Dear Insane Children, 

Remember the Dollmaker’s scary puppet hands from Madness Returns? 

THEY’RE BACK. 

Well, sorta. Check out the spectral hands in this latest illustration from Adam. They are inspired by Bumby’s Puppetmaster Hands. And, wow, are they awesome! 

Joey also used them in this image… 

Of his image, Adam says… 

Here is the painted update, I chose to show Alice facing the valves to add more suspense as if the hands were sneaking up to her.

?Besides the valves and pipes, there is also a gate that will close and force Alice to go up the stairs on the right, where I made a subtle suggestion of the reddish light coming from the flames.

?Also, I’ve placed some wooden platforms and objects to suggest the gameplay aspect of platforming in this level.

?Generally, I’ve mixed the feeling of a Victorian sewer made of bricks and metal with wood and porcelain coming from the original Dollhouse environment from Alice Madness Returns.

?Apparently, the spectral hands (inspired by Bumby’s hands) were supposed to be made out of water, so I fixed that, though Omri asked that I also upload an older version where I made the hands out of flesh, so here they are.

Let Adam know in the comments below which version of the hands you prefer – fleshy or boney?

And did I share this already? 

Excellent illustration from Omri of The Dollhouse area in Umbraland. Love it! 

SO much great art flowing from our team these days. 

And Alex has just finished his house move and is 100% back on the narrative work we’ve been doing for the past couple of months. Great progress there. Hoping to share some updates soon. 

I’ve successfully “rescued” my family from death-by-boredom in Yan’s hometown and am back at my desk in Shanghai. This week is China Joy here in Shanghai and we’ve got some meetings lined up with REDACTED and some other major Chinese Game Publishers. Plus our Financial Advisor is making great progress on his work bringing together Hollywood, investors, publishers, and others to make Mysterious Studios a reality. Again, hoping to share some updates on all that soon! 

OH! And the prototype for OCD Rabbit Arrived. I posted this up over on my Instagram with some additional photos. Join the Crowd Design Discussion over there (or leave comments below here). 

We’ll be back with a Live Stream next week where can we catch up on all the amazing progress being made! 

From Shanghai with Crinkly Brain, 

-American

Dear Insane Children, 

Font Lord here fulfilling the promise we made in the previous art print poll that we would try to give you plenty of notice about the ‘next print’ each month before it happens.

As you see above, the next print is THE CAGING for July Patrons charged in August.

So if you want this superb print, simply make sure you’re set at the $75 tier or above BEFORE August hits.

And yes, all you 3x$35 people, this print will also become a choice for you when August rolls around too   🙂
As usual, those 3x$35 print choice emails will be going out around August 6th, so keep an eye out for that.

– Cheers

Dear Insane Children, 

Woo! It’s been crazy here in Shanghai. Typhoon In-Fa ripped along the eastern coast of China and made landfall just a few kilometers away from my backyard in Fengxian, Shanghai. Literally just down the coast from where I live. BUT… despite what the title of that video says (WTF?) China was in no way destroyed. And, as far as I am aware, there were no deaths from the weather but a lot of people were temporarily evacuated – especially along the eastern coastal areas.

Here’s a map to illustrate…

The storm moved up from the south along the eastern coast of China. It passed Yan and Lucky in Shengzhou (circled on the map) a few days ago. They got some rain but no serious winds. When it arrived in Shanghai it landed almost right in my backyard! You can see the wind estimate on that map at 59kts… 70mph winds. But we saw winds hitting closer to 100mph multiple times. Trees flying around, stuff getting knocked over… But the scary part for me was the water. Because the rain was so heavy and constant… water levels in the nearby creeks and rivers just kept rising. I thought our house might get flooded! It felt something like this…

(Cool art from Joey!) 

But there’s really good flood control stuff in place around here – makes sense, it’s a coastal area that sees several typhoons per year. And they managed the water levels so that there was no flooding of homes. 

Things are calming down outside now but we still have several days of rain in the forecast. 

Lucky called me via video chat this morning (well, Yan called me but Lucky was on the call) – yelling “Home! Home! Home!” … so he really wants to come home. I guess it’s boring being stuck inside for a week while there’s a typhoon raging outside. 

All of this is a long-winded way of saying: There will be no live stream this week! 

I need to clean up around the house and then drive south and “rescue” my family (from boredom). They’d normally come back via train, bus, or share ride… but all those options are over capacity (or nonexistent) right now due to the backlog created by the storm. So… road trip for me! 

Your understanding and patience are much appreciated! 

Still lots of great progress being made by the Alice: Asylum pre-production team. 

This Umbraland image from Omri of the Mysterious East is especially fitting given what’s just gone on here in China!

And this Dollhouse Umbraland is 100%! Love it! 

And I uploaded the Technical Design for OCD Rabbit over on my Instagram. If you want to join the Crowd Design discussion on that, head over and check it out! 

Alright… going to start road trip prep. Hope you’re all safe and warm and dry! 

From Shanghai with Wet Shoes,

-American

Dear Insane Children, 

For those of you who missed it, there’s a Scruffy Bumps Theme Song posted over on my YouTube Channel. And it’s awesome. 

Scruffy Bumps is a murderous revenge cat possessed by an evil Egyptian death goddess who kills those who abuse animals. Rawr. 

Everyone I explain this idea to says, “Wow, yeah!” Because everyone wants to get revenge on people who treat animals badly. 

No telling how far this concept will go… but we’re working on a plush toy, film/tv concept, and more… 

Including an animation to accompany the theme song. 

Presented here are a couple of frames from the storyboard for that animation. There’s a link below to a PDF containing the full storyboard. 

This project is being put together by Tom Resnick and his brother Ben. Seems the creative force is strong in that family! 

Let us know in the comments below what you think of the concept for this animation. And also share any thoughts or ideas you might have in relation to Scruffy Bumps! 

From Shanghai with Darkened Places, 

-American

Dear Insane Children, 

The Alice: Asylum art team continues to crank through images for the Design Bible. And today we have art from Adam depicting a game play sequence Alice will encounter under a dreamlike representation of The Home for Wayward Children – inspired by the Dollhouse sequence in Madness Returns. 

The art brief for this area reads: 

Art Task ?Briefing: ?Render a scene that showcases Alice encountering the “Drowning Spectral Hands” and the mechanic of turning off the Valves in gameplay.

?This scene will also showcase the level design for this particular section of gameplay.

As far as drama and character, in the scene; either show Alice in the process of being drowned by these hands; and/or interacting with or turning a valve.

?Show the threat she faces here, and the level design/exploration in a single key scene.

?Art Task Output: ?Render a scene that captures the “lower half of the building” as described in the narrative excerpt below.

?Design and explore how the “Spectral Hands” look and work in the water gameplay scenes.

?DESIGN NOTES: ?American envisions this scene drawing heavily from the “Dollhouse” sections of Alice Madness Returns. Splintered wood. Nails. Darkness. A description he used, was like a “London ?grimy sewer, but every 8th brick or so was child’s “alphabet block”. Parts of dolls, and toys are blended architecturally into an otherwise grimy and scary Realistic London Sewer scene”.

?We do NOT want this section vibrant and brightly colored. Be careful not to let the toy and childish aspects of the level design override the grim and aesthetic.

?American envisioned the “Spectral hands” like Doll Hands.

Narrative Excerpt:
?We PLAY as Alice jump-floats from building to building, finally arriving at the Home for Wayward Children. The building sits upon its own floating island with the wrecked remains of the nearby neighborhood dangling and floating in the surrounding air.

?The lower levels of the building are flooded while the upper level is on fire. Ghostly visages of children continue to sing, dance, and play inside the area – oblivious to the chaos around them.

he building design forces Alice to enter through a sub-basement area and fight her way up. This section is flooded and the pools of water contain spectral hands that reach out to drown Alice at every turn.

?Here she finds the Valve and turns it – causing the water to drain away. This blocks her ability to exit via the way she came so she continues upward.

Into the main floors of the building, Alice passes orphans, caretakers, and adults in scenes from the past – attempted adoptions; children playing games; etc.

?The second floor of the building, leading to Bumby’s office, is on fire. Alice navigates and fights her way through this to arrive at the door of Bumby’s office.

Entering Bumby’s Office triggers a flashback.

And for this section, Adam produced the following sketches… 

Of which he says… 

Here are my sketches for the flooded basement visual, showing the process of turning the valves and of Alice fending off or dodging the spectral hands coming from the bubbling water. These are compositional sketches, the final version can have more creepy toy details embedded in these surroundings. The metal bars in the corridor are inspired by the similar bars in the old London sewers, and they’re my idea for a gateway that closes behind Alice, forcing her to go up the stairs to the next location.

To which Alex replied: 

Looks awesome Adam.
Love the gate portcullis designs. A & ?C are the ones for me. Super dynamic angles, love the level design too. Only thing, I’m wondering if we can see Alice’s face in one of them, like she’s turning to see the hands coming towards her like in D Either way, incredible, looking forward to seeing it take shape however it needs to.

And Omri added: 

i agree with Alex, A is the best one. personally i don’t need the face, but i would like if the hands would look more like Bumby’s like hinting the place is still under his control. i think you can start working on it, it’s pretty great.

Let us know in the comments what YOU think! 

PS: Due to travel and schedule conflicts, there will be NO live stream this week. But we will be back the following week with lots of art, design, and other great progress. 

From Shanghai with Dolls Heads, 

-American

Dear Insane Children, 

Font Lord here with the results of the poll to what the next 6 art prints should be.
Around half of you sent in your votes and based on some of the comments on that post, it was very difficult to choose just 6    🙂

You’ll also notice that in this post I’m going to use 2 methods to describe when/who will get the prints, and we need to ask you about this at the end.

So, as you see above, the header image for this post is THE CAGING.
This will be the next print for July Patrons (Meaning those charged in August)

And here are the next 5 months…

August Patrons, charged in September
UNIVERSAL TRINITY

September Patrons, charged in October
BIRTH OF JABBERWOCK

October Patrons, charged in November
BATTLE OF JUDGEMENT AND HATTER’S QUEST.
(yes it’s 2 prints this month)

November Patrons, charged in December
VORPAL GLASS

December Patrons, charged in January
ALICE MEETS CHESH

There we go, YOU have spoken!
Some great ones there, but alas, some other great ones didn’t make the cut (this time).
Maybe when we do this again for 2022 they will?  😉

————–

Now, help us out please.

When we describe what month a print is for, we have 2 schools of thought here.
The Caging print for example.
Do we…
1) Say it’s for July Patrons
2) Say its for those Patrons charged in August

Those 2 choices are for the exact same people, so you can see there’s a bit of confusion here. It’s a like a utility bill. You use electric in one month, but actually get charged for your usage in the next.

But here’s the problem, if we say that a print is for July Patrons, would you be confused?
Not knowing if that meant you had to be joined in July or charged in July?

So, thoughts?
What’s clearer and more understandable to you?
How about a 3rd option just like in this very post, that we always use this format, “July Patrons, charged in August” etc etc…

Let us know.
But we will also endeavor to state the art print for the coming month at the start of each new month too   😉

– Cheers