7 Likes
While Hans Xn Andersen’s story should be public domain by now, I suspect that having a little mermaid named Ariel would invite a Disney lawsuit (iirc that name is from the 1989 movie, still well within copyright).
5 Likes
I love this idea! It reminds me so much of the comic world Fables. I will fully get behind this and wish you luck in writing it!
Regarding Cheshire Cat. Maybe you could include him in a human form? A well dressed and dapper man called simply ‘Cheshire.’ He has some sort of illusion magic since he appears and disappears within an instant, ‘walk’ on the air and turn invisible where only his eyes are visible. The only inhuman features about him are claw like nails, golden cat eyes and a impossibly wide ’ Cheshire grin’ when he smiles.
Or if not the grin, he always wears a face mask with a the image of a Cheshire grin on it?
I imagine he would be a totally neutral character, not on anyone’s side and doesn’t plan to be.
3 Likes
Yeah, that would be a problem.
I could just have an unnamed mermaid though.
I really need to read Fables. It sounds really good.
As to Cheshire, I don’t want to make too many characters differ drastically from their original selves. I think the Cheshire will still be his same old grinning self. Albeit I do want him to play a big role in the story, somehow.
.
.
Considering no one can seem to guess what the were-creature is, I’ll give a hint.
The were-creature is a character from Alice in Wonderland. That’s all I’ll say.
2 Likes
So, with nearly two-thirds of the characters appearing in Alice being animals anyway, that doesn’t make it much easier? But anyway I will try my luck with guessing: Is it the Caterpillar? Or the White Rabbit?
2 Likes
I believe Little Mermaid is in the public domain since the story has also been used in The Wolf Among Us, but if I were the writer of this, I would want to double check the rules of trademarking.
Copyright vs trademarks still confuse me, but I know trademarks can cause a bit of a kerfluffle since it is can be used for phrases, like when the Fine brothers tried to trademark “react” and Taylor Swift trademarked “shake it off.”
Edit: Also, and I could be wrong, I think that Belle is Disney’s name. You may want to go with Beauty instead.
I like the story.
The IP issue I have with what you laid out is that it mirrors the current Pre-Snow White series currently active. Robin-hood as the “hunter” , the two queens with one being a niece … and a few other things.
Disney could easily claim “confusion” and an intent to cash in on their current active efforts.
Again, I like what you want to do and would like to see your writing; I just see a lot of potential pitfalls at the moment.
Play Wolf Among Us instead. Same universe, most of the same characters, better writing.
1 Like
I think you should consider taking this a step further, and eliminating all of your names. Don’t even worry about copyright or trademarks. Change all the names, including Wonderland. I expect you would end up with a better game.
Hear me out.
If we were to write down some fundamental rules of choice games, one of the big ones would be something like this:
- Actions have logical consequences.
This is not an optional rule. Break this rule, and players get frustrated.
But if we were to extrapolate a rule to describe Wonderland, the one thing that makes Wonderland what it is, I think it would be this:
- Actions do not have logical consequences.
So that’s one problem with setting games in Wonderland.
Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) was a mathematician who thought that new approaches to mathematics made no sense. So he wrote a story about a world where the laws of physics were just as nonsensical. Alice makes choices throughout the story, and nearly all of her choices are meaningless.
“In that direction,” the Cat said, waving its right paw round, “lives a Hatter: and in that direction,” waving the other paw, “lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they’re both mad.”
“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.
“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”
“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.
“You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”
That, in a nutshell, is Wonderland. It may well be the worst setting for a choice game ever conceived.
Fortunately, you have already solved the problem by not setting your game in Wonderland. It isn’t even set in a reimagined Wonderland, or an interpretation of Wonderland, or a riff on Wonderland. You’ve already made up your own fantasy world.
The Red Queen in Through the Looking Glass doesn’t do much, other than harass Alice with a bunch of surrealist nonsense and fall asleep in her lap. You have a regicidal usuper, inspired by Snow White’s stepmother, who is the archnemesis of a fantasy rebellion. Fine idea, but you don’t gain much by naming her after the Red Queen.
You have a girl in a hoodie who rides a motorcycle and hangs out with a monster. Cool image, but I’d lose the “signature red hoodie.” A girl in a fiery red riding cape stands out, so much so that no one even calls Little Red Riding Hood by her actual name. Her clothing is her most remarkable feature. There’s nothing signature about a hoodie. If you see a girl bearing down on you with a motorcycle and a giant wolf-beast, you aren’t going to notice her dirty old sweatshirt. Give the character a hoodie if you like, but that’s not the headline here.
Each of these characters has more in common with Hillary Clinton than they do with the people you’re naming them after. (Yes they do. Think about it.)
And the jabberwock? The jabberwock has claws and teeth, and it burbles. That is the sum total of its description. Make up a monster. If it burbles, you can call it a jabberwock if you really want to. Not sure why you’d want to.
None of this is a bad thing. You story’s inspiration is not your story’s destiny. Inspiration is when you take something and use it as one piece of something else, something original. If you name your crazy hermit puppet master something other than The Mad Hatter, you aren’t abandoning your premise. You’re cutting the umbilical cord.
Just a suggestion.
It’s not the baby, is it? Please tell me it isn’t the baby.
While she was looking at the place where it had been, it suddenly appeared again.
“By-the-bye, what became of the baby?” said the Cat. “I’d nearly forgotten to ask.”
“It turned into a pig,” Alice quietly said, just as if it had come back in a natural way.
“I thought it would,” said the Cat, and vanished again.
2 Likes
You do have a point. In fact, a lot of political satire and “pop culture” (or at least the 1800s equivalent) only survives thanks to his books.
I think it would be a really great perspective for Wonderland to be just donwright alien in its culture and perspective. What would be a challenge for you, the writer, is to make it seem completely illogical but not random. That’s just punishing and unforgiving to the player for playing the game and would be a put-off for a lot of people. There needs to be sense in the madness, just not in a way we often think of.
I’m sorry, this didn’t come out as eloquently as I’d hoped 
Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t the question how frustrating choices and their outcome will be depend much more on the choices we get and the author/plot itself even in an evironment like wonderland? Especially when the setting itself is “only” inspired by it?
I personally expected the wonderland to be more of the armosphere setter, from what I read by now…
1 Like
Exactly - @BabbleYaggle really is talking about _false_choices vs actual choices. Wonderland written with actual choices, even if unexpected or contrary would still work. The original Wonderland would not work because the story itself is about non-choice, yet the adapt CoG author would translate that world to this medium quite well I believe.
1 Like