Alice's Nightmare in Wonderland – Madness within reach!

It has been 160 years since the publication of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and today you can experience this unique story in more ways than just through the pages of her literary adventures. Over the years, Alice has wandered into other media – from books and films to comics, board games, and PC games. We are now interested in her contribution to the world of gamebooks – specifically from the pen of Jonathan Green, who unleashed a sometimes even horrific version of her story titled Alice's Nightmare in Wonderland.

Gamebook mechanics

On the first pages of the book, you will find a summary of the rules and an adventure sheet where you can track your ability scores and other important game notes (e.g., items you collect along the way that might come in handy in combat or elsewhere). Besides classic stats like Logic, Agility, or Combat, your level of Madness is also crucial for Alice – and by extension, for you. We are all mad here, but if you lose your mind completely, nothing good awaits you.

The book also explains other ways to help yourself during play – you can use two abilities, "Curiouser and Curiouser" and "The Pen is Mightier," to try and bend the story in your favor. Unfortunately, that doesn't necessarily mean you will succeed – it depends on luck, and sometimes things can go even more wrong. Perhaps that is why these mechanics fit so beautifully into the crazy atmosphere of this world and underscore the authentic Alice experience. The rules for combat, which you will encounter in large numbers, are also explained clearly. You can use dice as a randomizer, or – which is highly recommended and perfectly fits the mood of the game – a deck of cards.

Before you start playing, you just need to set your initial ability scores. If you are an experienced player, you can experiment and build your heroine right away, or you can take advice and set universal values, as I did. I think it was a solid move for a first playthrough. For subsequent games, you can try playing with the settings and see how well you can balance them. The guide also mentions that many of these rules can be ignored, and you can just flip through by chance – but I don't think the reader will enjoy the game nearly as much that way. Even as someone without much experience with gamebooks, I didn't make it easy for myself, and I'm glad I didn't – it kept the tension high and was definitely much more fun.

Fragments of memories from the played story

SPOILER ALERT: The following lines may reveal part of the plot and some results of Alice's choices.

Once upon a time, Alice wakes up on a riverbank, spurred into action by the White Rabbit. He doesn't look good at all – as if someone had gutted him and installed a ticking clock into his flesh – a terrifying messenger inviting us to set out on a journey. This time, he isn't the one running late; he is appealing to our heroine, in whose shoes you are from this moment on. Wonderland relies on her and hopes she will come to the rescue. It suffers under the cruel rule of the Queen of Hearts, and you face a mission that is expected to end with the tyrant's elimination.

Don't expect a Disney-style fairy tale (even though that was a successful adaptation of Alice's escapades); this version of Wonderland is darker, crazier, and more action-packed. Even that is entirely up to you – it depends on your decisions, how the dice roll, or which card you draw (depending on what you have at hand), and only then will you reach one of the possible endings.

My Alice followed the rabbit, just like the classic book version. And just like her, she fell down a deep well for a long time, with various objects falling around her. Thanks to a bit of luck during an Agility test, I managed to pull scissors and orange marmalade from a falling cupboard right at the beginning. Who would have thought how many combat encounters with strange enemies those scissors would win for me later? And even the marmalade was a good catch for healing wounds sustained in battle.

After hitting the bottom, my Alice found herself in a shaft with paintings and maps, where she tore a painting off the wall, and a dice roll sent me back into a headlong fall. On the way, a library flew past, from which I managed to pull a book with a poem about a bat – whereupon it actually turned into a bat in her hands, and only a Madness test helped her drive the creature away, causing it to fly off in a huff. At that moment, I couldn't help but remember how a bat recently flew into our apartment through an open vent at night – if only I had known that rolling for Madness would have helped, maybe we wouldn't have had to rescue it from the claws of our domestic saber-toothed tigers.

Hardly had Alice gotten rid of the bat when she found herself face-to-face with the first enemies, the Ticals – mechanical automatons that definitely don't look friendly. And that's where the aforementioned scissors came in handy. One would say that a sword or an axe would be more useful in battle, but sometimes you just have to make do with what you have.

After winning the fight, I found myself with my heroine in a room with doors, and just like the book Alice, there was a cake on the table labeled "Eat Me" and a bottle labeled "Drink Me." And so it happened – after a few sips of the shrinking potion, I managed to pass through a small door into Wonderland, where many adventures awaited us.

I discovered all sorts of nooks, mazes, and a croquet ground, and defeated many enemies – especially memorable was falling from reading a book in the library straight into an epic battle with the Jabberwock, whom I powerfully overcame with my dice and scissors.

Overall, I can say that I had a good feeling about my wanderings through Wonderland – I explored a piece of this realm, defeated all sorts of monsters, and managed to keep my madness in check and survive. I just didn't get the chance to obtain the Vorpal Sword early enough, so I eventually succumbed to a vampire knight, which ended my efforts to save the magical Wonderland. What can you do, I'll try again sometime.

Final verdict

Rating: How do I rate this gamebook? Despite not managing to complete the White Rabbit's mission on the first try, I'm not sad. I really enjoyed playing it, and apart from a small snag in a maze where I wandered aimlessly for a while, it was several hours of a sleepy Saturday afternoon spent with good tea and a crazy book-game action that constantly referenced classic Alice adventures, but was also its own thing and darker, which didn't hurt the experience at all – quite the opposite. I tried again the very next day, and although I failed again in a different way – after all, I still consider myself a beginner with gamebooks and it just takes more attempts, which might discourage some, but for me, this theme is very close to my heart and I love returning to the story.

So if you feel the same way and have already seen all the film adaptations, read the book several times, and still have the urge to head into Wonderland, definitely go for it. This little book seems small, but it still has over 500 pages filled with lots of beautiful illustrations that enhance the impression of the game, which you will definitely want to return to. Long live madness – adventure awaits you!

author Jana Mrkvicová