While searching for a new video game to play, I began to wonder if there were any good ones based on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I did some research, and interestingly enough, there weren’t as many as I had expected, which is odd, as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is one of the most adapted pieces of media to have ever existed. While I’m sure there are tens of thousands of Alice references sprinkled throughout video games, it’s strange that I could only find a handful of games that directly use Alice in Wonderland as their source. So, for my Alice-obsessed gamers, I’m going to dive into the history of Alice-themed video games for home consoles.

Generation One - Pong and Magnavox Odyssey

 Pong is pong, and the Magnavox Odyssey was a controllable white square, so…

Generation Two - Atari 2600, Intellivision, Odyssey 2, ColecoVision

While there are no Alice in Wonderland-themed games on any of these consoles, when I Googled “Alice in Wonderland Atari 2600,” I found a homebrewed Alice in Wonderland game released in 2020 for the Atari 2600, which is pretty cool.

Generation Three - Sega Master System, Atari 7800, Nintendo Entertainment System 

These consoles featured more colors, better controls, and the ability to tell more complex stories, yet for some reason, not a lot of Alice games. And by not a lot, I mean none! There was a game called Alex Kidd in Miracle World for the Sega Master System, which, while sounding like a just-barely-legal knockoff of Alice in Wonderland, has nothing to do with Alice.

Generation Four - Super NES, Sega Genesis, NeoGeo, Atari Jaguar

The fourth generation is when video games began to resemble what we are familiar with today, with more than twice the power of the previous generation, going from 8-bit to 16-bit. If you don’t know what that means, that’s ok, neither do I. But here’s a visual.

Whatever those bits are doing, they're doing a great job.

This generation’s most popular consoles were the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) and the Sega Genesis. Here we finally have the first Alice game for the home console market! It was released in 1988, 123 years after the Lewis Carroll novel was published! Released in Japan on the incredibly less popular NEC TurboGrafx, the game was called Märchen Maze, which does not remind me of Alice at all. That being said, the cover art is highly reminiscent of Alice. A port of an arcade game of the same name, the game got mixed reviews due to its poor difficulty scaling.

Another Alice game came out two years later! Unfortunately, it was released only in Japan, and, to add to the misfortune, it was for the red-headed stepchild that is the TurboGrafx. The game was titled Fushigi no Yume no Alice (Alice in Wonderdream/Alice’s Dream in Wonderland). It was praised for the cute graphics and decent music, but the story was considered a bit lazy as it was a simple take on the Carroll books.

But that's not all! That's right, also releasing in Japan for the Super Famicom (Japanese name for SNES), there was Alice no Paint Adventure! Released in 1995, it was based on the 1951 Disney animated movie. It actually follows the film quite faithfully, but the gameplay is literally just filling in scenes from the movie with the correct colors. It seems like this game's intended audience was young children. Or stoners.

Generation Five - Nintendo 64, PlayStation, 3DO, Sega Saturn

Alright, now it’s time for the big guns, the fifth generation of consoles. Goodbye squares and hello polygons! 32-bit? Nah, miss me with that. I’m talking 64-bit. That’s right, three dimensions, baby! I can’t wait to see what Alice games could be like in the third dimensi- Aaaaaand there are no Alice games for this generation.

Generation Six - Nintendo Game Cube, PlayStation 2, Xbox, Sega Dreamcast

Alright, if the last generation was the beginning of 3D video games, this generation is where they mastered them. The sixth generation of consoles features some of the most famous, best-selling consoles of all time.

Starting with the PS2, there were no releases of Alice-themed video games outside Japan, and due to the prolific nature of another game I will rant about in the next generation, it’s hard to find information on these Japanese games. The first was Fushigi no Kuni no Alice, a third-person adventure game featuring fantasy-themed cartoon graphics. Thankfully, I was able to find a review of the game by someone on a long-dead internet forum. The gameplay seems to be an upscaled 3D version of the Nintendo Game Boy game, which was a virtual board game. That being said, the game followed the Lewis Carroll story faithfully (according to this guy on a forum).

There wasn’t just one Alice game for the PS2. In 2008, the game Heart no Kuni no Alice  (Alice in the Country of Hearts) was released. This game was a popular, female-oriented, romantic visual novel that is a dark twist on the classic story.

I said, “Starting with the PS2,” while writing this during my research. Unfortunately, it also ends with the PS2, as there were no Alice games on any of the other home consoles of this generation. But I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the “keysword” shaped hole in the room.

Kingdom Hearts. While it's not an Alice-themed game, there is a whole level based on the Disney animated movie. I’ve never played Kingdom Hearts, but I called my brother to have it explained to me and…I’m more confused than before I called him. Apparently, the game's lore is so convoluted that the producer has to watch a YouTube video every time he goes to create a new installment.

Generation Seven - Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii

This generation was the bane of my existence. Not because of the consoles themselves, I loved the Wii and the 360, but because this generation includes the most famous Alice in Wonderland game ever. This game was so famous that it made researching all the other games almost impossible because Google forced this game down my throat any time I searched “Alice in Wonderland video games.” It was literally mentioned by Google's dumb AI when I searched, “Atari 2600 Alice in Wonderland game”. The game I’m referring to is American McGee’s Alice (and its sequel, Alice: Madness Returns).

As punishment for making this blog that much harder to write, I’m not going to talk about it.

There is already an in-depth blog here. If you want to learn more about it, literally type anything into Google, and as long as the words “Alice” and “Game” are somewhere in the search bar, this game will come up.

But this isn’t the only Alice game in the seventh generation. Alice in Wonderland (2010) for the Nintendo Wii was a video game based on the Tim Burton film Alice in Wonderland, which came out the same year. The game is unplayable shovelware. Yeah…pretty anticlimactic.

I believe there are a few Alice games for the current generation of consoles (Alice just moved to Disney Dreamlight Valley last year, for example), but that’s not history; that’s nowstory. So that’s it. That’s the history of Alice in Wonderland video games for home consoles. It’s rather lackluster to say the least. How is it possible that Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, one of the most popular, iconic, and adapted pieces of media to have ever been created, has so few games? The books changed language! People quote it without even realizing they’ve quoted it! Where are my Alice games?! 

I demand more answers! And Frank, I demand some more answers from you, too. You’ve created this reimagined Alice universe with books and graphic novels, with art that would be perfect for a video game, and you haven’t made anything? What are you doing? Do you not like money? If you don’t like money, that’s okay, but I could really use some, so just let me know. I’m so hungry.

Note from Jared (editor): I felt it was worth mentioning that I didn’t include portable consoles, such as the Game Boy, or PC games. There are a few more Alice games here, but again, not as many as one would think. I’m going to list them off so that someone with more time can actually fix the Wikipedia page’s incomplete list of Alice-themed games. 

Also, I originally had all of them in the blog, but it was way too long, and mentioning them here makes me feel like I wasted less of my time researching and writing about them in previous drafts. Speaking of wasting time, I really wouldn't bother playing them; most are very bad, either being point-and-click adventures, visual novels, or just really ancient. Thank you to myabandonware.com for allowing me to search for Alice games without being inundated with the same two games as I was with Google.

Alice: Adventures in Wonderland (1984) PC-88 (It was an “Adult” game, wink-wink, nudge-nudge.)
Alice in Wonderland (1985) Commodore 64 and Apple II
Wonderland (1990) DOS
Alice in Wonderland (1991) CD-i
Alice: an Interactive Museum (1991) (This game pioneered pre-rendered 3D graphics)
Alice in Wonderland (1997) Windows
Alice in Wonderland (2000) Game Boy Color
Alice in Wonderland (2000), Windows (Released in Russia. Super weird-looking.)
Alice in Wonderland (2010) DS (Handheld counterpart to the Tim Burton game. So, its bad.)

Meet the Author

Jared Hoffman graduated from the American Film Institute with a degree in screenwriting. A Los Angeles native, his brand of comedy is satire stemming from the many different personalities and egos he has encountered throughout his life. As a lover of all things comedy, Jared is always working out new material and trying to make those around him laugh. His therapist claims this is a coping mechanism, but what does she know?