Speed run of American McGee's Alice on easy skill in 39 segments completed on July 4 2005. Available in normal and high quality.
Author's comments: This run of American McGee's Alice is the 2nd speedrun that I did through the game, even though it's the only one I released. The first speedrun was basically a easy mode run that mainly used normal routes, that had little to no jumping (to go faster) and was only 21 segments. I didn't think that I'd do another Alice run again, as the first one was very irritating, but once Allantois released his, which included a storm of massive shortcuts, I quickly decided to try another, and since that I didn't really want to do another easy run, I decided to go onto the hardest difficulty. This stated off as a nightmare run, but I soon abandoned the idea when I realized it was a bit too insane :P
Well, now onto the run. Before saying anything I'd like to give massive thanks to Allantois and anyone who helped him on his easy mode runs. Most of the tricks that are in this run were originally discovered by him and therefore he deserves being mentioned (I said most as some tricks I discovered myself or I already knew before he showed me).
Hard mode is significantly different from easy mode. I can guess that most people who played this game stuck to easy or normal mode at most, as it's a game which has very "random" collision detection which makes it hard to play on hard and nightmare. This run is not a clone of the easy mode run with harder enemies. The main differences between the 2 difficulties are:
- Enemies and bosses are harder - Enemies and bosses take more damage - There are a lot more enemies than easy or normal - Jumping down big cliffs hurts more - The will meter (the ammo meter, the blue one on the right) does not regenerate on its own - There are some extra puzzles thrown in
I must say that recording the run was just as hard as doing it. I had a very intense battle with fraps for that damn program to record fluidly without dropping down as far as 5 FPS (which did happened often while trying to record). However, even though the framerate does drop in a few places and it's a bit jumpy in others, the run is still perfectly watchable. Sorry about that. Surely by now I guess I said enough intro information on the run I did, so I'll go ahead and talk about the actual run. :P
Below are the comments for each level (I do not have independent level times, sorry about that).
01: Dementia - This level went well overall. I don't really see any big mistakes
02: Pandemonium - I could have put a few extra jumps in somewhere, and I bumped with a hearts card guard, making me loose some time.
03: Fortress of Doors - I didn't use Allantois' version of the shortcut here because I found that the way I did it was just a lot easier and just as fast.
04: Beyond the Wall - This level is probably the hardest to do on hard. There is an extra puzzle on this level which puts you about 1 minute behind the easy mode standard. The killing of the 2 boojums was a bit slow and that's probably the only significant mistake.
05: Fortress of Doors - This level went well, except that when entering the Skool window I didn't cut the corner. That made me lose about a second.
06: Skool Daze - Unfortunately I did this level before seeing Allantois' 54 minutes run, and I picked up the first book, which made me loose about 12 seconds. Still I got 1:49 which isn't bad.
07: Skool's Out - This level was the worst done in the whole run. To kill the 3 boojums in the gym I took 30 secondsÂand then I got some miscontrols and bumped into things. Too bad I couldn't redo it though :(
08: Skool Daze 2 - Like Skool Daze 1, I didn't use the shortcut at the end because I didn't see the 54 minutes easy run. Still, I use a small shortcut which saves 2 or 3 seconds and I got 55 seconds which is still good.
09: Pool of Tears - This level went very well until the end where I hit the rock after jumping into the water for the last time. ARGH XD
10: Hollow Hideaway - This level went well. When killing the last ant general I maybe could have used a better weapon strategy.
11: Just Desserts - The duchess went down well. I used the mallet twice because then she goes down in 5 jackbombs instead of 6.
12: Wholly Morel Ground - Since this is timed, there wasn't much I could do. I guess it was near-perfect.
13: Dry Landing - This level went very well.
14: Herbaceous Border - This level was good. There were a few collisions with rocks but nothing big.
15: Rolling Stones - Since in the last level my health went down pretty low I had to pick up 2 Meta essences. I can't say that it was much slower though, if at all.
16: Icy Reception - I didn't jump much after the ice wand cave, which made me loose a few seconds.
17: Fungiferous Flora - It seems the funguses on hard mode have a much greater pulling force, and it's hard to get off it. Other than that, it went well.
18: Centipede's Sanctum - The battle with the centipede was really good. It took me a while for him to give all the right moves.
19: Caterpillar's Plot - I killed 2 boojums which made me loose a few seconds, but it seems like that they like killing me too :P
20: Pale Realm - This level went well.
21: Castling - I didn't jump on the rook at the end because he usually hurt me a lot.
22: Checkmate in Red - The first part was fine, but the battle with the red king was a bit meh, and I think the jackbomb at start hit me more than him. :P
23: Mirror Image - Since that this level is really hard to survive on, I wanted to do it double segment. However, I did it in 1 segment in the end. I killed 4 boojums, and in the boss battle a jackbomb missed the twins.
24: Crazed Clockwork - I probably could have fitted a few jumps after the shortcut, but it wasn't anything big.
25: About Face - The battle here went well.
26: Burning curiosity - This level went well. There were a few collisions.
27: Jabberwock's Lair - Since this is a timed fight, I just ran around in circles, and funnily enough the jabberwock followed me without attacking.
28: Caterpillar's Plot - I picked up the blunderbuss here, as the time saved in the last 2 bosses makes up for more time than the one needed to pick it up.
29: Majestic Maze - This level went well. I didn't get blown by the boojum because the fall always hurts me a lot.
30: Airborne Terror - There were a few miscontrols, and I didn't cut the turns on the bridge.
31: Mystifying Madness - This level always hurted me to near-death. It's amazing I managed to do it without getting hurt at all and being fast.
32: Water Logged - I hate snarks with passion. This is all I need to say :P It didn't go too bad.
33: Labyrinthine Revenge - I could have used the dead time watch at the beginning to save some time but the heart card guard at the end always killed me or knocked me down. Therefore I used the watch at about 3/4 through.
34: Machinations - Since this is almost like it's timed, I couldn't do much to save more time. It went very well overall.
35: Royal Rage - It's amazing the jabberwock is a lot harder than the final boss. At the end when jumping across the bridge I did a bad jump, but considering this was only the 2nd time out of like 100 that the jabberwock died in 2 eye staff blows, I didn't want to restart.
36: Battle Royale - This level went well. I didn't wait to get hit by the card guard at the end because it knocks me over.
37: Ascension - I was hit several times here, and at the end I had to grab some meta essences because I had like 5 HP left.
38: Castle Keep - This level went very well except for a few collisions with walls. At the last picture I was knocked over by a hearts card guard. Unfortunately it's hard not to get knocked over by them.
39: Heart of Darkness - Both versions of the bosses went well. In the 2nd version I had some small missed hits and I unfortunately grabbed the ledge before the final blow.
Well, that's it then. I hope you'll enjoy the run. :)
Demo Files Use
How to get the demos to work Make sure you have the console activated. It's activated through Settings > Game Options. To get the demos to work, paste all the 39 .dm3 files in the "demos" folder inside the "Base" folder in the Alice directory. Then, start up the game, and load any level (or start a new game). Then when in-game, bring up the console using ~ and type in "demo [demo file name]" (e.g. "demo hard1").
Things I'd like to point out before watching
- Black Screens in between levels are loading times
- On every demo except for hard1, there is a few seconds of extra footage at the beginning. What I Did is load a different level, and then load the actual level being speedrunned to avoid time loss.
- The segments start when the level begins and end when the game quicksaves on the next level. You can spot quicksaves by the game freezing for a split second. There is an exception though for easy26 and easy4, as those finish where an in-game save is done.
- On the demo Hard24, there are 6 attempts at the level. The first 5 are just failed attempts and the 6th is the real segment.
-Hard5 has the end of Beyond the Wall, aswell as Fortress of Doors II in a single segment.
- On hard27, you can see that there's the end of Burning Curiosity, Jabberwock's Lair and Caterpillar's Plot II. All those 3 levels are done in a single segment.
Having fun with Demos
You can change the camera while playing demos (but note that the camera used in all the video versions was the camera used to play the game. That camera is totally to the left of the bar). To do that, go to Settings in the main menu, and then to Game Options. In there you can change the camera distance displayed in the run (for your choice of better viewing, of course). You can also make the camera rotate around Alice while in-game (not in cutscenes though). So that you can see various things that you can't see while playing with the camera in front (like card guards desperately running after you while I outrun them by a mile :p). To change the camera go to Settings and go to the Controls. Find a control called "Camera Look", and I suggest changing it to Shift Left or Right (because most keys will make the main menu pop up during playback). After you do that, go into the demos, hold Shift and move the mouse.
Playback Problems FAQ
Q: The game crashes to the desktop when I try to load the demos, why is that happening? A: That's happening because your not in-game while loading the demos. Make sure your always in-game when loading demos
Q: I'm in-game, but when I try to load a demo, there's a black screen and then I'm back to the main menu. Why is that? A: That's some sort of playback bug. To fix it, just try playing the demo when you're in a different level. From my experience, Dementia loads any demos.
Q: When I try to load a demo in-game, the game crashes back to the main menu and there is a message on the console that says "ERROR: couldn't open demos/[filename].dm3". How can I fix this? A: That's happening because you either didn't type the file name correctly or the demo isn't in the "demos" folder in the "base" folder. Make sure all the demos are there with correct file names and then try again.
Q: How can I record demos? A: Go in-game, bring up the console and type in "g_syncronousClients 1". That activates demo recording. Then, type in the console "record [filename]", and then you're recording a demo. To stop recording, type in the console "stoprecord".
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