Dear Insane Children, 

We will host a LIVE STREAM today at 7PM PDT on my Twitch Channel. That’s less than two hours from when I am writing this post… 

We’ll discuss the image above from Joey. This depicts the inhabitants of London overcome by Chaos Tentacles. These characters appear during a sequence where Young Alice is exploring the journey taken by her older self. And of these characters, Joey says: 

London Characters

I think there are 3 stages of these citizens,

Stage 1:Normal people

Stage 2: People affected by Chaos

Stage 3: People completely eaten/taken down by Chaos(quite crazy mode)

I listed different types of people, I did the design of one figure(man) with 3 stages, just to show how much changes on the same person, I’m also thinking maybe for stage 3, people are totall eaten by chaos, tentacles from the head to the feet, we can see only the legs of a person(maybe I will try that on another figure)

For the other people, I only did them on stage 2, ?this is also how most of the people Alice runs into in the city.

To which Alex replies: 

I think this is fine as a starting point. But I think we need to push this further.

?Regardless of how we all feel, I think this is a great concept to bounce past the patrons.
?The question; Are the designs “horror and chaotic” enough?

My thoughts;
?By only using “tentacles”, this doesn’t speak “consumed by chaos” to me.
?It speaks Davy Jones.

I think the final chaos-formed baddies need a higher level of body horror and warped proportions to be truly terrifying and chaotic.

?See quick example below;

To which I would say… that screams John Carpenter’s “The Thing” to me… but I still love all these ideas!

So join us on the Live Stream in a little while and let’s all talk about it! 

We’ll have PRIZES, tentacles, concept art, narrative overview (light discussion), Plushie Dreadfuls, and more! Woo!

From Shanghai with Consumption, 

-American

Dear Insane Children, 

Font Lord here again with an update about the next live-stream… again!

So it seems we have now settled on Monday August 30th 10am HK Time.
That’s Sunday August 29th at 7PM PST.

https://www.twitch.tv/americanmcgee

Sorry for all the altering of that date, there’s lot going on with office visitors and vaccination dates etc…

As usual, there will be fun and games and shennanigans and PRIZES!
But also as you might imagine from the top picture, we’re going to give playing Quake a shot if we can grab it from Steam and get it all working right, and I’m sure American will have some fun ‘working at ID’ stories up his sleeve.
Fingers crossed.

But failing that, there’s always playing Madness Returns as we attempt to break the record for the longest time it takes to complete that while streaming.

We will also BRIEFLY talk about the recent Alice: Asylum Narrative Outline PDF we published here. So be prepared for some spoilers.
However the main discussion about that topic will be in the live-stream mid-September when we have collated and digested all the feedback you have been sending in.

So, I hope to see you then.

– Cheers

Dear Insane Children, 

Font Lord here continuing our pledge to remind you of what print is next with plenty of warning.

As you can see above, the next print (August Patrons charged in September) will be The Universal Trinity.
A rather popular print I think you’ll agree.

So make sure you’re at $75 BEFORE September hits if you want this gem of a print.
(and yes, once September rolls around, it’ll be a choice for you 3x$35 people too)

Speaking of the $75 tier, I think we may have some newer Patrons joined after the Alice: Asylum Narrative Outline was released, so for those people, just a reminder about how awesome that tier is.
If it’s your FIRST EVER time at $75, you will get…

1) The Print of the Month
2) The Hysteria Rabbit + Tote Bag set
3) And of course Discord access and you’ll be seeing Patreon Posts 3 days before the rest of the world.  Yay!

A final note/reminder is that as opposed to what American wrote earlier, next week’s live-stream is very likely to be TUESDAY !!
So bear that in mind and be sure not to miss us    🙂

– Cheers

Dear Insane Children, 

Let’s get the Bad News out of the way first: 

There will be NO Live Stream this week. Sorry! I have guests coming to my home studio on the same day we normally stream. And several other things going on in the days surrounding… so it’s best if we just move it to the following week – Thursday, September 2nd (HK Time); Sept 1st (USA Time). 

But that’s OK… because it will give us more time to collect and read your feedback on the Alice: Asylum Narrative Outline. You are aware we published that and are now doing Crowd Design on the story, right? RIGHT?! 

So far we’ve received some really excellent comments and feedback from our Insane Children. Thank you! We are reading everything you send it – and a lot of it really resonates with things Alex and I have been talking about. Feels like we’re all on the same track! Yay!

In the meantime, the art and design continue to flow! Here’s an excellent sketch of The Carpenter from Norm. Of this Omri says: 

he looks 50. I love the face, body- he’s too thick. He needs to be slim/skeletal very long, like a dancer. Everything else is spot on.

Google doug jones. The actor.

Hey, Omri… I’m almost 50. What are you trying to say?!

Adam also sent over this series of sketches for the scene where Alice fights the Jabberwock. Which do you like best? 

At this stage, with the Narrative mostly outlined, Alex will be able to load up the artists with the tasks that take them towards the end of the Design Bible. Expect a ton of cool art in the coming months as they fill out those sections!

We’ll discuss all this and more – next week! 

Again, I just want to take a moment to express gratitude. Our Insane Children have not only enabled our team to create all this great content but you’re also helping to prove a new model for game development. I laughed when I saw this Tweet from the lead writer on Fable, Anna Megill: 

Well… it is brave! Brave of you to support something so insane. To put your trust in creators and lend them financial support. To get behind an untested model of developing creative content in the public square. It’s brave because it’s essentially trying to prove that the Old Model isn’t the only way. And, as we all know, change isn’t easy. Even just trying to convince people that there might be *another way!* is difficult. 

So, thank you, for being brave. We could not do this without you! 

From Shanghai with Love, 

-American 

Dear Insane Children, 

This is it. At last… the Alice: Asylum Narrative Outline is available for you to download, read, and join in helping Crowd Design. Instructions for how to consume and provide feedback are contained within the document. Please read carefully and follow those instructions. It will make the process of Crowd Design smoother for all. 

The PDF itself is linked at the bottom of this post. 

The narrative contained within is still very much a Work In Progress. Some elements (dialog for example) may seem downright clunky. The polishing phase for those things will come next as part of the Crowd Design process. After that, this content will be used to drive the production of the Design Bible. And keep in mind that this content is not an exhaustive collection of everything we imagine will be in the game – but the minimum amount required to convey the main story. Once this document is locked, there will be a need to craft additional dialog, locations, and scenarios in greater detail. 

I want to thank all of our Insane Children for the amazing support they’ve provided throughout this process. And I also extend my love and appreciation to our amazing team of artists – whose illustrations really bring to life the ideas we’ve written here. Last but not least, I’m giving a virtual man hug to Alex – my writing partner on this journey. It’s been fun!

We all look forward to your feedback. And to what comes next! 

From Shengzhou With Butterflies, 

-American 

Dear Insane Children, 

Remember in Alice: Madness Returns when Alice goes to confront March Hare and Dormouse in Hatter’s domain and they pop up driving a giant mech robot? You can watch a clip from the game over on YouTube. 

Well… they’re back. And so is the mech robot!

It all takes place inside the Memory Mines… 

And Norm is working on a series of images to illustrate the encounter and eventual boss battle. 

He sent over a really fantastic sketch this morning… 

Let us know in the comments below what you think of this boss battle. Are you happy to see these two make a return to finish what was started in Madness Returns? 

Now… prepare to have your hopes and dreams smushed (a little)… There will be NO live stream this week. Sorry! But I have to drive Yan and her mom back down the the old hometown for some personal business. 

We’ll try to reschedule for the week following… 

In the meantime, dry your eyes! Because there’s something awesome coming later this week… 

** The Release of the Full Alice: Asylum Narrative Document **

That’s right! It’s in the final stages of prep for presentation to you. Alex is doing a last pass to format and prep it as a PDF that we can share here on Patreon. And I think he’ll be finished before the end of this week. So… get ready! 

It’s a beast… 88 pages when I checked this morning. But I think by the time Alex has reformatted it and added more images… it’s going to be 100+ pages. 

And we’ll be asking you to read it, read it again, and then provide your comments and feedback. Crowd Design! Woo!

(Alice leaving Bill The Lizard after kicking his butt and taking The Brain – from Adam)

Look… even Alice is smiling! 

Can’t wait to hear your feedback! 

From Shanghai with Brains, 

-American