Steppeing Out: Cradle Released
Robots and hovertrams
We can finally find out what the 'H E double-hockeysticks' Cradle [official site] is. Snips and smidgens from screenshots and videos have shown a strange abandoned theme park on lonely steppe, gathering and analysing flowers, a hovertram driven by a robotic grandpa, a robolady we need to rebuild in a yurt, and big colourful neon cubearenas. No idea.
I'm keen to find out though, and it launched on Saturday - available for Windows and Linux on Steam for £9.99.
Cradle is a sci-fi first-person explore-o-adventure sort of thing. You're in a strange land with a strange mission, and plenty of space to roam around. And at this point, I'll turn you over to Ukranian developers Flying Cafe for Semianimals (an amazing name) to describe the story:
"Thirty years ago in the mid-2040s the sweeping development of neuroscience stirred up the common anticipation of victory over aging and death. In 2047 the scientists of the Neurocopying Institute in Cologne run the first experiments on transferring human consciousness onto an artificial carrier. In the course of experiments a weird previously unregistered phenomenon was discovered - the copies of neurotic system of the test subjects awoken in the computational device began to self-destroy by immersing in a state of deep irrational fear.
"The discovery of the mysterious phenomenon induced a string of events to have completely changed the society. Dozens of years later the question of the 'Panic Attack' nature still remains open. We do not know how far the researchers’ thought has led them in search of the answer, but we believe it hardly ever visited this Mongolian steppe."
What a strange and wonderful setup for a game set around an abandoned theme park. I shan't say more, because I don't want to look into it much more and spoil things for myself.
Our Adam, however, played Cradle over the weekend and says he will be telling us Wot He Thinks once he has time to write it up. Busy boy, that one. For now, have a trailer:
