This is a personal, largely spoiler free (or spoiler-vague) review of the Alice in Wonderland custom campaign by The Beard for Arkham Horror the Card Game.
Alice in Wonderland has the investigators come across Alice as she arrives at Arkham - only to see her collapse. Wonderland is leaking into Arkham, and worse, it's under attack by dark shadows seeking to consume it. The investigators have to enter into Wonderland and save it from the shadows - choosing if they wish to sacrifice Wonderland to protect Arkham.
The Alice in Wonderland campaign is a whimsical trip through all the sights of wonderland you could expect. On the easy side as campaigns go, the scenarios also tend to lack major complications, each surfacing one gimmick to make you play around. Overall, it feels relaxing compared to many campaigns - not so boring as to be easy, but generous enough to be able to play the way you wish through it. Of course, that doesn't apply to the story - which can quickly grow dark if players do poorly, or choose to sacrifice wonderland to stop the consuming darkness.
There would be a lot of directions to take on adapting Alice in Wonderland in Arkham Horror, and certainly, one of the first that comes to mind would be the dark, violent take of media like American McGee's Alice. The take this campaign chooses is somehow both silly and funny, and not that. The tone is instead largely set by the path you take in the campaign. Wonderland is portrayed as dangerous but goofy - and choosing to sacrifice it instead becomes dark and tragic. Instead, working with Wonderland to protect it, and work with its eccentricness maintains a bright tone, full of struggling joy in the way of terror. It's two different takes, with very different feelings - both of which are written well.
The Alice in Wonderland is fairly straight to the point. Despite having an interlude with a choice after each scenario, the campaign never gets bogged down in twisting story threads or long set-ups. All of the scenarios are straight and to the point, and while they border on simple, they never feel boring. The focus tends to be on positioning, chasing, and running - both by making strong use of movement, and strong use of lack of movement when necessary. Each scenario focusing on one of Wonderland's inhabitants puts them in the spotlight, and makes you deal with them as the primary focus. The encounter deck, the locations - they usually act secondary to whoever the scenario is about. And this ends up feeling great - the encounter cards you see through multiple scenarios can take on different purposes, especially the way the same enemies are deployed to different ends.
There's not a lot of strange new mechanics to worry about within the campaign itself. No new keywords or special actions that run through the campaign. Instead, the primary mechanical oddities tend to come through the number of strange impact surging cards. During seven interludes, you can choose to defend or abandon Wonderland, and strengthen or weaken the darkness eating it at the same time. One path adds good surging encounter cards into each scenario - and the other path, negative ones (with a little XP boost for your trouble!). This is on top of the cards that play with your persistent ally(?) the Cheshire Cat, and the ones that ask you do make decisions that can turn your plans upside down - like by reshuffling your hand into your deck, and drawing a new one! The mechanics used in the scenarios tend to not be terribly complicated, and do a good job at keeping everything fairly easy to keep track of. There is even a side quest scattered throughout each scenario that impacts the finale, and yet that never distracts from the scenarios themselves. However, while the campaign does seem to offer a great number of choices, many of those choices are based around a binary - the seven interludes all ask the same thing of the players, and there's not a strong reason to choose differently than your initial decision, leading to them feeling a bit superflous at times, especially when the reading can go on long for them.
The one scenario that does take a while to understand is Tempest in a Teapot - which ends up being a favorite. Of course the Mad Hatter's tea party is a jumble until you understand what it's asking for you, but when you do, it becomes a fascinating dance of timings. The other standout scenario is Wild Snark Chase, where the Jabberwock makes its appearance and is given its proper due. It's the most nail-biting of the scenarios, appearing right in the middle of the campaign, and isn't afraid to really show its teeth at players. It's worth noting here too that the campaign can be played forward or backwards - the six intermediate scenarios are run in a different order depending on a choice you make in the first scenario. This can give a different feel, although they don't change to any significant degree based on that choice.
Of the scenarios, only one can really be said to be a disappointment - Fool's Mate wants to be all about the hunter keyword on enemies who move in interesting ways, but those enemies tend to be weak enough, and the scenario straightforward enough, that it can simply be pushed through - even when done as the second scenario. The finale, likewise, ends up suffering from the campaign it's in. It's got a great premise, and the mechanical gimmick is exciting. However, it primarily involves dodging an elite enemy you can't fight as you investigate locations - as do three other scenarios in the campaign. Worse, if you do the campaign "backwards", it's the previous three scenarios. Done foward it's calling back to a previous theme - done backwards, it's too much of one thing in a row.
It's to the campaign's benefit that despite trying to capture the madness of wonderland, the campaign never becomes earnestly confusing (except for the previously mentioned Tempest in a Teapot, which earns its complexity). It does need to be noted that there is a strong difference between having the interludes boost the Strength of Wonderland or work against it. When used to help the Strength of Wonderland, surging encounter cards are shuffled into the deck. These give good, optional effects that can be triggered. When used to weaken the Strength of Wonderland, you get similiar encounter cards that give negative effects - these effects are Forced. That means one path has far more effects to track, and so if you do not wish to have to deal with that, it's better to go with strengthing Wonderland.
Overall, Alice in Wonderland is a solid, approachable campaign, that does well to balance scenario uniqueness and thematic throughline. Experienced players may want to use it as an opportunity to use less powerful decks, but it still promises to please with its whimsical writing and clever mechanics.
More on Alice in Wonderland:
Alice in Wonderland: Spoiler-Light Review
Alice in Wonderland: Advice and Overview