Alice the Madness Returns

As I had it set that the setting for my project would be late 19th Century London I wanted to see what other games' take on that theme would be. Unfortunately the spectrum of games with this setting were very niche, leaving me little to work with. I only managed to find one game that held some relavence that I could draw inspriation from which was Alice: Madness returns (2011, EA)

The art style combines colourful and macabre together wonderfully; although this is restricted to the wonderland levels, the actual London areas are much darker and have a grungy appearance. With my idea I wanted London itself to look dark, overcrowded and polluted, but with almost sickeningly bright colours splashed in. So essentially combining wonderland with London in a sense. For that reason I want to examine both 'worlds' in this game.

Wonderland

The buildings in wonderland follow the macabre style of distortion and pretty much ignores the logistics of how architecture actually works; also noting the heart shaped windows, logically this wouldn't even be considered in architecture. Along with that, the reddish hue the windows completely sets the mood for the scenario. What I also like about this is the natural part of the environment leading up to the castle, the overexagerrated dip in the path not only emphasises the castle itself but adds to the ominous air the concept art has.
I'd like to take a page from the concept art in this game, using bright colours and still maintaing a scary image.


London

There was a lack of London concept art for this game, which is understandable; wonderland is the focus and Alice actually spends a limited amount of time in the 'Real' world. This is a concept for a slums house, the colour pallete sticks to mostly brown tones; there is a definate vibe of 'You really wouldn't want to live here' The proportions of the house are precarious at best, mentioned before don't really work in real life houses. This however is how I would like the buildings in my design of London to look like, overshadowing the people; making it look unappealing to go inside.