On October 15th, one day before the game's release, I saw this game on the steam release calendar. I was instantly intrigued and thought to myself "screw it, the game is 4 pounds, looks cool, looks like it's got a interesting story, can't be terrible right?" It was better than I could ever expect. If you don't wanna read through all this, please, just buy the game and play it if you are even remotely interested.

I did not know back then the depths of how much I would end up enthralled by this game in the next few days. On the surface, it's a simple card game with cutesy characters and artstyle based on Alice in Wonderland. Now yes, I will not deny that it reminded me of Black Souls and it gave me an incentive to buy this game, but it could not be more different than that game in reality. In the span of less than an hour the game evolves immediately to show you some of it's true colours. At that point, you don't know what the true nature of this fairytale world, or the backstory of Alice, Mery, or anyone else. Despite all of that, you get the feeling that everything is deeper than they seem to be and that there is a lot to unravel in this world. And over the course of the next few chapters, you get to do just that. You begin to figure out the backstory of Alice. You begin to understand what happened in this world in the past. At the same time, the story advances without missing a step. You meet more characters, more conflicts, and more opportunity to resolve them along with resolving yourself. Meanwhile, your relationship with Mery continues, and through hardship and adventure the bond deepens. I will not spoil what is important and worthwhile in the story, but I can assure you that it is some of the BEST I've seen from a game as short and as basic as this. The pacing is done extremely well and the story captivates you throughout the entire journey. The storytelling is done immaculately, giving you just enough info and development when it exactly needs to. And all of the game culminates in a truly spectacular ending.

I rushed through the game in the first three days and got the first ending on the final night.
I don't think an ending has hit me this unexpectedly hard in years. It was perfectly constructed and carried out. When that final part in ending A hit, it REALLY drove into my heart and I will remember the feeling of it for a long while. It was a beautifully executed tragedy and perfectly sets up your desire to go back into the game and figure out what to do to get the second ending. After going to sleep that night, the only thing I wanted to do the next day was to get everything right, to fix what I did wrong the first time so that I could see the happiness in all of the characters. And tonight when I finally got to the second ending, it hit even harder, not because it was shocking and tragic, but because I felt like everything had finally paid off, that in this wonderland of dread and misery the characters found solace and moved past what haunted them. It is one of the greatest feelings you can get from playing a video game.

The story to me is easily the strongest part of this game, and it's what makes this game extraordinary compared to all other short'n'sweet games I've played. But all of this is not saying that the gameplay is weak at all. It's a very satisfying puzzle game that has shades of card games like inscryption but just a bit easier and, well, cuter. The hint feature is a great addition to help anyone who is stuck and keeps the game flowing and prevents you from getting frustrated. The game's mechanics are also really simple, but the multitude of simple interactions compound into complicated choices and really gets you to try to think hard to setup for the ideal outcome. While the story is strong, the gameplay is not a counterweight to it, but a compliment, which is really well done on the developer's side.

Unfortunately, the game is not without flaws. In my opinion there are things that the game has that makes the experience worse, and things that could have made the experience better.
Firstly, the English translation is quite underwhelming and weak. I could've played in Chinese since I understood it but for the sake of sharing it with my friends I played in English and the lack of linguistics and honestly flat out seemingly machine translated text is not a good look or feel to me. If you paid enough attention you can even find straight up typos (there's an instance where instead of "was" the text was "wa"). It made the delivery of the story weaker and causes confusion and more time to think about what the characters actually meant. If you play in Chinese, it's probably fine, but I would really want a retranslation because I want this game to be enjoyed by everybody. This is what makes the experience worse.
Secondly, and maybe this is just to cure my emptiness after I finished the game, but I think this game really could have benefited from being longer. Although I said that the pacing was very good and the story was delivered well, I think the impact of it could have been even better if the game slowed down a bit, at least in terms of the storyline. Giving more time and dialogue to stuff like Alice and Mery's friendship would have been great and made the endings even more rewarding, but I think what would've truly been elevated from a longer game was the backstories of the characters. A key storytelling device is flashbacks, and the game had a few good ones ( like the restaurant scene ), but I really wanted to see more of them and for more characters. For example, what if we saw what Alice's parents were like, and the bear incident that lead to their deaths? Or Mery and Ina's relationship before Ina disappeared? Or the whole Otherworld research cohort including Ina, Noah, Baal and March Hare before everything fell apart? Or what happened right after the ascension tower exploded ? Although at the end of the story everything was decently clear, I felt like all we needed was a bit more detail on the character's lives and stories for the story to be truly perfect. I would have gladly paid 10 times the price for the game if the length of the game was around 20-30 hours instead of 10.

But putting beside all of that, this game was an incredible experience that I will cherish forever. I truly thank the developers for making this game and have it be so cheap. Truthfully, I really wish for a sequel even though it is highly unlikely because the story is all but concluded, and if it does happen one day (Through the Looking Glass inspired maybe??? Call it cope but I call it opportunity), I will buy it the first second it is available without hesitation no matter how much it costs. I wish I could forget everything and play this game again, but the memories of the art, the gameplay, and the story will be enough for now. This is one of the best games I've played in 2026.

Story: Yuri
System: Turn Based Cultist Simulator
Art: Cute
Must play

Alice Nation is a cute little game about visiting different locations and approaching situations in different ways. Sure, you could punch, talk, and look for ways out of situations, but have you ever considered acting cute?

The gameplay is this unique card-based RPG system. Basically, you will use actions in the form of cards to collect resources and adventure throughout wonderland. It may seem confusing at first, but I think it's best if you think about it thematically. For example, imagine Alice comes across a wooden tree stump. She could investigate it, brute-force it open, or act cute to lure out a creature hiding inside. Alternatively, Imagine Alice is in front of a merchant's stall, she can investigate the stall or elbow the guy running the stall for some money. Whatever Alice gets from one location might used in other locations.

The best part about this game is the story. Without spoiling too much, Alice is trying to escape wonderland... Wait isn't that just the plot of Alice In Wonderland?
Anyways, it's actually about Alice's past and the relationships of those of who she meets in wonderland.
There is a little Yuri, too.

I've heard people talking about the English translation, I don't think it's difficult to understand as I've played the entire game in English. However, some terms in the game are translated differently across interfaces, even though they refer to the same thing.

I love this game. It also scared the living hell out of me late at night and made me sob uncontrollably in the same day, so be aware.