A Glimpse of Wonderland

While I initially did like the idea of the Kubler-Ross grief model being used as the background concept for Alice 3, I think it is too similar to Alice: Madness Returns. Alice is unconsciously grieving for the violence and death surrounding her sister Lizzy. She denies knowing what happened the night of the fire, despite the Queen stating, 'Centaurs don't live in Oxford'. Alice even mentions this to herself, but does nothing with the information. Lizzy’s assault is the very reason for the fire occurring, the death of their parents and the madness which Alice succumbs to. It is the ‘source’ of the fire. The other stages are prevalent in the game as well, the anger towards the other characters in Wonderland, shown mainly the mad hatter, for not helping her uncover what has caused the infernal train and the corruption of Wonderland. Alice even lets the mad hatter ‘die’ in Chapter 1, because of this infuriation, not realising that she has all of the memories, but refused to acknowledge them. Rage is also suggested with Alice’s hysteria mode. Her depression is shown by her helplessness to help others in and out of Wonderland. She allows the Queen to devour her, as she is overwhelmed, only realising then Wonderland is the ultimate pathetic fallacy of herself. It is only when Alice manages to get onto the infernal train, that we see her bargaining with the other characters (mostly shown through the various cutscenes) for the final pieces of information she desperately needs. Her acceptance is introduction of Dr Bumby as the dollmaker; she not only accepts that she has been a bystander to the abuse of the orphans, but accepts her inaction in Lizzy’s death too. Therefore, the Kubler-Ross grief model is a good foundation for a story, but it has done many times before. I think it has been done unconsciously here too. I won’t be disappointed if Alice 3 does retain the grief model, however I would want to know what Alice is ‘accepting’ in this game. The death of her parents? The fire itself? Her own insanity? I’m still looking forward to seeing where this story goes.

Idk if it’s just me but I think Alice itself is well-known for the tea-times with the mad hatter and the others. It would be really cool if this would be a small part of Asylum since the Mad Hatter even spoke about it in Madness Returns. I didn’t have an idea how to bring it in but I’ll think about it. I just thought it could be a nice idea to share with you guys^^

This is beautiful! I would love to see the different landscapes

The idea you pitched on last week's podcast about building puzzle/static level parts and connecting them with procedurally generated levels sounds great. Done right, that would be very engaging and a unique experience every time the game is played.

One thing we have not yet seen is a book/library-inspired level ( Fortress of doors hinted at it, but you were normal size ), as Alice was a reader and constantly questioning the order of the universe. Something that starts out like a massive library where you are exploring stacked books, open books, things related to books, but then turns into something deranged towards the end.

I actually really liked the (under)water levels in the Alice games. Which is a rare thing for me, most of the time I can't stand them and am afraid of surprise shark attacks. Oh that wonderful ride on the leaf. Weapon-wise first of all I'd love to see the idle animations make a return haha. Small details like this are missing in too many games nowadays. They really added to Alice's personality I feel. My favourite weapon has always been the Hobby Horse, so impactful while I didn't like the Peppergrinder too much (probably not impactful enough). I kinda liked the Playing Cards though. Oh and I loved how the looks of the weapons would change with the power of the weapons in Madness Returns. And the dresses of course. Hopefully we get a lot of dresses again (favourite is the Siren dress), the DLC dresses were all top-notch. Great ideas, great designs.

Yannic Kränz

It looks beautiful, I appreciate the vale being back again. I would hope to see Queensland also making a 3rd appearance. I enjoyed the toy theme that often applies to many of the weapons between the two previous games. I imagine outside of the vorpal blade she would lean toward some toy themed weapons at this point. Can't wait to see more as things are developing :).

Hehe the line "I never really liked sweets" from the first game came to mind while reading this.

I couldn't have said it any better!

I think too, the idea of a generated wonderland COULD be very cool. We must keep in mind, that there will be still more linear hand-crafted levels, so it will be a mix of these two approaches. If the "level-generator" is done well-thought-out with a lot of assets, as Kayleigh said and a lot of possible variations (landscape, different caves to explore, different interesting findings (a lot of memorys?, wonderland characters to meet? dialoges with a few choices; so for different playthroughs we could get more informations etc.)), I think I could like it. But I doubt, that the effort to do such a generator right and not poorly will be less than just to create several different (more open and explorable) wonderland levels by hand.

Yeah, I think the trick is to have a lot of assets available for each environment, but to use them sparsely so the player will keep discovering new things for a while and keep the sense of exploration :)

Indeed is a hard goal to achieve, but done properly gives an discovery feeling that always catch you. Take as an example, minecraft. you always find new cool areas to build your next castle. Also,i think that a procedurally generated world suits the very nature of Wonderland itself, a place that changes each time you visit... At this point of development i don't think it's a primary factor, but sure is one to keep in mind and devate in a further time.

>procedurally generated I'm not sure about this, I want well-crafted levels not another rougelike-ish world design.

Would denial & grief be two halves of the game where one stage fades into the other, or would it kind of fade in and out as it tends to do realistically? I'd also like to see the doll stage from the second game appear in Asylum, I figured it would fit in with the timeline. Keep up the awesome work you're doing, cannot wait to play OOTW! All my love and support. - Gabriel

So I was thinking about some weapons/puzzles which Alice could use a book and tear out the pages to float and create platforms to get to higher elevated spaces. Similar to the books in the library in the first game. Also, since she is 13, ever thought about maybe a candy land type environment? All Children love sweets!

Matthew Nigrelli

Will the different landscapes each represent a different stage of grief, or will the landscapes change during the story? The latter would be awesome but may be hard to create

Would love to see Looking Glass Land from the first game again!