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Spicy Horse's Big Head Bash gallops out of beta, launches on Kongregate
After putting out Alice: Madness Returns last year, American McGee's Spicy Horse studio has been working on Big Head Bash, a multiplayer shooter set in a toy store universe. It's been in beta for a pretty long time, but now you can play it all official-like.Spicy Horse describes the game as "a free to play title combining heated PvP death match battles and collectable elements that will feature licensed goods from popular comics, music, movies and even alternative fashion." You can play Big Head Bash for free right now on Kongregate, along with the 100,000 other individuals who have taken it for a test run.
American McGee takes on Red Riding Hood with Akaneiro
After all the madness Alice could muster and social action game Bighead Bash, it look's like American McGee's Spicy Horse studio is ready to move on to another new project. Entitled Akaneiro: Demon Hunters, the action role-playing game retells the story of Little Red Riding Hood with a feudal Japanese twist, reports Kotaku. As part of the Order of Akane, players are charged with putting an end to a Hokkaido village's demon problem. Akaneiro uses mid-19th century Japan as a backdrop, as tensions arose and the country reluctantly opened itself to western trade.The game will be free-to-play and will be playable on PC, tablets and via the web. Early screenshots suggest gameplay similar to Diablo, Torchlight and other dungeon crawlers. A beta is planned for later this year.
Amazon's vorpal sword cuts $20 off Alice: Madness Returns
As if it'd taken a swig from a bottle labeled "Drink Me," the price tag on Alice: Madness Returns has diminished in size at Amazon. This week only, the retailer is offering American McGee's second excursion into Wonderland for $20 off, making it $40 on PS3 and 360 and $30 on PC. The deal is available only "while supplies last," and joins similar week-long discounts on Brink and The Witcher 2 -- which is also a fantasy game, but features far fewer flying pig snouts.
Alice: Madness Returns Review: Madness over method
Crazy is not as easy as it looks. If you want to create a world of nightmarish whimsy like that in Alice: Madness Returns, it takes more than just throwing random bloody bits into a blender and spewing it all over the walls. You need careful planning; a formula of producing unease that will affect the player. When Madness Returns is at the top of its formula, it is a fascinatingly dark and grotesque psychological tale. Unfortunately, the game's greatest strength tends to be impeded by gameplay that doesn't feel so much mad as obsessive-compulsive.%Gallery-118730%
Alice: Madness Returns trailer plays some minigames
Alice: Madness Returns will soon be unleashed to inflict that most terrible of scourges upon a platformer, the dreaded "minigame."
Alice: Madness Returns launch trailer is comparatively sane
Sure, the launch trailer for Alice: Madness Returns posted after the break features some genuinely upsetting imagery, discussion on how Wonderland is actually Hell, and murder -- but at least nobody rips their own face off. We're actually going to chalk that up as a victory for sanity.
Alice: Madness Returns screens are hysterical
There's nothing funny about a disturbed young girl clutching a giant butcher knife -- especially if she's near death and her Hysteria meter is full. When those morbid criteria are met, the star of Alice: Madness Returns can launch into a psychotic frenzy that would make Ryu Hayabusa proud.
Free Alice: Madness Returns iOS storybook released
We're still trying to wrap our minds around this recent, clever cross-promotion set up by American McGee's Spicy Horse for its upcoming psychopathic title, Alice: Madness Returns. Here's where we're at so far: They took a storybook, and turned it into a game, which they've now turned into a recently released iPhone and iPad-compatible storybook, which prefaces the events of yet another game. The iOS storybook is a sound investment, as reading through it unlocks a code which saves you $10 on an Alice: Madness Returns pre-order through the EA Store. Still, it's one of the most crazily recursive promotions we've seen in a good, long time. Why, it's nearly as insane as the game's latest trailer! Ha, just kidding. Nothing is that insane.
Alice: Madness Returns preview: Pretty weird
Ten years after the original American McGee's Alice debuted -- ten years! -- its sequel is nearly here. With its June 14 launch just over a month away, I accepted an invitation to dive into its fractured Wonderland and play through the first of its five chapters. Although a decade has passed, it felt like I'd never left. While the core game design hasn't changed much -- platforming interspersed with combat -- Alice: Madness Returns is harnessing today's tech to convey a visual spectacle that's closer to McGee's original concepts than the first game could get at the time. It's also capitalizing on some new design ideas dreamt up by its imaginative designers at Spicy Horse.%Gallery-123547%
Alice intro trailer is face-scratchingly insane
How does one put this politely? Alice done gone mad... again. We submit as evidence the story trailer for Alice: Madness Returns. It's, admittedly, a little disturbing.
Spicy Horse receives $3M in funding, working with PopCap
American McGee's Shanghai-based Spicy Horse studio has secured $3 million in investment and is currently working on a project with PopCap Games' Shanghai studio. Gamasutra reports that Spicy Horse, which has finished production of Alice: Madness Returns for EA, will focus on "3D social, online games" going forward. McGee detailed some of this for us in an interview a couple months back. McGee says that Spicy Horse's PopCap collaboration will be a freemium multiplayer title that will initially launch in Asia. A PopCap representative told Joystiq that the information is accurate, but the company is "not providing additional details at this early stage." McGee said the investment will allow the company to execute a two-year plan and bring five games to market. PopCap Games recently acquired ZipZapPlay, who should have at least one new Facebook game out by year's end. PopCap expects to have "four or five" titles on the social networking platform by the end of 2011. The company already has Bejeweled Blitz, Zuma Blitz and ZZP's Baking Life.
McGee: Alice sequel to include original game as DLC bonus
Alice: Madness Returns will include the original Alice, according to Spicy Horse head American McGee. Speaking to CVG, McGee said, "A person who's purchased Madness Returns gets a download code and is able to bring Alice 1 onto their console and play through the entire original game alongside playing Madness Returns." Additionally, McGee teased that the Alice sequel would see plenty of DLC ... dresses, which "come with special abilities and enhance how you play through the game." Curiouser and curiouser, an EA representative told Joystiq, "Unfortunately, we do not have information in regards to Alice: Madness Returns including the original Alice game." Either way, Alice: Madness Returns is slated for June 14 ... unless it's not. Madness, right?
American McGee's Spicy Horse to focus on free-to-play games after Alice: Madness Returns
More than ten years after overseeing Alice with now-defunct developer Rogue Entertainment, American McGee is wrapping up a sequel with his Shanghai-based company, Spicy Horse. "This will be the first ever console triple-A game that's been developed from beginning to end in China, for the Western market," McGee told Joystiq during an EA event last Tuesday. "There's been a lot of stuff that's been outsourced, or various pieces of it have been made there, but in terms of production process we had to invent a lot of what we were doing to get this game made there." Spicy Horse was restructured to handle development of Alice: Madness Returns, and will restructure again once it launches the action game in June. "Well, we don't see that the future for us is in triple-A console games," McGee said. "We actually are trying to make games that are online, free-to-play, 3D advanced casual games, so as we finish this we're going to transition the company back to where we were intending to be when we finished Grimm." Spicy Horse was on track to follow up Grimm -- its fantasy-themed episodic series for games portal Gametap -- with more casual fare, but was temporarily derailed by an irresistible offer from EA instead. "So, we restructured for two years, we built the game, we did a great job, we're gonna ship it on time, on schedule, we never had a crunch and it's been really awesome. But now, it's back to what our belief is in terms of where things are going, so it's going to be all about free-to-play, 3D games for Asia." McGee claims that half of the development team has already completed work on Alice: Madness Returns, with ten to fifteen people doing "last-minute cleanup" -- of a project that has gone almost suspiciously (in this industry) according to plan. "I mean, we never had a freakout moment, we never had a crunch, we never had to work on a weekend and, in fact, we were always running ahead of milestones, so we would even give extra days off when the sky was blue, or something like that," he said. "So, it was a really pleasant development experience." Since Spicy Horse is set on transforming its production process once again, it's currently unsure about what would happen if EA asked for another Alice sequel. "That's a question to ask them. But it might take them another ten years to figure it out," McGee joked.%Gallery-118730%
Alice: Madness Returns gameplay trailer is no tea party
Nothing says "Hey, it's Monday!" like murderous teapots and bloodthirsty playing cards. It's fortunate, then, that this first gameplay trailer for Alice: Madness Returns has them -- and more! -- in droves. Watch it, then learn more about the game tomorrow morning in our new preview.
Metaphors: Alice stabs one-eyed monster in latest trailer
Lewis Carroll's seminal Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is certainly packed with metaphors, but we think none so explicit as this Alice: Madness Returns clip that has the heroine cutting up the Mad Hatter's one-eyed monster.
American McGee on bringing Alice's madness back
At a pre-TGS event, EA demonstrated gameplay of Alice: Madness Returns, with a segment in real-world London transitioning to a Wonderland in which Alice used a pepper grinder as a Gatling gun, fighting weird baby-doll monsters and giant teapots that spat boiling tea. After bearing witness to the return of the madness, we chatted with American McGee, head of developer Spicy Horse, about the new game, his name as a brand, and, of course, the other recent reimagining of Alice in Wonderland, courtesy of Tim Burton. %Gallery-102210%
Alice: Madness Returns with a new TGS trailer
"Every enemy is a puzzle," creator American McGee stated, when describing his upcoming Alice: Madness Returns at the EA Tokyo Game Show press conference. At Alice's disposal will be four weapons, including the Vorpal Blade from the first game, and three new weapons: the Tea Pot, Hobby Horse and Pepper Grinder. Check out all the new images and the trailer after the break. %Gallery-102210%
'Alice: Madness Returns' revealed [update: new screens, video]
Twitter account @thewhiterabbit is teasing news related to "the mad world of Alice," a note that EA's own Twitter account relayed. This is about 100 percent likely to be the announcement of Alice: Madness Returns, the sequel to American McGee's Alice. For one thing, the background of the Twitter page includes the "alicemadnessreturns.com" URL, which currently redirects to EA.com/alice. "Alice: Madness Returns" was trademarked earlier this year by EA, and an Alice sequel was announced way back at DICE 2009, followed that year by an "unofficial" Alice-related video produced by someone with ties to developer Spicy Horse. EA is holding a press event in about ten minutes to announce several games, so we'll find out soon enough! Unless, like the White Rabbit, EA is late. Update: It's official, and the game is coming in 2011 for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC. Catch the terrifying teaser after the break, and the press release here. %Gallery-97858%
'Alice: Madness Returns' trademarked by EA
Electronic Arts has submitted a trademark application for "Alice: Madness Returns," a possible name for the previously announced sequel to American McGee's Alice. Beyond an "unofficial" teaser video for the sequel released in late 2009, details on the project have been slimmer than the Queen of Hearts' soldiers. We've contacted EA for info on what's down the rabbit hole.
American McGee's Little Red Riding Hood looks pretty Grimm
click here for full version Legendary game developer American McGee has posted concept for the Little Red Riding Hood game he's planning to pitch to publishers at GDC 2010 next week -- and wow, Little Red has never looked quite so badass. The art, put together by a few artists at the Spicy Horse Games studio, features a white-haired little girl embedding an axe (almost bigger than she is) in a demonic wolf's skull. McGee probably has a pitch of his own all set up, but we look at a pic like that and can't help but think, "My, what complicated weapon combos you must have." All the better to get published with, we suppose. We'll be at GDC en masse next week, so we'll do our best to corner Mr. McGee and see if he willing to tell us any more about this not-simply-fractured-but-actually-mauled fairytale. If this is what the little girl looks like, just wait until we see the Hunter. [via GSW]
