Dear Insane Children, 

We hosted an excellent Live Stream over on my Twitch Channel yesterday. 

Not subscribed to my Twitch Channel?! Sign up here: 

www.twitch.tv/americanmcgee 

And if you missed the Live Stream when it was live… don’t worry! You can watch it over on my YouTube Channel via THIS LINK. 

Lots of great art, design, and story stuff was discussed! Including these wonderful illustrations from Adam for the Judgement/Courthouse section in the Queen’s Domain. And Joey’s work on The Pieces of The Champion – elements that will form the backbone of Alice’s quest through Asylum. 

And there was a portion of SPOILERS related to the narrative that many of you might find interesting. If you are worried about spoilers, then rest assured that we did call it out and warn everyone before we started that discussion. 

Hope you enjoyed the latest updates!

Oh, and [REDACTED] came through with a document that moves forward our process with them. Arrived in my inbox last night… and I’ll be working with the team on a reply and scheduling a meeting with [REDACTED] for next week. Yay! 

From Shanghai with [REDACTED], 

-American

Dear Insane Children, 

Work on writing and illustrating the narrative outline for Alice: Asylum continues – with the team fully engaged on a large number of art tasks we’re pulling from the game story. The idea is to present a Design Bible – something like an illustrated novel – that you can read through from start to finish to get a full understanding of the game in its final form. 

There’s a section where Alice first enters The Queen’s Domain and must pass through Judgement (a physical “courthouse” building filled with obstacles and dangers). The story for that part of the game reads: 

ANGER/JUDGEMENT REALM – THE COURTHOUSE

Arriving at The Courthouse steps Alice is warned by The Knave that this place is A Cruel Machine that answers to no one – not even The Queen. Once Alice enters the only way out is through The Trials and Judgement. If Alice is found Innocent, she will be allowed to continue on her journey to The Queen. If she’s found guilty, she’ll be sentenced to Croak for eternity. The Knave again implores Alice to return to The Circus. 

[NOTE: Alice won’t be convinced to turn around so The Knave gifts her a New Weapon – American Requested – Card Association / Valued Queen’s Possession / Grenade Launcher High Damage / Artillery Weapon]

We PLAY as Alice enters the halls of The Courthouse and begins to make her way through The Trials towards Judgement. What follows is a sequence of Challenge Spaces (Trials) that contain Puzzles, Combat Arenas, and Navigation Challenges. These lead to a Kafkaesque Main Hall, a surreal embodiment of bureaucracy and brutal judgment where the combat and navigation puzzles continue while Alice’s sins and crimes are read aloud by a stadium full of judges. 

Alice successfully completes The Trials and arrives at Judgment only to be told that, despite passing her trials, she’s been found guilty and will be sentenced to Croak for eternity. Alice is FURIOUS. So furious that she bursts into flames as she screams her rage at the mechanical face of judgment. But all her fury is in vain as the floor opens beneath Alice’s feet and she’s dropped screaming into the darkness. 

From there, Alice finds herself engaged in a life or death game of Croquet… but more on that later. 

As terrifying and challenging as this section of the game might be… Adam’s illustrations make me want to jump in and explore RIGHT NOW. 

Let us know in the comments below what you think of Judgement. And put your Crowd Design Hat on… I’m looking for your thoughts on challenges or other elements that would fit into this area! Share them in the comments below. Keep in mind that the theme of this area is the link between PTSD-Anger-Judgement. 

The idea is that when we suffer a trauma we experience a lot of anger – at ourselves and at others. That anger usually contains a lot of negative projection or introspection – judgment and blaming of ourselves and others for the calamity that’s befallen us. As an example, it would not be out of place to hear whispers (sometimes shouts) of “It’s Your Fault!” blaming Alice as she moves through this space. 

What other kinds of dialog, challenges, and ideas might support the concept of Anger/Judgement here? Let me know in the comments below!

Housekeeping

Font Lord wants to me let you know that due to some delays at the Backerkit office, the surveys for this month’s Art Prints and Chaos Necklaces have not yet been sent out. He expects them to go out within the next week though. Your patience is appreciated! 

Calendar Feedback?

I’m seeing a number of people posting online that they’ve received their calendars. And everyone seems to be happy with the quality of the calendar – as we should expect from our Crowd Design efforts! But also lots of people commenting on the sturdy box these were shipped in. 

Did you get your calendar yet? Happy with it and the shipping container? 

Live Stream This Week

Ah, jeeze Rick, it’s already Wednesday!?! Woo, this week got away from me. Busy, busy!

Anyway, we’re hosting a live stream over on my Twitch channel tomorrow. 

Head over to www.twitch.tv/americanmcgee and subscribe for notification when we go live. It’ll be the usual time – 10AM Hong Kong Time and … 6PM PST (an hour earlier due to daylight savings!)

Please join us for Alice: Madness Returns, art review, Plushie Dreadful Crowd Design, business development updates, and all your questions/comments answered (if Martin can stay focused)! 

From Shanghai with Love, 

-American

(Note: This post is for promotional purposes and we want to give a HUGE thank-you to all current Patrons)

This is your one-stop destination for ALL things Alice: Asylum and other projects too such as Pirate Jam, Mysterious and Oz: Adventures.

We hope you will join us and the rest of The Insane Children in The Asylum and get your voice heard in the creation of the world’s first ever crowd-designed triple-A games.

By joining us, there are a multitude of perks and bonuses you could be receiving.
So let’s take a look at some of the most popular aspects of our Patreon…

1) Tiers

As you can see, we have 8 different tier levels.
Starting all the way down at the minimum of $1 a month which gets you access to all our posts and discussion about game design, and also the incredible art that our artists are frequently producing (more on that later).

$5 also gets you Discord access and your name displayed in our live-streams we do bi-monthly over on Twitch.

If you want to adorn your walls with our art, we have 2 tiers for that.
$35 for 3 months gets you a choice of ANY print that we have released over the last 2 years, and the mighty $75 tier gets you a print every month AND a one time Chaos Necklace.
We also frequently offer extra goodies and bonuses at these two tiers.

2) Artists

We now have SEVEN artists working on Alice: Asylum and Oz.
They are Joey, Jen, Alex, Omri, Norm, Dario, and Adam.
No doubt you have already seen (and been impressed by) some of their art around our various social media channels, but here’s another closer look for you.

Without artists, there is no art.
Without art, there is no business development.
Without business development, there is no Alice: Asylum.
And all this starts with the incredible support of our Patrons that allows us to hire this world class team.

3) Crowd Design

We always strive to ‘do right’ by our fans and supporters and want to be the very best at what we do while being as inclusive as possible.
This mindset is what gave birth to “Crowd Design”.

This not only encompasses the design of Alice: Asylum and Oz: Adventures in terms of creature design, weapon functionality, location aesthetics, overarching story and much more, but we also make sure that the products we bring to life are of the highest quality.

Recent examples of product Crowd Design are…
1) Enamel Pin Set
2) 2021 Calendar
3) Plushie dreadfuls
4) Embroided Patches 

And that’s just a small sample of the creativity that our Insane Children bring to the table.
We have lots more to create going forwards and can’t wait to see where the collective insane hive-mind takes us.

In terms of Crowd Design on the games, it’s hard to know where to start.
We have SO MANY posts, that are now unlocked and available to read even if you’re not a Patron.
We advise just going to the front page of this Patreon and diving headfirst into everything we’ve written in the past couple of months.  There’s lots of up-to-date info there about Alice, Oz and business development in general.  It’s all truly fascinating!

4) Alice & Oz

The main goal we are all working towards is the creation of the 3rd Alice game.
A prequel to American McGee’s Alice and Madness Returns, called Alice: Asylum.

This game will take place in the mind of adult Alice remembering back to her 13 year old self as she attempts to unify her younger and older self and prevent…. (SPOILERS  😉

As of writing this post (November 2020), we are currently in major talks with [REDACTED] to secure the funding and rights that will allow us to make this a reality.
Sorry, we can’t say who that is just yet.  All will be revealed in time.

Part of these talks with [REDACTED] also includes us diversifying our portfolio and creating more new ideas, which is where the tentatively named “Oz: Adventures” comes in.
An episodic delve into the history and mythos surrounding Oz and all the people (other than Dorothy) who have inadvertently found their way to that mysterious land.
Here’s some concept art for that from our newest artist, Adam Narozanski…

I know this was mentioned earlier, but it really is because of the support given to us by our Patrons that incredible art like this exists and allows us to show off our ideas and concepts when doing business development.
We are truly thankful for all the support and belief that our Insane Children continue to show us.

So what are you waiting for?
Join the Asylum today.
You’re mad if you don’t, but insane if you do…

Dear Insane Children,

As I continue to write through the narrative outline for Alice: Asylum, I’ve come to a point where the main scenes that define the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Act are written (or outlined and ready to be written)… but where there’s room to explore the Series of Adventures that define Alice’s path to victory during the 2nd Act. In other words, she’s given her Clear Goal(s) at the end of the 1st Act and sets off to overcome all obstacles leading up to the start of the 3rd Act. 

And there’s room here for some Crowd Design. And so, today, we’re going to engage the Power of the Poll. 

First, let’s define our Goal as a Creative Team: To fill in the space of the 2nd Act with mini-adventures that allow Alice to collect The Pieces of The Champion. 

The Pieces are bits of mechanical magic Hatter will use to transform the Jabberwock into a JABBERWOCK 2000 so The Queen can send him to defeat The Chaos. Right now we’ve defined The Pieces as: Heart, Brain, Eyes, Flesh. 

These pieces are strewn around Wonderland as a result of the explosion that blew apart Hatter’s Workshop (and his Domain in general). Which is why Hatter’s Domain looks like this when we visit it:  

Hatter sends Alice off to collect The Pieces of the Champion. And she travels around Wonderland (likely) using the Hall of Doors: 

Now… where does she go? Where does she find The Pieces? 

My sense is that The Pieces of The Champion and their location will contain a subtextual message with regards to Alice’s psyche, emotions, etc. As in, “The Eyes represent the window to the soul; we find the eyes in a realm full of windows and mirrors; the eyes are in Looking Glass Land.” (that’s just nonsense brainstorming, but you get the idea). 

Btw, we can always come up with more/different Pieces if we feel it’s necessary (or helpful in creating narrative links to interesting locations). 

So the question is… WHERE DO YOU WANT TO GO? What parts of Wonderland shall we explore? Do you want to revisit a favorite location from previous games (I really like the Vale of Tears)? Or do you want to build a place that’s mentioned in the books but we’ve never seen in-game? Or can you imagine some dark corner of Alice’s psyche that we’ve never explored? Maybe that place where we find all her memories from when she was a baby? 

The Poll contains a list of some places we thought might be interesting to explore. 

Have other ideas? Select “Other” and let us know in the comments. 

NO idea how this Poll thing works on Patreon. I think you can select more than one option… but try to limit your selections to 1~3. Would be nice to get at least one Clear Winner out of this. I mean, it’s the least we all deserve these days! 

From Shanghai with Love, 

-American

Dear Insane Children, 

I forgot to post THE LINK to last week’s Twitch Livestream (which is recorded and uploaded to YouTube)… so, if you missed the Halloween Special (and me dressed as Joe Exotic), hit that link and go enjoy the madness. 

Pro Tip: Dressing as Joe Exotic improves Madness Returns play skills by 93%. 

As we hit mid-week here in Shanghai, there’s tons going on… 

Joey sent in the updated/final version of the nightmare scene where Young Alice finds her family sitting around the dinner table while the house burns down around them. “It’s You Fault” by Bon Fire Jovi will be playing loudly in the background. 

Jen is working with Yan on a relaunch of the Original Distressed White Rabbit. And Jen sent over the Shoppe Logo (main image, above) for a fictitious toy shop called called “The Gryphon and The Jabberwock Toy Shoppe.” This is meant to be the Ye Olde place where Alice’s parents would have originally purchased her White Rabbit Plush Toy in or around 1852~53 (near Alice’s birth or first birthday). This image will be used on a newly designed Tote Bag – as we’ll be retiring the Rutledge Asylum bag that shipped with the first batch of these rabbits. 

Crowd Design Questions: What do you think of this logo design? And should it be “Jabberwocky” or “Jabberwock” in reference to the slithy creature from the book?

My thought is to have this logo on both sides of the new tote bag… keep it clean and simple. As it would have been if this were the tote bag from that shop. What do you think? 

Speaking of Rabbits, Yan is working on a Hoodie inspired by the Rabbit Plushes… 

If you’re interested in participating in the Crowd Design on this, check out the post over on my Instagram or the Mysterious Facebook Page. Yan is collecting info on color, size, materials, and other elements of design so she can make informed decisions about how to best launch this product. Your feedback would be greatly appreciated! 

This seems like a perfect bit of clothing for Insane Children. Perhaps we should offer a Discount Code for Patrons? Is that something our Insane Children would be interested in?

Back in Wonderland

We now have SEVEN artists working on Alice: Asylum… Joey, Jen, Alex, Omri, Norm, Dario, and we’ve just added Adam. You would have seen Adam’s work in the materials we produced for Oz: Adventures. Expect to see great things from him as we continue to build content for the Alice: Asylum design bible. 

Dario and Omri are currently working to nail down the look and feel of the Circus Realm. Not quite there yet. 

Of these attempts I wrote: 

Yeah, what @Alex Crowley said about “Just my opinion, but I think adding some more rickety, uneven wooden, platforms, planks and trapeze sections would enhance this.” is correct. I did not imagine that we’d be running around IN the clouds. 

There needs to be a clear and obvious series of “roads” connecting everything together … wooden paths and bridges and stuff. Larger “ground” areas in some places would be OK too.

But the vision is getting closer to the goal. 

Another image we struggled with a bit last week came from Omri… 

There was a lot of back-and-forth on Monday with regards to this image… with the content/goal of the image being pulled in several different directions. Of the last Work In Progress image Omri sent in I said, 

The skull thing simply does not work. It violates the rule of “Don’t Show The Monster” – showing the monster in clear detail within the first moments of the story. We cannot do that. The Terror, the thing stalking Alice, the monster… it must remain faceless, formless, and presented in a way such that the viewers mind fills in the blanks with horror and dread. Slapping a Skull on it… breaks that. 

Let’s not get bogged down on this. WIP is great. Sharing and involving our audience is good. Crowd Design is good. You’re doing great. Let just move on to the next thing on the list. Thanks! 

It’s tough when you have to “kill your darlings” (An excellent quote from Steven King: “Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.“), but that is what had to be done here.  

But fret not… there are SO MANY amazing images scheduled for creation based on the Asylum story outline that I am currently working on. Alex has produced several PAGES of direction notes for the team. That means there will be plenty more Darlings in our future.

And that reminds me to say THANK YOU, everyone. Our Insane Children make possible the existence of this team of 7 artists. Without your support, this effort would be impossible. It’s a wonderful thing that we’re able to create art, story, and design that we love without the sorts of limitations and pressures that would come from traditional finance and publishing sources. 

OH, and speaking of traditional finance and publishing… our presentation to [REDACTED] has gone out. And they have seen it and given a quick reply along the line of “Thanks for putting this together. Looks like a lot of hard work went into this. Give us some time to review as there’s a lot to consume here. And we’ll get back to you ASAP.” So that’s great! 

Everyone cross your fingers and toes! 

That’s it for this morning. I’m looking forward to your feedback in the comments below.

From Shanghai with Darlings,

-American

Dear Insane Children,

A Warm and Happy Halloween, Insane Children, from the Liddell family. And a spooky reminder that IT’S YOUR FAULT!

It’s Halloween morning here in Shanghai and Lucky is dressed as Captain Cute. Lulu’s wearing her favorite beggar outfit. And I’m still having flashbacks to life as Tiger King. Yee haw.

Thanks to Joey for this fiery illustration of Alice joining the Liddell Family BBQ during a nightmare flashback. This is a scene from the early moments of Alice: Asylum. One that obviously haunts Alice throughout her adventures.

Hope you all have a wonderful celebration night. Stay safe. Collect lots of treats. And avoid all forms of tricks!

From Shanghai with Boo!

-American