Cradle

Залишились теплі спогади та приємний вайб, дуже тихий, та медитативний досвід, який тримається на атмосфері та емоціях. Було дуже приємно розібратись в цій історії.

Приємний і гарний квест, сюжет правда досить заплутаний і залишилось багато питань після фіналу. Відчувається бюджетність у всьому крім музики і дизайну.

Un jeu indé ukrainien d'aventure & exploration à la 1ère personne dans plus ou moins un petit open-world, basé sur la contemplation des steppes de Mongolie dans un monde futuriste... Malgré sa carte ouverte assez vide, on ne pourra au final que suivre un à un, les objectifs/tâches textuelles attribués au fur & à mesure autour de 2-3 lieux... avec un fondu au noir qui nous empêchera d'aller au delà des montages aux alentours... Pour un walking-simulator linéaire très beau au gameplay se rapprochant du point n' click avec pas mal de textes à lire un peu partout, des journaux qui tapissent les fonds de tiroirs jusqu'aux notes éparpillées en pleine nature... (qu'il faudra trouvé pour mieux comprendre le l'ensemble) Si rajoutera aussi un peu de physique avec la plupart des objets.. Ce qui peut poser problème si on jette n'importe où les objets qui servent à l’aventure & aussi pour bien faire des combinaisons de 2 objets ensemble... Les espèces de mini-jeu des pavillons de ramassage des cubes ne sera de même pas très intéressant ni réussi... La sauvegarde étant automatique (avec déblocage de chapitres) cela peut aussi engendrer des soucis pour si retrouver... le fait de recharger/continuer la partie remettra tous les objets à leur emplacements d'origine, même ceux qui sont dans notre inventaire... Encore à ce jour, il a des petits problèmes d'optimisation avec des freezes & sauts de frames dès qu'on tourne la caméra un peu trop vite... Un peu moins en baissant l'anti-aliasing dans les paramètres...,vu que le gameplay est assez lent ça n'impactera pas trop l'ensemble... Une bonne petite aventure originale, immersive & poétique pour peu qu'on aime prendre son temps, malgré ses problèmes de gameplay & sa cohérence au niveau des sauvegardes...

I played this game as a child and was scared ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of the black blobs. I wanted to play it again now as an adult, so my girlfriend got me the game, discovered I am still scared ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of the black blobs. 11/10 amazing plot, amazing world, banger soundtrack and awesome voice acting. The visuals of the game are so atmospheric too. The muted colors really pull everything together. The minigames made me bang my head on a wall. Perfect game!

[h2] A lot of lost potential [/h2] Let me preface this by saying I didn't finish the game. I couldn't. I played about 2/3 until I found the story and gameplay too tedious. This game could have been pretty great. It's often described as a mixture between walking simulator and puzzle game, which I would agree with. [h3] Gameplay [/h3] This is unfortunately one of the first snags. The controls are pretty weird. If you're used to games that were contemporary to this one at the time of its release, the control scheme is inconvenient to say the least. You click on items to pick them up, click again to drop them and press right click to throw them, with E either opening your inventory or stashing an item in there. If you open your inventory, you can't quick select via the number keys for instance, but you have to click on the item instead. I've lost key quest items a few times which forced me to restart to a checkpoint. Unfortunately the majority of what you do in the game isn't that fun either. A lot of it consists of walking over from your home to a point of interest over and over again. You go to the location, play a variation of the same minigame which consists of throwing cubes of a specific colour around with not much of a challenge (maybe the devs knew it's not fun since when you lose you can choose to skip it, but it still takes a long time to lose). It's mostly busywork and not engaging. Then you go home, talk to a character for a bit or fiddle around with the latest item acquisition to help the character, then go out again to talk to a different character, and then come back again only to go to that location you've been to several times. Some of the interactions with the items can be quite interesting and it's actually kind of neat to be rummaging around the character's home, but the aforementioned item handling gets too awkward and ruins the experience for me. [h3] Story/Lore [/h3] I was intrigued at first, reading through the newspaper clippings and tidbits strewn across the player character's little tent/hut. But from the start I could gather that the writing would require quite a bit more suspension of disbelief than what I consider to be good sci-fi. What I mean to say is, it takes already existing real life scientific concepts and completely misinterprets them to spin its lore and narrative. The core of the plot revolves around copying minds, and that is somehow related to the copied mind still having a relationship of its DNA in some not entirely explained way, even though the mind is only data at that point, from what I understand. Terminology is also mixed up a lot. First there is talk of a mind transfer into a synthetic body. Characters talk as if there is an actual continued stream of consciousness. But then it's revealed that it's actually not, that it's just copying. This doesn't come as a plot twist, rather as an inconsistency. The narrative also seems to be trying to make a point about the concepts of beauty, maybe even eugenics. If it is talking about it, it's unclear whether it wants to condemn eugenics, or accidentally approves of it? There is a lot of talk about beauty, genetic purity making for more valuable minds, minds generating a substance through their emotion. It's a jumbled mess that I struggle to explain without spoilers. Eventually I just disengaged from the narrative because it wasn't good enough to make me sit through the tedious gameplay. [h3] Graphics and Art Style [/h3] It's actually fairly pretty for being so old. It's a mixture of styles between low resolution realism and hand-painted textures. Some of the machinery seemed to be influenced by art deco concepts. [h3] Voice Acting and Dialogue [/h3] This is where it falls completely flat. The player character has just such a monotonous style of diction that at times I wonder if he even gives half a ♥♥♥♥♥ about anything. He's lost his memory and can't even muster a tiny bit of emotional emphasis in his tone of voice. Top that off with being kind of a bawbag to a very helpless character that he needs to help in order to get answers, and it gets grating. Other characters with speaking roles aren't entirely as robotic, which is ironic because they're the ones visibly inhabiting synthetic bodies. The dialogue itself also tends to get heavy-handed, with exposition dumps forced into the lines with no real organic feel to it. The two characters you speak to basically narrate at you, with the player character barely managing a dispassionate remark, which all around leads to very stale dialogue that I skipped through since I was able to read the dialogue box quicker than the performances were. It doesn't help the other tedious aspects at all. [h3] A feminist critique [/h3] I couldn't help but view the character you're helping, Ida, through a feminist lens. If you still want to try the game, you should skip this section as I'm going into more detail. [spoiler] Ida is the digitised personality of a woman whose electronic brain you find out in the desert. When you start the game, you'll have a feminine Android body sitting on a cupboard, apparently repurposed as a flower vase. Ida basically spends the entire game requiring you to fetch spare parts for her, while quietly suffering until you can be arsed to replace the component. She's the only female character in the game as I'm aware, and she's relegated to sitting paralysed and naked on the cupboard as an ornament. The player character also tends to be really dismissive of her plight at times, while she's suffering from missing or broken components; feeling like she's suffocating, having a panic attack each time you need to reboot her for repairs, and eventually facing the threat of mentally disintegrating after having realised that her very existence has become illegal due to now functionally being a duplicate since a backup of her has resumed her old life. At one point the player character literally says to her "I don't really care about that." in his usual monotone. You could argue that he's meant to be a prick, but there isn't much characterisation to begin with for it to be consistent. First he's inquisitive and helps her, then he starts to complain about her needs. It became pretty off-putting along with the rest of the game. You could argue that she's in an android body and that she doesn't need any clothes for example, but any other character living in a synthetic body is shown to be wearing clothes, even having a personal style. Were the developers intending to victimise the only female character by having her suffer naked and afraid? Not necessarily. Did they miss the implications? Absolutely. The fact that some of the reviews here talk of a "robot waifu" rather validates my point, I think. She ends up being an object to be gawked at.[/spoiler] [h3] Final Verdict [/h3] Buy on sale for very cheap. Don't expect something you're going to have an easy time with.

Cradle is a first-person science-fiction adventure developed and published by the Ukrainian indie studio Flying Cafe for Semianimals. Released on Steam in 2015, the game stands out for its unusual setting, philosophical narrative, and emphasis on quiet exploration rather than traditional action gameplay. Rather than relying on combat or fast-paced mechanics, the experience is built around atmosphere, environmental storytelling, and slow discovery. It belongs to a category of narrative exploration games where curiosity and observation drive the player forward, and where the world itself gradually reveals the story. The game opens with an intriguing mystery. The protagonist awakens inside a traditional Mongolian yurt with little understanding of how he arrived there. Sharing the small dwelling is the inactive body of a mysterious mechanical woman whose systems appear to be malfunctioning. This strange introduction immediately establishes a sense of curiosity and unease. The player’s initial objective is to repair the android companion and help restore her functionality, but the situation quickly grows more complex as new questions emerge about who the protagonist really is, why the mechanical girl exists, and what kind of future world surrounds them. The setting of Cradle plays a major role in shaping the game’s identity. The entire adventure takes place on the vast Mongolian steppe, a quiet and windswept environment where ancient nomadic traditions coexist with futuristic technology. This unusual contrast between rustic yurts and advanced robotics creates an atmosphere that feels both grounded and surreal. In the distance lies an abandoned amusement park that becomes one of the central locations of the story. Its colorful yet decaying rides and attractions provide a haunting reminder of a past society that no longer exists, and exploring this strange park becomes one of the key ways the player uncovers the deeper narrative. Gameplay revolves around exploration and puzzle solving from a first-person perspective. The world is not enormous, but it is filled with objects and details that encourage players to look closely at their surroundings. Notes, photographs, electronic devices, and scattered personal belongings all contribute pieces to the game’s fragmented backstory. Much of the narrative is delivered indirectly through these environmental clues rather than through traditional cutscenes. This approach encourages players to interpret the story themselves, slowly assembling an understanding of the world’s history and the technological experiments that shaped it. The puzzles themselves vary in complexity. Some involve locating specific items or repairing mechanical devices, while others require interacting with unusual technology scattered throughout the world. A particularly distinctive feature of the game involves entering virtual environments within arcade-like machines found in the abandoned amusement park. These segments shift the gameplay into small platforming challenges that must be completed in order to unlock new parts of the story. While these puzzles add variety to the gameplay, they sometimes feel disconnected from the otherwise contemplative pace of the main exploration. One of the strongest aspects of Cradle is its visual design. The environments are richly detailed and filled with subtle storytelling elements that make the world feel lived in. The open steppe stretches endlessly beneath wide skies, emphasizing the isolation of the protagonist’s situation. Inside the yurt and other interior spaces, everyday objects such as tools, photographs, and pieces of technology hint at the lives of people who once inhabited the area. The contrast between the natural beauty of the landscape and the presence of futuristic machinery reinforces the game’s themes about humanity’s evolving relationship with technology. The game’s sound design and music contribute significantly to its atmosphere. Ambient sounds such as wind sweeping across the plains or distant mechanical hums create a quiet but slightly eerie mood. The musical score is understated and reflective, often blending gentle melodies with subtle electronic tones that reinforce the game’s science-fiction elements. These audio choices encourage players to slow down and absorb the environment rather than rushing through objectives. Narratively, Cradle explores several thought-provoking themes. The story touches on ideas such as transferring human consciousness into artificial bodies, the ethical consequences of advanced biotechnology, and the emotional complexities that arise when technology begins to blur the boundaries between human and machine. The relationship between the protagonist and the repaired android companion becomes central to these themes, raising questions about identity, memory, and what it truly means to be alive. However, the game is not without its shortcomings. The pacing can sometimes feel uneven, especially when the story moves from open exploration to more linear objectives directed by the mechanical companion. Some puzzle sequences—particularly those involving the virtual arcade environments—can become repetitive if encountered too frequently. Additionally, the overall length of the game is relatively short, with most players completing the experience in roughly four to six hours. As a result, the intriguing worldbuilding occasionally feels larger than the narrative itself. Despite these issues, Cradle remains a memorable and distinctive indie adventure. Its unique setting, philosophical themes, and atmospheric design create an experience that feels very different from mainstream adventure games. Rather than focusing on spectacle or high-energy gameplay, it invites players to explore a mysterious world at their own pace and reflect on the ideas presented within it. In the end, Cradle succeeds as a thoughtful science-fiction journey that emphasizes mood, curiosity, and introspection. While its gameplay systems may not always match the ambition of its story, the game’s originality and artistic vision make it stand out in the genre of narrative exploration games. Players who enjoy slow-paced adventures and reflective storytelling will likely find its strange world both fascinating and memorable. Rating: 8/10

Eigentlich ein schönes Spiel mit interessanter Geschichte. Aber diese extrem nervigen Minispiele machen die Stimmung kaputt und passen überhaupt nicht ins Spiel. Als hätte man hier versucht, es künstlich schwer zu machen. Das müsste aber nicht sein. Ich würde es gern einfach so spielen, ohne es ständig frustriert in die Ecke zu legen.

An interesting, albeit brief, yet quite original and distinctive project. Even more than 10 years after its release.

Гра з мегавайбом.

Вирішив пройти гру в 2026 році, і можу запевнити що це дуже атмосферна та незвичайна гра, яка запам’ятовується своїм унікальним світом і глибокою історією. Вона не для всіх, але якщо любиш загадкові сюжети та дослідження — точно варта уваги. Незважаючи на простий геймплей, залишає сильні емоції після проходження.