Keeper Mallinson on 6/6/2005 at 19:29

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Ohh no. I know they take two; but I would swear they got back up. I would just swear... I had a horrible experience in the observatory; and in the operating room. I'll have to play again to make sure. I'll try fire arrows on the suckers once more. Man, they just don't go down easy!

But yes, the cradle is quite manipulative: in the Outer Cradle, your tricking into thinking something's there when it's not (at least, not in the form of something that will attack you); in the Inner Cradle, you're at first tricked into thinking nothing's there, when there is. That is, we all had the experience of walking through the Hall of Records, hearing the vague sound of working clocks - and being horribly wrong. It was interesting for me, because I wasn't immediately corrected (as he was on a route and I was instinctually hiding) and I left the room without seeing anything except for the two notes.

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I also think I figured out the rest of what happened:

The patient who was allowed the tinder box adored King No One. He was manipulative. She started it all, because he decided it would be so. He told her to find an opportunity, knowing she would find a way because she would do anything for him.

So, one night, they forgot to put out her tinder box. She used it to set her cell ablaze. This attracted the guard, whom she was ready for, and she killed him. She then snuck out and freed King No One, who freed the other prisoners, either at that moment or soon thereafter. He then set up the chair near the tower and, using affection as a tool, stroking her vanity, convinced her to set the fire there. He knew they were all having lunch up there, and that in one stroke he could kill most of the staff; the patients could then assume control of the place, hunting down the remaining skeleton staff on duty, the children, and even the more docile of the patients, who wouldn't lend themselves to a brigade. They were champions of the cradle... but the cradle was either alive by now and didn't let them leave, or the city guard got word and barred the doors quickly, either knowing that madmen, or that the undead were in and free and must never be allowed to escape. They starved in there, slowly separating from one another and choosing to take refuge in their favourite places. And so they were when they died. And then it all began.

What say you?

Wynne on 15/6/2005 at 14:49

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And so I come back to Thief, roughly a year after its third installment, to reaffirm what you doubtless already know: the fan base says a resounding and unanimous yes.

Even as much as I enjoyed the Silent Hill series, those games still have not budged Shalebridge from its place in my heart, for a multitude of reasons. Shalebridge truly isn't a level. Shalebridge is the next level.

Null, I don't want to go all gushy on you... and I'm not doing that. I simply, honestly, unflinchingly say, after much time for reflection and for the bloom to come off the rose, this is the absolute best level I have ever played in my entire geeky-gamer-girl life. And I've played at least a hundred games, the large majority of which were quality titles. The original Thief games. System Shock 2. The Gabriel Knight series. The KOTOR games. Half-Life 2. There is no experience like this one. You really put your finger on the gamer's pulse, and it shows. To have been able to do this so well, you MUST be have been a gamer from childhood. It would have been impossible otherwise.

If I'd known how awesome this level was going to be, I'd have paid $90 for it. Just Shalebridge. No flattery. Simple fact. Of course it's impossible to know something like that before you go to the store, but it has been a year, and I assessed the worth to myself downstairs in the kitchen over pineapple pizza (yes, at 9 AM) and independently of this thread, I decided on that. And I'm a cheapskate.

Now, don't get a big head, because that would be distracting, and hence counter-productive to the long-term goal of making me deliriously happy again by designing lots more games. Silent Hill 4 was kinda weak; it didn't make me fall in love with it like its three predecessors did. You could make Silent Hill 5. You don't really need to sleep or anything, do you? Live like a monk. A gaming monk. We'll graft your computer into an outhouse and when you're hungry I'll feed you applesauce--while wearing a gas mask heavily sprayed with Febreze, of course. And whenever you feel uninspired, discouraged, or unsure of where to go, I'll whip you mercilessly until you suddenly find your motivation again.

Ohh, okay, I'll stop with the wacky. But from there I've little place left to go but back to the sentimentality I was trying to avoid. Dude... I totally love you for making a work of art like this.

It even got to somebody like me. ME. Made-of-jade me. Case in point; I went to an event called Field of Screams at Halloween last year. It was so well put-together that out of the twenty-some people with me, I was the only one who did not scream the entire time. You're RIGHT there, and you hear chainsaws buzzing closer and closer in your ear in the dark as the metallic strobe lights flicker when you're shut in the barn on the hayride; it's like a music video from hell. So many screams, so many grasping hands fluttering at your hair and legs as you wander a pitch-black maze, losing track of your friends, emerging into a room where a giant voodoo-esque statue which looks way too damn big to move leaps to its feet and comes crashing after you... but I still did not scream or so much as squeal (though during the night I did gasp a few times). Even the seven-foot tall buff guy among us emptied his lungs of much sound and air. But by the third and final event of the night, I, a little five-one female the same age as him, was ironically leading the way to face whatever surprises might be around the next corner (which astonished the people who know me as so otherwise quiet and Willow-like). I still never screamed, and I have the witnesses to prove it.

In other words, to put it lightly, I'm not that easy to impress when it comes to horror.

Shalebridge still lives in my memory--with more inspired shudders, more indelible malaise than an actual real-life experience did. That's how awesome it is. That's how thoroughly you accomplished what you set out to do.

It's a one-in-a-million chance I'd ever meet you, but if I did, I would so have to give you a hug (unless you have acute physical paranoia or allergies or something) and tell you all over again how much of an impact Shalebridge Cradle has had on me (heck, that goes for numerous other Thief alumni as well, but still). In fact, knowing me, I'd probably get all misty and make an absolute grinning idiot of myself, but at least you'd see how thoroughly I meant what I was saying. Gaming is a beloved lifelong hobby of mine, something I have a passion for, and Shalebridge has crested higher than I ever dared to dream.

But wipe that smirk off your face and get back to work. If you read that whole novella, well, you could've been using all that time to do designer-mojo stuff. The fans will KILL me. And then I'll have to stay here... forever...

Yeah. So that's how I express warmth and appreciation. Lots and lots of babbling and rambling and a few vague, ironic references to the theme of Misery which I swear were not serious! You can stop running, really! And you don't have to change your address, I don't even know what it is! But I hope you know where it comes from, and what all the insane long-windedness is about... trying to express an experience which can't possibly be expressed in words because it has to be lived. Trying to get across how it made me feel, and make all those hours you spent on it seem worthwhile. I mean, dude, I know you got paid, but it still had to be an immense amount of work.

I only wish you could play it from the outside like we all did. I can about guarantee that you'd be blown away. If I were Konami, I would have long since sold my children and blinded all my pet goats to have you on my development team... but then, maybe they realize that if two such forces teamed up, they'd get a few thousand heart attack lawsuits.

Perhaps the world is not ready for that game after all.

Nuth on 15/6/2005 at 20:12

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Scary first time through it, but it loses more than any of the levels in any of the Thiefs from first time to subsequent plays. Agree with Strontium Dog that Lauryl was detrimental to the mood. Good level though.

Fish-face on 16/6/2005 at 12:39

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What I loved was the way you felt the whole game was leading up to it - that little group in black alley discussing it, and so on. This is what makes Thief as a whole great - the way you are fed bits of information realistically, with readables and eavesdropping. It makes the world alive, because you are discovering the information, not being given it.

MorbusG on 16/6/2005 at 17:28

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I must confess when I started shalebridge (my girlfriend and I bought both the xbox version and the pc version, I played on the xbox, and she was a bit ahead of me), I ghosted the whole outside of the building for about one hour. It became obvious to me quite quickly where to go to advance in the level, but I dared not. After the hour of wondering in the outside, I scraped up my courage, and went inside.

I remember I lurked in the shadows until I saw a lone chair on top of some stairs. That was too much for me, and I asked for my girlfriend to finish the level for me.

I've completed games like system shock 2, and other "horror" games, but somehow this was too much. Lonely chair. The beauty of it. Why is it there? Couldn't play no more.