Dear Insane Children,
Have I told you lately how much I love Tentacles? It should come as little surprise that when I opened the latest Tentacle Chaos Monster concept image from Omri – I laughed out loud and was smiling ear to ear. Seriously.
I LOVE this concept. And I tweeted that we need to make Alice: Asylum for literally no other reason than to see this madness in action.
We hosted a Live Stream over on Twitch yesterday and discussed these Tentacles and how they might behave in-game. We also talked at length about Alice’s design – translating the 2D concept images of her into a hi-res 3D model which we can then insert into an Unreal Engine scene. Lots of great topics covered and tons of your comments and suggestions read and explored.
The stream was recorded and uploaded to YouTube so you can WATCH IT HERE.
The Moon and Manipulators
Meanwhile, the team continues to design the interior of The Moon and work on design notes for a boss encounter at the end of that scene.
When Alice reaches the Control Room she’ll be confronted with… The Mock Turtle?! He was last seen in her “cell” in The Denial Realm – gently urging her to give up her dreams of running away from the circus. He’s like that terrible friend who, when you tell him you’re going to stop drinking, offers you a bottle of whiskey. Misery loves company after all.
Well, turns out that The Mock Turtle – and everything in The Denial Realm – is an illusion. All created by creatures we’re calling “Manipulators.” These beasties can alter Alice’s perception of time, space, light, and more…
But I want to be clear about something: Just because Omri included a note about “player losing control” as a result of an attack from one of these things: WE WILL NOT TAKE CONTROL AWAY FROM THE PLAYER. I hate that kind of thing and if you’ve ever watched me playing games during a live stream, you’ll have heard me state that fact several times.
Anyway, Omri did up a concept where Turtle sits upon a turtle-themed throne at the start of his boss fight… I think this is kinda fun but I had further thoughts on how to design this Boss Fight:
One thing to think about is that under the “skin” or disguise of the Mock Turtle, this thing is actually a Manipulator. So… I don’t know if it makes sense to have the whole scene modeled after The Turtle. He’s just a prop.
The “scene” should be The Control Room of The Moon but since we’re fighting a master manipulator – we should go completely crazy with the Boss Manipulator (and his minions) “flipping reality” through all the sorts of things they think might get Alice to change her mind and go back to Denial.
It would be like being in a Holodeck (Star Trek) gone haywire – first, Alice’s happy home and family, then The Circus, then floating on clouds in the sky (either meant to terrify or to lull Alice to sleep), a dreamy meadow, a giant Doll House, etc, etc… And in each scene Alice needs to find the “eye” and hit it with an attack. This would briefly reset back to real-reality (The Control Room of The Moon) as the Manipulators reset and then throw up a new False Reality.
The Control Room of The Moon was not built with The Turtle in mind. He’s just a puppet used to control Alice. No one ever imagined that Alice would make her way to the Control Room. So… it’s just a utilitarian control room space.
I would like to ask: Please stop trying to make the interior of The Moon into something it’s not. It does not need elements from Denial or inspired by Turtle, etc. It’s a Hatter Industry’s MACHINE. Nothing more, nothing less.
So let us know in the Comments below… what do you think?
Are you as excited for a Chaos Tentacle Enemy as I am?
Do you feel better now that I said we WON’T be taking control away from the player?
And what do you think about that outline for a Manipulator Boss Fight?
From Shanghai with Toads,
-American