null on 22/1/2005 at 03:51

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As someone else aptly points out -- Thief has had a long history of (shall we say) a 'hybrid' architectural style.

I always pictured the Cradle as some sort of ultra-modernist attempt at reform that went utterly, irrevocably wrong. The architect, and the institution's progenitors were well ahead of their time, but their efforts were eventually made so perverse that they're probably all spinning in their graves.

Sky on 25/2/2005 at 20:12

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It`s been a while since I played the Shale Bridge Cradle, but wanted to post my experience with it.

After I readed a couple of post about Robbing the Cradle, I couldn`t wait to buy this Thief game, and played all day long to get to the Shale Bridge Cradle.

When I finally made it to...Shale Bridge Cradle, and saw how the place looked I though all ready this can be a scary lvl. The moment I entered the basement from the building, I though that I could get jumped any moment by some thing, it was really nerfing me up.

So I was running and crouching, and waiting in dark corners when I had to cross big rooms in case some thing would jump me on my back. Then the moment came that I could turn the power on, at that moment I was expecting hell, since I read some thing about it, that the fun will start then.

Then I came in the room where you can go up stairs and where you heard someone walking and bounching. Damm...I though do I have to go up stairs, didn`t had a clue what would happend. So I waited in case someone just walk down. In the mean time I was looking at the main hall, and saw that the front door was closed, and though by my self...mann this is what a real haunted house will look, I just could imagine it...great work Null.

Then it was time to go to the first room where the bounching came from. I stop in front of that door, quickly open it...and run to a dark spot, with my back to the wall, where I waited for 5 min. In the end nothing happend, I walk slowly in to that room, and found out that nothing was there...awesome, I really though someone was coming out to rip my head of my body... nice work. :cheeky:

Then I was crouching and running from room to room...and then went up stairs...and when I was by the room by the attic...I heard a bounch on the door...that scared the hell out of me. I run as fast as I could all the way down stairs...waited in a dark corner with my back agains the wall...and was waiting what was coming. That was the most scary part of this whole Shale Bridge lvl for me...damm. I though by my self...nothing should happend when I open that door and suddenly a bounching so hard...I have seen a lot of horror movie played a lot of spooky games...but this never happend to me...was again great work from...null :cheeky:

I walk up stairs found the ghostly girl...what didnt was scary at all...and after a while I realize there where no enemys in this stage.

Then I enter the second part of the Cradle...and have to say the only freeking part about those patients was, when they notice you and run to you...or that you turn around and suddenly they are trying to rob you from your llife. Or what sucks was lock picking a door...and the only thing that you heard where scary noises...and you though I hope no patient is coming to me while I am locking picking this door. So the moment I lock pick a door...I was crouching and running again to dark spots, and waited some times. In case someone was coming.

But most of the time...they where easy meat to me...heheh. I had full stock of every thing...and killed them all expected 1, cause that was not necoseery. When I play thief lvl`s I kill every thing that pass my way...well all most. So that way I just can walk all the time...relax through all those building incase I miss some thing. :cheeky:. So i just flash bang the patients and shoot fire arrows at them.

The last part of the cradle was piece of cake, just sneaking past those guards and run like hell to that window.


I have to say those noises the zombies made at the ship, where all so creepy, it was so anoying to hear that, it just worked on my nerfs, but they where easy kill, so that make it a lot easyer to walk in to that Ghost ship. :cheeky:. If Null had inplanted those zombie sound from the...ghost ship in to those psycopatic patiens, then it was a real dam freaky place to walk. Those patients and then the same zombies sound of that ship...brrrr. The sound of those Enforcers are all so the same...nasty mother fuckers are they. :cheeky:

Funny part is that Shale Bridge is the only lvl where I found 100% loot, I just wasnt even after it. At the end screen I saw 100%
But in the end...it was the most scary lvl I ever played in a video game, and since the Shale Bridge Cradle, since when you are playing it`s all ways intense, I could now imagine how it really could be if you are really in a haunted house where such things happend.

Never that I ever will enter a haunted mansion after I played the Gradle.

Once in a while I load the lvl and just look for 5 min or so, but even I know the whole game. The Cradle has a real spooky enviroment, and those sounds. I never can use to it. Especially when I load the lvl up, in the middle of the night when I`m all alone. I never had such enviroment in a game. :cheeky:



Nulll...I hope someone will give you the funds and time to build a complte game with 21 lvl`s or so with the same experience as Shale Bridge. I think a lot of people will freak out. And im going to buy it for sure. Great and awesome lvl Null :thumb:


Greets Sky

SneaksieDave on 1/3/2005 at 22:06

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I hereby resurrect thee!

So I play slow; sue me.

I just finished the Cradle last night, and I'm stunned. Threads like this exist for a reason, but before now I couldn't even read it. The Cradle sheds an entirely new light on TDS for me, and that's coming from someone who already liked the game. Until I'd played this level, I didn't even know TDS was capable of what it achieves here.

I can't help but wonder - what happened with the Cradle? What went right, and why did it go so right? Why did it turn out to stand head and shoulders above the rest of the game (and I say that with respect toward the other designers)? Was perhaps the Cradle the first mission, and it was decided that too much time was spent on it, so remaining missions had dev time budgeted tigher? Was the Cradle the focal point/seed for the story, and the rest had to be built "around it?" Was the Cradle perhaps the proof of concept for TDS to Eidos?

If I must draw contrast, other missions too often had me focusing on what is missing from TDS. It's not a put-down in any way, just a fact of something I felt. I would be thinking "there should be water there," or, "what I wouldn't do for a rope arrow right now," or "stupid inventory gear thingies..." or "why does everyone use the same animation frames?" In the Cradle, I don't think I thought of anything like that for the entire 4 hours (two times the play length any other TDS mission has taken me) I was there. (Well, perhaps the animation thing - I do have a bone to pick with the art department with regard to the character models :nono: ). On the contrary - the Cradle had me realizing that TDS as a Thief-sim platform is far more capable than I'd originally thought. With the editor's release, I hope more people are seeing that too.

What happened, ex-Ioners? (no, I don't expect a reply) What was the sentiment in the office, of the other missions as compared to the Cradle? Was there any talk of the Cradle overshadowing the other missions? They are good, of course, but the Cradle is in a league of its own - it can't be denied. If not for aesthetic design (some of the other missions were simply beautiful as well), then for pure gameplay. Pure THIEF gameplay, that we've all come to love these past years? Again - that's not an attack on the other work - it's just the Cradle is that much... higher. I would say, in retrospect, that the Cradle is what I hoped for and expected from Thief 3.

Can you imagine if TDS was released with 10-15 Cradle quality-level missions? I'm willing to bet Ion Storm would still be open for business.

The Rogue Wolf on 4/3/2005 at 06:03

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Number 1: The Cradle was conceived by Null. Null is a sadistic evil genius bent on delving into the deepest fears in our subconscious minds. And he cackles when he does it, too. :cheeky:

Number 2: The Cradle strings you along. Having [SPOILER]the entire first section of the map empty[/SPOILER] was sheer genius from an immersive-horror standpoint. Nothing is as frightening as the monster we think is coming for us.

Number 3: The Cradle plays with your perceptions.
[SPOILER]You fear what might be in the darkness, until you turn on the lights- then you fear what might be able to see you. You go into the Cradle's "memory" and take on the persona of one of the very same "patients" you've been hiding from, naked and vulnerable to the "staff".[/SPOILER]
Just as you think you've gotten used to the Cradle, things change.

There's more, but it's late and I'm done typing. ;)

Pitch on 6/3/2005 at 10:03

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Just tell me one thing: the patients in the Cradle lived there several decades before T1-T3 events, right? And in one of the patients file states: "Entry Two: Have decided to allow the monthly dance "recitals" subject performs for the children in the Lobotomy Theater. She uses that old Mechanist viktrola of hers." Where did she get one of those? (Probably just a not very important plot inconsistance, I think)