“The ant told me that the frog is bad.”
“The frog told me that the cat is bad.”
“The cat told me, no, the rabbit is the worst of them all.”
“So I…”
Alicemare, another entry by Miwashiba in the WolfRPG Editor, it is a rather straightforward adventure game with some slight horror centered around fairytales. While the horror element is there, it will not keep you awake at night, just something to be aware of.
It is a minimalist sort of game in which things slowly comes together such as our player character Allen’s past, the characters we come across & the mystery of our current predicament. Your goals throughout is helping other kids through their dreams representing something of their past. Much like LiEat, gameplay consists of some light puzzles or riddles in order to trigger progress & unlike that game, Alicemare does not feature any sort of combat, it is pure simple exploration.
Alicemare’s minimal plot certainly had me hooked but the deeper I got there more I felt the need for more substance or something more to the world or characters. You help along each character & while seeing their ties to a specific fairytale & coming to grasp which it is & Miwashiba’s take on it was certainly interesting but it was over before it began. It is a 1 to 2 hour game (even after seeing its multiple endings & about 30 or so minutes in a Tetris clone, of all things.) sadly & compared to LiEat, which was also a short game, which while it left me hungry for more of the its world & characters still left me satisfied enough with each little story it told, Alicemare on the other hand just left me there.
Art also left me high & dry after seeing LiEat’s art & small but cute animations. It is sprite-based much the same, but lacks anything noteworthy or eyecatching. Music works well with the game, a few classical music like Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy among other public domain things, overall serviceable.
All in all, Alicemare was certainly not a bad game for the price but certainly I am biased against it after having played LiEat & expecting the same quality on the art front. Gameplay is by no means bad, simple & quick adventure game with a enjoyable albeit short plot, so certainly not knocking off points for that. With the rather frequent sales it receives on Steam one could do worse buying one of the “top-tier” shovelware games that invade the Steam store instead of this somewhat lacking but charming game.
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