low roof (which we cannot), until they become ‘headless’, when such a leap tends to result in the ‘lava dive’ that we’re more used to making! A word of congrats at this point, for this walkthrough, & all those who have contributed. E much, it seems to me, that would be almost impossible to work out: tiny holes to find & get through, obscure routes to follow, plus the many v.difficult jumps. With a fast loading time, I’ve been able to re-try jumps 50+ times, if needed. Knowing they are possible helps a lot, but how did the ‘pioneers’ in this game manage to keep their sanity? W/o the walkthro’, I would have spent months on this game, it seems to me, had I wanted to find everything.

In the room where we meet the first of (what I understand will be) a series of ‘eyes’, E another of those ‘ordinary’-looking corner blocks that we can hoist up to, that proves to be a ‘trapdoor’. Suddenly we are falling some distance vertically, & this time we can land on a slope/slide that takes us straight to another ‘eye in the wall’, but this one leads immed. to a flame trap. (The whole is a kind of hidden booby trap for the unwary.) Interesting how we can look in advance through at least the 1st of the ‘eyes’, to see that a slope is next. Ah. I see: many slopes & eyes(!), & with a spike trap at the bottom.

Ah. I jumped (with ‘cling’) at each slope, & after about ‘4 eyes’ (in-joke for those who wear specs [me too]) I suddenly found ‘my Lara’ embedded in a blue block with a ‘hand’ on top of it - with brief music suggesting I had ‘succeeded’ in something. Turning round, I see a great deal of ‘blackness’. In fact almost everything disappears at one point & I have a ‘distant’ Lara, with only the blue block & the ‘hand’, which I cannot pick up. And I cannot extricate my Lara at all. Yes, the 4th ‘eye on a slope’. Next time, all is well, & though I’m ‘in’ the block again, I can pick up the ‘hand’ & I can see the rest of the room.

Ah. I see at the end of the monkey swing, we have to do that ‘immed. hoist up from the v.top of a slope’, trick. (Seen the legs of the waiting ‘guardian’!) Ah. Lovely: 2 guardians! (Firing bits of ‘Lara leg’, I see! - a forum note somewhere [from Titak] said: “Also make sure you have the "bubbles" object in your WAD. Otherwise the demigods will be shooting Lara-parts at her. LOL.” - whatever this means; I guess a builder would understand!) For each guardian, it takes 7 EX XB bolts to cause their demise (more than we have) though in a confined space all 7 EX bolts may be counted against both guardians, so we may have 3 left.
[nb. wanted to use these later, so good they weren’t used here.]

Assuming that this is just like another puzzle to be solved, 4 normal XB bolts seem to be equivalent to 1 EX XB bolt, in these circumstances, it would seem (so we don’t have quite enough of just those, either). Alternatively, have found that it will take almost exactly 400 pistol shots (i.e. firing 200 times) to zap them both! So bearing in mind that this designer has been taking liberties with ‘normal’ TR procedure with several of his ‘demands’, it seems reasonable to turn the tables, a bit, if we can!

With this in mind, I found that if I can race from the ‘spikes above’, after the monkey swing, out into the room (where you would be targetted by both guardians if you stood still! [a ‘Lara life’ of about 4 secs?!]), & then circle round - running & jumping - anti-clockwise, in order to reach the corner nearest the ‘hand receptor’ for the LMP room, then the nearer of the 2 guardians will attempt to target Lara in that corner, but can be persuaded to become ‘hung up’ there, such that his energy bolts (‘Lara legs’!) are shot into the wall rather than at Lara. If we move out just one step from the wall, then Lara’s pistols will target this guardian while she is not targetted! We can then race to the lower floor, where E one corner that Lara can stand in, just by the 2nd guardian, where we can similarly fire (upwards) at him, w/o being hit at all!
This shooting the 2 guardians with pistols, w/o reply (if careful), goes a little way towards redressing the balance, methinks! (If we collected the LMP here, sacrificing a ‘hand’ at this point, then we have spent the entire ‘climb/long shimmy/sloping eyes/spikes/2 guardians’ journey [having picked up the 2 gems earlier] merely for this net ‘gain’. [Did we get good value for money?!] If we didn’t use the ‘hand’, then we have one more hand - and in fact only the one at this moment - in our knapsack.)

So deliberate use of the ‘bugs’ in the system are to be permitted in TR games, eh? (The 2nd backflip.) Hmm! Phew indeed at that long drop after hand 13! (I hung from the edge of the ‘eye’ tile - having crawled to the right onto it - & then I ‘automatically’ dropped that great distance: no need for a ‘release’ at all. Seems ‘fair enough’ this time, I think: we know now that ‘eye’ tiles are used for transporting in various ways; this is a v.neat ‘different’ example. Warning if E a ‘red’ Japanese symbol by an eye tile?)

Section 8:

For the jump that ‘someone’ hasn’t done yet, I think the important thing, on the ‘jumping from’ platform ‘X’, is to be right next to the RH slope with Lara’s right foot, but not to touch it at all while doing the RJ&C. I also found that it doesn’t have to be the extreme RH edge that is caught - a smidgeon in to the left of the ‘target’ block is also possible. With the jump into the opened window for hands 14 & 15, it is possible to use the ‘SJ-R&J’ technique as in the walkthrough: start on the triangular corner that we jumped to from the ‘blue ice’ a moment ago, then hop over the intervening icy rise, then take the 2nd ‘continuous’ jump, as stated, pressing the left cursor at the same time to curve into the opening.

An alternative method is to be on the nearest triangular platform to the window to start with, & then do a little counter-clockwise run on it, before leaping for the window (possibly needing a ‘cling’ to avoid the ‘head-banging’). NEXT BIT [We can also reach the 2 ladders by the pushable block from the ‘shark’ area, thus not needing to go down to the ground & up again. Just timed them both - E about 6 seconds in it!]

Now, the actual jump, past the ladders, where we are supposed to slide down the 1st slope & curve left through the small LH opening. I find it hard to know exactly how far from the LH wall to stand, whether to jump to the slope, R&J at it or just slide down it, and at exactly what point should I jump? Should I take my finger off the ‘jump’ button until I have (theoretically) made the jump (then be ready for further jumps, acc. to the walkthrough) or should I keep my finger on the ‘jump’ button while I’m curving left?

After about 100+ attempts at this w/o success, I decided to actually count from then on! At attempt 212 after this point (next day), I suddenly went through the gap, but was so astonished that I forgot all about the need to jump again, & just slid all the way down to the ground below! At attempt 500 I decided to have a break. At attempt 700 I decided to have another break, partly to encourage my index finger, punching that left cursor, to heal & partly hoping that I’m not doing permanent damage to my keyboard.

While doing this, I reflected: now does this game embody what we really desire from a TR custom level? Do we find the moving to areas that we can hardly reach, by jumps that are ‘trying’, to put it generously, sometimes using moves that are considered ‘illegal’ in TR etiquette & gameplay, that anywhere else we would call by their name, ‘bugs’, to find ‘hands’ that we cannot readily see, an enriching experience? We have been warned by the author that this game’s difficulty is classified as ‘very hard’. 750 attempts: still not done the jump, & time to abandon the problem as ‘pointless’ & ‘move on’. (So approx. 900 in total.)

Section 9:

Towards the long ladder, then. Took a ‘mere’ 30 attempts to get this next jump right, to the ‘sideways’ pyramid, then ‘bounce’ a few times, angling to the right, to reach the opening. An alternative to the walkthrough: we can then use the ladder itself, here, jumping or climbing across to the LH side of it, to then backflip-somersault off, to cling to the white platform that is our target. Reaching the ‘lever’ room, we find that 2 of the 3 blocks - one being the lever block itself - have this ‘booby-trap’ problem, where if we hoist up to them (not jump onto them) then they result in a vertical drop to the ‘shark’ level below. (E no ‘eye’ to warn us here; & no visible trapdoor through which we drop.)

In addition, we can press ‘action’ & ‘up’ next to one wall in this room, which - if it works - normally in TR initiates a jump to catch hold of something above. (If it doesn’t work, then either E nothing to catch hold of(!), or the ledge above has a slide down beyond it, so the program doesn’t allow us to ‘accidentally’ jump up - we have to ‘want’ to hoist up to such a ledge [a good ‘safety’ feature]. {E also the occasions, eg in TR1 ‘Caves’, when only this action will enable certain ledges to be reached.}) Here, the action does ‘work’, but when Lara jumps, she won’t catch hold of what is an obvious ledge that runs round part of the room. (The inconsistency continues.) [The room on the other side of this wall is the room we could drop down to from the upper ‘spaceship’ level, long ago in section 5, in the centre of the floor arena.]

Sections 9 & 10:

Having dealt with everything ‘above ground’ (guardian for his gem [7 EX XB bolts] & ‘mummies’ for their ‘hand’ [1 EX bolt] - we can pull one of the 3 levers to raise the helpful platform near the ‘exit’ gate & also the ‘mummies’ gate, to reach both), from the ‘greenhouse’ we can return to the ‘spaceship’. Now, rather than try (endlessly!) to repeat the jump for the tiny mini-ladder (which I’ve only achieved once in the entire game), E another route down to the ground, that utilises part of the earlier ‘2nd route’ (so again, half a health bar will be lost - so we need to make sure we are not more than half a health bar down!).

From the exit opening from the greenhouse, if we go to the right, past the mini-ladder, we can stand about a sq away from ‘sharp’ horizontal ‘point’, as it touches the outer wall with its slope on top. We can jump up to either of these slopes & ‘bounce’ from one to the other, provided we stay ‘within the bounds’ of the narrower slope. If we twist in the air at some point so that we are facing ‘inboard’, then it is possible to clear the outer wall’s slope on the backflip if we hit exactly the right point on the highest part of the ‘inward’ slope. (We could also leap forward over this ‘cusp’, but only a v.long drop awaits should we do so! We cannot, try as we might, cling successfully to the jutting out ledge on the far side.)

Once we have cleared the top of the ridge, we then need to drop & cling to the lower horizontal slope that represents the outermost ‘edge’ of the ‘spaceship’. We can now shimmy to the right, to reach the same point as previously, directly above the centre of a raised section of ground below. If we have hit the exact centre, then ‘only’ half a health bar loss will result [‘top up’ as dropping if necessary!]. (nb. We don’t want the first ‘pyramid’ below, that is almost beneath us as we reach the horizontal edge, as that is both too small & therefore too low down, and also has the inherent risk of causing us to fall through the nearby hole!) From here, we can proceed to the lower ground, & w/o too much trouble, finish the game.

2 hands ‘spare’, through not having swapped the LMP for one of them, despite not managing that LH jump from the slope through the tiny gap. 2 EX XB bolts left, & 15 normal ones, also [+ 10 poison XB bolts - what are they for?!]. Just the one SMP used. Computer time: between 40 and 45 mins, as sliding down the final slope, but of course, I missed that ‘LH jump’. (nb. I shan’t be playing any more ‘very difficult’ levels!)