Werse on 1/6/2004 at 00:46
Wanta see something really cool in Shalebridge?
[spoiler]
Look at the painting of Lauryl just before you clean the blood up, then look at it right after. Lauryl vanished from the painting, and now all you see in the painting is a chair. Cool eh?[/spoiler]
shadowseeker777 on 1/6/2004 at 01:32
yeah, i noticed that too, that was a nice touch on their part. at first the whole mission was like - what's the point of me being here, but then it all came together.
and if you want to know what to bring. lots of flashbombs and holy water, oh yeah, and a pair of clean underwear.
radioman on 1/6/2004 at 03:20
In all my years of playing computer games I have never had a moment of such pure hair-on-the-neck terror as when I [SPOILER]got to the top of the stairs and the banging on the door started.[/SPOILER] It was like an electric shock up my spine. I said to myself, "You don't need this (insert bad word here) tonight," and I watched a Korean love story instead. [SPOILER]And this is still the relative beginning of the level, I'm assuming.[/SPOILER] Good stuff, as Johnny Carson used to say.
Buho on 1/6/2004 at 04:21
ROFL, Radioman!
I love reading everyone's reactions here. Tip for those who haven't gotten to this level, stop reading now! You're just spoiling it, and I see you peeking under the blue spoiler tags!!! Stop it!
Here's my recount, from another thread:
I am SERIOUSLY creeped out. It's 2:30 in the morning and I'm afraid to call it quits and go to sleep. Beautiful setup, starting with the exterior, and how little details on the roof catch your fancy and make you look twice. Once inside, it's just plain eerie with dead silence, extremely dark, no shadows, and nothing living (so you think). The cold, spidery wraught ironwork is perfect.
I went through my first change of underwear when I thought heard a few quick clomps on steel, and I find a steel walkway 20 feet from where I heard it. Then the thumps in the attic!
I went through my second pair of underwear immediately in the 2nd half when I caught a fleeting glimpse of a sillouette of a person running past a light on the other side of the reception desk.
And one more notable moment. Lights are flickering. Yeah, bad electrical connections. Nice atmosphere, I think. I pick a door, open it, and while surveying the new hallway, this thing turns a corner into it, facing me. We both jump in surprise, and as repulsion registers somewhere in my brain at what I'm looking at, it starts barreling down on me. Instinctively, I shut the door right on it squishing it as it's coming through, and I run a long ways away and hide in the deepest shadow for about 8 minutes while I'm leaning back in my chair nursing my heart back to normal.
When I eventually returned, it was gone.
-----
I've got some questions, after completing it, tho.
[spoiler]What ARE those things? At first, I only saw one and that seriously freaked me out, like it's a ghost of a torture victim. But when I found more, I just don't know what they are. Multiple torture victims from some experimental treatment? And in the Past, what are the black shapes? They seem to look and act like employees. Did the Present creatures used to be employees? If they're employees, where are the tennents?[/spoiler]
shadowseeker777 on 1/6/2004 at 05:01
this is a spoiler
the black silhouetted characters are the asylum staff.
the caged faced jittery striped clothed wearing zombies are the asylum patients.
it's hard to understand why you can see and interact with asylum patients when everything has been burned downed. but this mission is so mind-boggling I don't think the human brain can fully understand how the Cradle operates - because apparently it's alive and it choses what to have present. What I gather is that those patients aren't literally there but they're memories of the Cradle, but they're such personal memories that they are manifested in real life. (Have you seen the movie Sphere? If you haven't don't read on ... but think of it like in that movie, whatever the Cradle remembers, it is manifested. At least that's how I see it.)
Bramble on 1/6/2004 at 05:08
Quote Posted by Buho
I've got some questions, after completing it, tho.
[spoiler]What
ARE those things? At first, I only saw one and that seriously freaked me out, like it's a ghost of a torture victim. But when I found more, I just don't know what they are.
Multiple torture victims from some experimental treatment? And in the Past, what are the black shapes? They seem to look and act like employees. Did the Present creatures used to be employees? If they're employees, where are the tennents?[/spoiler]
The "things" are the insane inmates that were committed to the asylum. As you may have noticed from the writings left around, there were eight inmates, as such there were eight "things" in the present asylum. You might have noticed they were doing crazy things, like King No One pounding or scratching on the floor in the Shock Treatment room, the narcoleptic patient wandering around the morgue, like the doctors said he liked to, or the one up in the observatory, who smeared blood on the faces of the portraits, and put gemstones in where there eyes should be.
When you go into the past, those other, indescript men walking around are the members of the staff who ran the asylum/orphanage, the employees and doctors, in other words.
Ishtvan on 1/6/2004 at 08:50
[SPOILER]As a side note, most people probably know this already, but don't enter the past in the flesh (by going into the cage) until you have gotten all the special loot you need, since you can't get it in the past. Fortunately I saved right before entering the cage and didn't save over, since I thought that might happen, but it still is kind've bad that you can get stuck with no way of completing the mission.[/SPOILER]
Jason Moyer on 1/6/2004 at 10:34
Quote Posted by Ishtvan
[SPOILER]As a side note, most people probably know this already, but don't enter the past in the flesh (by going into the cage) until you have gotten all the special loot you need, since you can't get it in the past. Fortunately I saved right before entering the cage and didn't save over, since I thought that might happen, but it still is kind've bad that you can get stuck with no way of completing the mission.[/SPOILER]
[spoiler]you can return to the present by entering the cage again.[/spoiler]
Kaleid on 1/6/2004 at 10:36
Some improvements that could've been made:
Asylum workers and patients could have been more varied. Some fat, some women...
When in the past: Would have liked to see crying babies not being taken care of, the doctors giving "treatments" to the patients, patients locked into their cells. Some just sitting completely silent, doing nothing, others walk in circles moaning, speaking backwards and perhaps one patient tied to the bed?
To not just read about it or be told by Lauryl. To actually witness the horrors that has happened inside the building.
Lauryl's footsteps and voice are way too loud.
____
Still, it was a fantastic mission.
Nupraptor on 1/6/2004 at 10:38
Yes, that's the only thing: I was expecting to go into the past and see the asylum pristine and bustling with activity. But I suppose that would have taken much more time to accomplish. Perhaps the Cradle chooses how it wishes to appear; It always remembers itself in its current state.
