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Cleaning Up After the White Rabbit:
An Intimate Conversation with American McGee

By Randy Sluganski

American McGee was raised a devout Catholic and attended a private school that required the male student body to dress like Little Lord Fauntleroy. Well, actually none of that is true, but admit it, don't we all have this preconception of American McGee as a "good boy gone bad"?

The truth is that American McGee's life, as befits his first name, is a classic rags-to-riches story. Abandoned by his mother and stepfather at the age of sixteen, American was left to fend for himself, often stealing computer parts in order to feed his need to program.

As is often the case, talent finds talent, and American was soon hired by John Carmack to work tech support at Id. American soon played a pivotal part in the creation of Doom 2 and Quake before moving on to Rogue for the development of American McGee's Alice. Counting Marilyn Manson and Trent Reznor among his friends, American's name has become synonymous with the Baby Boomers' image of Generation X. Join us as we now attempt to entice American McGee to leave the "dark side" of gaming for the Elysian fields of adventure gaming ...

Let me first remove my foot from my mouth and admit that I loved Alice. On that note, were you at all upset by the negative stand Just Adventure took against Alice before its release? Our controversial "Go Ask Alice" article by Josh Mandel was probably our most read and widely linked-to article of the past year.

I was only upset that Josh would take a negative stance towards something that he knew so little about. At the time of his article we had released only small bits of information on the game, and it seemed odd that someone could form such strong opinions about something that hardly even existed. Sorta like saying "I hate that new brand of soft drink" based on a logo treatment released months before anyone has actually tasted the new product.

There was a mistaken belief, and JA was guilty of this, that Alice was to be nothing more than a bloodfest. A lot of this was caused by the advertising for the game, i.e., Alice wielding a knife dripping blood. Couldn't there have been a better way to market this game to the general public rather than fuel the perception that gamers are bloodthirsty teenagers?

The marketing was actually targeted towards the parents of those bloodthirsty teenagers. My hope was that in portraying our Alice in that fashion there would be no confusion about who this product was intended for. Parents, take heed, this is not a game you should buy for your children. I felt that if we had been tame with our marketing materials, we might have sent the wrong message to parents.

Most of the weapons/toys in the game are destructive in nature. Couldn't the same objects have been used to capture the characters in imaginative ways--for example, the jack-in-the-box could have wrapped itself around an enemy--rather than to hack and slash them to death?

Uh, yeah ... but at the end of the day I still wanted there to be some sort of visceral action going on in the game. We took a lot of chances with Alice. A female lead who wasn't sporting huge breasts, a game based on what most people consider a children's book, and weapons that were already, in form at least, unlike anything that had ever been put into a game. Changing the basic destructive qualities I think would have alienated even more hardcore gamers; we had to make concessions somewhere.

A lot of the reviews for Alice praised it for being an enjoyable game but were not overly enthusiastic and accused it of falling back on the standard run-and-jump gameplay. Do you personally believe that maybe the product was overhyped, overmarketed?

I believe that we delivered exactly what we promised we would: An imaginative game based on a well-known piece of fiction that isn't so hard to play that first-time gamers give up in frustration before getting halfway through the game. From the beginning of the design process, one of my biggest concerns was that the game might end up being inaccessible to first-time players.

After having played Alice, it is obvious to me that you are very talented and creative. Can you see yourself channeling your talent into other directions outside of the blood-and-gore mentality of games?

I would love the chance to do this. A number of the designs that I have floating around in my head right now contain absolutely zero blood and gore action. Also, I'll be working in Hollywood over the next year. I've just signed a studio deal with Miramax and am looking into directing some music videos.

Are there any sequels planned for Alice, and what, if anything, can you tell us about the proposed movie version? What part will you play in the movie's development?

At this time there are no sequels planned for Alice. If the public shows an interest, we'll reconsider. The movie version of the game is currently in preproduction. Wes Craven has signed on to direct, and the script is in development as we speak. I'll be involved as a producer and am going to use the opportunity to learn more about how Hollywood works and how that might help us in our industry.

Many reviewers, myself included, have remarked that many of the visual images in the game are reminiscent of a Tim Burton film. How much were you influenced by directors like Burton, and was it on a conscious or subconscious level?

I've always been a huge Tim Burton fan and will readily admit that Alice was hugely influenced by movies like Sleepy Hollow and Edward Scissor Hands. I'll continue to study films in search of new influences and techniques that might apply to my work with interactive media.

Out of the tens of thousands of people who have purchased and played Alice, how many of those gamers would you estimate have actually read the original novel and were intimately familiar with the deeper subtexts of the story and its characters, or do you think most gamers are familiar with the story only on a superficial level?

I think that Alice has always occupied a place in our collective subconscious. Around the world, people instantly recognize the characters, understand the basic story, and really seem to appreciate what we've done in our version of the story. We had had plans to include a digital version of the books along with the game but ran out of time (as usual with those sorts of things).

What was your long-range goal with Alice? Were you attempting to attract gamers to read a book that you cherish? Or were you simply trying to create a maelstrom?

Mostly it was an attempt to get first-/third-person games away from the tired "space marine versus space alien" premise that seems to form the "story" for games in this genre since the days of Doom. I feel that we have in our hands a really great storytelling medium that no one seems to want to take advantage of.

The original novel had subtle touches that have allowed it to become a classic, the white knight is based on Lewis Carroll, the unicorn illustrations by Tenniel are meant to represent Disraeli. Have you done anything similar in your version of Wonderland?

To be honest I wish that we had ... but alas, the curse of making video games is that little details like this often end up on the cutting room floor. I'll be the first to admit that we really could have done a lot more with the fiction and that we really wanted to. But Christmas was fast approaching ...

Why American McGee's Alice? Why not just Alice? Until the release of this game, most people were unfamiliar with your name. What convinced Electronic Arts to take such a big chance and put your name in front of the title?

This was something that I fought against from the beginning. It diminishes the perceived involvement of all of the other artists, level designers, programmers, producers, animators, etc., that were involved with the game. I still wish that the game had been called just Alice, but EA needed a way to brand the product, protect the name, and market someone to the press.

Do you have any other favorite novels that you plan on turning into games? Are we going to see American McGee's version of Dostoevski's Crime and Punishment?

I have a few ideas but nothing I can talk about at this time. And I doubt that Crime and Punishment would make a very good game ... although I've played through a few stinkers that could be considered crime and punishment.

You have honed your teeth on first-person shooters and action games. Is there any chance we could convince you to do an adventure game in the future?

Absolutely. I would hate to get stuck in a world of FPSs for the rest of my life.

Speaking of adventure games, what is your take on the genre? Are you at all excited by games like Myst 3, Majestic, Hitchcock, or Stupid Invaders?

Myst has never and will never do much for me. Majestic looks intriguing, and I've always been a fan of good adventure games (Grim Fandango, etc). Just depends on the subject matter and style in which the game is created.

Can you name one thing in Alice that is uniquely American McGee?

I tried to have a broad influence over as many things as possible while leaving enough room for the guys at Rogue to have creative freedom and ownership. It's hard to say what single piece of any game is ever owned by an individual. There are parts that you build, but those parts are always influenced and supported by the work of others. I try hard to foster an environment of interdependent creative endeavors, as opposed to independent ones.

If you ever have any children, what will their first names be?

Good question, no idea. But I have a cat named "Star" and an unnamed turtle in my pond.