The Decade-Long Effort To Make Alice: Asylum Has Reached An End

kac77

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The Decade-Long Effort To Make Alice: Asylum Has Reached An End

The decade-long push to get Alice: Asylum--a theoretical third game in the Alice series--has ended, announced developer American McGee.

After the completion of an Alice: Asylum design bible--a huge document containing concept art, core game design concepts, and narrative goals--McGee said he resumed talks with Electronic Arts, the company that owns Alice's IP, to see if EA would be either be willing to fund Alice: Asylum or to license the IP out.
 
I'm always surprised when I hear stories like these of franchises that I have never even heard of being killed.

Same thing happens with celebrities all the time.

Being involved in the scene, even if it is t s title that interests me I've usually at least heard the name before. This one? Nope.
 
I'm always surprised when I hear stories like these of franchises that I have never even heard of being killed.

Same thing happens with celebrities all the time.

Being involved in the scene, even if it is t s title that interests me I've usually at least heard the name before. This one? Nope.
American McGee's Alice was the bomb diggity back at the turn of the millennium and was mentioned in the same breath as Baldur's Gate II, Diablo II, Perfect Dark... It was a BIG deal.
 
I'm always surprised when I hear stories like these of franchises that I have never even heard of being killed.

Same thing happens with celebrities all the time.

Being involved in the scene, even if it is t s title that interests me I've usually at least heard the name before. This one? Nope.

I dunno where you were, but the original at least was all over the place back in the day. I don't remember it being a particularly obscure thing.
 
American McGee's Alice was the bomb diggity back at the turn of the millennium and was mentioned in the same breath as Baldur's Gate II, Diablo II, Perfect Dark... It was a BIG deal.

I do remember the name Baldurs Gate being thrown around, but I never played any of them.

I did briefly play Diablo II, but I wouldn't consider the Diablo series to be particularly enjoyable, influential or even good. It's just a mouse button switch endurance test. <click> <click> <click> <click>.... But I was never into classic RPG though, and I've always hated everything and anything "fantasy" genre.

I don't ever remember hearing the name "Perfect Dark" before. It makes me think of the "Alone in the Dark" series from the early 90's.

For me, I divide games into two periods:

1.) Before Half-Life (1998)


A variety of interesting games from all types of genres exist and interested me. Platformers, God mode titles, turn based strategy, real time strategy, First Person shooters, etc. etc.

2.) After Half-Life (1998)


Nothing that isn't first person even exists. :p And if it is first person, it has to be either single player with mild RPG elements and a rich story, or team based and competitive where strategy at least matters a little. None of that deathmatch gibfest trash matter either. The more tactical/realism the better (up until a point. ARMA and it's whole keyboard binds was a little too much realism for me)

From this period, if something was big, I may have heard of it despite not being FPS, and maybe I even tried it, but from 1998 on the only thing in gaming that matters is first person. Oh, and Sid Meier's Civilization. Sid Meier's Civilization will always matter.
 
I do remember the name Baldurs Gate being thrown around, but I never played any of them.

I did briefly play Diablo II, but I wouldn't consider the Diablo series to be particularly enjoyable, influential or even good. It's just a mouse button switch endurance test. <click> <click> <click> <click>.... But I was never into classic RPG though, and I've always hated everything and anything "fantasy" genre.

I don't ever remember hearing the name "Perfect Dark" before. It makes me think of the "Alone in the Dark" series from the early 90's.

For me, I divide games into two periods:

1.) Before Half-Life (1998)

A variety of interesting games from all types of genres exist and interested me. Platformers, God mode titles, turn based strategy, real time strategy, First Person shooters, etc. etc.

2.) After Half-Life (1998)

Nothing that isn't first person even exists. :p And if it is first person, it has to be either single player with mild RPG elements and a rich story, or team based and competitive where strategy at least matters a little. None of that deathmatch gibfest trash matter either. The more tactical/realism the better (up until a point. ARMA and it's whole keyboard binds was a little too much realism for me)

From this period, if something was big, I may have heard of it despite not being FPS, and maybe I even tried it, but from 1998 on the only thing in gaming that matters is first person. Oh, and Sid Meier's Civilization. Sid Meier's Civilization will always matter.
you have quite the interesting taste in games....not many didn't get into diablo 2. i know i played it like a crackmonkey. first one too for that matter, despite the fact that online was hacked 6 ways to sunday. considering that you're not into RPG/fantasy it's probably just not your thing.

but i digress, this is getting a little off topic. i did try alice and to be honest i wasn't that impressed. it was ok, i didn't see it as anything special.
 
Alice was born to fail. It was a 3rd person action/platformer that was released exclusively for PC's based on a 140ish year old book by Lewis Carrol where you played a goth chick.......keep in mind, this game dropped in 2000.....and back then consoles were where you went for "That kind of Crash Bandicoot game.....".

Critics Loved it, creatives lauded it as a masterpiece, but in the end 9 people paid for it full price and I think for a lot of us the narrative went sorta like this:

"...so it's this game where you play as a skinny goth girl in 3rd person in the world of Lewis Carrols Alice In Wonderl<CLICK>..............hello? hello!?!?..."


It sits next to Psychonauts on the shelf as a kind of "if you give it time you'd very likely enjoy it, but in the end....it was the wrong game at the wrong time on the wrong platform".
 
Not sure if I played a demo disc (or if it was the similar looking Heavy Metal FAKK 2), but I definitely heard of Alice. IIRC it was the first big game from McGee after leaving id, and I seem to recall the game getting a lot of hype more on the American McGee connection than the IP itself.
 
A pretty cool looking game considering the time. Civvie 11 did a 30 minute playthrough video showing off the 1st game:




*Edit* Top comment is from McGee. Guess that didn't age well.
 
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"EA refused to do either. McGee said EA passed on funding due to "internal analysis of the IP, market conditions, and details of the production proposal," and did not want to license the IP because, "'Alice' is an important part of EA’s overall game catalog, and selling or licensing it isn’t something they’re prepared to do right now."

LOL classic EA never changes.
 
A pretty cool looking game considering the time. Civvie 11 did a 30 minute playthrough video showing it off the 1st game:




*Edit* Top comment is from McGee. Guess that didn't age well.

Never see the appeal to making something wholesome dark. Life is hard enough as it is. Gameplay also looks painfully unfun. Messed up game.
 
I feel bad for McGee, but rather wish that if EA was not even able to license it for development by someone else, that McGee could have basically started a Kickstarter and crowdfunded the game "American McGee's Alyx: Asylum, a Mirrorworld tale" much like how Koji Igarashi made Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (and Curse of the Moon, and Curse of the Moon 2 etc) because Konami kept sitting on the Castlevania license and generally being shitty modern Konami overall. Bloodstained games played like and were obviously inspired by Castlevania series, but they were different enough. Likewise, Alice in Wonderland is more or less public domain so all sorts of take on it can be done, just like the original games being part of that delightful 90s and 2000's goth inspiration (today's young people would call them "edgelord"y). Its a pity that EA owns the complete Alice IP, but there's nothing to stop McGee from making his own version that's different enough - though it appears he's tired of the fight now, as he mentioned that should EA or anyone else get the access to finally make the title, he doesn't wish to be involved. Too bad. Wish he could have taken Iga's path long before this but its really the fault of EA being tightfisted with both money and IP.
 
The original was good. Never played the second.

I still have a hard copy of that game - I used to fire it up to impress people because it looked fairly good for its time.
 
The original was good. Never played the second.

I still have a hard copy of that game - I used to fire it up to impress people because it looked fairly good for its time.
The second is beautiful. Highly recommend it. Played okay on my GTX 780 when I had it.
 
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