I recently played through Alice: Madness Returns and I loved the
blend of interesting storytelling, subject matter, and art. Developer Spicy
Horse did an excellent job of blending all the elements of the game into a
fantastic whole. The game was particularly inspiring for me, as it had a number
of similarities to our own Echoes project. The naturesque environments with a
surreal tweist are similar to our own environment themes, and the gameplay is
simplistic and robust, getting out of the way of the art and story, which are
the main draws of the game.
Spicy Horse is the largest independent western game studio in China.
Based in Shanghai, the studio is a great coming together of cultural
backgrounds. The studio has a mixture of western and eastern developers, all
with their own take on the style. This allows their games to have diverse and
interesting art styles.
In particular, I liked the way key features on the player
character became a focal point on Alice. The dynamic skirt and hair really
worked with the art style and made me excited about the possibilities opening
up for complex dynamics in real time game engines.
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