Dear Insane Children, 

It’s Christmas Eve in Shanghai and all through the house… Lucky is running like a crazy little mouse. Christmas music is playing. There’s a star atop the tree. And there’s even a remote control dump truck waiting for Lucky to open tomorrow morning. Yay! 

I hope that you are warm and happy wherever you are – and whatever you might or might not be celebrating these days. 

One sad bit of news… I had hoped we’d share a cool announcement with you in time for Christmas. But I’ve been told that the press release is on hold until the start of 2022. Sorry about that! And for getting anyone’s hopes up (I know my hopes were up). 

Still… when the news comes, I know everyone will be happy about it and will feel it was worth the wait. 

That being said… I still come with gifts of new art! So fret not!

First up… the main image (above) is from Adam – a final render of “Torture” 

The scene description reads: 

The scene dissolves back to Alice’s audience with the Caterpillar.

Alice

That monster from the mirror is… me?

Caterpillar

Only a part of you. The monster lives within us all, Alice. But only a few can face it, much less embrace it.

Remove the mask, Alice. See the truth in who you are. See who you become. There is a darkness in you, in us all, that must be faced…

The world morphs again, and Alice is in Rutledge Asylum. A flurry of brutal cutscenes play as Alice is beaten, cut, starved, and slammed into the floor and walls of her cell. As her ears ring, we see Alice erupt in a vicious HYSTERIA. Her eyes turn pitch black. The scene zooms into the darkened depths of Alice’s eyes as circus music invades…

?<Scene Ends>

And woo, that’s a great illustration. Love it!

Joey also dropped an updated version of a scene from the opening of the game… where Alice enters her family home and finds the family celebrating around a tentacle cake. Yikes.!

That’s a yummy-looking cake, huh? 

Last up, Gareth is working on storyboarding some critical scenes from the Narrative Outline…

These panels depict a section of the story where The Knave gets torn to bits by Shadow Alice. Nothing says “Christmas” like your inner shadow tearing apart an Insane Child! 

From Shanghai with Holiday Warmth, 

-American

Dear Insane Children, 

Here’s a fun Crowd Design task for everyone: 

Help us define and design the demons that lurk inside the mind of an evil lawyer. Is “evil lawyer” redundant? Haha. Everyone loves to hate on lawyers… so this one should be easy! 

From the Design Brief: 

44.2) Enemy Design Tasks – Otherlands Enemy Designs – Page 165 (v2.1)

?Render, explore and create as many end-game enemies as required that fit Radcliffe’s Otherland.

Can be rendered to represent twisted versions of Radcliffe, or horrible portions of his Psyche.
Manifestations of his own defense mechanisms and personal demons against Alice.

Answer the question; what is inside of Radcliffe’s head, and how would he fight back against Alice here?

—–

??Narrative Excerpt:

FINAL LEVEL

ALICE IN RADCLIFFE’S OTHERLAND

The walls of the room blow apart as Radcliffe and Alice tumble into a spiraling Abyss.

Alice floats with the elegance of a ballerina.

Radcliffe is crying and screaming out, a tumbling, blubbering mess, memories of vile deeds he has committed fly past and into his eyes. Horrible manifestations of insatiable greed, envy, and wrath swiftly devour, bite and chew at his body as he falls. Spiraling and tumbling into the void, the man cannot fathom or process his own darkness.

We PLAY as Alice runs through Radcliffe’s Otherland. She battles past hoards of his inner demons towards the seat of his consciousness. The world is a place of books and ledgers. Words and documents flutter through the sky overhead. The mind of a man whose internal world is propped up by twisted logic and the smugness of an expert in legal warfare. But his way with words is no match against Alice’s blade and cunning.

She reaches his center of logic and throws her Vorpal Blade into the works. In an instant, the edifice of his self-image is destroyed and the reality of his cruelty unleashed. The monster within is freed from its cage and allowed to run rampant throughout his mind-destroying everything it touches.

He has no light within. His darkness eats him alive. He is broken and lost.

Truly a monster within a monster.

Alice exits Radcliffe’s Otherland. Leaving him to be consumed from within by his own demons.

END of DESIGN BRIEF 

And just to give you some idea of what we’re going for here… 

This was a unique monster design Joey did a while back. We need stuff like this… but in a theme more fitting to Radcliffe’s mind. 

Let us know what you come up with! 

PS: I am still waiting on news regarding the news that I’m hoping gets announced soon. I was told to expect it late last week or early this week. And I also hope that we can do a special Live Stream around that topic once the news is announced. Now… I guess there’s a chance these guys might email and say, “It’s not happening before Christmas” … in which case, boo. But also, that probably means there won’t be a Live Stream this week. Let’s wait and see though… I’ll keep you updated!

I hope everyone is preparing for a warm and happy holiday. 

From Shanghai with Love, 

-American

Dear Insane Children, 

Another trip around the sun for me – today (December 13th in the USA) is my 49th birthday. Woo.

And it’s an excellent birthday too! I am VERY HAPPY with where life is these days. Surrounded by a happy family, supported by wonderful Insane Children, making tons of great art, design, story, and plush toys.

And I happen to know that we’re going to announce something very cool in the next few days… 

Due to that announcement, I want to postpone this week’s live stream. Save it for next week – that way we can dedicate a large portion of the stream to discussing that announcement and what it means for everything we’re working on. 

We’ll also have lots of great art to discuss. Like the Final Version of “The Christening” from Omri (main image above). Glorious! 

And some really amazing Work In Progress stuff as well like this Alice + Queen boss fight:

In the meantime, I hope ya’ll are having a great week. 

From Shanghai with Love, 

-American

Dear Insane Children, 

Oh boy. I just learned some big news. 

Can’t provide any details right now. 

But there is an announcement coming. 

Very exciting! 

From Shanghai with Glee, 

-American 

Dear Insane Children, 

Adam sent over a follow-up sketch to the previous post. This combines some of the elements from those images to present a surreal scene in which everything terrible Alice experienced in the Asylum is reflected back to her in one terrifying moment. 

There’s a question of which of these should be fully illustrated. But first, Adam says of these: 

I have two ideas that could tie all these visuals together into an artistic and elegant composition, namely a shattered mirror.

Idea one:
??So the entire poster is a broken mirror, each broken piece acting like a screen that’s showing a different traumatic memory. In the middle we would see the reflection of Alice screaming, her face broken apart by the cracks of the broken mirror, symbolizing her psyche breaking.

?Or she would be in front of the mirror , so that it only acts as a background

?Idea two: Alice is kneeling on the floor, screaming, entering hysteria, while the memories appear around her, in a form of multiple, round mirrors, made of tarry substance (similar to tentacles) that float and revolve around Alice so that she can’t break free from them.

?The first idea is much closer to what Alex proposed, though I wanted to share both my ideas as food for thought. What do you think?

So let him know in the comments below what YOU think!

Omri had an idea… 

And says…

B is great but i think This shows the MANY memories.
?a TON of mirrors.. what do you think?

And Alex said… 

Both of these are brilliant. Here are my thoughts.

?I think (B) communicates the ideas of memories and experiences of the Asylum clearer. I would prefer to see that one rendered.
?It might just be from the amount of physical space you have to communicate/render the abusive memories. You can see more of them.

?Showing the reverse of the mirrors ?in (A) I think limits that side of it also.

For me… I really like Omri’s idea. But I also said I love both of these sketches so much that I want to see BOTH of them rendered fully. 

Let us know in the comments below your thoughts! 

From Shanghai with Madness, 

-American

Dear Insane Children, 

Do you remember your childhood? I once heard that when adults can’t remember their childhood, it suggests the memories were not worth keeping – that perhaps there was pain, sadness, and/or abuse in the past. I have some happy memories. Also, some are painful. And lots of gaps in between.

Never knew my father and never knew the true circumstances of my conception. Depending on whose version of that event you believe, the truth of my coming into being lies somewhere between terrible and not-good. Regardless of the “how,” the result was I was raised by a single mother. One who sometimes failed to select appropriate partners. And so there were… events. Ranging from being locked outside on a patio overnight to being thrown from a boat into a patch of seagrass (scared to death, tangled up, and almost drowned). 

Yeah, there was physical violence. But mostly it was psychological. Even the worst kind of bullies know it’s difficult to make excuses for a kid with too many bruises. And, from the perspective of the abuser, psychological warfare is much more “fun.” Taunting, tricking, and torturing a child without hitting… is something that can go on for years without anyone ever knowing. And if the child tries to tell someone? 

Well, “He’s just making it up. Has an overactive imagination.” 

I’ll show you a fucking overactive imagination. 

All of this to say… Alice’s torture within the asylum is, for me, a topic akin to the fuel rods inside a nuclear power plant. It burns and pulses within, providing an angry power to all my creative efforts on this franchise. It doesn’t define the main character but it is a prime motivator for many of her actions and reactions. 

And as much as I hate to think about my own personal experience with all of this… I hate to imagine anyone else (even a fictional character) going through this kind of thing. But we must go there… we must dive into the deepest and darkest moments – if only for the brilliant contrast created when our hero finally breaks free from the pain of her past. The light at the end of the tunnel is only as bright as that tunnel is dark. 

And that’s what today’s illustrations are about… 

These are glimpses into moments of terror and torture experienced by Alice in the asylum. 

I’ve made it clear to our team that we can say a lot about what happened here without actually showing (too) much. And that it is not our goal to produce something akin to “torture porn” – we won’t go there. That is not and has never been the point of this journey nor of these scenes.

So the main emphasis in these images is the relationship between Alice and her White Rabbit Plush Doll. And shows that the orderlies (echoes of Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum) know the best way to inflict harm on Alice is to harm her furry companion. 

Once again, Adam and the art team are creating incredible images to illustrate these powerful scenes from within in Asylum Narrative. Really amazing (and difficult) work. 

There are some earlier versions of these illustrations. Ones that include elements I felt uncomfortable with… and which I believe will never see the light of day. These go far enough. 

Adam is now working on some concepts which pull together all of these images into one that represents the mental shattering that takes place within Alice’s psyche.

I appreciate you being along for this journey. And I hope that some of you will find comfort in seeing our hero endure and overcome these obstacles. Because that’s what this story is really about – showing that you can escape any abyss. I’ve done it. She’s doing it. And you can too. 

From Shanghai with Love, 

-American