The Cradle, Episode 1, is out
By Encrypted Cat / 0xKOT · Originally published on itch.io
The Cradle is finally out, and you can play it right here in your browser. There’s nothing to install.
It’s a short first-person horror game set in a closed Soviet children’s facility. You arrive to find out what happened here. The lights still work, mostly. The phone still rings. Something in the building still takes care of the children, and it doesn’t like visitors.
What you’ll find inside
- A building that gets stranger the deeper you go
- Notes, tapes and old recordings that tell the story if you’re willing to piece it together
- Puzzles that ask you to pay attention to your surroundings, with no hand-holding
- Someone who walks these halls, and places to hide when you hear her coming
- An ending that answers some questions and opens others. This is Episode 1.
How it was made
I built the game on my own small engine, written in three.js and TypeScript, so it runs straight in the browser. I wrote the story, the setting and the scares, and used AI tools heavily to build the engine, the maps and the models. Then came many rounds of playtesting and fixing: doors that slammed at the wrong moment, a monster that couldn’t climb stairs, a crouch you couldn’t get out of, lights that refused to switch off. It was a strange and fun way to make a game, and I’ll write more about the process in future posts.
Tips
- Play with headphones. Sound matters here.
- Play in fullscreen, with the lights off if you dare.
- It’s made for desktop, with a keyboard and mouse.
- English and Russian are both included, and you can switch in the settings.
- If it runs slowly, lower the quality or resolution in the settings.
Tell me what you think
This is my first release, and I’d love to hear from you. Tell me where you got stuck, what scared you, and what didn’t work. Bug reports are very welcome in the comments. If you record or stream it, drop a link. I’d genuinely love to watch.
Episode 2 is already being planned. Follow the page if you want to know when it drops.
Thanks for playing. Don’t stay in the dark too long.