John P. on 29/7/2004 at 21:43

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Garrett almost tells you were it is(as he talks to himself).

You'll have to pick the locks of all the cells, and walk into them.
I can't remember in which cell the nightgown is exactly.

When you enter one of them[spoiler]Garrrett will say something like "Something weird about those bricks" or "Someone's done a sloppy job placing those bricks" or something like that. At the other end of that cell, there will be a brick wall with loose bricks. Just frob the bricks, and they'll 'magically' disappear. On the wall then will be the nightgown.[/spoiler]

Blue Sky on 30/7/2004 at 00:02

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You mean the nightgown...

*shakes head to clear confusion*

Anyways...



Urm...you haven't read this thread, have you, Gronk?

Null (aka Jorden Thomas) designed the Cradle, and he's been posting in this thread answering questions and telling us about it all. He also cites those others who helped make the Cradle what it is.

Blue Sky :)

Fenriswulf on 31/7/2004 at 06:05

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Wow! Talk about a crap curdling adventure!

Anyone else sneak around the first area, expecting someone to jump out of the shadows at any moment, only to find that that part was empty, and feel somewhat more relieved?

It wasn't the patients who freaked me out, they were easily dispatched, it was what was done in that place, combined with the ambience of the whole thing.

I play Thief in the dark, with headphones jacked into the sound system. I don't think I have ever been so afraid in a video game in my life.

The banging in the attic scared the heck out of me, and [SPOILER]afterwards when you find out that the banging was most likely caused by the memory of the girl who was desperately banging on the door to be let out when the hag came for her[/SPOILER] was a very "aaaaagh... ulp!" moment for me :)

I was so desperate to finish this mission I was so freaked out, I desperately wanted to go back to something where I could be assured of normal human guards patrolling, saying "why won't someone bring me my dinner"... Its cool to see how some of the madness can be incorporated for the player :)

A one thing though;

[SPOILER]How did the King get the wax for the mask? Was it because of his charismatic personality, allowing him to manipulate the staff to give him some?[/SPOILER]

Personally, I would have loved to see a movie "flashback" showing the King organising the other patients to rise up, and see the woman torching the staff area while the King watched. Kind of like a psychic imprint or something.

Loved this mission, and I think its because I've visited a few old prisons on "ghost tours", and seen how horrible it was. The treatments devised border on evil, making me wonder who should rightly be locked up.

One such place is Port Arthur in Tasmania, Australia. It's most recently known for the worst mass murder shooting in Australia, but was a colonial imprisionment for the worst of the worst. They took us through and showed us various parts and places, but the worst part was the Asylum. Specifically designed to break the will of even the most hardened criminal, the cells were set into deep dark recesses of thick stone walls, specifically so no sound could be heard, or light enter. The guards, as an added method of freaking out those who were thrown in there, used to wear soft reeds on thier shoes so they'd make no sound as they patrolled, and were deliberately told not to talk or respond to the cries of the prisoners. They'd also play tricks to further mess with those unfortunates in the cells by scheduling meals with irregularity, so the prisoner wouldn't know whether it was day or night, or how long had actually passed. A few days or weeks in a place like that, and you'd be broken. Many men preferred flogging to the asylum, and some went irrevocably mad and killed themselves because of it.

Except for one man. He was a particularly tough cookie from Ireland, and resented everyone of his British prison officers. Put in the asylum hold for a week to break him because he used derogatory comments about a British wardens mother, and whether he actually knew who his real father was at all, he was expected to succumb like the others. When they opened the door, they found him standing up, not huddled in a corner like others, crying and saying anything to get out. He stood up and looked the same officer in they eye, who asked him whether or not he had learned his lesson and would apologise. He told the officer to do something very improper to his mother, whom he had already had made derogatory comments about before. Without hesitation he was thrown back into the cell, for two weeks this time.

When they came back, they opened the door to find him standing again, and although weak from the small amount of food given him, still unbroken. The same officer asked him if he had learned his lesson this time, probably sure of the guy being broken. The irishman spat in his face a huge gobbet, and just laughed. He laughed as they then threw him back in cell, for a month. And at the end of it, he came out still unbroken. He didn't aggrivate the officer again, and was put back to normal detail.

The other prisoners couldn't believe it. Few could withstand the extreme isolation of the holding cell, not to mention near 2 months of such, with the prisioner antagonising the guards enough to throw them back inside again. Eventually he gave up his secrets. The irishman was a smart cookie, and knew that sitting in a corner, left to your own thoughts and sound isolation would drive you mad. So he made a conscious effort to exercise his mind. He would stand at the end of the long cell and undo a button from his clothing and throw it in the darkness. Then using his hands, he'd slowly search for it, marking and learning each individual tile on the floor. He'd make a game of counting each brick on the walls, each on the floor, and then use mathmatics to calculate how big the place he was in from that, or just use it to entertain himself. He was quite learned, so he'd spend time slowly going through and recalling and revisiting plays he had seen before he was sent to this hellhole, as well as better times. By keeping his mind active, he was able to survive that terrible asylum room. He then, however, had to go back on the chain gang and do horrible amounts of punishing work, but was always laughing at the British guards who were unable to break the will of one stout irishman.

Of course, at the Asylum place, who was the idiot who put his hand up to be put in the cell as a demo? And who nearly had a system shock when everyone snuck off for 10 minutes and left me alone in that cell with the door locked, bolted, and me not being able to hear or see anyone? Yeah, you guessed it :p It took a lot of kissing and making up from my girlfriend to get me to want to talk to her afterwards at our hotel after that.

Ack, sorry for the long story. Game just reminded me of that incident, which made it even more freaky for me :) Good work Null!

Fenriswulf

Blue Sky on 31/7/2004 at 12:09

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Me too. I bought it and watched it last night, and beyond one or two reasonably nice little setpieces, it was absolutely terrible. And it was trying so hard, bless it. I blame the directing, actually. That building SHOULD have been absolutely spooky and terrifying, but nooo...it was all jolly and happy. (Well...)

Blue Sky :)

Palmberg on 4/8/2004 at 13:03

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This level wasnt so creepy, but somehow disturbing.
I wasnt scared but anyway I started to sweat :sweat:
So I... sweatted my way out of this mission as fast as I could, still took a lot of time this level is long!! Too long!! :weird: