Dear Insane Children,
Our little Asylum is rapidly filling with new Inmates – all anxious to get their hands on a Chaos Coin. To all the new arrivals – WELCOME! Your support and involvement is greatly appreciated 🙂
Today’s art comes from our good friend Omri. He’s delivered yet another stunning illustration of Alice’s adventure through Asylum. The Jabberwocky (and his spawn) dominate a scene of fiery destruction. This is in keeping with his allegorical position as the “Black Dragon” in his treasure-filled lair. The metaphorical representations here are at the core of Alice’s internal battle.
Before we go any further… last week’s live stream made me realize we need to start throwing out spoiler warnings. This is an interactive design / writing process where we’re going to define the scope, narrative, and design of Alice: Asylum. If you don’t want the surprises spoiled, stop reading when you see spoiler warning. If you want to engage in the creation of the next Alice game, then continue reading and share your comments / feedback below.
– SPOILER WARNING –
As was mentioned on last week’s live stream I think we’re likely to see the Jabberwocky presented as Alice’s primary foe and his destruction as the overarching goal in the surface narrative. Something along the lines of: get your bearings (find the Internal Compass); arm yourself (find the Vorpal Blade); and defeat the Dragon (find and kill the Jabberwocky). But this is an illusionary quest and set of goals.
What’s the real quest? Well, we’ve been playing with the idea of Alice’s true foe being her own Shadow Self. And it might make sense to split that shadow into the elements we see represented in “Alice” and “Madness Returns” – namely Rage Alice and Hysteria Alice.
Fighting these two Shadow Alice’s in order to reincorporate them would make for a nice symmetry and set us up nicely on the path to the narrative of “Alice.” While I was thinking on this idea privately I received an email from Alex C. in which he proposed the same thing – so I think there’s a powerful shared vibration with this narrative setup…
What do you think? Have you ever found yourself fighting external foes and challenges only to realize that the greatest foe is yourself… the most difficult challenge is confronting your own shadow self? I know I’ve been there… and incorporation of our own potential for malevolence is often a critical step in overcoming trauma and depression.
Leave your feedback and comments below. We’ll go through your thoughts during the next live stream.
There is no live stream this week as I am currently in Dallas, Texas visiting with family. See you all again when I am back in Shanghai!
From Texas with Yee-Haw,
-American