American McGee remains to be making an attempt to show his theoretical Alice: Asylum right into a actuality. The final game in his darkish action-platformer collection, Alice: Madness Returns, launched greater than ten years in the past, and since then McGee has been funding improvement by a Patreon which, on the time of writing, presently has 3,192 paying members. In 2021, McGee launched the primary draft of a script, and now he’s again with a 414-page design bible, the announcement of a associate studio, and an odd plea to EA.
The design bible is accessible now for Patrons and opens as much as everybody else tomorrow, however you may catch glimpses of it within the just lately launched trailer. There’s tons of idea artwork, design notes, mock UI ideas, and a short glimpse at a brand new “gown rune system” – seemingly a strategy to combine and match completely different skills. The full, completed script can be right here, exhibiting Alice at her “brightest” level – which on this context means she’s nearly smiling – to her “darkest” level, exhibiting her begging on the road like I think about all Victorian period youngsters did.
The finish of the trailer is when issues get somewhat odder, as collection proprietor EA’s brand seems with textual content studying “Let’s make unattainable issues occur collectively.” This comes off as a plea for EA to greenlight and approve a sequel, quite than any kind of announcement. When McGee launched the primary draft script, he mentioned the staff’s plan was to “construct a manufacturing/design plan, have that plan permitted by EA, after which increase funding to develop a brand new game.” The latest design bible is described as “the primary pre-production part,” so who is aware of when a remaining plan can be prepared for approval.
At least Alice: Asylum now has a dev associate, making the challenge one step away from only a hypothetical. McGee and his dev staff are being joined by Virtuos, a assist studio identified for his or her work on games like Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, and some different heavy hitters.
Looking on the design bible actually? I can’t assist however be somewhat intrigued at one other journey on this collection. Sure, Madness Returns was unbearable at occasions. Overly edgy, weirdly bloated and positively repetitive. But, boy, was it stunning. That’s to be anticipated whenever you’re remixing designs from Lewis Carroll’s traditional books and turning them into these trippy, fever dream set items – and the design bible looks like extra of the identical, simply extra. More sharp tooth on fancy teapots, extra structure that twirls unnaturally, and extra random playing cards floating throughout the sky. So, sure, I’d like one other.
At the identical time, McGee has been speaking a couple of third game for actually a decade. Maybe I’d have a greater time ready for an additional dangerous Disney movie.