Dear Insane Children,

…and not an enemy to kill! It’s my sincere hope that Asylum will feature sections (sections, mind you, not the entire game) where Alice (Dressed in Rage) becomes a sort of two-legged lawnmower in vast fields of her enemies. Seeing a 13-year-old girl vent her frustration and rage in the vivid sanctuary of her mind upon masses of mental demons needs to be one of our primary goals in delivering this new game. 

I’d like frustrated people everywhere to play the game and think, “Take THAT you f’ing, f’s” – especially in those moments when things in Real Life are just getting to be too much. 

It’s important – perhaps critical to a successful existence – that we embrace our shadow. Have I preached this before? Fine, it needs preaching again: Being too nice is how you end up being chewed on by wolves. You’ve got to recognize and embrace your own personal malice, anger, and destructive potential – and then keep it safely in your pocket for those moments when you really need it. 

Alice keeps her rage in a handy little Rage Box and snorts a bit when things get tough. Though during our last livestream we did talk about how that particular game design is less-than-ideal. At a minimum it was a power-up which needed better level design built around it. 

For the new game we’re now playing around with the idea that Alice has this massive wardrobe of dresses… here’s a small sample…

And that each of these dresses could have an alternate Chaos or Rage mode player is able to trigger at-will. Omri’s latest Rage Dress image shows how that might be reflected on two of Alice’s dresses, “Original” and “Denial.” 

What are your thoughts on power-ups, triggering them, and multiple modes for our collection of dresses? Comments below – and be sure to use SUGGESTION and QUESTION tags if you say something worthy of being called out during the next livestream.

Speaking of… 

We’ve scheduled a LIVESTREAM for Thursday, September 6th @ 9AM Hong Kong Time. Do The Thing and set a reminder by clicking that link!

Remember, YouTube is POOP when it comes to reminders – even if you’re subscribed, have clicked The Bell, and done all that other crap. But, still, SUBSCRIBE to my channel and LIKE the videos so that we might increase our reach 😛

Lots to discuss during this livestream. I know a TON of you want to get more comments in on the recently revealed revamp of the Circus Dress. And, hey, what’s this? A DeathTime Dress? WTF’s going on THERE?!

Come, join us, for the continuing adventures of Font Lord and Stick Boy in the Lands of Lava. Marvel at Stick Boy’s never-ending ability to fall in lava and burst into flames! Dazzle your eyes with Font Lord’s latest spandex wrapper! And feed Lulu treats until she explodes!!! Wee!

From Shanghai with Backwards Underwear,

-American (AKA Stick Boy)

Dear Insane Children, 

Persistence is key. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Failure is only the opportunity to begin again. Mistakes are proof that you are trying. And on and on… Chase your white rabbit. But as the old Confucian saying goes, “If you chase both rabbits, you catch neither.” (TED talk on that topic).

So here we are, chasing rabbits. Fortunately, we have a lot of rabbit chasers on the team these days. And Omri’s been chasing a particularly difficult rabbit for a while now… The Circus Dress. The first version was met with, shall we say, less than 100% positive feedback. The second version turned some doubters into believers. And today…

Judging by the comments on the sneak peak shots I shared over on Instagram last night… this might be IT. He’s combined all the working elements with bits of your feedback and inspiration from our favorite cosplayer, Faerie_Blossom, to achieve what I believe is a pretty flawless concept. 

What do you think? Comments below, please! 

On the topic of learning and trying and doing again… I’ve just updated the latest Patreon Goal which unlocks the 2nd set of Embroidery Patches.

The goal text (which you can see on my Patreon front page) reads as follows:

At 3222 Patrons we’ll unlock the 2nd Embroidered Patch Set with White Rabbit card-back art. Everyone at $10 (or more) that month will receive a set of 9 Patches snail-mailed anywhere in the world (free shipping)! Patrons get an exclusive 10th patch. 

I’d love YOUR feedback on this since we did see a lot of confusion around the mechanic of the previous (Chaos Coin) goal. So… is this clear enough? Is it missing out on any lessons we learned last time around? 

Why “222” you might ask. Well, we’re heading into Rabbit Season. The White Rabbit Print will be this month’s Patreon print, it’s also over on Mysterious in FULL or MINI size. And we’re working on a White Rabbit Plush to be our next big collectible item / Patreon Goal. And in Chinese the word for “rabbit” is “tu” (sounds like two) so we have 3x ? (tu) in there for good luck and whatnot 😉

Feedback, please!

I’m sitting on a couple of other new images which I’ll share tomorrow. We’ll also set a time for this week’s livestream – probably the same Thursday morning, 9AM Hong Kong time we do for the “normal” streams. 

Alright, back to chasing rabbits…

From Shanghai with ???, 

-American

Dear Insane Children, 

Whew! We hit our Patron Goal, unlocked the Chaos Coin, and finished out the month of August with 2800 (no, wait, 2700)… (uh, wait, 2600) … Let’s just say “more than 2500 Patrons” – hehe. Woo!

A few of you commented on the drop in Patron numbers on September 1st. Not to worry – it’s something we see at the start of each new month. I suspect it has to do with people who “pledge” for the content and community, then drop their pledge before being charged, then come back around the 2nd week of each new month. This is probably the main reason why Patreon has implemented a “charge on pledge” feature… but let’s not get into or worry about all that right now because… 

We had an amazing month! You pushed our Patreon Page to #5 in the Gaming Category, we opened up our Discord Server, and we saw tremendous progress on all things art, design, and story. Our community is really growing – and along with that growth has come a flood of great ideas, friendships, and creativity. 

I LOVE THIS PROCESS! As I’ve said during some recent streams, I feel INVIGORATED! I can’t remember the last time in life when I felt so excited to get up in the morning, start work, check out our community, get inspired, and just jump right into everything. I really hope you’re all having an equal amount of fun. 

As Alex’s latest amazing art tagline suggests: Sanity Rots in the Heart of Darkness. SO true! We need progress, change, hell… CHAOS in order to grow, learn, and gain true wisdom. 

His latest “poster” art is, like the “Red Chesh” and “White Rabbit” images before – just fantastic.

Some of you wrote asking about making a mini-print of the White Rabbit image – so now THAT’S A THING. And for the next 13 days it’s on sale over at Mysterious. 

Speaking of White Rabbits – my trip to YiWu in search of OUR White Rabbit was a success. I met with a ton of potential factories, all of whom would love to create an Alice-inspired White Rabbit plush toy. 

More on that with the next update and next week’s livestream. 

Tons of new art, story, and design stuff rolling in. 

Join the discussion over on our Discord Server!

Couple of notes on Patreon, Chaos Coins, and whatnot… 

Give Patreon until around the 5th of September to process your pledge for August. For instance, I pledge to four different Patreons, but I’ve only been charged for one of those so far. Remember, you’re being charged at the start of September for your pledge in August. Don’t adjust your pledge until you’ve seen that email / confirmed the charge! And… please consider waiting to adjust your pledge until September 17th – this makes Font Lord’s life easier when it comes to collecting and sorting your pledge info. 

I don’t know about you, but I’m kinda done with the whole Chaos Coin thing for now… a month of spamming, explaining, and stressing… Thank you, everyone who helped us get here and guided others along the way! 

We will set up a new Patron Goal once the Patron Count has settled a bit. That will be for the new Patch Set @ $10 when we hit 3000 Patrons (maybe 2800 Patrons?). After that, we’ll do a Goal for the White Rabbit Plush Toy… but that’s a ways off… 

So… it’s Sunday here in Shanghai. I’m bothering the neighbors with BBQ smoke… better head back out and check to make sure nothings on fire (which shouldn’t be). 

I hope you’re all having a wonderful weekend. Looking forward to all the fun we’ll get up to in September! 

From Shanghai smelling like Smoke,

-American

Dear Patrons

Martin here with a reminder of the instructions we have given previously in regards to the Chaos Coin.

We have noticed that now the new month has started, the amount showing on our Patreon is starting to substantially drop.  This means people are lowering their pledge amounts.

We kindly ask that if you’re a patron who was looking to get the Chaos Coin, you maintain your pledge level up until September 17th as we asked, for the following reasons.

1) We have no idea how Patreon will view your pledge reduction if you do it too soon. You may very well miss out on getting the coin, and I don’t think you want to do that after this long wait.

2) It gives everyone’s banks plenty of time to process their pledges correctly. (some banks are slowpokes)

3) It will make data extraction easier for me when the time comes.
Please don’t give me extra work   🙁

So please…. Keep Calm and Maintain Your Pledge.  Nothing terrible will happen to you if you wait until September 17th to make adjustments.

– Cheers

Dear Insane Children,

A quick note to all: These are the FINAL HOURS of the Chaos Coin promotion. If you’ve not yet adjusted your pledge, then do so NOW. Just set it to $35 (or above) and then wait until September 17th. 

The clock runs out in a VERY SOON. You have until 11:59PM PST on August 31st. Once we’re into September it’s TOO LATE. So, please act now. We will NOT be able to adjust anyone’s pledge or make exceptions for those who miss the deadline. 

Wherever you are in the world, look at THIS COUNTDOWN CLOCK to see how much time you have left. When that reads 00:00:00 – it’s over!

Don’t be late!

From Shanghai with Chaos, 

-American