Dear Insane Children, 

Do you know what fills me with RAGE? The YouTube creator interface – specifically the part dedicated to setting up live stream events. ARG! Frustration! 

Serenity now. Serenity now. Serenity now.  

I’ve worked through the kinks and set up a Live Stream event for tomorrow at 9AM Hong Kong Time – 6PM PST on Wednesday, 10/8. 

Uncertain what time that is for you? No worries… hit THIS LINK and set a reminder over on YouTube.

During this stream, we’ll discuss all the latest thinking on Dr. Bumby’s place in Alice: Asylum, The Queen of Hearts, and progress being made over on the Asylum Design Wiki.

Crowd Design – Enemies

On the topic of Dr. Bumby and enemies, we had a fruitful conversation with the Insane Children via Discord earlier this week. You can tune in to that discussion – also over on YouTube – via THIS LINK.

Have a listen. Collect your notes. And share your thoughts in the comments below! 

Have questions, suggestions, or other topics you’d like to see discussed during the live stream tomorrow? 

Be sure to leave those in the comments below!

Note from Font Lord

There’s a delay with sending out rewards due to the recent giant National Holiday in China and the arrival of a baby. 

Don’t get hysterical!

We’re working to get things back on schedule but in the meantime do ask for your patience and understanding as we get your art prints and other rewards mailed out. 

Have a problem or a question? You can PM us here on Patreon or send an email to support (at) mysterious (dot) design 

From Shanghai with Rage, 

-American

Dear Insane Children, 

Our favorite month is here! It’s Halloween! Woowooowowowoooo!

Among all the spooky things we love about Halloween there’s a special tradition here in The Asylum… 2 for 1 Art Print Month! Yay!

How’s it work? Glad you asked! 

Everyone at $75 for the month of October will recieve two pre-selected art prints. Those are “Hallowed Alice” (the main image above) and “Cheshire Grin” (shown below). 

Font Lord has asked me to pass along a couple of Rules and Restrictions. Those are as follows: 

• Pledge $75 for October 2019 (pledge now; processed on or around November 5th). 
• If this is your first month at $75 you’ll also receive a Chaos Necklace (you can choose small or large size – survey sent later). 
• This offer is NOT available at the 3/$35 level.
• But if you’re doing 3/$35 it’s important to note you can jump in and out of that tier. You DO NOT have to have 3 consecutive months. 
• You can select these prints later with 3/$35 but you’ll select the prints individually, not as a set. If you want the set you’ll have to do that via this offer.

Spooky Crowd Design

We’ll host a Crowd Design session over on our Discord Server tomorrow at 10AM Hong Kong Time – that’s 7PM PST (Los Angeles, etc). 

During this session, we’ll take a look at your suggestions over on the Asylum Wiki. 

In keeping with the spooky theme let’s take a look at Enemy Suggestions!

Need more info on our Discord Server and how to join it? 

There’s a FAQ POST for that. 

Cheshire Kitten Followup

Lots of Insane Children around the world receiving their Cheshire Kitten Collector Sets and sharing their excitement on social media. Here’s Insane Child mooncrisismakeup over on Instagram with some excellent images… 

If you have any questions or problems with your Cheshire Kitten Set please be sure to PM US. If that’s too much of a bother then try emailing us: 

support (at) mysterious (dot) design

A few Insane Children have written to ask about the Chesh’s Tail… 

Please note that we intentionally left the rough edge down the tail in order to simulate the “boney” feel of his tail. I thought we discussed this in one of the design updates or livestreams? Anyway, he’s supposed to have a gnarly tail! 🙂 

Now… if you get a kitten with an arm sewn on backward or other sorts of “birth defects” – then you can write to us for a replacement. 

Want to share your Cheshire Kitten on social media for us to see? Be sure to include hashtag #cheshirekitten and/or #americanmcgee – We’ll check those out on the next live stream!

Maps of Meaning

Lots of new art coming in! Will post more of that tomorrow along with links to this week’s live stream on YouTube. 

Got comments and suggestions you want discussed during the stream? 

Leave them in the comments below!

From Shanghai with a Scruffy Tail,

-American

Dear Insane Children, 

Golden Week 2019 is coming to an end here in Shanghai. While China celebrated “70 Years of Communism in the PRC” we hid out at home and played with the baby. Lucky did give us an excuse to venture outside during the holiday – he had a one-month checkup with the doctor. They weighed and measured him, recorded his movements, and gave him a stamp of approval. He’s growing FAST. Good boy! 

Another Year!

We also hit another milestone in recent days. This time of year roughly marks the start of my focused efforts in using Patreon to fund and promote efforts towards getting Alice: Asylum into development.

Through the support of our Insane Children, we’ve built a team of artists, designers, and support staff to enable the creation of concept artwork, story, design, and physical rewards which we’ve leveraged towards getting a new game made.

Alex created an “Art & Design Team” overview (shared above) to provide a clear picture of the team our Insane Children have made possible.

And let’s not forget the Insane Children themselves! You can see here our growth in terms of Insane Children since October 2017.

This puts our Patreon Community at 8th in the “Games” section on Patreon and in the Top 100 overall for most months. 

The result of all this is a breathtaking collection of artwork, narrative, and design which you can view over on the Asylum Wiki. Just a quick sample of images through the months. Remember these milestones?

Early on we talked a lot about the design of 13-year-old Alice’s face… 

And we had our first peek into Wonderland…

We’ve explored a variety of dress designs…

And cat designs…

We’ve talked about puzzles…

And enemies…

And we’ve produced and shipped a ton of physical goodies…

It’s been a wonderful process – one that I can easily say is the most engaging and rewarding that I’ve ever had the pleasure of taking part in. 

Are We There Yet? 

We’re still on the road! I wish I could say, “We’re almost there!” but the reality is that only EA can answer this question. 

And where are we with EA? 

As you know, I am bound by multiple NDAs to not reveal the contents of my ongoing discussions with them… but I’ll recap with those bits you already know.

• Late 2017 there was a request for an overview in terms of design, plans, etc -for a new Alice game.
• Early 2018 we delivered the License Proposal Book. 
• Months of discussions. A basic outline of the license deal is achieved. 
• Early 2019 we’re assigned a new Biz Dev guy.
• Months of discussions. A “final” outline fo the deal is achieved. 
• Mid-2019 we delivered the “Ashen Rabbit” Studio/Project Proposal Book. 
• Discussions take a meaningful turn.
• Late 2019 we delivered an updated pitch based on a new request.

If you’ve not seen the latest pitch, you can find it in a Patreon post back on August 7th called “Madness Bacons” – mmmm bacon.

We are now waiting on a response to that latest pitch – something we crafted in Crowd Design with our Insane Children. 

What Comes Next?

We keep creating! Our team is currently detailing the narrative and design for the Realm of the Queen of Hearts – an area that represents Alice’s anger. 

Ater Anger we’re heading into Bargaining – a realm where we’ll encounter the Mad Hatter and learn of his involvement with the current state of affairs in Wonderland. 

This process of mapping out the locations, characters, and story will continue through Bargaining, Depression, Testing, and Acceptance. Along the way, we’ll loop back to previously visited areas to improve on and incorporate the ideas we’ve established there. 

We can then start writing dialog, building level layouts, storyboarding cinematic sequences… and more!

These tasks are usually handled by teams of dozens of artists, designers, and writers but where we do not have a massive team – we do have loads of time!

When we’re finished we’ll have a lovingly crafted Design Bible which our development team can follow through the production of the game. 

 Slow but steady wins the race. 

Questions and Comments?

Your feedback in this process is critical. “Crowd Design” is what makes our efforts here different. It’s pre-production funded and guided by the fans – the Insane Children! I believe that makes it pretty unique – especially in terms of the size and scope of the product we plan to make. 

Let us know in the comments below how we’re doing!

What more would you like to see from the project, from the team, and from me? 

We’ll address your feedback during the live stream this week (another post coming on that later today). 

Thank You!

As always, THANK YOU! We could not do this without you. The Asylum pre-production team is 100% powered by the fans. All of the art, story, and design we’re creating are a direct result of your trust, patience, and contributions. 

From Shanghai with Love,

-American

Dear Insane Children, 

Continued evolution on the Bumby as Shopkeeper concept images. 

Above you’ll see Omri’s reworking based on our comments. This is “spider hole” Bumby + Mechanical Hands. In this version we’d hear but not see Bumby. And his hands would handle all the interactions in the shop and with Alice. 

Another idea is presented here – Centaur in Oxford Bumby. Much lighter, more whimsical, and inviting. 

Of these ideas I said to Omri…

I think either one of these work. But if I had to choose… I would go for the “hands” shop. Why? 

Well, the centaur idea is too cute. What I had in mind was some sort of puppet centaur – a mechanical animal type thing – fixed in place at the counter in the shop. It along with the hands would be operated remotely – as would be other machines and items in the shop. This would be a nod to players of AMR who caught the “centaurs in Oxford” line and would not be a spoiler for anyone who had not already played that game. 

The hands work. Maybe still need a bit of refinement. I’d like to know what holds them up. Perhaps storm clouds? A little bit of snow always falling from them. Flashes of lightning contained within? Again, this is a nod to AMR players but doesn’t spoil anything if you’ve not yet played the game. If you have played the game… I think it’s not a great leap to wonder if Bumby = Toyshop … and I think this precursor example of him is an interesting and creepy interaction for those in the know. 

I’ll share these two with the Insane Children and we can measure their reactions. 

There you have it. Handyman or horseyman? 

Let us know in the comments below!

Paging Dr. Goomby

Anyone else find it funny that while we’re discussing the design of Bumby for Asylum… Google has THIS image on their search page. I take it this is their suggestion for what Bumby should look like? Hey, Google, been there, done that. 

PS: Typhoon has passed Shanghai and we survived! 

From Shanghai with Windblown Hair,

-American

Dear Insane Children, 

As many of you are aware we’re trying to define the look and function of Bumby’s character in Asylum. This is a tricky task because many of us are uneasy with the idea of interacting with the Ultimate Bad Guy from AMR. 

The basic idea we’re working with is that there’s a Doll Shop where Alice goes to have her weapons (and dresses?) upgraded. It might be where she spends all those Chaos Coins she’s constantly collecting. And I had the idea that if it’s a doll shop then it makes sense it would be run by a doll maker. And what “better” doll maker than The Doll Maker. So here we are… 

But it feels like we’re still running into problems with the general concept. To show Bumby or not to show Bumby? Is he a man? A spider? A hybrid – Spider-Pig? 

So Omri tried a Proper Spider interpretation – which you can see as the main image above. And he also tried what that might look like with Spider Bumby hiding in his spider lair…

And then he said… 

 i honestly don’t like the spider legs, i find it a bit too much/on the nose 

To which I replied… 

Yeah, I understand… doesn’t work 100%

Here’s the thing… making them insect-like isn’t the right direction. Let’s start over like this… 

He’s a doll maker first and foremost. So his shop and his “waldos” (that’s what you call remotely controlled arms) should be more similar to what we eventually see in AMR. Controlled like a puppet on the end of string. 

So imagine that the shop is the first place where he’s trying this idea… there are hands and arms on rails from the ceiling… on strings. 

He uses those to get things from the shelves and to work on things in his work-space. 

But he tells Alice – because she’s curious and she asks, “Why can’t I see your face? Why do you hide in the dark?” – he tells her, “I cannot stand the light.” So his body, his head, his face… remain hidden throughout Asylum. Makes sense.

You could make the area where his face is hidden look like a spider’s lair…

That gives it the feeling of a place where, if you enter, you will be trapped and eaten. 

So… imagine a shop more like something out of Harry Potter. Magical, warm, strange, and with a dark edge to it… The place gives us the creeps but why don’t know why. 

The shopkeeper never shows his face. He has mechanical arms to take care of all his work. 

I think we’re getting there. He’s a tough character to define because he elicits such a strong reaction from us all. 

What do you think? Let us know in the comments below!

PS: It’s Golden Week in China. The entire country is taking ~10 days off to celebrate the event… I think it’s the 2nd biggest National Holiday in China. Something like 800,000,000 million trips are taken inside of China during this period. Yikes. Anyway, we’re not going anywhere. And I am using the relative calm to catch up on emails and Patreon updates. 

From Shanghai in Another Typhoon, 

-American