American McGee's Alice
Drafted into a game of chess.
Looking-Glass Land, if you’ve read the books, you will know is host to a vast game of chess. And also, apparently, an enormous clock in a glass case on a mechanical platform. With an extremely conspicuous tentacle from the next world wiggling into it. I can’t say I remember that bit.
We’re going to be seeing a lot of clocks before long, some even more useless for telling the time than this one.
The budget ran out for this bit, so they had to make it all in black-and-white.
For some reason we’re treated to a brief glimpse of a White Rook arriving to guard this gate.
He does a terrible job of defending, but the Reds do a terrible job of attacking, so it balances out.
…I hope these pieces weren’t made out of ivory. ‘Cause it’d be pretty clear then which side was the enemy.
And thus we arrive in the Pale Realm. A beautiful pawn watches from a distant balcony.
Looking-Glass Land is packed with detail, and the levels tend to be quite long - it’s one of my favourite areas in the game. Aesthetically it’s just so much more pleasing than the usual rocks-‘n’-tentacles set-up.
Just like the real world, though, they have ugly fountains.
That pawn vanished… we’ll see it again later. Well, probably the same one.
Ah, a White Bishop! And a signpost which I forgot to check close-up. I don’t think it says anything important.
Alice gave the bishop a hard stare.
After some thought, the Bishop realised that it wouldn’t be a good idea to try and stop her.
While Pawns move about by hopping, Bishops slide. And all the pieces have different attacks, too, which is probably to make up for the fact that it’d be pretty hard to make the game so that Bishops can only move diagonally and Knights proceed in an L-shape. Best of all, chess provides the perfect excuse to just recolour them for the enemy pieces.
I hope you like one-level gimmicks, Alice.
‘Cause you know I just said it’d be hard to program the pieces to move how they’re meant to in chess?
Well, they did. Except…
Just for you.
For some reason, we now enter a short sequence where Alice plays as a bishop, moving only diagonally between squares. Despite the fact that no piece in the game actually obeys chess rules.
It’s basically just the designers saying “Yes, we know how chess works” and educating you a little bit, I guess. Because it’s not hard to avoid the pits and spikes. It just takes longer than if you were Alice.
And apparently the entire sequence is really dark, making Alice look more like a Black piece. Good thing the enemies are Reds, or the bad guys could just turn off the lights and the Whites would slaughter themselves.
I’m going to have to be careful commenting on this. I mean, “Whites” and “Reds”? Anything I say could become a potential political comment.
[Insert series of increasingly tasteless jokes here]
There, now we’ll never have to remember that Bishops move diagonally again.
The home of creatures which can move only by sliding or hopping has a staircase. Genius.
I like to think that both sides are in an arms race, building ever more advanced flights of stairs with which to confound their foes. It would be like a bad Doctor Who joke, but with chess. …There’s probably a Dalek chess set somewhere. I’d buy it.
What. Much like the Daleks, it seems that Red Pawns can fly. Well, fall.
Reds have infiltrated the country! Where’s McCarthy when you need him?
So yeah, Red Pawns. Their only attack is to jump menacingly at you. With a smile on their one-eyed face.
Knights can stab with their swords, but only when they’re not on fire.
Just in case you didn’t get the Croquet Mallet all those other times there was a chance to get the Croquet Mallet. And by the way, there’s the white gate from the intro.
Looks impressive, doesn’t it? It doesn’t go anywhere.
That door over there does, though. The fun we have in Looking-Glass Land trying to work out which doors are real and which are just part of the scenery.
And there’s the clock from the intro, too! The clock tower is of no little significance.
Unresponsive. Immobile. He should apply for a job at Buckingham Palace, but I don’t know how he’d wear the hat.
Anyway, off to one of the real doors in this world of paper-thin facades.
The illusion of non-linearity comes at the price of the gradual realisation that the world you inhabit is little more than a sham.
But in the meantime, carnage! Look at this poor little pawn; his heart’s clearly not in it. Look at the way it’s rolling its eye.
They bleed, too. Don’t ask me how that works.
Don’t get excited, that door’s fake too.
Amazingly, in a world of fake doors, they have a real lift.
This is the left-hand door, by the way.
This is where that pawn was at the start of the level! It can’t have gotten far.
This balcony leads from the other door.
Great, a spike trap. Laid for the Reds by the Whites. Effectiveness: 0%.
Now I know I’m playing a video game.
Hey, there’s that pawn over there! I’ll just rush to meet it. I cannot survive merely gazing at it from afar.
Except then I was ambushed by a Red Bishop. I have a little surprise for it, though: Fiery death.
Mwahahaha
AAAAAAAHHHH
REMEMBER KIDS DON’T DO ARSON
…So yeah, back to the hunt.
Both of those doors? Fake.
This one’s real. You can tell by the malevolent faces carved upon it.
They you are, Deep Pawn! What wise secrets do you have for me?
Alas! Laid low by a fake door. Also, a Red Knight.
Not content with killing the poor Pawn, the Red Knight embedded its head in the wall. Such matchless cruelty!
Soon, its body will be as cold as its heart.
…It’s staring straight into my soul…
Have an ice - oh wait, I think I did that one.
Uh, I’ll, uh, steal your heart to increase my own power? Is that a quip?
Great, a pair of Pawns.
Synchronised Pawns, no less. Jeez, if looks could kill.
I can see them hopping… HOPPING!!
Fortunately, the building’s structural integrity is strong enough to resist explosions.
More cards, in case I’m bored on a rainy day.
A real door, one of few.
And we’re on the clock tower balcony! No boss battle with Death, though. He must be on vacation.
I bet you’ve all missed this lever-pulling action.
Oh, it opens that white gate! …So the only thing stopping the Reds from pulling this lever and proceeding further into white citadel was their lack of useable arms.
Some guard. He’s more like a giant automaton.
Anyway, back to ground level.
Wow, usually this would result in Alice becoming injured, but not this time.
Now there’s nothing in my way!
Technically the Red Knight is out of my way.
Well, now it’s out of my way.
There’s our friend the White Rook.
SNEAK ATTACK!
Bishops attack by shooting lasers from their crook, just like real bishops.
Apparently the White Rook just stood there with his arms folded the entire time. Badass, maybe; helpful, no.
Stop flexing your muscles and start using them.
See, here’s the perfect opportunity.
He’s behind you!
…No no, pulling faces isn’t helping!
Wow, the friendly AI is terrible this time around. Usually he fights back.
It looks like it was trying to react to something here, but gave up. Way to go.
There’s another white gate over there that opens when I do something that I don’t know. It just opens without me noticing what triggers it. But we’re not interested in that, we’re interested in rounding this corner along a tiny path.
There are doors over there, but it’s actually a dead end.
A dead end with a Red Knight and a stream of spawning Red Pawns. Time for desperate measures, a.k.a. my favourite measure.
Why do they keep on hurling themselves into the flames?
The same reason they all attack Alice despite all records of her savagery, I suppose.
And with another act of mass-murder over with, let’s check out what we came here to see.
Whee! They forgot to skin the top of this balcony, but it’s high enough to see with a jump, so you can see through the walls.
Our destination lies over the bridge. Those two doors? Fake.
Now, if I recall correctly…
I thought so.
That door? Fake.
Those floating platforms? Not accessed by a door.
I don’t know when that white gate opened. I should revisit this level and experiment with noclip sometime.
The White Knight helpfully reminds us that Knights move in an L-shape. (By the way, we’re not having any flashbacks to the chess sequences in Through the Looking-Glass, because they’re practically the whole book.)
Yes, it’s another gimmick sequence!
The nature of a knight’s movement makes this sequence extremely complicated. Do you go forward once or twice? And then left or right? To a person unfamiliar with chess, this must be incredibly confusing.
Which is perhaps why the pits here just drop you in the water rather than killing you, although you could still get spiked.
Knight gameplay involves much compulsory walking into walls.
That’s the end of the level over there, by the way. Grandiose.
And that’s the last we’ll ever, ever see of alternative gameplay styles.
Another Red Bishop! Well, I’ve had my suspicions for some time.
This is how we deal with such problems.
This isn’t.
I must admit, my track record isn’t so good on not setting the heroine of the game on fire.
It’s becoming a running joke, so maybe I should coin some sort of trendy catchphrase. “Alice is on fire! And not in a good way!”
You’re jesting, it’s not dead yet?
It really looks the colour of blood here. Very eerie.
Well, their blood should run cold by now at the sight of me.
There’s the end of the level again. I’ve tried to reach it by taking a running jump, but it’s just a little too far away.
So it’s this way instead! No, not to the conspicuous door straight ahead, that’s a fake. We want the tiny door on the right.
Judging from the rosy red glow on the ceiling, somebody is burning the house down.
Would the Icewand be able to fight that? Please answer this question in the remake, American McGee!
Oh, it’s just another Jackbomb, a weapon which does set things on fire - usually Alice - but which I never needed one spare of, let alone - is this the second, or third?
Still, I’m not going to let the Reds take it.
There’s a suspicious crack in the wall! I throw my knife at it.
Realistic.
I seem to have left a mark on thin air.
And I don’t know how or why I got this shot.
Anyway, the hole in the wall didn’t lead to Hell or anywhere interesting like that, just to some floating platforms with unnecessary Sanity Shards, so I’m going the right way.
Fortunately, it was looking over its shoulder and didn’t spot me.
Apparently I’ve yet to learn my lesson about Jackbombs.
There’s the end of the level again. I think I’ve tried scaling the very rooftops for a shortcut… which wouldn’t actually be all that much shorter.
It’s true… I’m incorrigible. I just love setting things on fire.
Or blowing them up, as the case may be.
Beautiful.
Another lever which the villains’ arms are too stubby to activate.
The water wheel starts to turn, but don’t take my word for it, just watch the water level!
…Wait, why would the water wheel make the water level rise?
Oh well, no time for such questions! Or for remembering that the quickest way to the exit would be to hurl myself off this bridge right now. I regret not taking that route. It’s more dramatic.
In some difficulties, that door spams you with Red Pawns on your return. Wait, no, that’s a different level.
Time to make my escape!
My escape was planned poorly!
I’m standing on the railings and I’m going to make a jump for it to see if the level can be sequence-broken! Don’t ask how I’m standing on the railings.
Well, that settles that one.
Alice needed to wash off the blood anyway.
But now she’s going to get all messy with blood again, and from things that shouldn’t even bleed!
A real door which looks just like some of the fake doors. Great.
And then the level ends in the middle of a random corridor! Well, it’s better than the usual “We can’t figure out how to end this level, so we’ll put down a portal” approach.
Next Time: Castling.
Looking-Glass Land, if you’ve read the books, you will know is host to a vast game of chess. And also, apparently, an enormous clock in a glass case on a mechanical platform. With an extremely conspicuous tentacle from the next world wiggling into it. I can’t say I remember that bit.
We’re going to be seeing a lot of clocks before long, some even more useless for telling the time than this one.
The budget ran out for this bit, so they had to make it all in black-and-white.
For some reason we’re treated to a brief glimpse of a White Rook arriving to guard this gate.
He does a terrible job of defending, but the Reds do a terrible job of attacking, so it balances out.
…I hope these pieces weren’t made out of ivory. ‘Cause it’d be pretty clear then which side was the enemy.
And thus we arrive in the Pale Realm. A beautiful pawn watches from a distant balcony.
Looking-Glass Land is packed with detail, and the levels tend to be quite long - it’s one of my favourite areas in the game. Aesthetically it’s just so much more pleasing than the usual rocks-‘n’-tentacles set-up.
Just like the real world, though, they have ugly fountains.
That pawn vanished… we’ll see it again later. Well, probably the same one.
Ah, a White Bishop! And a signpost which I forgot to check close-up. I don’t think it says anything important.
Alice gave the bishop a hard stare.
After some thought, the Bishop realised that it wouldn’t be a good idea to try and stop her.
While Pawns move about by hopping, Bishops slide. And all the pieces have different attacks, too, which is probably to make up for the fact that it’d be pretty hard to make the game so that Bishops can only move diagonally and Knights proceed in an L-shape. Best of all, chess provides the perfect excuse to just recolour them for the enemy pieces.
I hope you like one-level gimmicks, Alice.
‘Cause you know I just said it’d be hard to program the pieces to move how they’re meant to in chess?
Well, they did. Except…
Just for you.
For some reason, we now enter a short sequence where Alice plays as a bishop, moving only diagonally between squares. Despite the fact that no piece in the game actually obeys chess rules.
It’s basically just the designers saying “Yes, we know how chess works” and educating you a little bit, I guess. Because it’s not hard to avoid the pits and spikes. It just takes longer than if you were Alice.
And apparently the entire sequence is really dark, making Alice look more like a Black piece. Good thing the enemies are Reds, or the bad guys could just turn off the lights and the Whites would slaughter themselves.
I’m going to have to be careful commenting on this. I mean, “Whites” and “Reds”? Anything I say could become a potential political comment.
[Insert series of increasingly tasteless jokes here]
There, now we’ll never have to remember that Bishops move diagonally again.
The home of creatures which can move only by sliding or hopping has a staircase. Genius.
I like to think that both sides are in an arms race, building ever more advanced flights of stairs with which to confound their foes. It would be like a bad Doctor Who joke, but with chess. …There’s probably a Dalek chess set somewhere. I’d buy it.
What. Much like the Daleks, it seems that Red Pawns can fly. Well, fall.
Reds have infiltrated the country! Where’s McCarthy when you need him?
So yeah, Red Pawns. Their only attack is to jump menacingly at you. With a smile on their one-eyed face.
Knights can stab with their swords, but only when they’re not on fire.
Just in case you didn’t get the Croquet Mallet all those other times there was a chance to get the Croquet Mallet. And by the way, there’s the white gate from the intro.
Looks impressive, doesn’t it? It doesn’t go anywhere.
That door over there does, though. The fun we have in Looking-Glass Land trying to work out which doors are real and which are just part of the scenery.
And there’s the clock from the intro, too! The clock tower is of no little significance.
Unresponsive. Immobile. He should apply for a job at Buckingham Palace, but I don’t know how he’d wear the hat.
Anyway, off to one of the real doors in this world of paper-thin facades.
The illusion of non-linearity comes at the price of the gradual realisation that the world you inhabit is little more than a sham.
But in the meantime, carnage! Look at this poor little pawn; his heart’s clearly not in it. Look at the way it’s rolling its eye.
They bleed, too. Don’t ask me how that works.
Don’t get excited, that door’s fake too.
Amazingly, in a world of fake doors, they have a real lift.
This is the left-hand door, by the way.
This is where that pawn was at the start of the level! It can’t have gotten far.
This balcony leads from the other door.
Great, a spike trap. Laid for the Reds by the Whites. Effectiveness: 0%.
Now I know I’m playing a video game.
Hey, there’s that pawn over there! I’ll just rush to meet it. I cannot survive merely gazing at it from afar.
Except then I was ambushed by a Red Bishop. I have a little surprise for it, though: Fiery death.
Mwahahaha
AAAAAAAHHHH
REMEMBER KIDS DON’T DO ARSON
…So yeah, back to the hunt.
Both of those doors? Fake.
This one’s real. You can tell by the malevolent faces carved upon it.
They you are, Deep Pawn! What wise secrets do you have for me?
Alas! Laid low by a fake door. Also, a Red Knight.
Not content with killing the poor Pawn, the Red Knight embedded its head in the wall. Such matchless cruelty!
Soon, its body will be as cold as its heart.
…It’s staring straight into my soul…
Have an ice - oh wait, I think I did that one.
Uh, I’ll, uh, steal your heart to increase my own power? Is that a quip?
Great, a pair of Pawns.
Synchronised Pawns, no less. Jeez, if looks could kill.
I can see them hopping… HOPPING!!
Fortunately, the building’s structural integrity is strong enough to resist explosions.
More cards, in case I’m bored on a rainy day.
A real door, one of few.
And we’re on the clock tower balcony! No boss battle with Death, though. He must be on vacation.
I bet you’ve all missed this lever-pulling action.
Oh, it opens that white gate! …So the only thing stopping the Reds from pulling this lever and proceeding further into white citadel was their lack of useable arms.
Some guard. He’s more like a giant automaton.
Anyway, back to ground level.
Wow, usually this would result in Alice becoming injured, but not this time.
Now there’s nothing in my way!
Technically the Red Knight is out of my way.
Well, now it’s out of my way.
There’s our friend the White Rook.
SNEAK ATTACK!
Bishops attack by shooting lasers from their crook, just like real bishops.
Apparently the White Rook just stood there with his arms folded the entire time. Badass, maybe; helpful, no.
Stop flexing your muscles and start using them.
See, here’s the perfect opportunity.
He’s behind you!
…No no, pulling faces isn’t helping!
Wow, the friendly AI is terrible this time around. Usually he fights back.
It looks like it was trying to react to something here, but gave up. Way to go.
There’s another white gate over there that opens when I do something that I don’t know. It just opens without me noticing what triggers it. But we’re not interested in that, we’re interested in rounding this corner along a tiny path.
There are doors over there, but it’s actually a dead end.
A dead end with a Red Knight and a stream of spawning Red Pawns. Time for desperate measures, a.k.a. my favourite measure.
Why do they keep on hurling themselves into the flames?
The same reason they all attack Alice despite all records of her savagery, I suppose.
And with another act of mass-murder over with, let’s check out what we came here to see.
Whee! They forgot to skin the top of this balcony, but it’s high enough to see with a jump, so you can see through the walls.
Our destination lies over the bridge. Those two doors? Fake.
Now, if I recall correctly…
I thought so.
That door? Fake.
Those floating platforms? Not accessed by a door.
I don’t know when that white gate opened. I should revisit this level and experiment with noclip sometime.
The White Knight helpfully reminds us that Knights move in an L-shape. (By the way, we’re not having any flashbacks to the chess sequences in Through the Looking-Glass, because they’re practically the whole book.)
Yes, it’s another gimmick sequence!
The nature of a knight’s movement makes this sequence extremely complicated. Do you go forward once or twice? And then left or right? To a person unfamiliar with chess, this must be incredibly confusing.
Which is perhaps why the pits here just drop you in the water rather than killing you, although you could still get spiked.
Knight gameplay involves much compulsory walking into walls.
That’s the end of the level over there, by the way. Grandiose.
And that’s the last we’ll ever, ever see of alternative gameplay styles.
Another Red Bishop! Well, I’ve had my suspicions for some time.
This is how we deal with such problems.
This isn’t.
I must admit, my track record isn’t so good on not setting the heroine of the game on fire.
It’s becoming a running joke, so maybe I should coin some sort of trendy catchphrase. “Alice is on fire! And not in a good way!”
You’re jesting, it’s not dead yet?
It really looks the colour of blood here. Very eerie.
Well, their blood should run cold by now at the sight of me.
There’s the end of the level again. I’ve tried to reach it by taking a running jump, but it’s just a little too far away.
So it’s this way instead! No, not to the conspicuous door straight ahead, that’s a fake. We want the tiny door on the right.
Judging from the rosy red glow on the ceiling, somebody is burning the house down.
Would the Icewand be able to fight that? Please answer this question in the remake, American McGee!
Oh, it’s just another Jackbomb, a weapon which does set things on fire - usually Alice - but which I never needed one spare of, let alone - is this the second, or third?
Still, I’m not going to let the Reds take it.
There’s a suspicious crack in the wall! I throw my knife at it.
Realistic.
I seem to have left a mark on thin air.
And I don’t know how or why I got this shot.
Anyway, the hole in the wall didn’t lead to Hell or anywhere interesting like that, just to some floating platforms with unnecessary Sanity Shards, so I’m going the right way.
Fortunately, it was looking over its shoulder and didn’t spot me.
Apparently I’ve yet to learn my lesson about Jackbombs.
There’s the end of the level again. I think I’ve tried scaling the very rooftops for a shortcut… which wouldn’t actually be all that much shorter.
It’s true… I’m incorrigible. I just love setting things on fire.
Or blowing them up, as the case may be.
Beautiful.
Another lever which the villains’ arms are too stubby to activate.
The water wheel starts to turn, but don’t take my word for it, just watch the water level!
…Wait, why would the water wheel make the water level rise?
Oh well, no time for such questions! Or for remembering that the quickest way to the exit would be to hurl myself off this bridge right now. I regret not taking that route. It’s more dramatic.
In some difficulties, that door spams you with Red Pawns on your return. Wait, no, that’s a different level.
Time to make my escape!
My escape was planned poorly!
I’m standing on the railings and I’m going to make a jump for it to see if the level can be sequence-broken! Don’t ask how I’m standing on the railings.
Well, that settles that one.
Alice needed to wash off the blood anyway.
But now she’s going to get all messy with blood again, and from things that shouldn’t even bleed!
A real door which looks just like some of the fake doors. Great.
And then the level ends in the middle of a random corridor! Well, it’s better than the usual “We can’t figure out how to end this level, so we’ll put down a portal” approach.
Next Time: Castling.