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Killing makes her more sane.
Here's a riddle: When is a croquet mallet like a billy club? I'll tell you: Whenever you want it to be.
—The Cheshire Cat
One of the most disturbing video games ever released, the plot revolves around Alice of
Alice In Wonderland fame. Released in late 2000 by
Electronic Arts. Yes,
that Electronic Arts.
Alice's parents are killed in a fire, of which she is the only survivor. The trauma leaves her mostly catatonic and suicidal, and she is institutionalized in Rutledge Asylum. Years later, the White Rabbit summons Alice to aid a radically altered Wonderland, now under the despotic rule of the Queen of Hearts.
Alice must fight her way through the twisted dream world in an attempt to destroy the Queen and restore Wonderland to its former glory, and thus heal her mind. Along the way, she must destroy the Queen's minions, many of which are her former friends and companions. Her guide and primary ally is a twisted, emaciated Cheshire Cat, who can be summoned by the player for hints on how to go or just the occasional cryptic quote.
The game itself is an early action adventure, with Alice using a variety of deadly toys to kill the inhabitants trying to destroy her and solving a number of puzzles along the way. The soundtrack is particularly notable, created by Nine Inch Nails member Chris Vrenna with exclusively Victorian instruments and toys.
In February 2009, roughly 8 or so years after the game was released, EA announced that American McGee got the band back together, so to speak, and
is working on another macabre journey through the looking glass.
Tropes include:
- All There In The Manual: The manual here including Alice In Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass.
- Battle In The Center Of The Mind: Solving Alice's problems tends to involve Stuff Blowing Up.
- BFG: The Blunderbuss.
- Cheshire Cat Grin: The Cheshire Cat, naturally, though his grin is actually a mix of Cheshire Cat Grin, Slasher Smile, and pure Nightmare Fuel Unleaded.
- Creepy Child: Alice herself.
- Creepy Cool Crosses: Early versions of Alice wore a cross instead of her omega necklace. Some badly done versions even made the cross look inverted, and you know that's never going to fly.
- Dark World: The Twisted Wonderland definitely qualifies.
- Darker And Edgier
- Deliberately Monochrome: The Pale Realm of the Chess people's world.
- Development Hell: Not for the game itself, but for the movie adaptation, which has gone on for years.
- Dream Land: Take a wild guess.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: While earning the ending holds true for all video games, Alice literally has to earn her sanity back by battling the Red Queen.
- Eldritch Abomination: The Red Queen
- Exposition Fairy: The Cheshire Cat, who offers hints on puzzles sometimes. Less annoying than other examples since you actually have to summon his help. Somewhat subverted in that The Cheshire Cat's "help" is often enigmatic to the point of uselessness.
- Fetish Fuel: Alice's voice actress sounds very similar to the voice of the sexy Lara Croft. Listen to Alice moan when she gets a faceful from the rage box.
- Girl With Psycho Weapon: Alice is best known for her first weapon, a knife, called the "Vorpal Blade" in-game.
- Goddamned Bats - the fish that jump out of lava to spit fire at you. (or worse, shoot you with a sticky tongue to pull you in)
- The regular snarks are pretty annoying too, frankly.
- Going Through The Motions: Play this game now and be embarrassed at the quality of animation.
- Grimmification: One of the more famous examples.
- Hannibal Lecture: The Jabberwock, The Mad Hatter, and the Red Queen especially.
- Happy Place: Subverted. This is what Wonderland used to be.
- Idle Animation - Looking down the barrel of the blunderbuss, prying open a jackbomb, burying a card in her own skull, playing with knives ... Alice is dangerous when she's bored.
- Improbable Weapon User: Alice's "toys" are mighty lethal. Decks of cards, flamingo-shaped croquet mallets, explosive Jack-in-the-boxes, dice which summon demons...the list goes on.
- In Case You Forgot Who Wrote It: This troper once saw it said of this game that if you're going to insist on putting your own name in the title, it's better if people actually know who the hell you are.
- Possibly justified, to differentiate it from Lewis Caroll's Alice. In Wonderland.
- That and American Mc Gee has a huge ego.
- In The Mouth Of Madness - The game comes with the journal of Alice's psychiatrist, who's gradually drawn into her descriptions of Wonderland and their disturbing synchronicity with the asylum's own mysterious characters.
- Ironic Nursery Tune
- Its Personal: Well, it was personal to begin with, but it becomes much more so after the deaths of the Rabbit and especially the Cheshire Cat.
- Journey To The Center Of The Mind: The basic premise of the game.
- Knife Nut
- Lethal Lava Land: The Land of Fire and Brimstone
- Macro Zone: The Wonderland Woods segments
- Magic Skirt: You can't look up it, no matter how hard you try.
- You can if she's swimming. There's nothing to see though.
- Mind Screw
- Nightmare Fuel Unleaded: Oh man, where to start...
- Pop Star Composer
- Puzzle Pan: Inverted
- Rated M For Money
- Room Full Of Crazy: Though it's more like an asylum full of crazy — look at the walls in the Hatter level and you can faintly see he's been scribbling on them. (And there's the bloody "You're Next" warnings to boot.)
- Sanity Meter: You get more sane by drinking the essence of your kills! (Try explaining this to your therapist after you finish the game.)
- Scenery As You Go: A few of the puzzles work this way.
- That One Boss - The Jabberwock in the second battle. He attacks from the air, directly from above you (which is nasty enough in TPP shooter) and his primary attack sets you on fire, causing Alice to flail and scream.
- The worst part is that you can't outrun it or dodge it. You have to block it which can only be accomplished by using the Gryphon's body as a meatshield or with Ice Walls... which he simply flies around.
- What Do You Mean Its Not For Kids: Although it's based on the relatively tame Alice In Wonderland books, the game's rated M for a reason.
- And any parent who bought this for their kids, with the cover clearly showing Alice holding a bloody knife, deserved to be smacked.
- To be fair, the picture featured here is only from the first release. Later covers showed an Alice with a clean dress holding either the Ice Wand or the Cards. (Granted, this means the parents should have been discouraged by the Cheshire Cat, but. . . .)
- Womb Level: The Queen's castle. Creepily organic, and her body (you see her tentacles here and there in other levels) seems to extend from it...
