American McGee "Toying With" Red Riding Hood Game

[Andy Chalk]

American McGee "Toying With" Red Riding Hood Game

American McGee, best known for his unusual take on children's fairy tales, wants to turn his unique design sensibility to another old-time classic: Little Red Riding Hood.

McGee, who made a splash in 2001 with Game Developers Conference [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_McGee%27s_Alice] next week.

"If we're lucky an interested publisher will help us move it into production," McGee wrote, noting that if it gets picked up, he'd like to develop it either alongside or right after Alice 2 [http://www.returnofalice.com/]. It doesn't sound like there's a great rush on it, however. "It's an idea that [Spicy Horse art director] Ken Wong and I have been toying with for years," he added.

McGee seems to have kind of a thing for putting dark, twisted spins on old children's tales and he previously took a crack [http://originals.gametap.com/grimm/episode_02.html] at the Red Riding Hood story as part of the Grimm series. And while a stand-alone will certainly be considerably more well-rounded than the Grimm chapter if it finds a publisher, it's a safe bet that it won't be any less weird.

American McGee's Alice 2, or whatever it ends up being called, is being developed for the PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, and expected to come out sometime in 2011.


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[Cherry Cola]

I don't know if this will be something I will like, but I can tell you something:

This is right up Demented Teddy's alley.

 

[DarkSaber]

Worth noting that the ORIGINAL versions of most classic childrens tales were dark and grim themselves before being "kiddified" in more recent times.

 

[JEBWrench]

It's not that he puts a twisted spin on the tales. He just casts them more accurately to the original tales.

On a serious note, I thought American McGee fell off the face of the earth after Bad Day LA.

 

[Archemetis]

While I love any dark spin taken on a children's fairy tale and flat out endorse the idea of moving these things into the realm of Videogames, I've only got one gripe...
And it's with the concept Art.

I don't like the idea of having lots of wolves.
Sure it's possible to have grunt wolves and then the one alpha wolf be the lead antagonist...

But I think the Charm of the wolf in that story was the fact he was a single, manipulating, calculative scum bag...
Although now thinking about it, how do you adapt a fairy tale into a videogame when it's sole purpose was to teach the moral of:

"Don't wander into the woods, you might get raped."

[I read so many books and wrote a several page analysis on Little Red Riding Hood for my Media course in College, trust me, that was the intended(albeit the much shorter and simplified) meaning for it.]

 

[Orcus The Ultimate]

The Concept looks good, but the tale have just Wolves? maybe werewolves... and that's it!

btw i'd prefer to see those werewolves that appeared in Fable 1 that anything else...

 

[Grey_Focks]

not a bad idea, as I loved Alice, but I dunno about picking this tale so shortly after "The Path" came out. Then again, It's American McGee, and he really can do no wrong.

 

[JEBWrench]

not a bad idea, as I loved Alice, but I dunno about picking this tale so shortly after "The Path" came out. Then again, It's American McGee, and he really can do no wrong.

*scratching head*

Have you played Bad Day L.A.? It caused millions of people to consider their stance on post-natal abortion if the child's name is "American McGee".

 

[felixader]

Wolves may Cry.

 

[Grey_Focks]

not a bad idea, as I loved Alice, but I dunno about picking this tale so shortly after "The Path" came out. Then again, It's American McGee, and he really can do no wrong.

*scratching head*

Have you played Bad Day L.A.? It caused millions of people to consider their stance on post-natal abortion if the child's name is "American McGee".

was being sarcastic, atleast about the later part. I do like Alice though.

 

[JEBWrench]

was being sarcastic, atleast about the later part. I do like Alice though.

Ahhhhh. My mistake. American did make some quality games. But Bad Day LA left such a bad taste in my mouth that I started gargline with peroxide.

 

[Eleima]

I absolutely *adored* American McGee's Alice, and I'm looking forward to anything he'll churn out!!

 

[Therumancer]

Hmmm, I tend to think that this is a bad choice myself. I can see it, but it's kind of a retread following on the heels of other attempts to more or less do the same thing like "The Path" even if that was less of a game and more of an interactive movie/artwork type thing.

By the same token I think doing an "Alice 2" right now seemed like bandwagoning due to the whole "Wonderland Mania" thing where we've seen both a sci-fi channel version, and a Tim Burton version of the same thing being done right now, both based on some version of Alice's return to Wonderland which is exactly what that game would be, albeit a differant version (of course).

Then of course you have book series for children like "The Looking Glass War".

If he wants to go in this direction, I'd be looking more towards say "Hansel and Gretal", or maybe the "Oz" series or whatever simply because it would be relatively fresh in comparison.

With the Hansel and Gretal idea at least you could justify the Witch having minions and if one or both try and escape to tell the tale (depending on the version) they could wind up out in the woods, surrounded by monsters and such. I'd actually think a Witch would be easier to work with in the scope of a game than the Big Bad Wolf to be honest.

Besides, while I said more about Alice in retrospect, the idea of Red Riding Hood kicking butt is ancient. Let's not forget the "Baby Bonny Hood"/"Bulletta" characters Capcom came up with, never mind the fact that the idea was also drawn on for the movie "Hoodwinked" where "Red" was a martial artist. Then of course you can go back to comic series like "Promethea" which even sort of points it out as a stereotype people think of because the protaganist meets a version of Red Riding Hood with a machine gun, that she created drawing on a cocktail napkin (pointing out that no matter how insignifigant ideas and creativity were reflected in the ficto-verse type setting she was visiting), this "worked" because everyone could basically go "hah, I thought of that at one point". There are other fairy tales and such that have never been done (to my knowlege) or at least not retreaded quite so much.

Heck, how about Paul Bunyun the game.

 

[Casual Shinji]

a DMC version of Little Red Riding Hood,...........how original.

Give a dark spin to a fairy tale and suddenly it's awesome and artistic.

McGee trully is a "visionary genius".

 

[AntiAntagonist]

I'd love to see this, but I doubt that there's as much material as Alice had.

Lewis Carroll had put a lot to paper, that being two full length books. Red Riding Hood comes in at the size of a short story, and at best a novella.

 

[Cod of War]

Judging by that concept art. Female God of War set in German Forest with MASSIVE WOLVES!!
Make that game now!

 

[saejox]

alice was good but bad day LA sucked.
i cant decide. should i be excited or worried?

 

[Jared]

If he can do the same as what he did for Alice...then it should be fun =D