Alice in CyberCity

Alice in CyberCity is a freeware single-player sci-fi adventure set in a futuristic world where cybernetic enhancements have become the norm, leaving unmodded humans like protagonist Alice struggling to compete in the job market. Played in 3D with text-based dialogues featuring hand-drawn images, players control Alice using standard WASD movement and mouse aiming to interact with characters, complete a simple mission, and explore mature themes including scenes in a strip club with animated droid strippers.

Alice in CyberCity: Review

Introduction

In the neon-drenched underbelly of CyberCity, where chrome limbs gleam under flickering holograms and unmodified humans scrape by as relics of a bygone era, Alice in CyberCity drops players into a gritty cyberpunk vignette that punches above its weight despite its brevity. Released in 2019 as a free Steam title, this micro-experience from a team of Finnish students at Ahlman Institute isn’t a sprawling epic but a bold proof-of-concept—a five-week fever dream blending Alice in Wonderland motifs with Blade Runner-esque dystopia. As a game historian, I’ve pored over countless prototypes, and this one stands out for its raw ambition amid technical humility. My thesis: Alice in CyberCity is a fascinating artifact of student ingenuity, encapsulating cyberpunk’s existential dread in a compact form that hints at untapped potential, even if its execution feels like a tantalizing demo cut short.

Development History & Context

Alice in CyberCity emerged from the Ahlman Institute in Finland, a vocational hub for game technology and visual design students, during a whirlwind five-week project in early 2019. Spearheaded by Jussi Mäki-Kahra—who juggled roles as project lead, game designer, and lead programmer—the game was crafted by “Team League,” a collective of 39 credited developers (plus mentors and thanks). Key figures included vice project lead and lead artist Anna-Lydia Surakka, vice lead programmer Olli Grön, story writer Sampo Vihavainen, and a cadre of artists like Anisia Turunen, Petri Maatraiva, Katariina Paulaniemi, Juha Pudassalo, and Heidi Sällström. Programmers Markus Alvinen and Väinö Oksanen rounded out the code team, with mentors Antti and Risto Koskenkorva providing guidance.

Built in Unity with C# scripting, Blender for modeling, GIMP and Substance Painter for textures, the project leveraged accessible tools suited to a student timeline. Released on May 27, 2019, via Steam by publisher Ahlman Game Studio (also stylized as Ahlman Esport & Game Studio), it arrived amid the 2019 indie explosion—think Disco Elysium‘s narrative depth or Katana ZERO‘s retro-futurism—but as a freeware outlier. The era’s gaming landscape was dominated by AAA cyberpunk like Cyberpunk 2077 (pre-release hype) and battle royales, yet Unity’s accessibility empowered student works. Technological constraints were evident: modest specs (Intel i5, GTX 1050, 4GB RAM) reflected institute hardware tests, prioritizing playability over polish. This context frames it not as a commercial bid but a portfolio piece, possibly a prototype for expansion, echoing early Unity demos like those from game jams that birthed hits such as Among Us.

Narrative & Thematic Deep Dive

At its core, Alice in CyberCity reimagines Lewis Carroll’s Alice as a battle-hardened survivor in a post-human dystopia. Roughly two decades after humanity’s defeat in a war against machines, CyberCity teems with droids, cyborgs (ex-humans “enhanced” beyond recognition), and a persecuted minority of “unmodded” humans. Protagonist Alice, a woman in her twenties, embodies the last gasp of unaltered flesh—a fugitive “slum-rat” navigating racism, economic obsolescence, and survivalist rage. Official descriptions paint a world where unmodified humans struggle in the job market, hated as “living blights” amid transhuman ascendancy.

The plot unfolds in a linear, quest-driven thread: Alice interacts with a handful of NPCs via text-based dialogue (accompanied by hand-drawn images), accepts a single simple mission, and concludes abruptly. Themes cut deep into cyberpunk staples—transhumanism’s dark side, where augmentation equates to survival but erodes humanity; xenophobia inverted, with pure humans as the reviled underclass; and existential job-market despair, questioning how flesh competes with flawless machines. RAWG elaborates on Alice’s arc: fighting racism for personal and species survival, evoking Deus Ex‘s augment debates or Cyberpunk 2077‘s Night City underdogs. Mature elements amplify this—a strip club sequence features an animated droid stripper and implied alcohol use, underscoring hedonistic escapism in a dehumanized society.

Dialogue, sparse yet pointed, uses hand-drawn portraits for emotional weight, hinting at deeper lore (e.g., human scarcity post-machine war). Character interactions reveal societal fractures: cyborgs dismiss humans as obsolete, droids enforce hierarchies. It’s no Madness Returns psychological odyssey (despite superficial Alice nods), but the vignette’s brevity sharpens its thesis—humanity’s fragility in a silicon supremacy—leaving players yearning for elaboration on Alice’s “fight for the whole human race.”

Gameplay Mechanics & Systems

First-person shooter foundations drive Alice in CyberCity, with intuitive direct controls: WASD for movement, mouse for free-camera look/aim, E to interact, Space to jump, Shift to run, Ctrl to crouch, LMB for dialogue advancement/shooting/middle-finger gesture, RMB to throw items. A quest log (upper-left HUD) and minimap (upper-right, with quest-direction arrow) provide foolproof guidance, ensuring the short experience never strands players.

Core loops are minimalist: exploration in free-roam 3D environments, NPC interactions triggering text dialogues, and a solitary mission blending light shooting and objectives. Combat feels rudimentary—aim and fire at foes (presumably droids or hostiles)—but integrates gestures like the middle finger for punk flair. Progression is absent; no leveling, gear, or branching paths, true to its demo nature. UI shines in simplicity: HUD elements are non-intrusive, quests auto-update, minimap excels for linearity.

Innovations are scarce, but flaws abound: limited content (one mission, abrupt end) hampers replayability, and Unity’s jank surfaces in unpolished animations or collisions. Yet, for a student project, the seamless keyboard/mouse integration and quest guidance demonstrate solid systems design, evoking early Half-Life mod vibes. It’s functional cyberpunk sandboxing—roam, interact, shoot—but begs for expansion into fuller RPG loops.

World-Building, Art & Sound

CyberCity pulses with cyberpunk archetype: rain-slicked streets, towering neon spires, seedy strip clubs amid high-tech sprawl. As a “free-to-roam” sci-fi fantasy, it crafts a compact, atmospheric hub where droids and cyborgs intermingle, humans lurk in shadows. Visuals blend low-poly 3D models (Blender-crafted) with hand-drawn 2D portraits for dialogues, creating a hybrid aesthetic—raw yet evocative, like a digital comic in Unity’s engine. Art direction, led by Surakka and Turunen, favors gritty textures (Substance Painter) and vibrant contrasts: crimson neons pierce foggy alleys, emphasizing isolation.

Atmosphere thrives on implication—human scarcity feels oppressive via empty corners and hostile glances. Sound design draws from ccMixter’s Creative Commons library: Alex Beroza’s “Come Home” for moody introspection, Tobias Weber’s “Orphelia’s Djent” for tension, Frederic Doan’s spaced-out edits, Donnie Drost’s angry tracks, and Evan Boyerman’s orchestral loops. No voice acting (text-only), but ambient hums, synth pulses, and sparse effects amplify immersion, evoking System Shock 2‘s eerie futurescapes. These elements coalesce into a cohesive mood: a world teetering on human extinction, where every flicker reinforces thematic weight.

Reception & Legacy

Launch reception was muted but polarized. Steam’s 46 reviews yield “Mixed” status (65% positive), praising free access, cyberpunk vibe, and brevity as a “fun demo,” while critiquing shortness, bugs, and lack of depth. MobyGames logs a solitary 2/5 player score (no reviews); Metacritic has zero critics; RAWG and others note inaccessibility. Commercially, as freeware ($0 on Steam), it drew niche collectors (1 MobyGames collector), but no sales data exists.

Legacy is embryonic: no direct sequels, minimal industry ripple. Credits link to minor works like Mr. Sun’s Hatbox, hinting alumni paths. In 2019’s indie sea, it embodies student jams’ role in skill-building, akin to how Undertale stemmed from Toby Fox’s prototypes. Influences are subtle—cyberpunk indies like Tales of the Neon Sea echo its themes—but its Ahlman origins spotlight vocational training’s output. Evolving rep positions it as a curiosity: downloadable history for cyberpunk scholars, free gateway for Unity learners.

Conclusion

Alice in CyberCity distills cyberpunk’s soul into a 30-minute spark—Alice’s defiant strut through a machine-dominated hell, buoyed by student passion yet hobbled by scope. Strengths lie in thematic acuity, intuitive systems, and atmospheric craft; weaknesses in truncation and polish scream “prototype.” Historically, it claims a footnote as Ahlman Institute’s bold artifact, proving even rushed projects can probe humanity’s edge. Verdict: Recommended for cyberpunk completists and indie historians (7/10)—a flawed gem warranting play, preservation, and perhaps revival. In video game history, it’s the unmodified human: outnumbered, but unyieldingly vital.