When I think of the best levels in the best video games I’ve ever played, one of the first that comes to mind is the Shalebridge Cradle level from Thief: Deadly Shadows. You’ve got to play through 80% of the game before you’ll see the game’s penultimate level, but it’s worth it. I’ve seen some fairly well done haunted houses in video games – the one in Vampire: Bloodlines comes to mind – but it’s nothing compared to the Shalebridge Cradle.

The Shalebridge Cradle began as an orphanage, and later became an insane asylum. Think of John Cusack’s 1408, with a little bit of The Shining, and some Thirteen Ghosts thrown in for flavor. That will get you halfway there.

I don’t have the writing acumen to accurately describe how well-designed The Shalebridge Cradle truly is. But in March 2005, PC Gamer Magazine wrote a ten-page article about it. A single level of a single game. Ten pages. And the article (pdf) should give you a good feel for what I’m trying to convey in my sonnet.

And now, my ode to the Shalebridge Cradle

Behind a rusted gate it looms immense
A sinister abandoned old estate
My heart feels crushed as if beneath a weight
As I peer up at stark malevolence

With heightened pulse I slowly step inside
And wait in vain for crushing fear to pass
Beneath The Cradle’s black foreboding mass
I feel my trepidations amplified

Forsaken children once wandered these halls
Mingling with the criminally insane
The wrongness of thy history brings pain
But gems and silver treasure herein calls

So long I’ve been the monster in the night
Crouched in shadow, knife or club in hand
Yet these inhuman puppets you command
Fill even this monster’s soul with fright

Evil resides within these halls malign
Canst be no shadows deadlier than thine