Alice fell to Neverland DEMO

Good day!
It's time to review a demo, Alice fell to Neverland DEMO (all caps, just to be sure) to be correct, a game that, if you check the intro screen, is not just about Alice in Wonderland, but also about Peter Pan! Apparently the two settings will be merged into a single world (so it's not really a game about Alice in Wonderland, but rather inspired by it). But before you start the game , remember to install the font that is included, otherwise you will encounter errors like incomplete/cut dialogues.

Done? Very well. This demo, made by KingHamster with RPGMaker VX Ace, starts with a decision, and it's not about the difficulty choice since there is just one. No, it's about choosing who will be Alice: the blonde Caroline or her twin brother Lewis (that's a clear reference to the author Lewis Carroll). Yes, the prologue will be different even if the two kids go to the same school, in any case despite the different beginnings, they both end the prologue the same way: following the white rabbit, getting lost, and entering a strange world!


That's pretty much simple: no flowers, no life, equals death. Chess the cheshire cat explained that pretty well!

But first an important information, before you select the protagonist: ONLY Caroline's path goes beyond the prologue and has some actual gameplay, the Lewis story so far consists only on the prologue, so if you have few time play only Caroline's side, but if you can, play them both because these two characters are really different: Caroline is a good natured but a bit brash and rude girl that has two great friends, and one of them was chosen for a special course of study for gifted students. Lewis is instead a pretty and clever boy that apparently everyone likes, but for some reason he has no friends... except after he meets Thomas, another student chosen for that special course of study, like Caroline's friend. But we will learn a lot of Thomas, he's a cheerful but lonely boy obsessed with Peter Pan (totally the opposite of Caroline, that doesn't know any faery tale!). Thomas is only mentioned in Caroline's prologue, but he's encountered later, and he will have a larger role to play in the full game, probably as a secondary protagonist.

Anyway after the prologue our heroine follows a white rabbit and enters a strange world. So she decides to look for that rabbit and a way to go back home, but when she notices that also her clothes changed, it become clear that this is just the beginning of a great adventure.
Alice fell to Neverland DEMO is in fact an adventure game: we have to solve some tasks and complete some missions to proceed along a linear path that will go through strange locations populated by bizarre individuals, some friendly like Chess the cheshire cat (that will save Caroline the first time he appears!), others hostile (like the crabs). Most puzzles are the classic fetch quests or "find the item you need to be used on that spot", that's more or less the same thing, but there are also some actions chase scenes.


"Peter Pan stuff"? Is that some kind of drug? Well, for Thomas... yes it is! I may be racist but I'd never trusted two green skinned students!

Something I really like is that you also have an inventory that contains the candies, used to ripristinate the flowers that indicate the "hitpoints" left, and also some useful items that can let you cheat (I really do not know if it was an oversight or I really did how it was indended, I believe the second case since otherwise it would have been impossible to survive)! Oh yes, like in the classic Alice in Wonderland, there are items that will not chance your size but enable the possibility to walk through walls, and these will be extremely useful, especially in one particular risky situation. Oh and you can also save anytime, that's good.

Then let's see the graphics: I was happy to see that all the colorful assets were custom made! Yes, no more Rtps, all charsets are custom made, and also the portraits that are reserved to the recurring important characters (I also liked the cute pictures you can see when you use one of the many mirrors you can find around, even if they have no other purpouse). All good even if I do not understand why some students have skin of unusual colors like red or green, I mean these are in the real world, not in NeverWonderLand! But it's ok.
Mapping is well done (except for the doors of the classrooms since the wall isn't clearly defined, not that's a big problem), simple and still with some details but not too distracting, you will find just what you need to use, plus some consumables to restore lost hitpoints. I like that mushrooms are used to replace chests... yes, open them to take the goods inside, and remember that in some maps they respawn too!


Well, we spent one hour with mermaids, talking clams and girl-animal hybrids... and now a rabbit that can speak is weird???

Final Verdict
I liked this demo because it made me curious about what will happen next. It's not a spoiler if I tell you that Caroline (and Lewis) isn't Carroll's Alice. Nor the Peter Pan you will encounter later is the same one create by Barrie, there is also no Tinkerbell but another fairy... why? Is this an alternate universe? I'm really curious about what will happen next since both the pirates, their captain, and the Red Queen are mentioned. What puzzles me are Caroline's dialogues: she is a rather silly girl since she's apparently surprised by a talking rabbit despite all the previous weirdness she witnessed. Also, the part with the clams and the restaurant... come on she's too naive! A last thing I found not that good was the flowers interface on the upper part of the screen... it's pretty, but sometimes unpractical as it covers interesting parts of the maps.

Concerning the gameplay, it's ok even if I expect something more, like more complex or interesting puzzles in the full game, not that is bad, but it's just a good starting point.