American McGee stated that, “After 20 days and much nail-biting, the Alice: Otherlands campaign has reached a successful conclusion. Coming in at over $222K, the funding will allow us to create a series of animated short films, pursue larger animated series possibilities, begin development work on a feature film and access larger funding options for a possible feature film production in the future. All thanks to the kind support of our backers on Kickstarter. You rock!”

Of course, half of that amount will go into securing the rights for 12 months in order to produce the animated shorts, with the remaining amount paying for animation. The film rights will require a lot more – roughly $500,000 – but following the completion of the short films, it wouldn’t be hard for Spicy Horse to bring in funding from executives interested in financing the project.

McGee also noted that, “Spicy Horse doesn’t take a profit from any of this. Money comes in, part goes out to pay for the rights, other part goes out to fund animation production (with an external team). In this since, we’re being pure producers, but not taking a fee of any sort.”

According to McGee on Kickstarter, “With the acquisition of the film rights to the ‘Alice’ property, we will begin work on animated short films inspired by the ‘Alice: Otherlands’ concept. Our long term goal will be the development and production of a feature length film version of Alice’s story.

“If this campaign is successful you will receive, at a minimum, an animated adventure into Otherlands. Beyond that, the success of this campaign will bring us one step closer to seeing Alice on the big screen.”

McGee also assured that, “For feature film (either live action or animation) we’re already being approached by well-known producers, writers and directors – and would strive to work only with the best possible partners in order to reduce risk and achieve the highest quality.”

As of this writing, the project currently has 504 backs who have pledged $28,152 of the $200,000.

The reasons for this are simple however: founder American McGee is prioritizing the rights for a film based on Alice first.

As explained on Kickstarter, “First, we’re facing a challenge with the Alice film rights. Since working to remove it from the Oz campaign we’ve been unable to launch it as a separate campaign here on Kickstarter – the submission has been rejected multiple times and our appeals have failed (multiple campaigns are not allowed). To launch a campaign for the Alice films rights means we must first shut down the Oz campaign.”

He also explained that the progress the campaign had made so far was also a contributing factor. Despite amassing $141,513 in funds and 2,607 backers, it was only on track to make 30 per cent of its $950,000 goal by the deadline of August 5.

The fact that OZombie wouldn’t have met its crowd-funding goal by the deadline on August 5th was also a factor. “Second, we wouldn’t consider shutting down the Oz campaign if it were trending towards success. As it is, we’ve reached 15% of our goal with 20 days left in the campaign. Projections suggest we’ll hit 30% of our goal by campaign end. I’ve been telling myself to remain optimistic and see this thing through – but when the reality of our funding trend is combined with the pressure of the Alice film rights situation…

“For Oz, we can always launch another campaign in the future. On the other hand, the Alice film rights are only within reach during a rapidly closing window of opportunity. We’ll sacrifice Oz today in order to have a real chance with Alice.”

McGee has promised news regarding the Alice film Kickstarter later this week.

It’s finally been decided that Spicy Horse will go with OZombie and it has launched a Kickstarter which has already garnered $41,693 of its $950,000 goal from 511 backers with 41 days still to go.

On the decision to go with OZombie, American McGee stated that, “We’re still having meaningful and productive conversations with EA regarding Alice. Truth is, it’s an important bit of IP for them and for us (and for you!) which means that negotiating a deal is going to take time. This is normal. Think about it this way – it took over 12 months (yes, 12 months!) to negotiate and close a deal for Alice: Madness Returns.

“This time around, we started talking with EA about a new Alice during GDC 2013 and those talks are still ongoing. Everyone involved in the talks knew about the upcoming Kickstarter campaign and has worked towards getting something in place that would could link with the campaign. Who knows? We might still get there before this campaign ends, but past experience has taught me not to bet on things like this.”

OZombie looks pretty enticing though. Check out the Kickstarter page for more info.

As the page states, “So, to the 6 of you following so far, what say you to a Kickstarter in say… July of this year to fund the third Alice game? Thoughts?”

McGee previously talked about licensing the game from Electronic Arts, if they were interested, and then funding the game via Kickstarter in a way similar to Akaneiro. It’d be interesting to see the response, given how Alice: Madness Returns didn’t exactly rub gamers the right way when it released in 2011.

Though there other factors at hand there, it would be great if Otherlands returned to the original’s fantasy horror bent of mind.

“EA owns the Alice franchise, so to pull off crowd source funding would require some innovative licensing and legal acrobatics all-round. That being said, if EA’s willing to license us the IP and the audience is willing to back the production, we could end up doing something quite historic.

“With all the negative press ‘big corporations’ are getting these days, there could be a win-win in here for everyone – EA benefits from appearing to be flexible, a developer (that’s us) gets to work on something they love and the audience gets direct involvement in a development with the possibility of showing the world what happens when indies and fans take the reins.

“We’re seeing this work wonderfully with Akaneiro – I’d love nothing more than to now apply that process and engagement to Alice.”

McGee describes the game as combining “the psychological and physical, allowing us to present Alice as a sort of mind hopping superhero able to invade Otherlands – the mental landscapes of people around her.”

Now, the game has achieved its Kickstarter goal but just barely with $204,680 pledged by 2,681 backers. McGee stated that, “We’ll get working on delivering campaign rewards – starting with virtual items like Karma. The development team will begin work on their planning and we’ll post info about delivery dates ASAP.

And since there will be an Android version, the topic of development for the console Ouya came up. “Lots of questions about Ouya, so we’ll start figuring out what we can do to support that demand. Physical items will start to get shipped around, signed and sent out. And we’ll keep you updated throughout.”

Akaneiro: Demon Hunters is a Japanese mythological spin on the classic tale of Red Riding Hood, with action elements and, well, demons.

Source: GIBiz

Especially when there “was a calculated disconnect created by EA. They wanted to ‘trick’ gamers into believing A:MR was a hard-core horror title, even though we refused to develop it in that tone” said McGee in an AMA session on Reddit.

“What was frustrating was how EA Marketing interfered – telling (creative concept resource) [Shy The Sun] from the start that ALL creative direction and final say would come from them, not from us (the developer/creator of the story/tone).

“Their thinking is, even if the game isn’t a hard-core horror title, you can market it as one and trick those customers into buying it (while driving away more casual customers, like female gamers, who might be turned off by really dark trailers). It’s all a part of the race.”

Given how Madness Returns barely registered a blip on the critical and commercial scale, we’d say it didn’t work out to EA’s expectations.

American McGee is currently working with his new development studio Spicy Horse to developer Akaneiro: Demon Hunters.

Source: GIBiz

To that end, the company has turned to Kickstarter.

“Because the project is in an advanced development state, the bulk of the risk has been overcome already. Bringing a faithful version to tablets will present some challenges, but with support from technology partners like Nvidia, we expect to clear those without too much pain. The remaining effort will be focused on content development and delivery of well-understood features. That being the case, we feel the overall risks are quite low.”

On their Steam Greenlight page, where the title ranks as number 3, the company states, “We’ve come a long way with a relatively small (but passionate) team. Unfortunately, we’ve reached the limit of what our resources allow, but the game has not reached the limits of awesome we’re determined to hit. We want to be able to commit the time and team members we need to add vital missing features and apply proper polish.”

The project, described as “Japan folklore meets Red Riding Hood” currently has 846 backers who have pledged $34,599 USD of the $200,000 USD goal.

Source: GIBiz

Alice in action

Starting off in Alice: Madness Returns you are in your Orphanage type facility, speaking with your doctor and they are trying to make sense of your (Alice Liddell’s) twisted mind.  On the outside she seems like a normal girl but as she goes from the ever so real Victorian London, then back to a very twisted Wonderland… a Wonderland that we have never seen before.  Alice will go back and form between reality and Wonderland through different, random ways.  While in Wonderland, as fans of the original may know, it is no walk in the park as Alice must fight her way through the imaginary world just to survive, let alone get out.  Alice: Madness Returns is the sequel to the original game entitle American McGee’s Alice which was haled by many as a masterpiece released back on 2000.  By purchasing the game you automatically gain access to the original game through an online pass code.

The whole story of Alice Madness: Returns revolves around you trying to unravel the memories of your past and your parents death.  In fact there are many collectables in the game like potion bottles, teeth and miniature glowing houses that are suppose to add to add lost memories.  Unfortunately these collectables really don’t do all that much by attaining them all other than giving you a short audio snippet or some achievements/trophies, that is of course aside from the teeth which is used as a form of currency in Wonderland to upgrade your weaponry.  Speaking of weaponry, you will eventually get a number of different items to choose from that also reflect upon the twisted world of Wonderland.  With the Vorpal melee blade being the more normal of them, you will get a pepper grinder that resembles a machine gun, a tea pod that acts as a mortar, a Rabbit Bomb that can be seen as a timed remote mine, and a Hobby Horse that can be used to break through an enemy block, break through barriers or as a heavy attack once upgraded.  You will also gain a handy umbrella to block attacks as well as deflect ranged enemy attacks.  A new targeting system has also been put in place that is easy to use and very familiar from many other games.  All the weapons are upgradeable multiple times, provided you have collected enough teeth to do so.

Never leave home without your Pepper Grinder

Alice: Madness Returns is essentially a 3D puzzle-platformer which has been seen before and is in no way a bad thing.  You can double jump while at times it can be beneficial to let your first jump let you float through air using your dress before the next jump is attempted.  There are steam vents to keep Alice afloat, mushrooms that are used to spring you in the air and of course what modern day platformer would be complete with out some moving platforms.  The world of Wonderland has changed very much since the last game but in the the classic McGee style it has not lost any of the twisted touches that made the original as well as Lewis Carroll’s version so unique.  You will enter a much darker Wonderland if that seems possible after playing the original.  While playing the game thinking to myself how twisted this was from the original, I went even deeper down the rabbit hole even surprising myself as the story and world kept morphing into something new.  Every little detail to the game was so unique and creative in that Wonderland kind of way.  I almost felt as if I was in the dark side of Lewis Carroll’s mind while playing the game.

As impressive as the dark and twisted wonderland was, as you journeyed through the five different environments or stages, there were some issues with the game.  The worlds are filled with detailed environments, but at times it took a moment to actually load the graphics or textures in, which really could have been appreciated more if they were pre-loaded.  Sometimes you might find yourself running into invisible walls or not being able to enter an area while shrunken, which you could clearly enter if there was something beyond that point.  This was not all that common, nor a huge issue but most definitely worth mentioning considering the hidden collectibles strewn across wonderland.  Being able to shrink yourself on command was a delightful bit of humor as you hiccuped every so often while shrunken from drink the potion.  You can also see secrets written on the walls or simply the direction you were suppose to move toward to progress, only while shrunken.  Along with your shrinkage vision, I am sure you can imagine another end of the spectrum without giving too much of the story away.

Awesome creepy environments

With there being only five stages, you will be spending much time in each of them.  While the unique environments are enjoyable to see, they are not as enjoyable hours later.  That coupled with the puzzle system can make the game seem rather repetitive until you reach that next stage.  You can only turn so many switches on that will usually do something extremely obvious until you just know what’s coming next.  There were a few unique puzzles and stages to get away from the normal formula used for the levels though.  The cut scenes were all pretty much this paper cut-out of characters and environments moving which obviously is not the graphic quality you are used to seeing in games, but it was with out a doubt, intentionally used to add to the macabre feel of the game.

Alice: Madness Returns was a fun game, especially if you have a knack for a little darkness or are just a fan of the first game.  I personally due, so it was amusing to see that mixed with the developers art style, along with a classic fairytale that has its own kind of mystery to it alone.  The weapons and environments truly could not have been more creative with a touch of humor.  In terms of content, it really doesn’t get much better than this because even though there are only five stages, you’ll be at the game for at least 12 hours.  On top of that with the original American McGee’s Alice included with every purchase you are essentially getting a whole other game.  If you were a fan of the original or are just looking for something different, I would suggest you check out the game, because there is really nothing else like this on the market.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 3.