JOURNEY INTO

BY KIERON GILLEN BY KIERON THE CRADLE

THE CRADLE DOESN’T HAVE A HISTORY. THIEF: DEADLY SHADOWS ■ Publisher Eidos IT HAS A SCREAM, STRETCHED OUT ■ Developer Ion Storm ■ Review PCG 137 THROUGH TIME. ■ Released 2004

WARNING READ ME FIRST The following pages form a journey into one of the most brilliant and disturbing levels ever committed to PC. If you’ve played The Cradle – Thief: Deadly Shadows’ – centrepiece level, then don’t hang back. The secrets and hidden stories of this house of hell are explored, analysed and constructed into something that will hopefully enhance and illuminate the experience you’ve had. If you’ve never played The Cradle, and have no plans to ever do so, then rush right in, and more fool you. If you’ve never played The Cradle, but plan to… be careful. This opening spread contain spoilers. The middle pages should be viewed in the same way as a walkthrough for a game you haven’t played. The last two pages, an interview with Jordan ‘Null’ Thomas, The Cradle’s designer, should be safe. You have been warned.

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t’s too late to run. Running from The Cradle is It’s a horrific idea. A few years ago, one of my friends like running from the air around you. People was sectioned, believing he was either the Anti-Christ, bandy the word ‘immersive’ around when the Son of God or Muad’Dib from the Dune books. The discussing videogames, but miss the subtext of cliché’s true: you have to laugh, or else you cry. But when what they’re really talking about. To be I visited him, in halls that stunk of disinfectant, full of immersed is to be surrounded and submerged, people who only looked at you through drugged eyes, thrust into a new context. If The Cradle is laughter was impossible. Madness is the most frightening about anything, it’s immersion. Your head pushed thing in the world, and an asylum its church. The idea of Ibeneath murky waters until you choke and drown. the criminally insane intermixed with the stray children The Cradle is the penultimate level in last year’s of a city is a horrendous concept, pure melodrama. If it Thief: Deadly Shadows. It’s what’s known in television was just told to you, you might have rejected it as simply parlance as a ‘format breaker’ – something that subverts that. But since the idea was hinted, and you made the many of the set expectations of the show to stir the dreadful leap of logic yourself, you accept. critical palette into new life. While The Cradle is based Now, I’ve played The Cradle a half dozen times on Thief’s shadow-stalking mandate, and a clear preparing this feature, and while the initial trip is still extrapolation from the first the one that squats in the back Thief’s seminal Return to the of my mind glaring, it’s never a Haunted Cathedral, it has comfortable place to be. Some amplified its source material to of its torture-blades dull when become something quite the surprise is spent and you different. It’s probably the know what’s happening, others scariest level ever made, an remain permanently whetted. experiment in non-linear They’re the incisions which storytelling methods that pays attack your guts through mood off handsomely and is one of the and timbre: that is, what the towering gaming achievements place sounds like and what it of the past year. looks like. That sound and Like anyone who plays The images can disturb has long Cradle, I was anxious before I Pleased to meet you. I hope you’ve guessed my name. been known: the Roman even arrived. Perhaps more than Catholic Church expressly most; in a passing email, Thief’s project lead, Randy forbade the creation of church music featuring chords Smith, had mentioned a “haunted house” level which was including a diminished fifth (‘The Devil’s interval’) due a deliberate extrapolation from the theories he laid out in to its profound effect upon the psyche. a Fear feature in Gamer’s prehistory (See the DVD for a Sound-man Eric Brosius? He’d have been copy). I was expecting something special, so waited until burned as a witch. His Thief and System Shock 2 the witching hour and played the game on a wall credits make as fine a resumé for horror as anyone projector in front of a group of unnerved peers. Even in in the business, but The Cradle is absolute career- Garrett’s introductory speech, he doesn’t best work. Mostly a drunken miasma sound his usual cocksure self. For the first Sound-man of sound is smeared across your speakers, time, he sounds anxious. The level starts making you uneasy until an unexpected and... there it is. Eric Brosius? noise splits asunder. Distant sounds rise up, The Shalebridge Cradle. An ornate He’d have suggesting the scuttling of unknown things gothic facade on a dilapidated mansion. The moving elsewhere, up to no good. Moments starting view is angled so that you’re looking been burned of plot-revelation are provided a chilling up and it’s looming over you like a furious counterpoint by an apposite ghostly sound parent about to discipline a child. In this first as a witch effect – find the ashes of a baby, still in a moment, The Cradle’s themes are set – the relationship crib, and expect to be haunted by its cry from beyond the between those with power and those without, authority grave. The flickering of lights wouldn’t be the same and the oppressed. without the tiny crackle. And, most memorably, as you The level’s genius is that it never explicitly states its inch up towards the attic, the sounds of room-shaking purpose. The truth is only approached tangentially, in violence that either petrify you or send you running back the non-linear method of storytelling entirely unique to the way you came. games. That is, through immersion. The level doesn’t tell On the visual side, things are just as deliberately you a story. It gives you clues, and you tell the story to wrong. After all – there are visual tricks as disturbing as yourself. It’s this process of realisation that provides some the Devil’s Interval to apply. Take the Cradle’s inhabitants of the most disturbing moments in The Cradle. You’re – the puppets, whose movements are carefully judged to told from the start that it used to be a madhouse. You’re appear unnatural. They don’t move like people. They told that before that it was an orphanage. It’s only when move as if their insides are about to split or their bones you’re inside, reading a child’s scribbled note, that you have been broken and set at off-angles. The art here is to realise The Cradle served both purposes at the same time. not be wrong (as in not correct) but Wrong (as in so

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ABANDON ALL HOPE CRADLE From previous page LET’S START. THE GAME’S AFOOT. close to being normal... but not quite). No matter how long you stay, there’s always hile most films specifically feed you the story on a drip, the best games put you another detail to shake you when you’re in a context which you explore. The Cradle is full of clues – in its sounds, in getting too comfy, like realising the lights W text, in graphics, in the action of its inhabitants – which you piece together in the building pulse, as if they were slowly inside your head then perform an act of closure upon to fill-in the gaps. You aren’t told the breathing, or... Well, when mapping a story; a world exists, and you transform it into a coherent image through the power of your section for this feature, I physically mind. In other words, exactly the way you gather diverse screamed when one of the inmates pulled PREVIOUSLY information from the real world. Any game can do this. Many himself from the ground unexpectedly and Before entering the Cradle have. The Cradle does it particularly well, so makes a fine you know little about the lurched to attack. place. You come because example for us to examine more closely. And these touches unnerve on every Hammerite Inspector On the following annotated maps are marked the more journey into The Cradle. The first time you Drept saw the Gray Lady significant clues you find when playing The Cradle, along with walk down the steps into its basement, here when he was a child, as some notes on their possible significance. The pages after that when you know nothing, it’s devastating. she killed his friend Lauryl. are an attempt to transform them into a linear narrative. If The masterstroke is that the first half of the It’s your only possible link you’ve played The Cradle, take it as a guide to the place. If you to catching up with this level is empty. Nothing’s there, so you mysterious figure and haven’t... essentially this is a videogame murder mystery, spend almost the first half of the visit uncovering what horrors transformed to paper. We show the clues and provide what we inching around darkened corridors, trying she plans for the City. think is a likely and entertaining solution. to work out what went wrong while A) NOTE D) LAURYL’S BLOOD Chased through a “It was better before. Too many rules to In a vial. Still warm. Yuk. remember. Don’t go here. Don’t touch that. pallid, fish-eye world Don’t talk to the patients. The Doctors are E) CASE STUDY jumping at shadows. You hate the just as scary as the patients. Miss Arthur says Examines one C Pins, the patient in room 7. darkness, as you know it could be orphans shouldn’t complain.” The moment Claims he’s decorated his cell like “The concealing anything. And then, once you realise Shalebridge was an orphanage and Murder Scene”. Discusses his obsession with you’ve reactivated the generators, complete asylum simultaneously. birds. Foreshadowing of in-mate viciousness with the sort of rattling mechanical scream and disturbing obsessions. that you just know will have alerted B) LAURYL’S PORTRAIT anything with something vaguely The second you touch this, you become aware F) CASE STUDY analogous to ears within a square mile, of Lauryl’s ghost and able to communicate This one’s of F Topper, in room 6, who was the electric lights twitch back into life and with her. Once you free Lauryl, she found carrying an urn filled with ashes you’d do anything to have a good darkened disappears from the frame – The Cradle no which she claims is her child. She alcove to crouch in again. Masterful longer has any hold on her. Relevant treats it exactly like a baby. psychology: make you hate one thing, then question: who painted it? Recommended experimental take it away in a way which makes you wish Hascombe’s therapy. for its speedy return. C) LAURYL’S GHOST Foreshadowing of the brutality of It’s this manner of mind game that Still haunts the location of her murder the regime. Listen to the sound forms the foundation on which the whole in the attic, blood stains still visible. effect of a baby crying after you Cradle is built. Insecurity is reinstated by Despite its ovoid shape, this bubble of read this, for a first example of changing the rules just as you’ve grown light casts a human shadow. It’s a sound used to reinforce the impact familiar with them. As you explore the fantastic effect due to its impossibility of your discovery. Outer Cradle, it is only your own fear that being more tangible than it would be twists the knife. By the time you realise in another medium, such as film. Look G) THE STAIRCASE you’re being manipulated, you’ve entered closely and you can see the soft outline Rattling noise as you head up the the Inner Cradle. Here the corkscrewing of of Lauryl’s face on its surface. She acts stairs, provides one of the biggest your guts has been externalised in the form as the voice-in-your-head plot guide scares. Something’s going on up of the inmates’ impossibly convulsing for most of the game. Point of interest there. Best guess: the ghostly bodies. When you grasp that particular for fans of System Shock 2 – the same echoes of the murder. problem, the Cradle twists again and voice actress, Thief writer Terri transports you from its current ruined Brosius, also played SHODAN, who H) THE PAUPER’S state into its memories of earlier times, to fulfilled a similar, if more WARD be chased through a pallid, fish-eye aggressive role. Low security ward. Note its

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TO INNER CRADLE TO MAIN LEVEL LOWER LEVEL D

O F

LEADS TO ‘N’ THE L

M STAFF FROM MAIN LEVEL THE TOWER STORM CELLAR N

DERELICT IN PRESENT P E A MAIN LEVEL

J OUTDOORS

PAUPER’S FROM MAIN LEVEL WARD G H LOBBY

THE ATTIC I K C B

TREASURER’S location – it’s not behind the heavy security OFFICE gates. A note describes someone collecting gold teeth from the morgue for profit, perhaps implying workers here too. dry the “excessive humours” which are, he N) THE DOORS I) NOTE believes, a cause of madness. “The heat must Heavy metal doors, only capable of being “I didn’t want to have my picture painted, but be of the dry variety” he urges, and “hot operated from the outside. Implies that the I was too scared to say no. I guess I did it right elements must be laid directly onto the skin.” dangerous stuff is beyond this point. because he said I sat good and still.” A note, probably written by Lauryl, since hers is the L) THE STAFF TOWER O) THE CAGE only unmutilated portrait in the building. Lauryl warns you that no one is allowed to go Where they kept new prisoners entering The up there. In the ‘real’ time period, it’s Cradle. Lauryl urges you not to go in, for fear J) THE LOBBY destroyed and in rubble, making exploration of The Cradle noticing you. Eventually you’re Apart from looking beautiful, noteworthy for impossible. When you first venture into the forced into doing so, in order to enter the a book that gives a feel for the institution’s past, it exists again. When explored again past for your escape – which brings you to an policy on lobotomy: “More can be learned after using the Cage to transport yourself into entirely different period to previous trips. from a surgery performed incorrectly, so we’ll the past – that is, to a later period than the Interestingly, you can also use the cage before keep the training to a minimum.” Nice. Also first – the entire place is emitting ghostly you’ve been told you can. claims that this may solve the problem of an smoke, as if on fire. “uprising” at The Cradle. P) THE GENERATOR M) THE CHAIR All lights are off and access to the Inner K) TREASURER’S OFFICE Only present when visiting the latter of the Cradle barred until you replace its fuse. This Useful to a thief for the money it contains, but two time periods, it faces the Staff Tower, implies that the doors to the Inner Cradle plot relevant due to the notes on Dr casting a dramatic shadow. Suggests that have been shut for a considerable length of Hanscombe’s experimental heat therapy to someone was watching it during this period. time, and you’re possibly its first visitor.

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YE WHO ENTER HERE YE CRADLE From previous page CARRY ON SCREAMING.

world by the black silhouettes of long-dead ROOM A staff – literally faceless authority figures. TREATMENT F Ah. The Cradle’s memories. It’s by this point you’ve realised that Shalebridge 9 8 7 L 6 K THE WHITE HALL isn’t made of bricks and mortar, but something more. The years of brutality M and institutionalised torture sublimed into some shapeless intelligence that wants nothing better than to keep you here forever. While you simply view the place as a building at first, by the time you leave it’s clearly an adversary – its personality expressed in the world you’ve fearfully sneaked your way through. It never speaks directly to you. There’s none of the obvious N taunting of an entity like SHODAN in H MAIN HALL Batted around like a mouse in diseased paws System Shock 2, but when your every action C is thwarted it’s painfully obvious that something wants to keep you, in the way a stomach keeps a snack. There are moments where you think, against all logic, it could actually do that. The Cradle is the longest level in the game. Before the close, I had an eye-of-the-storm 5 4 3 2 moment when I wondered if there was in fact any way out of this place, or whether J the real end of Thief III is to be batted around like a mouse in the diseased paws ELEVATORS of some malevolent feline, forever. I But, yes, eventually you do escape. Except that isn’t really true. Yes, the level ends. You do escape SECLUSION CHAMBER 1 The Cradle. But, because you’ve been there, it lives on in your mind A) THE LOUNGE each defaced with a bloody smear over the in dirty little fragments of Contains a particularly blackened fireplace. face. Jewels are positioned where their eyes memory... and so it escapes in you. Interesting, that. should be. The in-mate, until disturbed, The Cradle’s in me. If you’ve perpetually moves between them, making played it, it’s in you. Even if you B) THE HALL OF RECORDS sure each is positioned correctly. This implies haven’t, by reading this, a shadow The centre of the Inner Cradle, most perfectionism was a main trait. of my dread is cast on your important for its listing of the patients, their mind. So we’re all carrying it treatments and their privileges. Especially D) THE NURSERY TOWER with us, like a dark little secret relevant is the patient in room 9, who was In the present day, burnt down and or black twitching egg, allowed to light the fire in the lounge if she inaccessible. Once you travel into the past, waiting to hatch and let its continued to behave. For this purpose, she you can locate Lauryl’s diary in the main brood stretch your skin to was allowed to keep her tinderbox. ward. Information also comes to light on the breaking point and fall Gray Lady: the report on Lauryl’s death twitching into the light. C) THE OBSERVATORY which claims that one of the patients must It’s too late to run. But Here you’ll find an in-mate, presumably the have killed the girl, because this Gray Lady don’t let that stop you. Run. one from Cell 5. The room is full of portraits, idea is clearly ludicrous. “The staff blamed

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Ranker Lobotomy and use it on the most difficult cases.” H) THE WHITE HALL Nine cells, in a circular formation around a central meal hall. Each is decorated according to the style of its occupant, only the most notable of which are referenced here. This ROOM B FURNACE whole section is heavily locked down, with TREATMENT TREATMENT G heavy steel gates preventing access to the area STAIRS LEAD TO outside. Lockpicking is required to get HALL OF RECORDS anywhere. People other than Garrett would need keys. I) SECLUSION CHAMBER Home of King No One – a play on words of STAIRS LEAD TO “Number 1” or “No. One”, his patient number. FURNACE Comprises an elevator, ascending to an isolated cell. You hear the King’s manic laugh on the way up. Only at the top do you realise ELEVATORS it’s because there’s no button for sending the B MORGUE elevator back down. NURSERY J) CELL 5 TOWER A telescope is positioned, watching a portrait with the face cut out. Clear links to what you HALL OF DERELICT find in the observatory. The cell has a false RECORDS IN PRESENT back wall where, once dismantled, you find Lauryl’s blood-stained dress. If it’s the Gray E Lady who killed Lauryl, this patient must have come into possession of it shortly afterwards.

STAIRS FROM A D K) CELL 6 EXERCISE YARD Foreshadowed in the Outer Cradle, belonging

LOUNGE to F Topper. Tiny baby clothes hanging above a crib. As you inch closer, it becomes obvious CHILDREN’S that it’s an urn not a child that rests there. WARD L) CELL 7 Home of C Pins, the Birdman of Shalebridge, YARD THE BALCONY foreshadowed in the Outer Cradle. Contains EXERCISE EXERCISE what is presumably his re-animated form, standing, perpetually admiring his array of TO OUTER CRADLE birds, nailed into the brickwork. A row of skulls rest on the desk. him for what happened to me,” Lauryl reveals F) TREATMENT ROOM A after you’ve read it. “They were wrong”. Who Home of the asylum’s electric shock and M) CELL 9 is “him”? There’s also a note to the effect that wet-heat treatment room. “I saw a man all A relatively bare cell. It takes a second to rules to keep patients and orphans separate wrapped up in wet bandages,” Lauryl informs realise that it’s because the entire place is must be followed. you as you enter, “I think he wanted me to burnt out, especially towards the far side. A help him, but I was too afraid.” Tells us that tinderbox lies nearby. Someone clearly likes E) GHOSTLY STAFF orphans and patients mixed to some degree. lighting fires. The Cradle only animates the staff when you Also note a wax mask resting on the electric are in the past, and even then, only as spectral chair: someone discarded it here. N) THE INMATES memories in silhouette. Since The Cradle is Physical puppets of The Cradle’s will, in the quite capable of animating the actual corpses G) TREATMENT ROOM B ‘real’ material plane. While they can be taken of the patients, you have to ask where the The lobotomy theatre, containing Dr down with a physical blow, they will only get bodies of the staff went to prevent it from Ranker’s specially made silver tools. Includes up again. The only way to permanently doing this to them. That this is how The a note congratulating Ranker on his report disable them is through flashbombs and holy Cradle ‘remembers’ people also tells you on the “botched” lobotomy, speculating that water. Notice the unearthly, jerky movement something about its perspective on the world. “in the future they’ll call the procedure the cribbed from Jacob’s Ladder.

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SITTING UNCOMFORTABLY? FOLKLORE THEN WE WILL BEGIN.

AN EXEGESIS he City is used to The tale of Shalebridge rests on The following is an strangeness. The two children – a boy and a girl. The attempt to transform bizarre is the mortar boy, Drept, ran away, grew up, found the various clues and that holds it together. redemption in the order of the elements of The Cradle described in the Its people are a hardy Hammer and became known as a previous pages into a sort. In a world where fanatical hunter of shadows. The girl, linear narrative. It isn’t the dead won’t stay buried, they have Lauryl, didn’t get the chance to grow a definitive story of T to be. It hardly counts as superstition up at all. ‘What happened at the when you know what’s out there, in The head doctors – Dr Shalebridge Cradle’. As the dark, waiting for a chance to Sanbridge, Dr Ranker and Dr Alan Moore speculated in his graphic novel make you join it. Still, even in the Hascombe – had strict rules which From Hell, when City, no-one loiters too long in the Matron Miss Arthur was to follow. dealing with murder “a shadow of one particular building, Obvious rules: such as homicidal solution, any solution, which hangs off the east side of the patients and the children weren’t to is inane. Murder isn’t Old Quarter like some facial canker. mix. But rules in a madhouse tend to like books... it holds Shalebridge Cradle. “If there’s a way err, so it came to pass that Lauryl meaning, and shape, but no solution.” This isn’t to cram more misery into one found herself sitting while having her the only way you can building’s history,” Master Thief portrait painted by the patient in piece everything Garrett once said, “I can’t think of it.” Room 5, known as The Watcher. He together by any The Cradle doesn’t have history. was brought to Shalebridge after means, and much is It has a scream, stretched slaughtering his extrapolated from the out through time. previous sitters because clues. But when placed So Lauryl in the heart of It’s said Shalebridge “they moved”. He then something as used to be that sad lived. smeared his victim’s deliberately baroque as institute for lost No one is blood over each Shalebridge, there are children: an orphanage. portrait’s face, in Lauryl’s bloody, tattered dress as a some leaps which you It’s also said that it was that lucky frustration at the lack of keepsake before anyone else arrived. have to make on that sad institution for life in the final work. Perhaps the murder he would instinct. This is mine. If twice. you’ve thrown yourself lost adults: an asylum. Lauryl was a good girl. eventually carry the blame for would out of The Cradle’s What most don’t realise is that, Lauryl didn’t move at all. So, Lauryl have occurred anyway? The Cradle’s highest window and during its latter days, it was both at lived and The Watcher made the one birth is rife with such sick irony. found yourself in a once. While safer in-mates were kept perfect picture of his life. Despite Drept’s testimony that different place, I’d be in the pauper’s ward towards the No one is that lucky twice. some hag-like creature butchered his interested to hear front of the building, the The Gray Lady of myth and little friend, the material evidence about it. murderously insane – of which, at nightmare came to Shalebridge to pointed at the man locked in cell 5. The Cradle’s demise, there were nine find a body to use for her devilish Extreme measures were called for: – were kept in the White Hall ward, purposes. Someone discarded lobotomy. Or rather, all too common towards the rear, with heavy metal, already. Someone no-one would measures. The staff of Shalebridge – lock-down doors between them and miss. That is, an orphan. If Lauryl when not experimenting with their civilisation. Near them, the orphans, and Drept weren’t playing in the attic weirder theories such as applying red high in the Nursery tower. At the that day, maybe the Gray Lady would hot bars to bare skin or testing the building’s heart, looking over all, was have chosen a different victim. outer limits of electrocution – turned the Staff Tower, the stronghold of the Would The Cradle’s cry have been to Dr Ranker’s custom silver knives lawmakers. Children and the insane, stifled early? Perhaps, perhaps not. that could transmute a pest into a under the lock and key of nurses and We can only speculate as to the vegetable. The ‘result’ could be stored doctors. Authority and oppression, reasons why The Watcher was close cheaply with the other trash in the bound together. enough to the murder scene to take pauper’s ward rather than the

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molten face, and led the dismemberment of the remaining staff, The Moth pulled up her chair at the foot of the staircase and stared into the inferno as men and women were reduced to soot and screams. Flames swept up. The Nursery tower joined its sister in misery. The voices of boys and girls merged in an unholy choir, a shriek to empty skies. The smoke arose to the heavens, blacking them out, forming a cloud of the remains of authority. Anything elevated was destroyed. All that remained was the base material. The tortured voices were The Cradle’s birthing cry. The rising smoke was its first breath. Born of torture, oppression, authority, murder and a history of weeping, the place was alive. It pressed down upon the remaining in-mates, who ruled the remains of the asylum under King No One’s malevolence. His Kingdom couldn’t last, in earthly terms. The doors were shut. There was no way out. The in-mates sickened, withered and died. It wasn’t the end. expensive Whitehall. News spread keys were with the patients. They The inmates rose from death, that whatever made The Watcher were all free. The gates were sealed, becoming puppets of The Cradle’s himself would be sliced away in but most of the children and the staff will and twitching in meaningless Treatment Room 2. were inside, trapped and barricaded echoes of their past existence. The These words eventually reached in their towers. At least the lucky bodies animated in a closed, the man who hid his shattered ones were – those on the ground spasming loop for fifty years, waiting features behind a wax mask, Patient floor proved wet and scarlet sport for for someone else to enter, to catch Number 1 – or “King No One” as he the rampaging White Hall inmates. The Cradle’s attention, and so join its was known among the in-mates The midwife to The Cradle’s eternal, macabre dance. thanks to the script on his door. The true birth was the patient in cell nine, They say its doors will open fact that he was contained in the The Moth. A pyromaniac, she was before you. They’ll seal behind you. isolation chamber, at the top of an allowed to keep her tinderbox as part And as long as you’re alive, it’ll never elevator shaft in the White Hall, of her therapy. Now free, she had all let you leave. wasn’t enough to separate him from the fuel she could wish for. She lit the Even in the City, no-one loiters the other patients. His poisonous matches which reduced Shalebridge too long in the shadow of one whispers leaked out, fanning the to the skeleton of a building it is now. particular building, which hangs off flames of dissatisfaction. The First, in her room. Then, under the the east side of the Old Quarter like Watcher was a popular madman. His cover of the riot and urged on by some facial canker. Shalebridge fraternity owed him an attempt to King No One, the fires at the base of Cradle. “If there’s a way to cram more stop this. After all, they could be next. the Staff tower. misery into one building’s history,” Dissent sparked into a fiery riot. While the King discarded his Master Thief Garrett once said, “I Before anything could be done, the wax mask, finally revealing his can’t think of it.”

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ROCKING THE CRADLE ROCKING CRADLE THE CRADLE DESIGNER JORDAN THOMAS SPEAKS CANDIDLY ABOUT THE MAKING OF FEAR.

JORDAN THOMAS PCG Where did the conceit of The After a tenure as a Cradle come from? journalist, the The Thief games are – in the abstract gamekeeper turned – largely about exploring unfamiliar, poacher when hostile spaces. It seemed an elegant Psygnosis recruited him for the writing work on sort of conceit to take that concept a number of titles. literally, and simply feed Garrett (the Interning briefly at ultimate trespasser) to a vast building Surreal Software, maker which harbours a sort of monstrous of dragon- sentience, along with a perverse and-semi-clad-lady appetite. We knew that our ‘haunted game Drakan, Jordan’s first real gig house’ (the internal title) would be was working on – of all one of the latter entries in the story things – Harry Potter arc, and that it would pit the player and The Philosopher’s against the undead, in some form. Stone (PCG 105 78%) I had a series of design at the development discussions with Randy Smith studio Amaze. While there he learnt the (Project Director on Deadly intricacies of UnrealEd Shadows) about our intent for the from Ben ‘cyberartist’ space during its infancy. We quickly Golus, providing the concluded that our core objective It’s always the quiet ones. skill basis that landed was to devise the single most him a job on Thief: terrifying first-person game now that the subtle manipulation of to frighten a reasonably receptive Deadly Shadows. Originally a designer, experience ever constructed. I’ll leave a player’s darker emotions (most audience. You need only shout, he climbed the ranks to it up to the fan base to decide notably, fear) is an abiding interest of “boo!” at the optimal moment, and the mighty position of whether or not we achieved it. Fear is mine. Which is a fancy way of saying your victims will find themselves Lead Designer. While inherently subjective, after all. At the that I’m on a mad little crusade to clinging to the ceiling, quivering and his official duties kept very least, no one can claim that we improve the quality and range of hissing expletives. most of his time, a were devoid of ambition! games in the horror genre. Our reptile brains instantly significant amount of the after-hours was PCG So what do you actually count PCG Where do you think horror in respond, ready to brandish the spent on constructing as terror? games goes wrong? adrenals at the drop of a hat. But will celebrated level ‘The In terms of the aforementioned We’ve got a deficit there, and it’s far the memories last? Typically, no. Cradle’, which you may terror, we weren’t bent on eliciting from exclusive to gaming; horror in They are warning signs, written in a have read something constant panic, per se. Our general tends to ooze along the path very basic language. As the mind about somewhere. He point-of-origin was the word ‘dread’. of least resistance. Think back – in rights itself, these messages fade cites Ben Golus as his level-building mentor I like to define it as that your entire life, how many movies away, leaving it largely unblemished. and Thief Project Lead quintessential ‘threshold’ sensation have drawn you in deeply enough to I want my scares to leave scars. Randy Smith as his which whispers rather than shouts, make your guts go cold in genuine PCG Well, there’s the pull-out game-design mentor. warning you that you’re seven steps fright? They probably number less quote. So how do you think of The “Other than that, I’ve from the unspeakable. than ten, if you’re reasonably hardy. Cradle? been playing PC games With that emotional shape in With games, I suspect you could Unsurprisingly then, I regarded The and thinking critically about them since I was mind, I began to draft the design count them on one hand. Cradle as a kind of meta-project in about nine,” grins equivalent of the level’s ‘blueprints’. Fear is regarded as one of the addition to a game level. It was to be Jordan, “And I’m not Suffice it to say, I took the process easiest emotions to stimulate with a multi-layered experiment in done yet.” seriously. It’s probably obvious by any audio-visual medium. It is trivial interactive horror, using players as

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hapless test subjects. I suppose that’s not disbelief. Or, for that matter, in the suppression entirely without irony, given the kind of of their aesthetic scepticism. This provides a ‘science’ fictionally practised within its walls. kind of indirect springboard into that notion The intent was to frighten, disturb, thrill, of ‘rightness’. or startle as wide an audience as possible Because, in that tiny microcosm of within the parameters I’d been given. And, if supported behaviour choices (say, stalking possible, to leave a few of those ‘scars’. The through an abandoned building and trying not jaded user would, hopefully, appreciate the to die), the network of simulated possibilities grim narrative and physical tension. The is dense enough that you cease poking holes in highly imaginative or impressionable players the world-fabric, and begin actively filling would find themselves inching along through a them yourself! Your imagination becomes simulated nightmare, trying not to breathe. inextricably intertwined with the content And, of course, I hoped to execute all of you’re consuming, and you become a partial this without sacrificing the key intrinsic architect of your own reactions. strengths of Thief gameplay. Stealth is The game is then far more likely to inherently conducive to a feeling of resonate with you, carving out a permanent vulnerability, but typically not quite this niche among your long-term memories. And pronounced. The Cradle was, all in all, a that, of course, is the honour for which we holistic effort in game horror and stealth level developers strive. design, intended to communicate the feeling PCG How much reference work did you of dread in several complementary languages. make when preparing The Cradle? PCG What do you mean when you talk The Cradle is the synthetic offspring of dozens about holistic level design? of actual, existing Victorian hospitals and The term ‘holistic level design’ isn’t a buzz- reputedly haunted buildings. All the misery, phrase so much as a well established creative malpractice and dementia that have been philosophy that is often put into practice “I want my scares to ascribed to those places are seen here through across various industries, but is rarely put into a proportionally exaggerated lens. words. In plain terms, it refers to the leave scars...” I read reams of patient and staff evaluation of any self-contained game segment kind of horrific moments will be generated by interviews, scoured countless articles on as an integrated whole. The total package, as it that ecosystem, which is ideal. historical mental-health treatment practises, were. It often manifests as a series of questions, PCG I’m going to say the word ‘emergence’ compiled a huge reference archive of some of which look like these: now. Thank you. photographs taken by urban explorers who ● Are all the mission’s systemic elements Life, which we broadly emulate – and typically, regularly break into abandoned asylums, and gracefully woven into each other? embellish upon – in games, is the result of an even visited a few locations myself. ● Does the space feel believably occupied by unfathomable number of systems interacting PCG Any particular incidents stuck in your living, imperfect beings? with each other in a kind of eternal dance. memory from your research? ● How well does it fit into the experiential That’s pretty easy to understand, One story involved a patient who managed to topography of the entire game? subconsciously or otherwise. escape into the storage wings of the asylum, ● Does the end result offer the player a Humans are accustomed to the and because of her eroded state-of-mind, she seamless, unforgettable experience? transparent feeling of ‘rightness’ that results became lost and succumbed to starvation. The I attempted to effectively answer dozens from being swaddled in such a dazzling, place was such a teeming ‘snake pit’ that she of queries along these lines with The Cradle. In orchestral synthesis at all times. The mental wasn’t missed, and the stain from her body hindsight, I can see plenty of room for recordings we make of all this data carry some seeped permanently into the wood. improvement, but that’s exactly how a inherent resonance, simply because of their Another involved a man who was developer expands the list. unfiltered perfection. Simulations (like video committed as a toddler. Decades later, when PCG So – what rewards do a more holistic games) do not nearly make the grade yet, and asked to sign his own name, he drew a rough approach give the developer? we regard them with inevitable scepticism. silhouette of the hospital. The place was so The expected reward for this (rather They simply cannot directly compete for omnipresent and dominant a force in his life fastidious) series of trials can be summed up territory with memories of the real world. that it eclipsed his identity. The Cradle was by one word: ‘resonance’. All of The Cradle’s That said, by focusing on a specific type built out of that sort of cheery material. actors, from the malfunctioning lights to the of target experience, and leaning heavily on the PCG And, finally, what fictional influences shambling undead themselves are tied into a human instinct to fill the gaps, we are able to shaped The Cradle? central choreographer object. It’s a kind of cheat a bit... We invite players to convince Among the films that helped inspire it were invisible ‘puppet master’ that tells them how to themselves that a sequence is ‘real enough’ or Jacob’s Ladder, Session 9, and The Devil’s behave in the real world, and in the world ‘tight enough’ to be drawn into, by carefully Backbone. Books included From Hell, House beyond (which is comprised of the asylum’s integrating all the level and game components. of Leaves, and The Shining. fragmented dreams of its former days). Gamers have a discerning eye, but they want to My game influences are innumerable, but And, although The Cradle has its share of become immersed. two most prominent were the entirely linear scripted sequences meant to PCG All fiction’s reliant on a leap of faith in Silent Hill series and the System induce the right mood, it is the purely that way, really. Shock series, to which The circumstantial moments that took the most The more appropriate the systems that are Cradle owes a great deal. planning. Each object family has a special already at work in a given level, and the more ON THE DISC Read the relationship to the rest, which can manifest elegantly they appear to ‘plug into’ each other, original Fear feature, and during gameplay when they happen to collide the easier it is for a human to become a willing see The Cradle for yourself with with each other. I can’t predict exactly what participant in the suspension of their own our saved game > Game Extras

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