Despite his limited time, Producer R.J. Berg took a few moments to write us a short diary entry on what it's like during the final weeks of production on Alice:

Dear Diary,

For more than a year now, the team has worked hard to create, refine and integrate the game’s unique assets. Each milestone contained innovative environments, vivid animations and expertly textured objects. And each milestone improved on its predecessor. Each contained something extra... something not on the schedule, something an artist, engineer or level designer did just to make the game look and play better. That’s the great and scary thing about development: you predict and plan all your needs and you rarely get it right. Creative, committed people are always adding critical content to your “list”-- showing you better, more interesting things to do and better ways of doing them. That’s how superior games get made.

Now, suddenly, the process that has served us well is over. The assets need to be locked down. The final game needs to be built. There will be no more “bites” at this particular apple. I’m about to open a new build. It will contain all the assets the game will ever have. There’s no reason to be nervous, but my palms are sweating and my head has started to ache a little.  This is it. This is what the team will use to build the final game. Tuning for gameplay will dominate our remaining weeks. The time for tweaking is over.

I find myself asking important questions: Did we choose the best palette for that level? Is that architecture as efficient as it could be? Does that character’s face truly elicit fear and loathing? Is that animation as distinctive as we first thought?  But now those questions have answered – fully and unalterably. The choices have been made. I hope we have chosen well.  I hope our players think so too.

-R.J.