Prerelease:Alice: Madness Returns/Concept Art/Scrapped Ideas

This is a sub-page of Prerelease:Alice: Madness Returns/Concept Art.

Oh dear, I do believe I have the vapors. This page contains content that is not safe for work or other locations with the potential for personal embarrassment. Such as: Woman giving birth to multiple babies.

The following content is a collection of unused ideas that American Mcgee and his team were coming up during the game's development cycle. Each idea would serve its own purpose in an alternate scenario which may or may not have fit within the game's gradually evolving vision. Some of them managed to make it through the final product albeit as either random easter eggs or as extra unlockables... but you probably knew that already.

Scrapped/Unused Characters

Ostrich Creature

Here we've got an Austrian ostrich aristocrat called Ostrich Von Osterreich. Due to her inability to lay eggs, she's obsessed with snatching up Humpty Dumpty so she can hatch a monster out of him. This was one the first few new characters that was created during pre-production.

Hatter's Domain Enemies

A batch of enemy monsters that were set to appear in the Hatter's Domain. The are supposed to be based off of various teaware objects with the exception of the middle one who looks like a pocket watch. These critters came up too late to be included in the game, therefore having to be cut out entirely.

Living Muffin & Egg

We have two interesting creatures in this picture:

• On the left we got a living muffin monster who does not look too happy having its face bitten. The club symbol underneath it could indicate that it was going to be encountered in the Queensland world.
• On the right we have a fancy-looking egg creature that has its head hatched open, causing its yolk brain fluids to slowly ooze out of its face. It is unclear whether this was meant to be an early version of Humpty Dumpty or another monster entirely.

Deluded Depths Enemies

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Going by order from left to right:

• Oyster Bed - A deceiving entity that looks like a rusty old bed, laying deep within the ocean depths. Underneath it there are monstrous tentacles, patiently waiting for their prey to fall under their trap and turn it into sea rations. This enemy was planned to be encountered in the scrapped kelp forest location. You can see it here on the old map of the domain.
• Mersquid - Artwork of the unused Mersquid enemy.
• Can-Can-Crab - Female crab dancers that would perform along with the Oyster Starlets during the stage play. They wear flamboyantly pink costumes including can-can skirts and feather boas.
• Horned Blowfish - A blowfish with... horns. He was planned to make his appearance during the Choral Coral level but was eventually replaced by the Music Fish.
• Spiked Fish - A reverse puffer fish basically. Alice could only attack it when it was puffed up.
• Piranha - Artwork of the unused piranha enemy.
• Kraken - A giant sea-creature who would stalk Alice throughout the level. Its deadly tentacles could either spit poison or create electricity. It was ultimately removed due to technical difficulties.

Dollhouse Ememies

Unknown Enemy #1.

Uknown Enemy #2.

Doll Boy.

Meat Baby.

Going by order:

• Unknown Enemies - Two small imp-like ctreatures that are made out of sewing material like threads and buttons. Not much else is known about them.
• Doll Boy - Artwork of the unused Doll Boy enemy.
• Meat Baby - A naked porcelain doll cut in half and filled with meat. Pretty disturbing isn't it?

Unknown Enemies

Unknown Bird Monster.

Bird Bookshelf.

• Unknown Bird Monster - A creature made out from utensils and other kinds of tableware items.
• Bird Bookshelf - A possesed bookshelf with bird wings and full of crow skulls. The skulls themselves would attack Alice while also leaving behind blue eggs on their place, thus creating an infinite supply of mobs. When all the flying skulls are killed, the bookshelf would start flying away from Alice since it'd be vulnerable at that point. If it flew to an unreachable point for Alice, it would give it time to hatch the eggs that remain inside it. Upon death, the creature would sometimes drop a golden egg as a bonus perk for the player.

Steamboat Tortoise

During preproduction, the developers went through multiple ideas about introducing new characters for Wonderland's universe and how they would interact with Alice. That's where this guy comes in: a large ferry boat tortoise that would transport Alice throughout the lands of Wonderland or at least to a certain part of it. Unless money is out of the question of course.

The sign on his back says "Willy Steamer", presumably what his name was ought to be. The name itself is a reference to the popular 1928 animated short film "Steamboat Wille".

Frog & Fish Footman

Concept art from the art book reveals that the Fish and the Frog Footmen were initially planned to appear in the game. Having previously been cut from the first Alice game, the duo was going to make their re-debut in the sequel. This time only the Frog Footman managed to make it in the final version of the game. Well... kind of.

Both Footmen were designed to look like Victorian servants from the 18th century. Don't worry about the hook, that's normal.

Duchess's Cook

While the Duchess originally didn't have a role in the game, her personal cook assistant was otherwise going to make an appearance. The ill-mannered, volatile servant was originally planned to be a boss in the game, designed as a six-legged grotesque pig-beast creature. The Duchess's Cook would act similar to her book counterpart by furiously throwing various pots and pans at her enemies (Alice in this case) whenever she would get disrupted from her cooking. The fight would take place in a kitchen filled with vermin and various other death-traps that a small Alice had to avoid.

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Red King

Th monarch of the Red chess pieces was planned to return for the sequel. Rather than being an antagonist this time, he instead would be held captive in a unknown forest/asylum environment. How the tables have turned! A small Alice would have to unlock the the straps that bind him, freeing the corrupt tyrant from his imprisonment. The locks appear to be crown-shaped and there are seven total it seems. Maybe this was supposed to be some sort of a collect-a-thon level perhaps?

Regardless, we'll probably never know his inevitable fate.

Humpty Dumpty

Artwork of Humpty Dumpty who was initially going to appear in the Oriental Grove. His design looks drasticly different from the first Alice game, having big lips, slanted eyes and wearing oriental attire.

Mr. Toad

A new character named Mr. Toad was initially in the cards. He's a tall anthropomorphic toad that wears a blue velvet tailcoat with a tiny red tuxedo and a small top hat. Nothing is known about his involvement in the game other than he was going to be a boss at some point. A concept piece from the art book, shows Alice confronting Mr. Toad at his nest in a sewer. The arena would be surrounded by countless frog embryos which would hatch from their eggs and attack Alice. Alice would then have to destroy the eggs in the area whilst fighting Mr. Toad.

In the end, it's pretty undestandable why our amphibian fella was excluded from the game.

Alice confronting Mr. Toad and his spawn.

Wasp Empress

The scrapped Wasp Empress, who was supposed to be the boss of the Oriental Grove domain.

A concept piece from the art book shows that the fight with the Empress would take place in a big cave. The same picture also shows an early design of the boss, as a white ink wasp that came out of a Chinese red lantern. In her final design, she is dressed in a white kimono and wields four katanas, one for each arm. Also she has three magic masks at her disposal!

The Wasp Empress was apparently inspired by O-Ren Ishii from Kill Bill.

Early design of the Wasp Empress.

Post-Lobotomy Alice

Now we're entering into uncanny territory.

In the Rutledge Asylum level, there was originally an alternate scenario in which the player would control a lobotomized Alice. As she wanders the Asylum's corridors, objects start floating and everything looks dizzy. The laws of physics are meaningless when it comes to power of madness. Anyone who dared stopping Alice would suffer the consequences greatly, as even a single glance at her would make them explode instantly into bloody chuncks of meat.

The scene ultimately never made it in the final product because the developers ran out of time to implement it. An interesting idea nonetheless.

Giant Princess

This is certainly one of the most grotesque things you could think of for an Alice in Wonderland game. Almost as if it's something straight out of a horror movie. A giant princess forced to give birth to a collection of monstrous babies. The princess would have been mercy-killed by Alice, thus ending the poor girl's suffering. This NPC never made it to the final version as the development team thought they went "too far" with their ideas for the game.

"Our artists are all nice, pleasant people, so we really had to push them to explore their dark sides for this game. This image is the result of me telling Sonny to go darker, darker, darker. Maybe we went too far."

— Ken Wong

Jack The Ripper

One of the most interesting concepts, had the game followed a different direction:

In an alternate scenario, London would merge with Wonderland and corruption starts to spead as all kinds of otherworldy hellspawn march forward on the path of destruction. Hope succumbs to despair, nightmare blends with reality, madness takes control over the people's minds and Alice is left facing the inevitable horrors coming her way.

Among them would be London's most dangerous serial killer, Jack The Ripper. Now reborn into the image of a Lovecraftian abomination, Jack would chase Alice throughout the streets of the now unrecognizable city. All the while constantly uttering Alice's name, the name of his new victim.

Scrapped Locations

Early World Map

Fo starters, the sequel was originally going to feature a world map of Wonderland just like in the first game. As you can see many domains ended getting cut as the game's vision kept changing during development. A lot of these locations were "simply brainstorming ideas" according to American Mcgee, and the majority of them came from Ken Wong. Some of the levels made it in the final game unscratched while others changed later on.

- There are a total of 12 levels that were originally planned, 5 of which are absent from the final version. These levels are: Clouds Hunter, Book's World, Snow Globes, Escher and the Moon.
- With the exception of Queensland and Mad Hatter's Domain, the remaining 5 were later changed and renamed into different ones. Here are the notable differences:

• Doll's World was renamed into Dollhouse.
• Catterpillar's Garden was later changed into Oriental Grove.
• Train was renamed into Infernal Train.
• Seaside was later changed into Tundraful.
• Junkyard of Memory was later changed into Deluded Depths.

Note: The Escher level seems to be directly inspired by the works of Dutch artist M.C. Escher, who was famous for his so-called impossible drawings.

Chinatown

Initially, Alice was going to visit a location in London called Chinatown, that would be located somewhere around the Limehouse district, in the East End. It is unknown what her objective would be there, but the area itself would directly influence the Oriental Grove in Wonderland.

In the final product, Chinatown can briefly be seen in the background when Alice is riding the horse carriage with Nan on Chapter 3. Additionally, the oriental level is influenced by the collection of Asian antiques owned by Radcliffe, the Liddell family's lawyer when Alice visits his house.

Falling Tears Room

In this image, the level resembles a big room filled with water. The ceiling appears to be surrounded by a gallery of human faces that are seemingly crying tears. The idea was that Alice would have to make her way upwards by jumping through the falling teardrops as fast as possible until she reached the top of the room. The level never made it to the final game because it would have been too much of a technical hassle for the team to deal with.

The level was apparently inspired by the pool of tears scene from the original novel. Based on that fact, it's safe to assume that this room was originally going to be featured in the Vale of Tears domain.

Moon Level

As you already know by now, a moon level was planned early on during production. The moon would be made of cheese, and it would have been conquered by a colony of crazy, mutated rats, intending to strip it away from it's resources. No explenation as to why this area was scrapped other than the game's direction changed as development went on.

A Rat Mutant.

CHEEEEESE!!!

M.C. Escher Level

An M.C. Escher-inspired domain. Alice would ended up getting stranded and had to navgigate through multiple corridors in order to find the exit. Throughout the level, she would encounter shadow figures known as "Hecklers" that would try deviating Alice from the right path. If Alice was choosing the correct door, the Hecklers would applaud and congratulate Alice. If she picked the wrong one however, they would mock and insult her. The idea for this level came from the desire to see Alice running on walls and ceilings but ultimately got scrapped for posing too many technical promlems.

Heckler Artwork.

Dark Londerland

Wonderland merged with London turning it into a hellish, unrecognisable realm of terror. Not much is known about this domain other than Alice would make her way to a giant castle while riding on a big pufferfish balloon. As she would get closer, a swarm of stingrays would suddenly emerge from the castle and attack Alice. Alice would then use the pufferfish to shoot arrows at the confronting enemies until she gets to her destination.

Arctic Voyage Level

An ice-themed realm heavily inspired by John Franklin's failed expedition. Ships become icebound and death gradually devours one-by-one the poor unfortunate crew members. Sharks made out of shipwrecked parts would then come to life and search for prey as cold snow falls through a big hole in the sky. Upon exploring the frozen wreckage, Alice would first arrive to an Inuit village. Little did she know that madness and cannibalism had already spread amongst the village, turning the once-kind natives into bloodthirsty savages.

This was most likely an early iteration of the Tundraful level.

The icebound ships.

Unknown Environments

• There are industrial buildings featured in this level with toxic waste flowing out of pipes, effectively poisoning the waters. There is no information in regards to this level, although it's possible this might have been an alternate version of London judging by the artwork.

• This picture depicts a dark, nightmarish environment. The level appears to have industrial architecture around it with fire being spread throughout the land. Sitting on the ledges there are some creepy creatures staring at Alice with long hanging arms that resemble hooks. Across the area, many dead bodies can be seen being hanged making it look like a big graveyard. Also in the distance you can see the Infernal Train passing by. What purpose this area would serve is unknowm. The domain was apparently inspired by the works of Polish painter, Zdzisław Beksiński.

• Lastly, we've got a tiny Alice in a gigantic environment trying to open some kind of portal. On the same room, there are giant centipedes crawling around, ready to devour any intruders on their path. Nothing else is known about the level besides this concept piece.