trle.net
Your host for all Tomb Raider Custom Levels ever released!

Levels listed...
TR5 - 31
TR4 - 3137
TR3 - 177
TR2 - 132
TR1 - 60

72240 reviews (20.4/level)
3530 (99.8%) walkthroughs
442 Hall of Fame levels
1217 levels rated >= 8

TR Fan Site

 


The Enchanted Palace (Demo) by Nahomi Chan

bERT 7 9 7 9
DJ Full 5 6 6 6
eRIC 3 4 4 6
John 4 8 8 9
manarch2 2 5 5 5
MichaelP 3 7 8 7
Mulf 2 6 6 4
Orbit Dream 2 4 3 4
Phil 4 4 5 5
Ryan 3 6 6 6
StormChaser 4 9 10 9
tuxraider 5 7 9 8
 
release date: 26-Mar-2022
# of downloads: 128

average rating: 5.71
review count: 12
 
review this level

file size: 74.70 MB
file type: TR4
class: Home
 


author profile(s):
email(s):
n/a

Reviewer's comments
"Ok, the cuteness factor is very high here (pink carpets and doors, a cat, a peach dress and special animations for the playable character and even a unicorn etc) and the atmosphere created is well accomplished via the ambience music choices, including especially the little moment of drama when the bad demons show up. But apart from that premise, this 10 minute demo in a remodeled Lara Home is a bit of a mess with gameplay that borders between non- existent and plainly unfair, in the way it hides the necessary (few) tasks that need to be accomplished. Seems the full version is not forthcoming anyway though - and maybe that is for the better in the end." - MichaelP (08-Feb-2024)
"Had to think of dear Oxy's levels known for her fairy tale levels. Wonderful mansion level but if you have a sugar problem please obstain. The mansion had a colour make over which makes it look like a candy coloured mansion what with cakes and oranges lying around (your health goodies). At first I could not really find anything. When I pushed the star I didn't see anything happening (still haven't found out ending the level). When I pushed buttons I thought the animations were wrong. But I think everything is intentional. Your character first does the right animation but seems to make a jump of joy afterwards. Game play wise it consists of pushing buttons, finding buttons, finding out what the button did, questioning hey is that really a wall. There are some beautiful rooms (with the aquarium with the mermaid, the dinner room with library, ...). Oh yeah, don't tell around I shot the cat. Poor thing follows you around but it worked a little on my nerves mind you, just a tad. Upstairs there's also a spider that follows you around and that does bite you but little b*st*rd can not be killed. Nice fly-by's. It's not perfect (sound issues, the main music is loaded up too hard, better lower it through the options) but all in all, a more than fun level in accordance with main stream fairy tales (beware the wolves people)." - bERT (28-Dec-2022)
"A classic Croft Manor level revamped with resourcepack from The Rainbow Land, which that other level does more aesthetically. There are some basic errors like flickering objects and retriggering animations, I'm also not a fan of door-to-door, spot-the-difference gameplay, but if the author goes less random, the full version should be good. Xmas would be nice to make it for." - DJ Full (20-Sep-2022)
"Mulf's review is longer than my walkthrough, but he captures the essence of this hors d'oeuvre of a raid in much more flowery language than befits my pay grade. Those who have chastised me for comments in earlier reviews should note that I have no basis for complaining about dark and dank surroundings this time. The flares provided at the very beginning may even have been intended by the builder as a sarcastic touch. Large chunks of Lara's mansion are closed off to exploration, making all the backtracking less burdensome than it otherwise would have been. Certain adjustments in the living arrangements have been made as well. For example, the door one might expect to lead to the master bedroom instead takes you upstairs. There are no puzzles or timed runs, although one may be forgiven for concluding that the entire adventure is one big timed run, with the goal of getting through and moving on to the next level in the shortest possible time." - Phil (25-Apr-2022)
"I’d been warned that this demo may be hazardous to people of my disposition and wasn’t going to have a look at it anyway, but being the adventurous type that I am, I resolved to give it a go regardless, nevermind the consequences. What it shares with many or most Home levels is the general layout (that of Lara’s mansion) and the kind of the gameplay you may expect from it. What distinguishes it is that this all too familiar map has been radically refurnished in a style succinctly described by Orbit Dream. I’ll admit out of the gate that this style is utterly alien to me, so I observe the unfolding spectacle as a 19th-century anthropologist would the rites of an unknown tribe, torn between fascination and sheer terror. The perspective of an outsider looking in is, however, only one of the reasons why I came to notice so many little mistakes; the other is the hide-and-seek character of the gameplay. It forces you to scrutinise every wall panel and examine every object for possible interactivity.
Let’s start with the lighting. It’s very bright to begin with (default 128, if not cranked up even higher), and further amplifying it by light bulbs really didn’t do the looks any favours. You essentially play in a plastic dollhouse placed under an array of floodlights while it’s being photographed for an ad campaign. Only a handful of textures were used; they either aren’t seamless or were not seamlessly applied, and nasty cracks occur, as manarch points out, at the stairs in the hall and in the corridor that leads up to the attic. It’s the objects that carry the main burden of visually overwhelming you. In the hall, some of them blink in and out of existence (chandeliers, stacked pillars). Z-fighting occurs with a baroque wall panel overlaid with an Islamic ornament (incidentally something that will satisfy even the most restrictive definitions of kitsch). In the dining room one set of candles was forgotten on the floor under one of the tables and so doesn’t float as all the others do, while in the attic one set of flower pots floats above the ground unlike the rest. Several objects (candles, stacked pillars, tapestries) display missing faces. The seemingly obvious pushable objects in the hall (with handles on all sides) are not interactive. The cat doesn’t meow though it does a corresponding animation, nor does it produce any other sounds. The spider mostly keeps its distance, but occasionally Lara loses some health to it anyway; unlike the cat, it can’t be killed. The blue demon dogs behave and sound just like regular dogs and are hampered by object collision and grey zones, which renders them ineffective as enemies. The mermaid in the aquarium understandably fell prey to cabin fever a long time ago (indicative perhaps of the totalitarian horror inherent in all utopias, including the candy-coloured ones). There’s an invisible block in front of one of the dining room doors. Two switches (the star-shaped one mentioned by Orbit Dream and the click-switch in the dining room) do not seem to have any effect at all. All items are named Load. The game crashes unceremoniously to desktop at the end, filling the folder with ‘Last Crash’ messages.
The Lara stand-in, who is very slim and very white (the word ‘elfin’ springs to mind), has been supplied with additional animations. One of these appears to show the character go from depressive to manic in the space of 64 frames, but it’s probably meant to indicate that she is utterly overwhelmed by how desperately gorgeous it all is (another animation has her literally go down on her knees upon entering a new area). I’d advise the builder against padding himself on the shoulder in such an intrusive manner within the game, but I fear greatly that he intends to hammer the point home further by adding voiceovers to these animations at some point. I’m not sure that the style is sustainable over a full-scale level, since due to the many textures which are translucent or partially transparent (so as to produce that enchanted look), you may experience a noticeable lag in framerate even with the handful of rooms of which this demo consists. Should it nevertheless develop into a level properly speaking, I hope the builder comes up with more and better gameplay ideas than hiding keys and switches and secrets behind pushables or shatterables that both look like pieces of wall." - Mulf (04-Apr-2022)
"Let's hope there will more diverse gameplay in the full game version than finding hidden passages and use of key objects , objects not properly named in the scripts btw. Speaking of objects , there are many here and some of the biggest architectural ones appear/disappear out of sight. The level looks good and clean , i particularly like the room with the long tables. A few more details to note : the animations of the main character (already seen in Rainbow land) do not really fit in the context of the actions, and there was no more background music in my game after a while , even after reloading a save." - eRIC (04-Apr-2022)
"A demo that definitely stands out more for the looks than the gameplay. Lara's mansion (you can't fool me, that's exactly what it is) has been given a refreshing coat of paint and some adorable new objects, and the visuals are rather charming in a way. Unfortunately the gameplay really fell flat and comes across as either obscure or scant. Some of the pushable blocks are far too well hidden, Lara's animations are disruptive, the door-shooting sequence was ridiculously obtuse, camera clues are annoyingly unhelpful and the whole thing just ends at an arbitrary point. Nice to look at overall, but a lot more work is needed to make a truly enjoyable experience." - Ryan (02-Apr-2022)
"Extremely short demo which impresses visually, but not much else. Comically pink and cute isn't really my taste, but I found it very refreshing and unusual in a good way. Maybe that makes it worth looking at, even if most people will complete it in less than half an hour. The game play is very basic, just hunting switches and keys. (I'm rating it 5/10, neither good nor bad.) My hope is that the final game will have more advanced game play, more locations, and at least medium duration. There are also some rough corners (why did the shootable wall reappear when using the key? why is the book called "Load"?), which hopefully will get polished as well." - tuxraider (01-Apr-2022)
"'Happy crazy sunny smiley unicorn cat sugarplum candy house'. That essentially sums up this Demo; which offers a pleasant enough experience for those who enjoy this sort of theme. The animations are intrusive in their incomplete state; camera clues are generally absent (just what exactly did that Star Switch actually do?); lighting is far too bright; some of the gameplay (scant as it is) feels a little odd (having to shoot a shatterable door after it closes behind you; the purpose of the Unicorn). Nonetheless,repeatedly shooting the cute cat and witnessing it's eternal dying animation was rather fun; and the aggressive monsters (and accompanying music) were an entertaining surprise within such a twee fairy-tale environment." - Orbit Dream (31-Mar-2022)
"You can actually not discover what is behind each door, at least not in this demo, but actually I was glad that this level ended soon enough after 9 minutes. Gameplaywise somewhere between obscure and highly uninspired, as there are a lot of buttons and levers to be used to open the next door somewhere else, of course without camera aidance. Nothing else in it actually. The concept of the looks is agreeably interesting with good old Lara's mansion in manga style and some nice objects used but lighting is barely worked upon (except in one or two rooms) and many texturing cracks are visible. There is some raw talent seen in a glimpse of cutscenes (that are not really worked upon though) and animations (that rather tend to be annoying) but there's still much to do before releasing a decent level. Found a non-registering secret." - manarch2 (30-Mar-2022)
"I don't normally play home levels, but this one with its bright colours caught my eye, so I thought I'd take a look. Nicely constructed and the texturing is very good indeed. The rooms are very well decorated, especially the rather superb dining room. Nice custom objects like the cat, the unicorn and the dog like creatures. Great use of music and cameras and the overall atmosphere was interesting and different. It's a bit lacking in game play with only push blocks (which were admittedly very well hidden) and a few things to shoot to progress. Overall a very good demo and it will be interesting to see the full version." - StormChaser (30-Mar-2022)
"Home levels will always be my preference so i do get excited when a new one is released and what struck me the most with this one is the bright and original textures, lighting and objects used here. The little white cat that comes to greet you at the beginning is very cute and i can see why this level is called enchanted because there is a few things like unicorns and mermaids to look at and even some wolf like monsters to defeat. In terms of gameplay i have to remember that this is a demo but i was still disappointed with just the routine of pushing a few blocks to find a key or object to use and then repeat that again. The music was indeed also enchanting and then appropriately adrenaline paced when the beasts appear and the cameras were used well as well but definitely the highlight for me has to be the visuals, lighting and objects because although the gameplay was lacking the few areas you do get to explore (especially the dining room) was very pleasing to the eye. I really do hope the author expands on this demo considerably as it was very short and it needs a lot more varied tasks like maybe platforming, puzzles, traps or timed runs for example but what a good start!" - John (29-Mar-2022)