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BtB2006 - The Quest by Anya

Anurag 7 9 3 4
Bojrkraider 5 4 2 3
CC 6 5 4 5
DJ Full 5 7 4 3
Dutchy 4 5 5 5
eRIC 5 7 3 3
eTux 3 4 3 3
Gerty 3 4 5 5
Jay 4 6 5 5
JesseG 3 3 3 4
Jorge22 4 4 3 5
Jose 3 6 3 2
Kristina 5 5 5 5
manarch2 2 3 3 3
MichaelP 6 5 5 5
Mman 3 2 2 3
Monika 8 7 6 7
Moonpooka 6 6 5 5
nerdfury 2 6 2 2
Obig 6 6 6 5
Orbit Dream 3 5 4 3
Oxy 7 6 5 5
Phil 7 7 7 7
rjb 5 6 6 5
Ryan 3 4 3 3
Sash 4 5 5 4
Selene 4 6 5 3
Staticon 6 6 6 6
Sutekh 3 5 4 4
Treeble 3 4 4 4
Whistle 5 6 6 6
 
release date: 01-Jan-2006
# of downloads: 262

average rating: 4.58
review count: 31
 
review this level

file size: 37.01 MB
file type: TR4
class: Oriental
 


author profile(s):
email(s):
anya_marie@excite.com

Reviewer's comments
"The worst BtB, not just of 2006 but of all time (rank 233/233 for now). I hoped I'll disagree but nope. The good thing is after 15 min you learn it so invisible edges, unmarked ladders, useless switches and zero hints pull your brain on another level, and, twice more cautious, you can beat it. Only because of that, gameplay is average and not awful. Apage!" - DJ Full (22-Nov-2024)
"Another entry from BTB2006 that I didn't finish, but this time it was my own volition. This is a challenging adventure to complete, but not for the right reasons. It will be difficult to complete without the walkthrough due to a plethora of unmarked climbable walls, poorly marked death tiles, no camera cues for the 54 doors to open (yes, 54 – I counted via fexinspect), randomly booby-trapped switches, and the heavy amounts of backtracking that the player may not realize must be done. Add on top of that the visual glitches (portal issues and paper thin walls), consistently flat lighting, and the copy-pasted boxy, wallpapered rooms and it is hard to stay engaged with this level. The one moment that I enjoyed was the green serpent floor puzzle. There is another floor puzzle where blue = safe and red = danger, except not really – some red tiles are in fact safe, causing me to miss what I thought was another booby-trap of a switch. By the time I came across the corresponding closed gate much later in the adventure (second gate in the third to last paragraph in the walkthrough), I was too tired to consider heading back, so I stopped playing at 59 minutes." - JesseG (08-Jul-2022)
"(2) Gameplay & Puzzles: This level was extremely frustrating and arduous to complete, however, I promised myself I would play and review all of BTB2006. There are a ridiculous amount of levers to pull, unmarked walls to climb, and backtracking/confusion due to the total lack of camera guidance when a lever is pulled. I enjoyed a puzzle involving green dragon tiles on the floor, with the fatal tiles being rotated in a different direction. Unfortunately this same puzzle is repeated later in the game, and dull, repetitive actions are the name of the game here. (6) Enemies, Objects & Secrets: The builder did put effort into setting up enemies, used a variety of traps, and added object decor to some rooms. No secrets, unfortunately. (2) Atmosphere, Sound & Cameras: There wasn't much effort into creating an immersive experience. There were NO cameras at all, which means pulling lots of levers with no clue as to what gate was opened. (2) Lighting & Textures: This was a mess; oftentimes a room would have the same texture for ceiling, walls and floors. Ladder textures would be used all over the floors, and most frustrating of all, many climbable walls would have no ladder texture or visual indicator that they were climbable. Many rooms had no lighting at all, and then you'd see hallways with random black shadow blobs. Overall, this was a very unpleasant adventure, gameplay-wise and aesthetically. It's a debut, yes, but in my opinion it is a debut with very little effort and care, and I have marked accordingly. I believe that any new builder who RTFM (and took some effort to apply some basic concepts learned in the manual) would do a lot better than this. 2/6/2/2." - nerdfury (29-Dec-2020)
"This is probably the least entertaining entry into this contest and it just became an exercise in tedium after a while. The gameplay revolves around little more than pushing countless levers (I counted at least 50, but there could have well been more than that) then requiring you to retrace your steps through blandly textured corridors and rooms in order to find the door that opened up. The few traps that are around don't do much to lift the experience and while there are a couple of safe/unsafe tile puzzles, one is only vaguely hinted at and the other ever so slightly more so. The enemies and object placement are quite nicely done, but the overall architecture, texturing and lighting wasn't very well done. I did like how you get back to the start to end the level though. Not a very entertaining experience, if I may say so." - Ryan (09-Apr-2018)
"Since I decided to play the BtB '06 levels from the lowest to the highest rated, this was my first pick. I should have known better judging from the ratings, but indeed this this deservedly the lowest rated BtB level ever. At times I felt like there is zero passion in the design and it seems like the builder only wanted to release something for the competition, no matter of its quality, sorry to say so. The main problem of this level is that it's way too long and especially huge. All tasks in this level would have been bearable in, say, 5 to 10 minutes but in a game as long as this (at 50 minutes it is actually the longest(!) game in the whole competition) it's simply not enough to maintain interest to the very end - I just was glad when it finally ended. Even the few traps are only a sensation rather than a challenge, you can actually swim over the underwater ones, for example, and using dozens and dozens of levers - indeed the amount of floor levers could be a record - is just painful and not attractive at all, I guess it wasn't even fun to design this level. At least the visual design is not totally messed up, while there's no really good looking room the looks aren't messy at least and the object and texture choice is okay, of course bearing all the wallpapered, very boring and similar looking areas and almost complete lack of lighting. In one area Lara could even stand on water, things like this are really avoidable. All in all this was more a torture than a nice start into the BtB competition but at least I liked how you're led back to the start for the ending. Oh well, at least something. No secrets to find here." - manarch2 (19-Mar-2015)
"This is very obviously a beginner level, and I wonder if the designer has even read the TRLE manual in this case. Textures are borderline random and with very little attempt at variety at all, non-ambient lighting is almost non- existent in most areas and objects are placed with little coherence at all. When it comes to the unmarked ladders it almost makes me wonder if the author just didn't know how to texture specific walls rather than being a intentional way to deceive the player. There are a couple of areas that almost look good (and could with a little more lighting and texture-work), but everything else is very dull.
The vast majority of the Gameplay involves either random switch pulling or attempts to be "cute", such as a deadly pool with an unmarked safe tile, the hidden ladders, and weird dead-end that gets blocked by a boulder if you run into it. There are a couple of nice ideas like the use of crushing walls and puzzles where you walk over safe-tiles, but, beyond a few simple traps, these are pretty much the only two ways things are mixed up, and even they end up repetitive by the end as a result. If this wasn't part of the BTB contest I probably wouldn't have bothered past the first couple of areas, and there was little later on to change that bad first impression." - Mman (06-Jan-2012)
"This level is also not bad, but it is maybe not as good as the others in the project. If it would appeare separated from the BtB project it would get higher rankings, but this way, among the others, it is the weakest link. Sometimes the many levers we had to use made me nervous. There is no help for passing though the room with fiery floortiles, you have to figure it out by trying and trying. At the end, in the room with the many levers, I opened the last grating and went on to the stacked room, but since the grating there was closed, I had to go back all the way. :) The enemies are people with staffs, and snakes. We have a lot of weapons against them. There are other obstacles too: swinging blades, spiky walls and rolling rocks. We have to push small statues, and what I really liked, there are no ladders, so we have to find the climbable parts of the walls. At some places, the textures were a little bit bare, and I didn't feel that eastern feeling. I couldn't find any secrets, although I already had the shotgun, the UZI, the revolver and the grenade gun too, only the crossbow was missing, and I only found ammo for it. Though I suggest it to everybody; it was an easy adventure. You can find a Hungarian walkthrough (as we don't have English version), savegames and pictures here: http://treditor.hu/16/btb2006_10_the_quest.htm" - Obig (01-Mar-2006)
"It's a simple level but with many jumps and even more levers to find which isn't to my liking. As a beginner the builder has made some of the usual mistakes but the overall setting is not that terrible. Some cameras would have been really helpful because I got frustrated at some point and all that didn't let me enjoy this game. Also the many unmarked climbing walls were one of the things I didn't like and I had to resort to the walkthrough because of one to be able to proceed. I think the builder needs to pay more attention to some of the basics and then try again." - Kristina (25-Feb-2006)
"What a torture! When BtB was released I promised myself that I'd must play all the levels and review them, but in this case I was at the edge to break this promise; and moreover with a level so long. This is the kind of levels I never finish, when I'm about 15 or 20 minutes playing I always abandone and delete all files. This kind of levels seem me very tedious and bored, only pull switches to open doors; the only puzzles I found were in the room with the green double dragon tiles oriented in N/S or E/W directions and a similar puzzle near the very end, and no more! It seems that this author is fighting for the last position of the competition: climbable walls without appropriate texture, square and rectangle rooms textured with the commands "texture walls", "texture floor", "texture ceiling" (I think), no cameras, no sounds, wafer thin walls, untextured tiles,... Sorry if I've offend somebody, but I never liked this kind of levels." - Jose (21-Feb-2006)
"Even though this is actually a fast paced level of about 50 minutes and quite solidly built, it does show that this is a debut level built under a bit of time pressure for the competition. It probably has the most floor levers ever encountered in any custom adventure and this is where the biggest weakness is: repetition. You push lever after lever to open door after door and only sometimes you will have to stop and think a little (looking at hints in floor textures) or in order to time your jump past a series of squish blocks, swim through slicer dicers or escape rolling balls. Also most annoying are unmarked climbable walls (although they are hinted at by natural progression), generally very simplistic texturing and total lack of lighting, camera and audio. But the overall room architecture is interesting, good ideas are there and I liked how you end up where you started. A promising debut, so hope to see a more refined piece of work from the author soon." - MichaelP (19-Feb-2006)
"As everyone else I too assume this is a first-time work. As much as I have to credit the builder for giving it a go this just didn't hit it home with me. Ok, so there was a lack of sound, but this is something I've seen in far more than one BtB level so far so I could live without that. The enemies are a bit too many, snakes in nearly every pool(and in many cases they come slithering up through the floor) and loads of ninjas, often coming in flocks of two or more. The only thing that to me made this seem like an oriental level was the occasional lanterns hanging around the place. Otherwise there were large and almost empty rooms and seemingly neverending empty hallways. For the next level, PLEASE try to spice it up with some variety. All those seemingly endless repetetive textures in so to say every single room nearly gave me a headache and I'm sorry if this seems cruel, but if it wasn't for the fact that I'm determined to get through ALL the BtB levels I would have binned this one after 15 minutes. And as everyone else has mentioned there was an overwhelming abundancy of levers....why, you'd find one(or a dozen) in nearly every single room). Sure, they open gates, but for the next time please place some camera shots telling you where to find those open gates. If it hadn't been for the splendid walkthrough I'd never find my way out of this place and I am honestly glad I did. There were no secrets to pick up, loads of medipacks that I didn't need and so to say every weapon in the book(I even found pistol ammo in one pool and as Lara already has an unlimited amount of these there was no point in placing them there in the first place). There were also some traps, mainly underwater stargates, boulders and spiked walls that Lara could sprint straight through unharmed. And finally, as everyone has mentioned, unmarked ladders and traps are a huge NO NO. It gets really irritating having to save the game every step you take to make your way across a HUGE room and die about a cazillion times trying. A general lack of atmosphere and the feeling of running around in a box also draws down the level. I'm sorry, I really wish I could give this level a chance and recommend it, but I just can't. Hopefully the next work of this builder will be a bit more thought through, contain more variety in every way and be thoroughly tested before the release." - Selene (10-Feb-2006)
"This level has all the hallmarks of a 'first attempt' level judging by the vast quantity of levers and doors strewn about the place, the climbable walls that were indistinguishable from non-climbable, the bright ambient lighting throughout and, perhaps most infuriating, no cameras to show what gates a lever has just opened. I could probably live without the long corridors but some of the rooms had a naive charm about them - playing this level took me back to my early days with the level editor. :-) Having said that, I got completely stuck on my first attempt. I must have missed a lever somewhere but, even after a couple of hours searching, I could not find which one and, no matter how much nostalgia for the old days had been invoked, I had to admit defeat that time. I had another go once the walkthrough came out and, this time, success. Despite the 'first attempt' feel, some of the rooms in this level were quite nicely designed which, I feel, shows promise of some fair to good levels in future from this author." - Staticon (06-Feb-2006)
"I made it 53 levers, but not difficult to lose count! Some interesting ideas near the start: parts only of the water were deadly, we were able to climb on the stones that made up the walls of one of a couple of huge, impressive rooms, and as we ran down one enclosed ramp, suddenly the sandstone walls made it seem VERY much as though we were inside a pyramid - a score for 'atmosphere' alone might have been 8. At the end there were some nice complexities and colourful touches and there were one or two 'moments' in the middle of the journey (to differentiate safe/unsafe squares variously orientated tiles, eg). And it was good to have enough flares. After lever no. 10 or so, rarely knowing what using a particular lever had done (unless it was in the same room), I realised that there was rather a lot of 'sameness', though. From there on (20% of the journey), I went through various emotions, mainly negative unfortunately & began to see why this level has such a 'bad press'. I don't think I minded the vast array of levers (though batches of 3 & 4 in the same place could surely have been replaced by one), but I found extremely frustrating the constant lack of information as to what I was doing most of the time. As others have said, I don't recall a single camera shot to inform, reassure, direct us. This was disappointing. (I think) I could cope with the many levers, the rather similar passages, the relatively low use of 'pretty' items to make areas more attractive, but, especially when the number of possible ways to go multiplied, the lack of cameras (even if we thought we had retained a map in our heads) meant it was almost inevitable we'd make wrong choices, through being uninformed. The v.high, sloping pillars room, with the cubes to move further up and the colourful end areas were an impressive contrast to much of what had gone before, & showed what could have been done. My 'thorough exploring' time was 1hr 45min. Second time, somewhere I missed a lever, which meant a later gate with another lever didn't open, but it wasn't until MUCH later that I discovered the gate that the second lever hadn't opened. Eventually I 'bit the bullet' & went back, so I my 'fast as possible, pick up everything' time was 29 mins. It is possible to go through the game and suffer no health loss." - rjb (04-Feb-2006)
"I'm sadly finding it hard to think of many things, or even any things, that I liked about this level. What I didn't like was the monotonous lever pushing of which there are many, the unmarked climbing walls, the inane use of movable objects, the bland texturing, and the lack of any secrets. If I was pushed to find a couple of things I did enjoy they would probably have to be how the author made the whole environment, which consisted of lots of hallways and rooms, interact with itself, and that I was stumped a couple of times which means it wasn't a total breeze to get through, but I suppose if there had been a couple of cameras this may not have occurred. In the end I applaud the author for getting this level out there in the allotted building time but it just didn't gel with me." - Sash (02-Feb-2006)
"This has to be one of the new builders. Not one of the old timers would even attempt to put unmarked climbable walls in a level. Not at this stage anyway, after all that has been said about them over the years. The almost hilarious part of this is that, once you've discovered your third or fourth unmarked wall you start looking up, and if something is 'up there', chances are the wall is climbable to get to it. I just hope this doesn't start a new trend. The author seems to have a fixation for levers, with a big question as to whether some of them actually did anything, given that there was not one camera shot attached to them. Then there's the wallpaper effect on these vast walls, flickering, missing and stretched textures, strange lighting, invisible walls, old TR sounds, boxy square rooms, and wrong animations at times. And on to the objects; plant leaves going through stones and blocks, the slaming spike walls crashing through each other, and weird ones going through the walls in a small corridor. Enemies are the now usual oriental thugs and snakes. I laughed as one snake came up through a walkway and 'swam' on it, really handy for me to shoot it unmolested. And I stared at the screen as Lara climbed up a pole, and then it vanished! Well, despite the 1001 levers (there was one pulldown switch, lol). Ok, ok, there were only 47. Still, there were some good moments. Rare, I grant you, but good none the less. I did like the waves in the water . . . but in a calm room! I liked that red room, perhaps the most truely oriental looking room in the level. And I liked that boulder slide. Whoohoo! What a blast! The level is huge. At least, it seemed to be. This might have been an illusion though, as we run through these enormous rooms lots of times. I used sprint a lot to get from A to B. We do actually find a ruby, so I guess that is idea behind this 'quest'. And that yin/yang and gems we saw at the start, we run towards at the end. This gives the impression that we certaintly have been running around in circles . . . I mean squares. Lara certainly needs to summon up all her 'nintai' in this one. If there was an award for courage (or cheek!) then this author has top marks from me. I'd like to think that this is the first of many and much more improved levels to come, as it's obvious there's a good imagination at work here. So, let's see what happens." - CC (01-Feb-2006)
"(That's not exactly a review, more a recording of what was going through my mind while I was playing this.) I'm speachless! What a level! How to lose your mind in three steps? Boot the Tomb raider level editor, run The quest, play The quest. It worked for me, I started laughing like crazy in about 5 minutes. According to the readme the level is set in a village in the mountains, quite good, but the outside areas are a bit blocky in my opinion. And there are no marked climbable walls! I had to add a point to the gameplay for this, I had to explore every pixel of the walls - if you don't know what to do with your time, that's a perfect level for you. There's also a lot of switches and doors and you rarely know what you did, lol! That really adds to the fun factor. Because, you know, this level is quite small, you just have to find the right corridor and the right opened door. To make everything easier only two textures were used for the corridors. That certainly adds one more point for the texturing part. I really had fun with a boulder that chases Lara all the way down those slopes, but don't be afraid, just run straight and wait at the end of the corridor, the boulder stops right in front of your nose. Then you can easily jump out from it. Well, everybody talked about that red room, but you know what is the most interesting about it? It has an unmarked climbable wall which in fact isn't climbable, lol. And the best part of this level is when after all that switching business you reach the end an then you say: "Oh, look, I'm at the start". :) At the end you'll see it wasn't so bad after all, but rating it too high wouldn't be fair to the other wonderful levels that are out there. I must say, the author has a sense of humour and I can't say I wasn't entertained while playing. This level has a good side effect: You really start to appreciate your life. Forget that part about loosing your mind, it was a joke. It should be: Do you feel bad today, depressed, play The quest it will help you to understand what you really have. ;) Time: 1/02/39. Difficulty: something between easy and nightmare. Lighting: none, occasionally shadows and one special room that actually has lighting work. Gameplay type: joke, shooter, explore. Tech skills: learning." - Bojrkraider (30-Jan-2006)
"Though I'm not as upset about the level and passionate over that opinion as some other reviewers seem to be, I can honestly say I didn't like it a lot. Gameplay is limited to very few elements - killing enemies, activating countless switches, doing some "path finding" (as I've baptised them) puzzles, where you have to find a way among burner tiles and getting past the occasional moving wall trap. Oh, and there were some boulder traps - the one with the long slopes was actually rather exciting. The most amazing aspect of this is that the author found a way to drag this into a little below an hour lasting level, thus meaning that all of the elements reappear time after time making this a highly repetitive experience - this is one of the levels which is harmed greatly by a longer duration. Had it been half as long, things would have been... well - half as bad. As it was, it seemed kind of obvious that this was done to drag out the time one would have to spend here - at least that's the impression that was made. But I don't think that that entirely was the pitfall of this level. That's what the unmarked deadly water areas and climbable walls were for here - I can only think of 2 reasons for these - either they were deliberately put to confuse the players, or the author was too lazy to find the fitting texture, and guessed the players would figure it out for themselves. But uneventful gameplay usually can be excused if the level at least looks good - but it won't be the case of this level either. As in other aspects of the level - the key word here is "repetitive", as that's what the texturing was - the rooms seemed to be textured with the same texture mostly, and save for the so called "red rooms" which were actually quite nice, due to this the level hardly can be called eye-candy. I know it's easy for me judge, and that this might sound quite disheartening for the author of the level, but along the way I noticed rooms that resembled to those from the tutorial level, which means that the author had gone through it to some point. So the only thing I can recommend is to not be put down if this first effort (well, I'm assuming this is a first effort) didn't get the acceptance that was expected and just go through the tutorial level/manual more thoroughly again on the next time and you'll be fine with your following offerings. Everyone has to start somewhere. And hey - this at least had a finish trigger!" - eTux (28-Jan-2006)
"OK here we go as I didn't like this level. There are textures missing, paperthin wall, climbable walls all over the place with no indication whatsoever, a lever galore, no camera at all and I saw also in some areas no water animation. Need I say more.... ? If this is by a so called beginner builder, go back to the drawing board as this is indeed kind of boring. On the other hand I would say don't give up, you only can get better at it. 09-01-2006" - Gerty (27-Jan-2006)
"I will start with an assumption-this was written by a novice. However it must be reviewed by the same standards as the rest of the level, so here goes. The game play was both frustrating and easy. Frustrating in that the use of none discernable climbable walls was used far too often, and easy as all you really had to do was push some 40-50 switches, some of which seemed to do nothing-here a few flyby hints would have help in the enjoyment of the level. The enemies were the usual for the bTOM-baddies and snakes, but could have been used more effectively in the sightings. Pickups often were unnecessary-why you should need the revolver, crossbow and even more so the Grenade Gun was beyond me. The walls/floors were often paper thin, and the over use of the same texture amounted to more boredom, if not criminal. Lighting etc was just about adequate. I hope the author is not to discouraged reading this but it had to be compared with the other levels in BtB2006" - Whistle (24-Jan-2006)
"Repeated textures, absence of flybys & cameras, normal textures used at climbable walls & heck load of levers & enemies, & lots & lots of medipacks; by all of it I can conclude that this is the author's 1st level & a pretty good one too except for the textures & cameras. Gameplay is fairly ok." - Anurag (23-Jan-2006)
"I've played the level, I've read the reviews, and I think that many of the remarks are a bit insensitive, if not downright vicious and unkind. Yes, this bears all the earmarks of a first level; yes, it has a plethora of levers to push; and yes, it's somewhat drab and monotonous in places, but it has some nice touches along the way that I felt made for some interesting gameplay. And any level that takes Val a whole hour to play can't be all that bad. Yoav has written the walkthrough for this one, and his theory is that the level gets its name from all those floor levers you've got to hunt down and push. And he even missed one, in that dark room where you find the Symbol (that, come to think of it, I don't recall having placed anywhere). Still don't know what what particular lever did, if anything. Anyway, this level obviously isn't going to win the competition, but if it's indeed a first effort, it's better than anything I could have done." - Phil (20-Jan-2006)
"I'm totally dumbfounded by this one and quite peeved, if I might add. After fifteen minutes or so playing this, and a bunch of wtf moments, I had the strong feeling to be visiting one gigantic maze where the keyword is "unmarked". Unmarked climbable walls, unmarked traps, unmarked deadly water... and so on. If that is a stylistic choice from the builder, my advice to him/her would be: read more reviews. And see how the overuse of "unmarked" is appreciated in the player's community. So here we have a big confusing place, full with doors and levers (counted fifty of them, no less, so be prepared for a pushing levers feast). There aren't any camera shots coming with said levers - which eventually doesn't matter: just push them all and see what happens (be prepared for a lot of backtracking, though). Added to that, the many corridors look very much the same so I soon felt lost and confused, silently begging for anyone, anything to get me out of this. If it weren't for my willing to play all the levels of the series, I'd have binned it without a blink. But I'm a committed type person, so I decided to drink my cup to the last drop, hoping I'd find something positive on my way to the end. Finally found one room with nicely marked trapped tiles. So there. And even this trick was used again on a couple of occasions. Enemies are Chinese thugs and snakes, the latter being found in almost every pools and sometimes popping out of nowhere. In the visual department, the rooms are often too large, and often with the very same texture applied and the lighting is very very flat to the point it's sometimes hard to tell the wall from the floor. Added to that I found numerous glitches and even bugs at some point (including a tile that looked like terra firma being in fact water while the next one looking like water was terra firma. Unless it's one more of those unmarked things). I finished this level leaving some unfinished business behind (such as closed doors). And last, with the exception of a couple of rooms, I didn't see anything Oriental there. I really wish I could have written a nicer and more positive review, but there are so many flaws that it isn't possible. I apologize to the builder for that, but I'm begging him/her to have his/her levels more thoroughly tested in the future and to think a bit more about a less repetitive gameplay." - Sutekh (18-Jan-2006)
"I think it's fairly obvious that this is the work of an inexperienced builder as it really isn't up to the standards of the other levels that I've played in this series so far. The gameplay doesn't progress much beyond lever pulling mode, most of the scenery is less than attractive and I still maintain that unmarked climbing textures are naughty, naughty, naughty. Considering how many entries there are in this excellent series, I honestly have to say you'd be better picking one of the others." - Jay (18-Jan-2006)
"Kudos to the Builder for creating something visually different to the other BtoB levels - gone are the temples,trees,rocks and waterfalls,and that's no bad thing. Unfortunately,what replaces them are long,drab,labyrinthine and identical-looking corridors;massive empty rooms;wallpaper texturing of the same 4 textures;unmarked climable walls in profusion,and Gameplay which consists solely of pushing seemingly a hundred levers with not a single camera hint anywhere. The sheer predictability becomes quite soul-destroying after a while and leads the player into hoping that the next room will contain the Finish Trigger. Alas,the level plays out for something in the region of 75 minutes before this blessed event,and even then it's meaningless as the Trigger is placed at a seemingly arbitrary point. For a first effort it's not badly put together (and I encourage the builder to continue creating)but a beta-tester of wise judgement is needed for the next endeavour in order to avoid comparisons with Fabio's "England Prison",which comes across as a model of breathless excitement by comparison." - Orbit Dream (16-Jan-2006)
"Maybe a first attempt to levelbuilding with the usual suspects: absence of lighting, repetitive texturing and a few design mistakes. This was a lever feast and I suspect some of them to be quite useless. There are not only levers to find, but also 3 or 4 rooms with deadly floor puzzles. I enjoyed some good ideas along the way like the underwater pathway in the first toxic pool. About the unmarked ladders, they can be spotted once you get used to the gameplay and they make some sense in the huge tower with the sliding doors puzzle. I don't remember a great use of audio tracks and no camera either, which can turn this quest into a brain-teaser. On the opposite, there is a good placement of thugs and snakes, and enough pickups to deal with them, the author is kind enough to provide the explosive weapons in due time to blow out those enemies. All in all, apart from some lacks, this one hour level has no real bugs and was entertaining for me the time I played it." - eRIC (16-Jan-2006)
"This must have been the worst level I played, not only in this series, but overall. A constant pulling of levers (not less that 47) no cameras. Climbable walls aren't marked as such and running through endless straight and boring passages. Everything textured with"texture walls/floors/ceiling" from the room editor. Happy to leave that one behind me, this builder must have been going for the "Worst level" reward willingly... Well I think he/she succeeded..." - Dutchy (14-Jan-2006)
"I can't believe it, but I made it through the level. It was a bit irritating that Lara had to push so many switches and never knew what happened. Enemies were water snakes and thugs. In parts the texture is rather monotone grey. Then again are there very colourful areas with flowers. In parts I enjoyed the game and then again I got a bit frustrated, because e.g. climbable walls were not obvious. But once I got the idea when to expect one it was all right. In the end it would have been nice if Lara could have picked up the reward for all this searching. I found no secret." - Monika (14-Jan-2006)
"To be honest, I'll admit I have only played through this level for the sake of all the competitions running along with this BtB challenge. I was taking some notes along as I played this one specific level, after reading a few posts at the stuck thread I figured it was an amateur work - probably even a first try - and it surely plays as one. To start with, we are presented with lots of large rooms textured with one or two different textures, the wallpaper look and the lack of some lighting effects didn't help either. Then, all of those flat rooms designed in a grid-based way have a lot of unmarked climbable walls, near the end this got specially annoying for you have to climb a sandy shaft, playing Spider Lara. And there was at least one wafer thin wall and towards the end there's quite a mess in a room with solid-not-so-solid water and wafer grounds. Now that I'm over and done with designing problems, let's move over to the objects. Quite a number of enemies will simply pop into thin air, making the dubious atmosphere even more unbelievable; LEVERS, LEVERS, LEVERS and LEVERS (this also summarizes the gameplay of this level); a boulder stopped halfway through in one of the slopes (wonder if even the author has played her own level, as a floating ball in the middle of the hall WOULD bother anyone, especially if she designed an additional two squares room to where the boulder should go to, but nevermind. Also, with all those LEVERS (37 I heard on the forums, but the feeling is that you have pushed well over one hundred of them), not even one will give you a camera shot. This was perfect, running in circles like a headless chicken trying to figure out what wall try climbing up to eventually reach an open door we haven't been before to push another LEVER to repeat the process all over. Tedious. Also, there was at least one 'puzzle' that really got me puzzled. What's the point of having half of a pool with instant death, while the other half doesn't and prove to be the way to an essential LEVER to progress further in the level? This is getting rather lenghty so I'll just stop here, but if you think I overused writing LEVER in a single review, I guarantee you will come across at least three times the number of LEVERS in this review. 70 minutes. 01/06" - Treeble (13-Jan-2006)
"This was most obviously built by a begginer. The sandy/marble stretched textures, the long climbs along unmarked walls, the total lack of puzzles, the totally absurd number of levers (somebody said 47 but I'm betting it must have been 470), the immensity of rooms and corridors, the omnipresent TR4 sounds, etc., etc., etc. show it clearly - I think and I hope. To sum it up, it was a tad boring but I armed myself with a lot of patience and finished. One more mission in Lara's backpack, no matter what. Of course, I believe that maybe I should thank the author for taking his/her time to build us a level for this Back to Basics challenge. Only, taking into account how proficient other levels were, I simply must downrate The Quest. My excuses." - Jorge22 (11-Jan-2006)
"This took me just over an hour to play, and to be honest I was glad to get out of it. This is just not my type of Raiding as it involved no effort other than big empty rooms with millions of levers to use; miss one and you're left roaming back endlessly through the level trying to suss out which one you may have forgotten, or just not found. I also think the textures were slightly lazy, all rooms were one click of the LE texture floor, ceiling button etc so it all looked so bland and lifeless. Another issue I have here is the non marked climbable walls, there were quite a few of them, and many long climbs to do, yet nothing was marked and it was a case of just trying all walls to get the right place, not good IMO. There are long vent type passages to navigate, and one artefact to collect from an inner room. At the end Lara arrives in a room with both Ying Yang and gems but the level ends before she retrieves them. Enemies are Ninjas and snakes, and I found no secrets and there are no puzzles; just a few object moves from A to B. As I say, this is not my sort of level and there were way too many levers. There's nothing much to look at and game play was tedious except for the slope room at the end because I always enjoy a good bounce around. All in all, a good try from the builder, but some things really do need to be addressed for future levels." - Moonpooka (09-Jan-2006)
"Lara's task is to retrieve the artefacts (said in the read me). On this journey I took my patience and persistence with me. In game are many corridor-mazes, a lot of switches, unmarked climbable walls (don't forget to look up :-) ), not well marked poisonous floor and with very simple architecture. Game is suitable also for beginners. Enemies are men with stick, snakes in water and water blades. They are placed well and in deep pools not easy to kill. But in game are enough weapons (I didn't use them at all, except the pistols) and medi packs, so no worries here. I think game was designed mostly for playing and not to look the environment, though the cave with monkeys, where you pick up the Quest item, was lovely and comfortable and also the red-orange room is designed well (perfect lighting in my opinion), so there is seen the builder has full potential to build beautiful game. I also liked the room with cattails and flowers (and switches - what else :-) ) , lovely. I picked up all flares but I didn't need them, except in the beginning, so there is no need to spare with them. Lights are also placed well in room with switches and doors. Here they gives you some dark atmosphere to rest your eyes. Running through corridors to find switches wasn't really my kind of fun, but as I said before, I met here the persistence and game just kept me going, no matter what. :-) Look everywhere, some switches needs you to turn around to see them. :-)))) My patience was rewarded seing the red-orange room and also the moments, when Lara was chased by two rolling balls, were quite enjoyable. I was disappointed about the cameras, I really think there aren't any and also textures on some areas gave wallpaper effect. I didn't see many objects either - except the grass. :-) I didn't really picked up the artefacts, game ended before, so the end is left to one's own resources -, maybe it's the place, where the beginning actually meets the end and, so the artefacts are still hidden on their place (except the Quest Item itself)." - Oxy (09-Jan-2006)