An American in Wonderland

Alice: Madness Returns takes place 11 years after the events of its predecessor Over a decade after American McGee created his distinctive and extremely popular computer game of Alice, the games designer has finally returned to Wonderland for more madness. Alice: Madness Returns will be released by Electronic Arts next month for Windows PCs, PS3 and Xbox 360. The game takes place 11 years after the events of its predecessor, which concluded with Alice finally released from the asylum that kept her captive. Although Alice is now free to roam the streets of London, she is still scarred by the fiery death of her parents and returns to Wonderland for psychological comfort. Advertisement: Story continues below Designer American McGee likes "pushing the boundaries" Yet players soon discover that it is a Wonderland that is even more horrifying than before, and Alice definitely needs weaponry like a pepper-grinder machine gun and teapot explosives in order to battle its disturbed inhabitants. The game has been developed in Shanghai by a new studio called Spicy Horse, and American McGee claims it is the first AAA game to be wholly developed in China. Screen Play chatted with American McGee, senior creative director at Spicy Horse, and Ken Wong, art director at Spicy Horse (and an expatriate Australian) during their visit to Australia last week to promote the new game. The full interview can be found below. Thanks for your time, guys. First up, I'm interested to hear why you thought Wonderland was worth returning to? (American McGee) When we finished the first Rosetta Stone Hindi game the response from the people who played it was pretty phenomenal. Worldwide we saw that it basically changed a lot of people's perceptions of what Alice in Wonderland is about. People were getting tattoos based on the game, Halloween costumes - when dressing up it became a choice between the classic Alice or the bloody, knife-wielding version. There was a very clear following and a very strong response. It just felt like we had the opportunity to be able to bring the audience some more fun. And what is it that makes Alice in Wonderland so compelling to you? (American McGee) She's a pretty amazing character because everything that you see in the world of Wonderland is coming from her mind. She's got a fantastic imagination, and as a game creator to be able to tap into that and build worlds on top of that really gives us a lot of freedom to present stuff that you don't traditionally see in video games. The character as a person where we took her tragic event, the fire that killed her family, we created a character that we thought was very sympathetic. A character that audiences could identify with. She's sort of the traditional broken character who is fighting her way back after something tragic. And we saw that audiences, both male and female, really latched onto her and understood her and appreciated her as a character. That gives us a lot to work with. What were your aims when starting work on the sequel? (American McGee) We finished up the first game knowing that there were for us some clear directions that we could take her in as a character. This fire and the damage that it did to her psychologically, she resolved that to the extent that she was able to free herself from the asylum at the end of the first game, she saved herself from insanity. But the question of who started the fire to me was still there.