After years of dreaming, I'm finally making the game of my heart — a shamanic action-platformer rooted in Siberian culture
I'm Eugene, an indie game developer, and for a very long time I've had one big dream: to make an atmospheric game that shows the world the culture of Siberia. This week I finally released the Steam page for it.
The game is called Cradle of Winter.
Here's my short pitch:
Cradle of Winter is an atmospheric action-platformer about a young shaman walking through a world where humans, spirits and ancient legends intertwine. Explore an endless northern taiga, fight dark spirits and demons, craft amulets, and master the power of the shaman drum.
You play as Iniro Kotsen, a young hunter chosen by the spirits to walk the shaman's path. The Mother Goddess has been cast out of the sky, the World Tree is shaken, and the old order is breaking — creatures that existed only in legend are now pouring into the land. To restore balance, Iniro must find the ancient Cradle.
What I really want to capture is the culture of the Khanty and Mansi peoples — not as exotic decoration, but as something alive: rituals, myths, the drum, the songs, the everyday spiritual world of the North. Siberia is rarely shown in games the way it actually is. Cradle of Winter is my attempt to fix that.
A bit of backstory:
Production took me about a year, after another year of preparation. And I did it while raising two kids.
I'll be honest — I'm a pretty risk-averse person. I like my safe space. But this time something felt different. I was raising two kids, and every night after they fell asleep I sat down to build a world out of forest, spirits and old songs. And one thought kept coming back: now or never. In Siberia they say the taiga doesn't wait — you either move with it or it buries you. So I moved. I still can't fully believe it.
That's my story
Steam page Cradle of Winter