Get ready to take a closer look into Alice Asylum Concept Art. When you’re creating a video game, there are a lot of moving parts- from the design and coding to the artwork and story.
While it’s important to have a clear vision for your game, it’s also critical to have a solid foundation during pre-production to start development.
That’s where the Game Design Bible comes in. This document is your go-to guide for everything related to the game, from concept art and level design to plot points and character development.
Don’t forget to check out our ranking for the Best Fromsoftware games.
In this blog post, we’ll take a closer look at the Game Design Bible for Alice: Asylum, giving you an inside look at how it was created and what it includes.
So buckle up and get ready for a tour of the inner workings of this epic adventure game!
American McGee’s Alice
American McGee, the creative mind behind the American McGee’s Alice franchise has recently announced that his team has made the upcoming prequel’s game design bible free to download. I decided to take a look and write about highlights from the highly anticipated prequel and the third installment of the trilogy that so far consists of “American McGee’s Alice” and “Alice Madness Returns.”
You can download the 118-page document here.
***Warning: Contains heavy spoilers for Alice: Asylum***
***Important notes***
American McGee and his team are currently in a video game rights stalemate with Electronic Arts Games – the publisher of the first two Alice games. This game design bible was created in an effort to spur new investment opportunities, help greenlight the potential development of a new AAA Title Alice game and create a new experience for the fans of Alice to enjoy for free.
If you wish to support American McGee’s efforts in making a new Alice game, please go buy merch or support his Patreon which is linked here.
Additionally, the game design bible for Alice: Asylum is a work in progress as there are some missing graphics, copywriting, story explanations, and dialogue that will be completed in the coming months.
What is the Story?
Similar to the first two games, the Alice: Asylum narrative is built around the stages of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) that Alice Liddell grapples with while she processes her family’s untimely demise. The game is a prequel that takes place during Alice’s time at Rutledge Asylum while she receives treatment for her deteriorating mental state onset by the mysterious house fire that killed her family.
Each of the 12 realms in the game is designed to emulate different stages of grief: Depression, Denial, Anger, Bargaining, and Acceptance that Alice must face once she is transported into her inner world – Wonderland.
The usual characters that populate Alice’s Wonderland are now corrupted by shadowy chaos that drives them to attack her as she sets out to figure out what is causing all this mayhem. The corruption is an allegory for what haunts Alice’s mind, trapping her in her traumatic past and preventing her from receiving closure, clarity, and healing.
“Alice must confront and defeat what threatens to destroy her.”
What is the Game Play?
The curated linear level design combined with combat, puzzles, exploration, and discovery offers a non-threatening progression through the game for players of all abilities to enjoy. The hack-and-slash gameplay of the previous games still rings true for Alice: Asylum, with new abilities and features allowing for multiple types of playstyles to succeed. The prequel divulges from the first two games by offering a Central Hub called the “Hall of Doors” that players can fast travel to and from in order to add an element of replayability that previous installments lacked.
Combat will be executed with the use of some weapons from previous games and some new ones. Key phases of combat encourage the player to make use of their entire arsenal – by observing strategy, exploiting the enemy’s weaknesses, evading damage, using ranged/melee attacks, and replenishing health by defeating enemies.
Examples of potential weapons are highlighted below:
Potential Weapon Wheel Design
Alice Asylum Concept Art and Aesthetic of the Game?
Alice: Asylum will be sticking to a Victorian Gothic aesthetic while taking inspiration from surrealism and the psychedelic influences of the original tale by Lewis Carroll.
The team has done extensive research finding style inspiration from various abstract, surrealist, and horror artists. Each one of Alice’s dresses is designed to represent which phase of the game she is in; for instance, the first dress she is seen in is the “Moth Dress”, which symbolizes both the fragility of Alice’s sanity and how fleeting her life is in such a dangerous world of nightmares. There is a close relationship between the story and the concept art.
Moth Dress | The First Slumber | Game Opening
Here are some other fashion design concepts that emulate the stylistic themes of their respective environments:
Denial Dress | Carnival of Fools | Denial Realm
Red Monarch Dress | The Queen’s Domain | Anger & Judgement Realm
Alchemy Dress | Hatter’s Domain | Bargaining Realm
Everything from enemies, weapons, collectibles, fashion, and side characters fit this gothic surrealist aesthetic in addition to a plethora of new features and environments for players to explore and get lost in. Design choices are determined by the realm in which they take place – for instance, there is an iteration of Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum that appear as clowns because they reside in the “Circus of Fools” level that is based in the Denial realm.
Another example of aesthetic matching the themes of the game is with the weapons. The Jack Bomb is a new weapon introduced by the developers of Alice Asylum, you can find it after you defeat the Tweedles in the Circus of Fools area:
The environment and level design uphold the surrealist aesthetic of previous Alice games as well, with each level representing different stages of Alice’s PTSD both visually and thematically. One of the most visually intriguing areas that I came across in the game design bible is that of the “Serpent’s Temple” which you can discover in the “Wonderland Woods”.
Serpent’s Temple | Wonderland Woods | Depression Realm
A Look into One of the Proposed Levels Concept Art
In each of the Alice games, there have been different iterations of the Red Queen’s domain. Alice: Asylum is no different with the Queen’s Castle looking like this:
Queen’s Castle | The Queen’s Domain | Anger & Judgement Realm
The goal of this level is to locate the Queen of Hearts who resides deep within the labyrinthian halls of the castle. Alice must fight through scores of card guards and royal mimics who appear bloodied and stitched together. Alice fights her way to the Executioner – the first boss battle of Queen’s Castle.
Chaos Corrupted Executioner | Queen’s Castle | Anger & Judgement Realm
She eventually finds and confronts the Queen of Hearts whom she must defeat in a final boss battle for this level without losing her head.
The Queen of Hearts | Queen’s Castle | Anger & Judgement Realm
Interested in staying up to date on all things Alice: Asylum? Consider following American McGee on Twitter as he posts updates frequently as well as content from his live stream where he discusses the game’s development.
Allegra is a Brooklyn-based writer and technical and visual artist with a passion video games.
