Chapter select, three new children, and a lot of fixes
By Encrypted Cat / 0xKOT · Originally published on itch.io
Another streamer is about to play The Cradle, so here’s a round of fixes and improvements from the last few days of playtests.
Chapter select
Once you’ve finished the game, the main menu gets a new Chapters option. You can jump back into any chapter, or straight to the final choice, to see the endings you missed or explore places you rushed through. The name tags and the reel you found on your best run come with you, so every ending is still reachable. It’s greyed out until you finish the game once.
Three new children
The children in gas masks have been rebuilt from scratch, and there are now three different ones instead of one model copied everywhere:
- a girl with plaits and bows, in a flowered nightgown;
- a boy with a buzz cut, in a vest and shorts, with a bandaged knee;
- the youngest, in striped pyjamas, with a bandaged hand.
They have proper hands, better masks, and glass eyepieces that catch your torchlight. Look closely and each one matches the name tag on its bed.
Screamers that actually hit
Sometimes a screamer would land with the camera inside the model, and you’d miss the face entirely. That’s fixed. The moment it happens you freeze, and the face is always right in front of you, whatever you were doing with the mouse. You won’t miss it any more. Sorry.
The mouse
After reading a note or using a terminal, the first mouse movement could spin the view wildly. That’s fixed, along with a few other causes of jumpy camera movement.
Doors that sound like doors
The old door sounds were bad. The slam played the moment a door started moving instead of when it shut, and metal doors sounded like wooden ones. Every door now has its own material and sounds that land exactly when the door hits the frame.
The final room
A streamer got stuck in the last room: frozen, with the door locked and nothing to do. Running to the console too quickly started the ending in the middle of another scene. It can’t happen any more, and if your save got stuck this way, it will now play on normally.
Also
- The “press E” prompt no longer shows while you can’t move, so the game doesn’t look stuck.
- Lots of small fixes and polish throughout.
Coming next: a new ending cutscene
The next update brings a brand new cutscene for one of the endings, with its own music, camera work and a proper climax. I won’t say which ending. If you’ve seen them all, you’ll know it when you see it. I’m polishing it now.
Thanks to everyone who played and reported bugs. Almost everything in this update came from you.