Alice: Otherlands Kickstarter Details

It has been two years since Alice: Madness Returns was released on PC and home consoles. Earning a respectable fanbase, American McGee's creepy recreation of Lewis Carroll's classic tale of Alice Lidell and Wonderland is definitely worth checking out.

Spicy Horse recently announced an Alice Kickstarter campaign, which upon this post being published, has 13 days left to go.

Achieving the rights for a third game in the trilogy was proving to be a little difficult at this point in time, so instead of creating a Kickstarter to fund a predecessor to Alice: Madness Returns, the company is proposing a series of short films to be released in a collection entitled Alice: Otherlands.

Alice: Otherlands will find Alice using her mental powers to explore the minds of others. Set in 1875, there are plenty of famous minds for Alice to escape to, such as Darwin, French artists, Queen Victoria and Jack the Ripper. Alice will most likely be tasked with battling an organization or single villain who's sole intent is to capture society in a nightmarish "prison of the mind."

Featuring animation like those seen in the cardboard-cut-out style cut scenes in Alice: Madness Returns, contributions from a host of artists, writers and film makers and music by acclaimed composer Chris Vrenna, Alice: Otherlands seems like an exciting proposition. 

Check out some of the concept art below, including the DVD cover. The Kickstarter page, including more information and donation incentives, can be found here.

(Click the images to see a bigger version!)

Alice: Madness Returns Fanart from Omri Koresh

I always enjoy featuring an artist who has captured the look and feel of a game perfectly. Israeli artist Omri Koresh demonstrates this with his artwork based on American McGee's Alice and Alice: Madness Returns.

The pieces below show his interpretation of Alice, the Cheshire Cat and the Mad Hatter, and demonstrates the creepy but vibrant Wonderland landscape from the games.

This is just a small fraction of Omri's Alice art on offer. I urge you to check out the rest here. Also, sadly my blog does not let me resize images larger than this (they start to navigate off the page if I do), so the full size, high resolution versions can also be found via his site. 

Perhaps The Best Alice: Madness Returns Cosplay I've Seen!

I loved Alice: Madness Returns, and happened to stumble upon this rather excellent cosplayer last night during a brief browse.

Ormeli on deviantART has plenty of fantastic cosplays besides her Alice one, so it is worth looking through her gallery. However, I decided to feature her Alice cosplay photos, as she looks scarily like Alice Liddel from the game-the same frame, big eyes and face shape. Check them out below. You can also view the bigger versions via the Alice folder in her gallery.

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Art Feature: theDURRRRIAN

Today's feature goes to deviantArt member theDURRRIAN. He has provided a lot of artwork for Anchora Games, who created online trading card game Forgotten Myths.

Check out these pieces below, inspired by Alice: Madness Returns and World of Warcraft. 

Lady Glodien Dawnwing

Alice: Chaos In Wonderland

New Alice Madness Returns Figure

Fans of Alice: Madness Returns may be pleased to know that a new piece of merchandise is due to be released in June 2012. 


The Alice Madness Returns "Hysteria" figure features Alice in her gory alternate form, which players can choose to activate in the game when Alice is nearing death. This attack makes Alice invincible in a berserker state for a brief amount of time, allowing her to get up close to enemies and deal excessive damage.


This seven-inch figure comes with Alice's weapons, the Vorpal blade, Hobby Horse, and Pepper Grinder, and is fully articulated. 

This Alice figure can be bought at Entertainment Earth for $21.99 (£14.03). 

Alice: Madness Returns in The Sims Social

American McGee's official website has reported that this week Alice: Madness Returns will be joining forces with The Sims Social, a Facebook version of the popular life-sim. 


This inclusion allows fans of last years Alice: Madness Returns to adorn their Sim in some of Alice's costumes, decorate their house to reflect the twisted Wonderland in the console game, and go on quests to gain experience, points and items. 


Whilst The Sims Social is incredibly buggy at times (which for now has actually stopped me playing it), this is still great news! It may even urge me to go back and try it out again...

The Art of Alice: Madness Returns Review

American McGee's Alice: Madness Returns, released in 2011 had a creepy, macabre, but visually stunning design. However, I feel that you cannot actually appreciate the aesthetics until you've viewed the concept designs, official commissioned pieces and more in the Dark Horse published hardback artbook, The Art of Alice: Madness Returns.


Artist anecdotes, an introduction from American McGee himself, and plenty of art is scattered throughout the 184 pages of this delightful hardback book. Not only is there a lot of pages, but the paper is thick and glossy, the binding is great, and it looks great in an eye-catching hardback cover. 

It seems pretty obvious to most, but unless you've never played Alice: Madness Returns, the book probably isn't worth picking up. Also, just as a warning, this artbook is rather gruesome for the most part. If there's not a splattering of gore, there are plenty of disturbing enough pieces of art which deems this unsuitable for the squeamish, and those who shy away from the stranger things in life. 


The book begins with a lengthily introduction from the game's creator, American McGee, whose twisted fantasy vision is seen throughout not only this game, but Madness Return's predecessor, American McGee's Alice. This introduction sheds some light on the initial creation of this sequel title, and provides McGee with the opportunity to express his pride at helping to create such a visually driven video game. After this, the book is split up into different sections, which present the artwork for different aspects of the game, such as the preproduction, the designing of the Victorian London seen in the game, and Alice's dresses. 

It's surprising to see how much art was created for the game-most of it in this book never actually made it into the game, but gave some examples of how different Alice: Madness Returns could have been if it was included. These include enemy designs which were either deemed too bizarre or gruesome, or because they simply did not fit in with the rest of the chosen characters. 


Every single page welcomes a brand new surprise or wonderful image that I for one could not help but stare at for ages. The book brings illustrations such as a Jack the Ripper style character mixed with the creatures of HP Lovecraft novels, angler fish with human legs, steampunk and gothic creations, and much more. The book includes a two page spread of a painting of a mother giving birth to lots of children. It's a bloody, bizarre picture that even I, who has enjoyed the rest of the quirky art contained in this book, understood why it was deemed too gory for the game! (I often skip this picture rather quickly when flicking through the book). 


There is so much packed into The Art of Alice: Madness Returns that it is impossible to read it, and look at all the pictures from cover to cover in one go. I found that it has taken me several read-through's to read every single comment on the art, as well as view and appreciate this high quality art before I could officially say that I've been through this art book completely. 

What makes this book that much more interesting is the inclusion of comments from those who have worked on the game. Each and every illustration is explained by one of the team, and it really helps to explain what the creators were aiming to convey when Alice: Madness Returns was released to the general public. 


The larger illustrations in the book are magnificent, and I found myself being drawn into looking at huge amount of detail in these images for ages before I  was able to turn the page. These large paintings really depict a wonderfully twisted, gothic world that players wander through during playing Madness Returns. The final few pages present some of the game's official commissioned pieces which tied in with the advertising of the game. Fans should be quite familiar with these, but they look even better in a glossy paged hardback book. 

Overall, The Art of Alice: Madness Returns is a gorgeous art book. Fans of the game will love this, especially as it comes packed with so many illustrations that did not make it into the final version of the game. There is plenty of gothic, dark, quirky and macabre pieces of art inside, most of which are still strangely beautiful. However, as you may have gathered, it's a dark book, and it does contain a substantial level of gore (blood mainly) in a large proportion of the drawings. Therefore, if you're a little squeamish, or darker, gothic art does not appeal to you, then you may not want to check it out. A lot of the pieces of art remind me of a cross between surrealist painters Salvador Dali and Mark Ryden (the latter is actually quoted as being a major influence during the art stage of the game), with splatterings of Tim Burton and American McGee, as well as a distinctly victorian, gothic, colourful feel. It's a fantastic artbook which I still enjoy looking through. I highly recommend it!