The Cradle: Episode 01

Go down through a closed children's sanatorium to the radio station beneath it. Something walks the halls, and it hunts by sound. Don't look at the children too long.

4625 kHz has been silent for three days. Someone has to go down.

September 1996. Under a closed children's sanatorium in the marshes, a hidden radio station has sent the same low buzz into the air, day and night, for twenty years. Now it has stopped, and the shift below has stopped answering. Radio engineer Andrei Vetrov is sent in alone, at night, to put it back on the air.

The building isn't as empty as it should be. The lights still work. A phone rings in the nurses' station. And someone is still looking after the children.

The Cradle: Episode 01 is a first-person narrative survival horror game: a complete story for one evening, about 45 to 60 minutes, with three endings.

LISTEN. HIDE. HOLD YOUR BREATH. Something walks the halls, and it hunts by sound. Slip under a bed or into a wardrobe, watch the corridors on the station's cameras, and keep very still when it stops beside you.

PIECE IT TOGETHER Notes, reel-to-reel tapes, radio calls and an old videotape. Nobody explains what happened here. You'll have to work it out, and decide what to do about it.

FEATURES • A complete story with three endings, and the choice is yours • Stealth and hiding: beds, wardrobes, lockers, and a breath you can hold • Puzzles built into the place: fuses, codes, frequencies, cameras • Fully voiced in English and Russian, with subtitles; voiceover can be turned off • Touch controls made for iPhone and iPad, or play with a game controller (Xbox, PlayStation or MFi) • 17 Game Center achievements, some of them hidden • Noir and Retro picture filters • Comfort options: gentler jump scares, reduced flashing, quieter loud sounds • Chapter select after your first finish, to find what you missed • No ads, no in-app purchases, no account. Plays offline.

Best with headphones.

Content warning: horror themes, jump scares, sudden loud sounds, flashing lights, chases, total darkness, children in peril, distorted faces, and death. The Comfort settings soften the scares without removing any scene.

A game by Encrypted Cat Games (0xKOT).