Dear Insane Children,
We’re making good progress on the planning and definitions required for building the Alice: Asylum Design Bible. To help put in order all of the required details, Alex sent me a series of questions related to Alice and her story. Here’s a sample:
AT THE BEGINNING OF THE STORY (When the player meets Alice – POINT A):
How does she feel?
She feels abandoned, alone, forgotten and that something is missing. Having suffered a massive trauma – though it’s now largely forgotten – she is unable to form close relationships or to care much about anything. She feels distant, closed off, numb, and distracted.
She also feels life is scripted (hence the Circus, the monotony of denial). Certainty has become her prison. Nothing new ever happens. Nothing ever deviates from the script.
What is she seeking / what is her motivation?
She’ll start by wanting to bring order back to her existence in Denial. But will end by embracing the chaos represented by reintegration with her adult self. Her goal will be to “put things right” or put things “back in order” but the object on which she’s enacting this goal will shift as she realizes that it’s not just Denial (The Circus) that needs fixing, but Wonderland, and then herself.
What are her fears?
The irrational, sudden, unexplained and unnecessary introduction of confusion and chaos. Change. Being abandoned. Being alone. Being unwanted. Being forgotten.
What gives her strength?
She starts by believing it’s her logic and knowledge and her ability to keep everything in order and well organized.
What are her ideals / What does she value?
Logic, order, organization, intelligence, curiosity.
What does she love?
When we first meet her – nothing, really. Love means embracing uncertainty and accepting that the thing you love will eventually die or be taken away. As such, Alice prefers to remain distant, cold, unloving… indifferent. “The opposite of love is not hate. It is indifference.”
What does she hate?
Disorder, confusion, lack of clarity, illogical persons/things.
What annoys Alice?
Mess, disorganization, waste, inefficiency, repetitive noises, unsolved puzzles, things not being “in their place.” She’s got OCD.
What makes her happy?
Putting things in order, solving puzzles, cleaning up messes.
What does she know?
She thinks she knows everything there is to know.
What does she need to learn?
That she knows nothing because nothing is as it seems. That change is constant. That it is better to be prepared for encounters with chaos than to pretend that any sort of action can avoid those encounters entirely. That chaos is the catalyst of health, change, growth, and life.
And as we progress through these definitions we’re also working to lock down basics such as Alice’s size, shape, and appearance. We need an exemplar of Young Alice.
Why do you suppose we struggle so much to establish and then stick with a standard model of Young Alice as we hope to see her in Asylum? Is it because we’ve just not seen her yet? Or because each of our artists – and our Insane Children – all carry personal conceptions of an Ideal Alice?
I can almost imagine a Character Creation Tool in Asylum that allows subtle adjustments resulting in a near-infinite range of Alice’s… just to satisfy everyone’s different notion of who this girl really is! (No, we won’t actually be doing that… I said “imagine”).
As if on cue to make my point… I noticed this image from Dario (from a series he’s creating that deal with non-euclidian geometry) in which he presents us with yet another interpretation of our main character. This time in the form of a silhouette – one we can tell, even from a distance is Alice… perhaps because she carries a hint of the Dis…on’t Say It(!) Alice?
It’s an interesting topic, to say the least!
And since we’re on the topic… let’s discuss it in detail with the next…
LIVE STREAM!
We’ll be over on Twitch again. Hit THIS LINK to subscribe to my Twitch Channel.
We’re aiming to go live at 7PM PDT on April 15th. Hope to see you there!
And, yes, this live stream will be backed up to my YouTube Channel once it’s done.
There will be prizes! And Martin (back in the studio)! And Lulu?
Questions and Feedback, Please
Share with us your questions and feedback in the comments below. We’ll read those things out loud and answer them during the live stream. Yay!
Alright… I have a massive task in front of me again…
From Shanghai with 500 Posters to Sign,
-American