Dear Insane Children, 

We had an excellent Livestream over on YouTube yesterday in which we reviewed a TON of artwork, gave away a bunch of Cheshire Kittens, and covered a lot of other topics – Asylum story, Bumby as a shopkeeper, and more!

Hit THIS LINK to check it out. 

One of the topics we’ve discussed at length in recent online sessions is the role we’ll have Bumby play in Asylum. It’s been suggested (and explored visually) that he’s a shopkeeper in the central train station – a toy shop where Alice goes to purchase and upgrade her weapons. 

More than a few issues are brought up by this idea – not the least of which is people’s uncomfortable feeling at the idea of confronting (multiple times throughout the game) the primary antagonist from AMR. 

The rationale I’ve provided for why his placement in Asylum works is that Alice (at 13 years of age) doesn’t yet realize who or what he is. Therefore he can be paraded around in front of her… 

But Omri’s come up with an interesting suggestion which I like. Present Bumby as a shadowy “spider” type character who we never really see beyond his glasses. He’s lurking in the shadows of the shop and interacts with things via long insect-like legs. 

This can represent Alice’s fuzzy awareness of him as an adult in her previous life but doesn’t force us to directly confront him as the character we knew from AMR. 

I dunno… could work. What do you think? 

Crowd Design – Shadow Alice 

We also had a very good Crowd Design session over on Discord this week. If you missed it then hit THIS LINK to check it out on YouTube. 

We discussed Shadow Alice and the general nature of the story we’re trying to tell in Asylum. Also discussed with the process by which we’ll attempt to arrive at a compelling narrative. 

Mysterious Makeup

During that yesterday’s Livestream I also made mention of Mysterious Makeup – and asked whether or not our Insane Children felt it would be OK to share updates on this project here on Patreon. Everyone said “yes” and I don’t think I saw a single “no” so… 

Tomorrow I’ll host a Livestream with my wife Yan where she can discuss the progress being made on her Mysterious Makeup project. 

Join us via THIS LINK. It’s at 7PM PST on September 27th. 

One topic we’ll discuss is the naming of the colors contained in these two palettes. If you’d like to suggest a name (or names) then feel free to do so in the comments below. 

We’ll review your comments and suggestions during the stream tomorrow. 

Expect additional updates from Yan on the progress she’s making with box design, brush design, color selection, and other elements related to these two Makeup Box Sets. 

She would love to hear feedback and engage with everyone live during the stream tomorrow so please join us! 

More On The Way!

Lots going on behind the scenes and I need to find time to post more of the recent artwork our team’s cranking out. Expect that over the weekend! 

From Shanghai with Blood Rose Red, 

-American 

Hi there

Font Lord here with a quick update about shipping.

Now the Chesh sets are getting sent out, and people have started getting their tracking IDs mailed to them, we have had some reports that the auto-email Backerkit is sending out for confirmation is still making reference to the Rabbit Plush, and possible old addresses.

DON’T WORRY !!

This is just a text error, and I am talking to Backerkit about fixing that, and you will most certainly be getting the Cheshire Set sent to the right place, and not the Rabbit.

Also, don’t worry if you haven’t got a tracking ID yet.
The Cheshire Sets are being sent out in batches, not all at once. So there’s no need to message us, all in a tizzy saying that your tracking ID hasn’t arrived.   🙂

– Cheers

Dear Insane Children, 

We’re BACK after a week of R&R. Seems my throat really needed that. All better now! Pain is gone! And I guess we now know that I shouldn’t eat tons of spicy food during the day and citrus fruit right before I go to bed. Hur dur. Lesson learned!

And while it’s been quiet here on Patreon there’s still tons going on behind the scenes. Our team of Artists and Designers (powered by YOUR support) continue to crank out ideas for The Domain of the Queen of Hearts. 

 Dungeons are getting sketched… 

And (as seen in the main image above) the “Sun Furnace,” which represents Anger being harnessed to power the Queen’s ambitious, now includes a lot more detail. 

Of the Sun concept Omri says:

I’ve been doodling for a while, i keep imagine the sun located underneath the castle, having cages with card soldiers and inhabitants locked in there to transform into killing machines.

i keep seeing it upside down. i have no clue why, i just do.
that once you leave the last/lowest floor of the castle and enter the area with the large sun machine, everything turns upside down and also i designed the way the sun is captured kind of like an observatory, again, i just feel that it fits artistically.

This is where the cards will transform,i think theoretically… this will make sense visually.

fire and brimstone cards and after you kill of of them in AMA you play against the “normal looking” cards which are actually the cards that didn’t go under the treatment. it’s a thought.

Which inspired Norm to invent some Mechanical Card Guards… 

Compared to their paper-based brothers these metal monsters thrive in (are maybe powered by?) the atmosphere of the Sun Chamber. That takes “solar-powered” to a whole new place! 

Here Comes The Moon

I think it’s safe to bet that the Insane Children count Halloween as their favorite holiday. Certainly, it’s mine! And so some effort is going into preparation for the event including this witchy Halloween Poster from Omri. WOooooOOo… 

Truth is there’s so much new artwork… it’s like we need some sort of live broadcast over the Internet to go through each piece and discuss it at length… 

Live Stream!

Time for another Live Stream over on YouTube! We’ve set it for the usual time slot – Thursday morning @ 10AM in Shanghai – 7PM Wednesday if you’re on the USA West Coast. 

Hit THIS LINK to head over to YouTube and set a reminder. 

We have a TON of stuff to go through. And we’ll be giving away Cheshire Kitten Sets as prizes. Woo!

Can’t wait until Wednesday to get your Alice: Asylum online fix? Fear not!

Crowd Design – Who Is Shadow Alice?

We will have another Crowd Design session tomorrow – that’s Monday at 8PM in the US and Tuesday at 10AM in Hong Kong. 

We have Crowd Design Sessions every other week (like the Live Streams) – but we use our Discord Server so that everyone can be included with voice and text chat. 

What is Discord and how do you join our server? Well, there’s a POST FOR THAT. 

At the request of one of our Insane Children (Asteria Visual), we’re going to explore the topic of Shadow Alice. 

I feel like the idea of Shadow Alice is pretty simple but I recognize that I might have previously couched it in fuzzy psycho-babble which could have made the topic murkier than it should have been. That sort of framing makes sense when we’re presenting the notion to Player in the final product but might be less helpful when we’re discussing the idea during the design phase. 

So here’s the concept with all the woo-woo stripped away: 

First off, the basic premise of the narrative:  We must go back in order to go forward. And we must re-integrate with the Child Self in order to completely heal.  

 Why? Re-integration with The Child Self if the final step. It’s safe again. 

And it allows the Third Chapter (Alice: Asylum) – which actually takes place in a time *before* Adult Alice’s resolution with Bumby (Alice: Madness Returns) – to provide the closing scene for the saga. 

• 13-Year Old Alice (Young Alice) is sent to The Asylum after the death of her family. 
• Young Alice is severely broken – unable to eat, sleep, speak, cope – and needs to heal herself.
• Young Alice ventures into Wonderland and fights her way through challenges – sprinkled with visions of a dark “Shadow Alice” – which lead to her to a Final Boss Battle(TM) – and presumably The Healing. 
• But instead of a glorious win and escape from Wonderland… Young Alice is confronted by Adult Alice – who we now realize is the same dark “Shadow Alice” we’ve been haunted by all along.
• The two battle back across Wonderland in various scenes where Young Alice percieved Shadow Alice had thwarted or threatened her…
• Only to realize that Shadow Alice had been helping her (sometimes by challenging her) through hundreds of iterations of the same adventure, over and over again. 
• Adult Alice is here to extract Young Alice from The Past…
• Adult Alice and Young Alice experience a reunification and The Healing is complete.

That’s the basic outline we can discuss during the Crowd Design Session tomorrow. 

Please join us! 

But wait!

Great Firewall Woes

To celebrate the 70th Anniversary of the Wonders of Communism(TM) the PRC Government has further squashed the free flow of information across the Internet. The Great Firewall is operating at 1000% these days. Which means that all our online plans may be thwarted before they even begin. Hell, while writing this post I had to reboot the VPN router twice. Not good!

These “celebrations” are supposed to go through the end of the month… Sigh. 

Anyway, you know the drill. Join us. We’ll see how the Internet holds up. 

From Behind the Firewall with Love, 

-American

Dear Insane Children,

I’m back after a wonderful period of time spent with Lucky (??)! He’s a good little boy who spends most of his time sleeping. And when he’s awake his main focus is drinking milk… followed by explosive bowel movements and a bit of hiccupping. Here he is in the preferable mode of behavior… 

The period of time we’ve had to adjust to this new life has been really wonderful. I feel blessed that Yan and I can be at home full time during this first couple of weeks. And really appreciate the support and understanding we’ve had from the Insane Children! 

Now for some good-news-bad-news… 

The plan was that this week would see us resume our usual schedule of Crowd Design and Live Streams but I’ve got a bit of bad news on that front. 

First, the good news is that I spent a bit of time during the holiday doing a complete rebuild on our streaming setup. Flipped the room around, rewired everything, installed a pair of new LED lights (color temp adjustable – woo), and general tidying. Was looking forward to doing a stream this week…

But the bad news is… my throat is killing me and has been for weeks! Finally went to the ENT Doctor this morning and she shoved an endoscope down my throat and sent me for an ultrasound. Not finding anything which might explain the horrible pain I have when swallowing or speaking for long stretches, the discussion turned to diet. 

Apparently, it’s not recommended that a person consume 1~2x bottle of Tabasco per week? Along with a bottle of jalapenos. And various Chinese black bean spicy sauces. And it’s “not normal” to put spicy stuff on breakfast, lunch, and dinner? 

Who knew?!

Uh… So I’ve been told to knock it off with the spicy food. And given medicine. And told to take it easy on talking for long periods of time.

After a week we’ll see how things go and hopefully, we can have a live stream using the new setup! 

Madame Priscella 

Omri sends over the finished illustration of the tent in which we communicate with Alice’s in-game fortune teller and Tarot Card reader … dealer? Turned out great!

Of this he says,

 Attaching the final version of the Tent, Jen’s feedback is really helpful.

With this we are done with the realm of Denial and we can play with ideas for gameplay with what we will do with the Tarot cards.

If it will be like Madness (possible!) or go with another way,

either way Alex will need to come up with a UIUX design that will flatter it.

We said that the Tarot will “feed” our tarot cards weapon but is it just that? so we meet Pris only once and get that weapon from her? at Bumby’s we said that we upgrade weapons.

To which I replied, 

This is fantastic. I think we should consider making this an option which player can access at any time.

Could be a menu thing… maybe we sell it as something Alice carries around in her pocket (shrunk down) and can jump into when she likes.

Actually… a kind of interesting idea on that topic… what if Alice collects all the places she’s visited? And then carries them forward with her (in her pocket) as she goes. So as she overcomes a place she is able to shrink it and hold it in her hand… shove it in her pocket.

It’s an interesting metaphor for overcoming trauma. It never really goes away. But after a while, it stops being such a big deal. 

The more I think about it the more I like the idea of representing Alice’s conquering of certain aspects of her PTSD by shrinking them down. 

“It’s all a matter of perspective. You make yourself bigger than the problem or make the problem smaller than you. Either way, the problem isn’t bigger than you.” 

I imagine Alice at some point in the game having overcome several of these areas… and sitting in a space surrounded by the little representations of them. Maybe these are analogs to the Memory Items she recovered throughout A:MR? Might it be that the encapsulation of those memories helped Young Alice to overcome the pain they contained… while the breaking open and re-living of them helped Older Alice to recall her memories and her past? 

Hmmm… Tell me what you think of that idea in the comments below. 

More Soon

There are more bits of artwork and other things to discuss this week. I’ll share those things in posts to be made … in the future. Right now I need to have a bit of a rest. Hospitals, having things shoved down my throat… and, worse, being told I can’t eat Spicy Food anymore… Uhg.

Font Lord Says

Martin sends along a quick list of points you should keep in mind with regards to the recent Cheshire Kitten Goal/Reward. These address some of the FAQs we’ve seen recently via email and in the comments. 

 1) Backerkit is the site we’re using to collect your info for shipping – you can trust it! If you get an email from Backerkit please open it and follow the instructions. If you don’t do that we can’t send out your Cheshire Kitten! 

2) The “$50 Tier” name on Backerkit doesn’t impact your actual Pledge or Tier amount… Some of you were at $75 for the qualifying month but you’ll see that someone (Font Lord, we’re looking at you) wrote “$50” into the survey page, thus causing confusion and emails stating, “I pledged $75 but it’s saying $50!” Please, just ignore that!

3) Reminder that if you’ve not seen your survey email, do a search for “backerkit” across all your email folders- junk, spam, promotions, etc. These emails like to get stuck into all kinds of strange folders. 

4) We’ll start shipping Cheshire Kittens next week around September 23rd. Maybe as soon as this Friday 20th. Kittens go out in batches of several hundred per day. That means some people will receive their Kitten 1~2 weeks before other people. Don’t fret! Give the entire sending process 1~2 weeks. And then allow up to 5 full weeks for delivery (to most locations around the world). 

5) If you got a survey for an art print then you earned an art print – trust us! Many Insane Children have expressed confusion at receiving an Art Print Survey. Keep in mind that you do not need 3 consecutive months at $35 to earn an art print. And the $50 counts towards the 3/$35… so if you paid $35 twice at any point in the past – and then did the $50 for the Cheshire Kitten – you can expect to get an art print as well. 

6) Yes, you can safely adjust your pledge amount (and Tier) now. We’ve removed the $50 Tier entirely. No point sticking around at that level now that the promotion is over. But… 

We do hope that you will stick around, even at a lower Tier level. At $5 you get access to our Discord Server and can join the Crowd Design Sessions (when I am not broken in the throat). And your support, whatever the amount, keeps this ship afloat! We apply your Pledges directly to paying for our team of artists, designers, and Font Lords. 

Without you, we would never see who Alice encounters when she opens this door…

Can you guess? 

You’ll find out next time… 

From Shanghai with Doll Parts, 

-American

Dear Insane Children, 

I posted this over on Instagram but figure there are a few of you here on Patreon who might also be interested in the discussion… 

Feedback Time! Comment below on these design concepts for the Mysterious Makeup Box Set.

We’re working on the art and design for the box which contains the makeup box-set. The items in the box set will have their own box artwork – based on the “Alice and Flamingo” image by Joey.

A simple reference image for this is presented in the first picture (top left). For the box set artwork – what style do you prefer? Style (A) is simple – just the butterfly wings and “Mysterious” brand name. Style (B) adds a subtle pattern to the mix. And Style (C)… well… Yan and I like (A). And we want to further simplify this presentation by removing the Chinese “?” character from next to the “Mysterious” brand name. We also want to remove the artwork on the box sides – and just leave the sides empty.

We’re going for a “less is more” approach because we think this lends an air of maturity and quality to the product presentation. When we look at existing brands in the makeup space we see that it’s usually the cheaper (quality/cost) brands which tend to go really splashy on the box artwork. Higher-end brands tend to be minimalist in terms of colors and density of visuals.

Put simply: The “Insane” box would work well if we were making another “Out of the Woods” card game. For a makeup line which we hope to position mid-market, we think the more subtle approach works better.

But, hey, maybe we’re wrong! YOU tell us what box style you prefer! (A) (B) or (C)? We look forward to your comments and feedback. And will use your input to guide the next steps towards making this project a reality.

Credit to @alexceeart for the excellent design work.
 

PS: The comments over on Instagram are really blowing up. Seems the voting is heavily leaning towards (C). That’s not what Yan and I thought would work best – but then that’s the point of opening this conversation up to you, the fans. 

We look forward to your comments! 

From Shanghai with Insane, 

-American & Yan

Dear Insane Children, 

Omri sends along another concept image from the Realm of the Queen of Hearts. As we’ve discussed previously, this realm is an analog to Alice’s Anger as she traverses the stages of PTSD. The entire realm and all its major inhabitants – the Queen especially – are fuel by and addicted to Anger. 

We all know there’s a kind of power to be drawn from Anger. That’s why we have so many catchy quotes which embody that concept:

“Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.” 

“Turn your pain into anger. Anger into motivation. Motivation into success.” 

But it requires energy to stay angry. Which is why harnessing anger to accomplish things is a zero-sum game. There are better, more efficient, and less destructive ways to accomplish our goals. 

But no one tell that to the Queen of Hearts! 

She’s literally harnessed The Sun and is using its warmth to drive an Engine of Anger allowing her to build weapons of war and the armies to wield them. 

In the image above we see The Sun, a prisoner chained inside a dungeon, designed and built by The Mad Hatter.

In response to Omri’s delivery of this art I wrote, 

So, yes, the “sun” can be Alice’s burning anger. It’s being used to fuel the Queen’s “factory” which outputs the dogs of war, weapons of rage, armies of anger, etc. We should see that this is the Queen’s source of power… but, it’s also her weakness. If Alice (and the Rebels) can get past the Shield Generator they can set it to overload… which will blow up the Queen’s entire domain. Alice can learn of this fact from Hatter (he helped build all this machinery). But someone will have to stay behind and hold the lever to make the thing explode – of course 😛 

Speaking of tropes, there’s a couple of cheeky ones in there!

 Angry Judgement 

Balanced judgement is one of Anger’s first victims. When we’re angry we make bad decisions based on faulty judgement. That’s why “the best answer to anger is silence” and “the best fighter is never angry.” 

As Alice makes her way through the Queen’s Realm she’ll come across – not sure how yet – the seat of judgement, The Courthouse. Here Alice will witness or experience the sort of nonsense decisions made by a psyche addled by anger. 

Speak logic? Death sentence! Whisper reason? Off with her head!

I suggest we attach this building to an Execution Factory where all the Queen’s enemies are led after receiving judgement. A sort of gauntlet of horrors ultimately leading to death. 

Prepare to Croak!

All of which leads us to the Croquet Grounds on our way towards the Main Castle. 

As Omri suggests, this can be part of that Execution Factory. Perhaps the idea is that once “judged” you’re sentenced to “croak” – because Alice struggles with the word “croquet” – which doesn’t seem all that bad until you realize that it’s a game you play till you’re dead. 

As a way of Alice reaching the Castle… it might be interesting to have her be the first victim to successfully navigate this death arena. 

Who would enjoy a well realized Croquet Mini Game in Asylum? If we link that with a highly developed, very useful, and powerful Croquet Mallet weapon… could be a lot of fun. 

I have a secret to share: One of my favorite games of all times was “Wii Sports” (on the Nintendo Wii) – which I played the Golf Game on a big screen nightly… literally one of the most relaxing and fun ways to pass time with a video game I’ve ever known. So, I’ll admit my bias towards realizing a solid “golf” control on Alice’s Croquet Mallet Weapon 😛 

Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

An Audience with Anger

We all know where this leads… and it’s not a good place. 

Omri sends along the Final Version of the Queen’s Throne Room. A stunning concept image! Wow. 

Who says Anger can’t create a thing of beauty? 

Mapping It Out

I’ve asked our Art Team to look at mapping out a sketch of the journey we’ve outlined for Anger. That way we’ll have – like we do for The Circus Realm – a bird’s eye view of the area representing Anger. We can then discuss in more detail some of the encounters, challenges, and choices Alice might face. 

Got ideas and suggestions for this realm?

Add them into the comments below!

From Shanghai with Grrrr,

-American