Card Guard

The **Card Guard** appeared in 2000 videogame called *American McGee's Alice*. The Card Guards are enemies that are literally humanized cards with four types: Diamond, Spade, Club, and Heart. They appear to be living in Alice Liddell's third return to Wonderland, but have since been a zombified version when the Dollmaker had arrived and caused Wonderland's destruction. They are servants of the Queen of Hearts.

Alice encountered a club Card Guard shortly after obtaining the Vorpal Blade. She quickly defeated it and continued on her journey.

The Card Guards were still defending the remains of Queensland. Alice saw these enemies come to life in the courtyard before meeting the White King. After defeating them, she was able to talk to the King and enter the castle.

## Appearance

### American McGee's Alice

* **Clubs** – The club Card Guards are the lowest of the guards. They are taller than Alice and stand with their back slightly hunched. They are black in color and contain the club symbol on their arms, front and back. Their body is thin and rectangular to mimic that of a card. They also wear black gloves and black boots, as well as a black hood.
* **Diamonds** – The diamonds are second on the card guard totem pole. They are red in color, and similar to the other Guards, they are thin and rectangular in shape. They have red boots, gloves and head pieces and their diamond symbol can be seen on their arms, front and back. They shoot diamond-shaped projectiles from their staffs.
* **Spades** – Spades are next in the order of Card Guard lethality. They are, just like the clubs, black in color. They are also thin and rectangular with black boots, black gloves and black headwear. A spade appears on the Guards arms, back and front. They are slightly hunched in appearance.
* **Hearts** – Hearts are the most potent of the card guards. They wear the regular uniform in red, with red boots, red gloves and red head pieces. Their bodies are thin and rectangular to replicate a cards. They have a heart symbol on their arms, fronts and backs. Their eyes are pure white and they stand in a slightly hunched posture.

### Alice: Madness Returns

The Card Guards' resurrection have left them a little more than mindless zombies, with skeletal faces, crudely stitched-together bodies, and feral minds. Each Card Guard has a massive bloody hole in the torso, the shape pertaining to the suite of cards it comes from: Heart, Diamond, Spade or Club. The eye sockets of their skulls are also shaped after their card suite. In addition their bodies sport a number of bloody cuts and stains, the most obvious around their arms and legs right at the sockets, where their limbs appear to have been stitched back on. Unable to remember their skill with weapons, these undead warriors are just as hostile towards Alice as they were in her previous adventure.

## Attacks

### American McGee's Alice

* **Clubs** – Club Guards only have a single melee attack, which is to hit Alice with their staff. They will do so continuously until either Alice or the Guard dies.
* **Diamonds** – Similar to the Club Guards, their attacks are fairly weak and can be deflected easily, however, rather than only one attack they have two, a melee and a ranged attack. Their melee attack is the same as the Club Guards, which is to merely whack Alice with their staff, but they can also shoot Alice using energy from the staff. The energy is shaped like a diamond.
* **Spades** – Spades have a slightly more complex plethora of attacks. Not only can they use the basic melee hit with their staff, but they can shoot two spade-shaped projectiles which can also explode in a fiery blue mass upon impact, whether it has hit Alice or not, making it more dangerous as it may not hit Alice, but still backlash.
* **Hearts** – Heart Guards have less attacks than the Spades, but their attacks are considerably more deadly. Again, they contain the regular melee Card Guard attack featuring the Guard hitting Alice forcefully with their staff. They can also launch projectiles with their ranged attack, however, unlike the Spade, they only shoot one heart-shaped projectile. This is more deadly as they act like homing missiles, following Alice in a relatively arc.

### Alice: Madness Returns

* **Hands** – The Card Guards use their claw-like hands to swipe at Alice.
* **Poleaxe** – Armored Card Guards use the weapon by swinging at Alice. It deals a lot of damage as its wielder is powerful.
* **Staff** – After Alice ate the Eat Me cake and became large, Card Guards used staffs to attack and stop her from getting to the Queen of Hearts.