Alice VR doesn’t have the most engaging puzzles, and its slow pace may be off-putting to some, but this VR ‘walking simulator’ through a sci-fi re-imagining of Wonderland is a beautiful, trippy and clever experience.
Alice VR is an adventure sci-fi game exploring the power of virtual reality.An unexpected malfunction forces your ship’s AI to wake you from the cryo sleep. You have to make an emergency landing on an alien planet and your goal there is simple: find or purchase fuel and escape. This straightforward task gets complicated when you realize that all of the planet’s citizens had disappeared in mysterio…
The game features customizable controls and resolution settings, allowing some level of personalization for players.
The environments are visually appealing and imaginative, providing a unique sci-fi twist on the Alice in Wonderland theme.
The game offers a relaxing experience with a focus on exploration and light puzzles, making it enjoyable for those who appreciate narrative-driven gameplay.
The game is plagued by numerous technical issues, including crashes, especially when using Oculus Touch controllers, rendering it unplayable for many users.
Movement controls are poorly designed, leading to discomfort and motion sickness, with many players finding the locomotion system frustrating and unintuitive.
The puzzles are overly simplistic and repetitive, lacking depth and challenge, which may lead to boredom for players seeking a more engaging experience.
story
142 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
24%
72%
4%
The game's story has received mixed reviews, with some players appreciating its intriguing twists and immersive atmosphere, particularly in relation to its "Alice in Wonderland" themes. However, many users criticized the narrative for being weak, confusing, or lacking a clear direction, often overshadowed by technical issues and gameplay frustrations. Overall, while there are elements of a compelling story, the execution and consistency leave much to be desired, leading to a divided reception among players.
“The story is pretty neat, the visuals are nice and the shrinking and growing mechanic is fun to explore the map with.”
“Okay so, having finally gotten around to beating the game, the story takes a nice batch of twists and turns and has a lot of freedom of choice and secrets to find and I honestly really ended up liking it.”
“I am very excited by this game's story, setting, and tone.”
“The story also just kind of ends without any real finale.”
“This is a perfect example of bad VR game design... this is an adventure, without a plot or driving narrative.”
“The story starts nowhere and goes nowhere.”
graphics
130 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
29%
60%
11%
The graphics in the game receive mixed reviews, with some players praising the beautiful environments and detailed artwork, while others criticize the overall quality, describing it as grainy, blurry, and reminiscent of older graphics technology. Many users report issues with aliasing and performance, particularly in VR, leading to discomfort and immersion-breaking experiences. Despite recent patches aimed at improving graphical settings, some players still find the visuals underwhelming compared to expectations.
“Has great visuals and free movement or teleport. I was also reluctant to pick this up because of the negative reviews but glad I did. Great puzzle wonderland-esque adventure with very convincing graphics which are at a mind-blowingly large scale when you are able to shrink down in size!”
“I enjoyed the graphics, and the mystery surrounding the colony - environmental storytelling made me really curious about the people that lived there.”
“Set on a mysterious planet and inspired by Alice in Wonderland, it's a thrilling, immersive adventure with beautiful graphics and an atmospheric electronic soundtrack.”
“On the highest available graphics settings, everything is blurry and low-res looking.”
“The main issue with the game is movement (which can cause headaches in VR) and the very low quality graphics (even when all the graphic settings are set to high).”
“Graphics, graphics, graphics... I have everything turned up to very high and the game runs smoothly on my GTX 1080, but looks terrible, so terrible in fact that I simply cannot get immersed in the world at all.”
gameplay
72 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
17%
72%
11%
The gameplay has received mixed reviews, with many players finding it slow-paced, tedious, and filled with simple puzzles that fail to engage. While some appreciate the unique mechanics like shrinking and growing, others criticize the execution, noting technical issues and a lack of depth in gameplay elements. Overall, the game offers interesting concepts but struggles with execution, leading to a generally unfulfilling experience for many players.
“The story is pretty neat, the visuals are nice, and the shrinking and growing mechanic is fun to explore the map with.”
“Htc Vive review: I thoroughly enjoyed this game and have played it twice now. The environments are great to explore, and there are a lot of cool level designs throughout the whole game. The object is to gather graphene to power your spaceship so you can leave orbit, the inhabitants have left their city, and you are alone except for a voice in your ear, a mechanical Cheshire cat, and a few hinted characters from the original Alice.”
“The gameplay is slow, but I like that for an exploration game like this.”
“Gameplay itself is boring, straightforward, and unfun.”
“Runs like crap, walking speed is less than slow, bad antialiasing, boring gameplay.”
“So this game is buggy, not playable without third-party apps, no story or plot, and no gameplay elements aside from a couple of throwaway puzzles.”
stability
44 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
5%
95%
The game's stability has been widely criticized, with many users reporting severe bugs, crashes, and glitches that render it unplayable. While a few players experienced smooth performance on mid-range PCs, the overall consensus highlights a frustratingly buggy experience, including issues with the interface, vehicle controls, and graphical fidelity. Many reviewers expressed disappointment, suggesting that the game could have been enjoyable if not for its numerous technical problems.
“I have in-game set to 220 scaling with graphic settings maxed out, and it runs great.”
“Bought it a year ago and it was so buggy and unplayable, tried it now again and it crashes on start.”
“The textures are weirdly blurry, the tool tips show up in the far corners of the display (where they're basically unreadable), the interface for the puzzles is buggy (had to try to restart the game on the second puzzle when the robot got stuck on a tile that would retract into the floor, glitch, and loop doing the same thing over and over), and when I tried to restart suddenly it froze on the loading screen.”
“It's a buggy, crash-ridden mess.”
music
20 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
50%
35%
15%
The music in the game has received high praise for its atmospheric and immersive qualities, featuring a blend of psy-ambient, synthwave, and chillwave styles. Reviewers noted that the soundtrack enhances the overall experience, contributing to the game's relaxing and engaging ambiance, making it a standout aspect alongside the graphics and story. Overall, the music is described as lovely and fitting for the game's mysterious setting.
“The soundtrack is atmospheric and lovely.”
“Great music and ambience.”
“Set on a mysterious planet and inspired by Alice in Wonderland, it's a thrilling, immersive adventure with beautiful graphics and an atmospheric electronic soundtrack.”
“I relaxed for 5 minutes listening to this music, long enough to realize that I would be okay.”
“The soundtrack is repetitive and lacks variety, making it hard to stay engaged.”
“The music feels out of place and doesn't match the game's atmosphere, which detracts from the overall experience.”
optimization
20 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
30%
40%
30%
The optimization of the game has received mixed reviews, with some players experiencing smooth performance and no issues, while others report significant stuttering and poor graphical performance, particularly in specific areas like "dream states." Despite some improvements following patches, many users still find the game poorly optimized and unplayable at times, leading to a lack of immersion. Overall, while some configurations run well, the inconsistency in performance across different levels remains a notable concern.
“The performance overall was good.”
“Especially after the game was patched with the latest update, it has optimized the gaming experience dramatically and sped up graphic card performance.”
“The second is aliasing and performance; now it is smoother, and with my 970, I can play with some supersampling (supported in the game's menu) and anti-aliasing, and it's much nicer and sharper.”
“This game is so bugged and badly optimized that it is unplayable.”
“Whenever I entered the 'dream states,' the graphical performance became poor.”
“Lots of stuttering until the dream was over.”
atmosphere
16 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
63%
24%
13%
The game's atmosphere is widely praised for its immersive qualities, enhanced by a lovely electronic soundtrack and beautiful graphics, creating a captivating experience reminiscent of "Alice in Wonderland." However, some players feel that the world can feel empty at times, and there are criticisms regarding the story's execution, which detracts from the overall experience. Despite these concerns, the atmosphere remains a standout feature that many players appreciate.
“The atmosphere was really great and I like the tie-in with the Alice in Wonderland storyline.”
“Set on a mysterious planet and inspired by Alice in Wonderland, it's a thrilling, immersive adventure with beautiful graphics and an atmospheric electronic soundtrack.”
“The soundtrack is atmospheric and lovely.”
“The world just feels empty with no atmosphere.”
“I won't say much about the ending, but as with a lot of the game, it's a letdown and I was hoping for a lot more. It totally screams for a scriptwriter to flesh out the story and give it some jazz. If it was not for the wondrous atmosphere, it would be a negative, but as it is, I think it's worth $15 for a rather cool experience and a trip to another planet.”
emotional
10 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Players express a mix of frustration and immersion regarding the emotional aspect of the game. While some experienced technical issues that dampened their enjoyment and left them disillusioned with VR indie games, others found the driving mechanics to be smooth and engaging, creating a strong sense of exploration and connection to the alien environment. However, the game also induced significant motion sickness for some, highlighting a divide in emotional responses.
“I have an iron stomach most of the time, but this game made me feel really, really sick.”
“The driving was super smooth, caused no motion sickness, and really made me feel like I was exploring an alien planet.”
grinding
4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Players generally find the grinding aspect of the game to be tedious, often involving repetitive levels that can detract from the overall experience. However, it is noted that grinding can be beneficial for farming resources.
“Mostly tedious gameplay within repetitive levels.”
replayability
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
50%
50%
The game offers significant replayability due to its numerous branching paths and hidden secrets, encouraging players to revisit it in order to discover all the content.
“There are many branching paths and hidden secrets, so there is great replayability. I will definitely play this again to discover everything.”
“There are many branching paths and hidden secrets, so there is replayability. I will surely play this again to find everything.”