American McGee's Alice clues unraveled

Yesterday, I finally released my American McGee's Alice papercraft model. I kept it a secret while I was working on it, but I left several clues so you might guess what it was:

1) New papercraft project
It all started two months ago, when I announced a "new secret project" I would be working on. The announcement video was a first, small clue: the words are riddling and appearing and disappearing much like the Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland likes to do.

2) "ALICE"
The second clue was rather easy to find and unciphered quickly by Adr1_Link in my Shoutbox: the first letters of each paragraph on this post spelled out the name "ALICE" as you can see here:


3) The music box
The next clue was the music that would play if you clicked the "Play" button that I put on my weblog for just this occasion. It's the music box that's also in the American McGee's Alice game trailer. I was planning to use it as the background music in my release video as well, but in the end I decided to use an even more eerie, lone music box... ;o)

4) Alice: The Movie
The "ALICE"-clue was quickly spotted by several people (even though they were not 100% sure of course ;o) I think it's because "Alice" is such a common word/name that most people instantly recognize the combination of letters.

I decided to test that theory, by repeating the same trick only this time with a "not so common" name: Mia Wasikowska, who will play the lead role in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland movie. And sure enough, this time it was a bit more difficult to spot.

(I'm sure that would it have been Sarah Michelle Gellar to play the part of Alice, "Buffy" would have been far easier to spot again ;o)


5) Gothic swirls
Most of you probably didn't even know this was a clue. On this post, I didn't really have a suitable image to post, so I decided to post an image of a Victorian scroll (those ornate, swirly designs).

American McGee's Alice has a real gothic theme, and gothic versions of these kinds of designs are used in the logo and in the box art and the corner brushes in the instruction booklet for instance.

6) "Follow the white rabbit."
The new clue that I gave away in this post, was indeed the "white rabbit girl" ("Dujour", played by Ada Nicodemou) from one of the opening scenes in "The Matrix" as Servotron pointed out in the comments. ;o)

I don't have to explain the connection between Alice and white rabbits, do I..? ;o)


7) Mind games
I guess you can call this a "clue" as well. This particular optical illusion kind of reminded me of a chess board, and the mind trick fits the weirdness of Wonderland where nothing is as it seems. ;o)

8) The final clue
The final clue I gave away shortly before the release: I changed the music box music to a distorted voice, saying something like "seotajnin ot noos gnimoc, ecilA". If you play it backwards at double speed, you will hear this. ;o)

As you can see, I made it much too easy for you guys, as several people guessed right quite quickly. But at least I got to fool some of you. ;o)