Dear Insane Children

Phew… almost forgot to do this with all that’s been going on.

As you might know, each month we’re going to use a random number generator and pick 5 patrons to send some goodies out to.
Wheeee !!!

This month, The Lucky 5 will each be getting an Omega Necklace, but please bear in mind the shipping delays due to that pesky Coronavirus, so the winners are likely not to see the prizes for at least another month or 2   🙁

Ok, here we go…. *opens Google RNG*

* Stephanie Brejla
* Samantha Gebbie
* Erin Flores
* Nina Rief
* Allison Meraz

Huge congratulations and look forwards to getting your goodies…soon….ish….

Like last month, we can’t have a post with no pics in, so have another Lulu from my collection  😉

– Cheers

Dear Insane Children

Font Lord here. How you all doing?

Just a quick message to let you all know that although the Coronavirus is messing some things up, such as keeping American trapped in Thailand and also having the shipping/warehouse companies over here shut down, that everything else is proceeding as normal from my end.

So this means that even though shipping of prints and other physical items has slowed/stopped for now, all your data from Patreon is still being collected and readied in the relevant excel sheets and online databases for when shipping can resume.
This is for both Patreon and Mysterious.
In a nutshell, if you bought something or are expecting something, it hasn’t been forgotten about and it WILL come eventually   🙂

In other news, progress is still moving along with the new Backerkit Feature we’re working on which means that for future Patreon goals, you won’t have to mess around with changing your tiers to get what you’re wanting and indeed EVERYONE who’s a patron in the relevant month is eligible for the goals if they make up the difference on Backerkit.  Woot !!
Hopefully this new way of doing things will be less confusing for everyone when we write our “how to get this goal” instruction posts.

And speaking of goals.
You all probably know that we’re doing the Enamel Pins next.
We hope that this will be VERY soon.
But hey, in the meantime, have some Enamel Pin pics of the final product, and yes, they’ll also come with 5x locking back clasps, and they’re all about 2.5cms on their long side.

VERY cool    🙂

Ok, let’s all stay safe out there and avoid the lurg !

– Cheers

Dear Insane Children, 

First off massive apologies for the delay since the last update. Things around here have been rather hectic as I’ve tried to sort out plans and strategies for how we might deal with this coronavirus outbreak both with regards to my family and our various projects.

After much consultation with family, friends and experts it was decided that I should stay in Thailand until this situation resolved itself a bit more. And that I should not try to return to China for fear that I might be thrown into quarantine or be unable to return to Thailand for the start of pirate Jam in March. After making that decision I needed to rush around to extend my Visa and make other plans and preparations for an extended stay. Hence the delay in updates.

Given that the virus seems to be spreading also here in Thailand and that there are a lot of Chinese tourists that come into contact with the marina where I keep my sailboat I decided to evacuate from the marina and head out onto the water where I feel I’ll be a little bit safer.

I’m currently on my way to a remote Northern Island where I think I’ll be able to settle down, get access to fast internet, and hopefully get some work done. 

For those that are unaware this virus outbreak seems to be quite severe and possibly even growing in severity. Across China literally the entire country is on quarantine which means that families are locked within their homes and avoiding any sort of contact with the outside world. My family, Yan and Lucky and her mom are, like everyone else, hiding indoors until the government gives the okay to emerge again. The current official schedule is that people will resume work on the 10th of February. And that schools will reopen on the 17th of February. So you might imagine that in a country of 1.3 billion people the entire population being told they are not allowed to go outside or return to work until the 10th of February is pretty serious. And we’re now hearing rumors that that date may be extended by another 7 to 10 days in an effort to contain what appears to be a virus that spreads from person to person without any visible sign of the person who spreading it even being infected.

I won’t go into further detail here suffice to say I am very worried about my family and about my friends and about everyone back in China. I am uncertain if staying in Thailand is indeed the correct decision here but that decision has been made and there are no more flights for me to get on to go back home anyway. So I will be keeping an eye on the situation and updating everyone here as time allows. I expect to arrive at my destination in about two days time at which point I should be able to download new artwork from the team and provide you with some updates on Alice Asylum and our other projects.

One positive side effect of the situation is that I’ve had plenty of time out here on my own to ponder the story that were working on and the game design that we’re building. And so I’ll be collecting together notes and integrating that into the design and work that we’ve been doing so far. Just trying to find a little silver lining in the midst of all of this apocalyptic Doom.

And I don’t know whether it is a sign or what but I find it darkly amusing that the logo I chose to put on my boat looks very much similar to the shape of the coronavirus itself. I guess that’s what Carl Jung would have called synchronicity. 

From Chaos with Love, 

American

Dear Insane Children, 

Seems Dormouse is really sticking it to us for the Year of The Rat!

Lots of my friends, family, Pirates, and Insane Children writing to ask for updates on the situation in China. As many of you are aware, there’s an outbreak of Coronavirus which originated in Wuhan and is spreading to other parts of China and the world. You can read live updates via The NYT.

In addition to the millions of people in China who are currently suffering through a lockdown, this situation significantly impacts me, my projects, and my friends and family since we are based in Shanghai and we do business around China and Asia. 

For me and my family… I am currently safe and on my own in Krabi, Thailand after a Chinese New Year sailing/diving trip. News of the outbreak first reached me while sailing around remote islands far away from civilization. I suppose if you must go through a viral/zombie apocalypse that being on a sailboat in the middle of nowhere might be a good place to be… but with Yan and Lucky back in Shanghai, it’s been difficult for me to take in solace in my isolation. 

Yan and Lucky are OK. Like millions of other people in China, they are staying indoors and will be safe there. They have plenty of food and water. And Yan’s mom is there to help with the baby and house chores. Martin naturally stays indoors at all times and so likely hasn’t noticed anything unusual going on. 

We are all safe and healthy. And your concern and well wishes are very much appreciated. 

For our business and projects… China has imposed a mandatory extension to the Chinese New Year holiday period to February 10th. And extended the holiday for schools until the 17th. 

This means that the services we use to produce, fulfill, and ship orders (both to Patrons and to Mysterious customers) are also suspended until the 10th. If you’ve ordered something from Mysterious in recent weeks or are waiting on a Patron Reward, please be prepared for delays. Things will eventually start moving again but I imagine we’re looking at a 30~60 day delay in these systems. 

I have seen some trolls on Twitter suggesting that it’s unsafe to order things from China due to the risk of this virus being carried to your doorstep in the mail. This is Not A Thing. Viruses cannot live on exterior surfaces for more than 3-12 hours. Plenty of articles out there debunking this myth like This One.

Going Foward

As I write this update there are more and more airlines (16 right now) canceling flights to/from China. I’m not scheduled to return to Shanghai until next week (Feb 5th) but have no idea what the situation will look like a week from now. Will all flights to/from China be canceled by then? Does it even make sense to risk exposure by traveling, sitting on a plane for 5 hours, going through immigration in China – and risking quarantine – when I am already scheduled to return to Thailand for Pirate Jam at the end of February? Maybe it’s better to just sit tight here in Thailand? 

Right now I can’t answer those questions but am keeping an eye on the situation and will try to make the right decision at the appropriate time. 

Pirate Jam 2020 is scheduled to kick off on March 2nd, 2020 on Phuket here in Thailand. Unless this situation turns into a global pandemic and shuts down all air travel around the globe, then I don’t expect it to have a significant impact on Pirate Jam. The only people scheduled to attend Pirate Jam flying from China are myself and Yan… but I am already here in Thailand. And if Yan can’t make it, I’ll be sad but I’ll find a stand-in Pirate Assistant. 

Last but not least, work on Asylum will continue as per usual. Our artists will continue to crank out new images while we work on design and story. If I am stuck here long term then we’ll figure out some sort of remote Livestream and Crowd Design solution. And I am able to keep my upcoming Business Development calls in place regardless of where in the world I might be. 

Despite everything – and my feeling out of sorts about being away from my family – I suppose I should be thankful that our method of work lends itself quite well to this type of situation. We all work from home and mostly hide inside anyway. And your support continues to flow and make that work possible. So, thank you, for making our business sustainable through these tough times. 

That covers everything I can think of right now. 

“Tragedy” is an overly appropriate Art Print to select at a time like this. And so this will be the Art Print for January 2020 (AKA the pledges processed on February ~5th). So if you’re interested in this print, jump in now! It’s a beauty!

PS: I will post another update in the next 24 hours which contains all the new artwork being produced by our team for Alice: Asylum. 

From Thailand with Love, 

-American

Dear Insane Children, 

HELLO! Long-time no see! I’ve been away from a proper internet connection for a while now. Kinda lost track of time as we sailed between various islands here in Thailand. We’ve been blessed with calm seas, nice winds, and beautiful blue skies. Certainly a better situation than what’s going on back in Shanghai where they’re dealing with dark and cold weather… plus a scary new flu virus. Glad to be away from that! 

Meanwhile, our Asylum team continues their work on various aspects of design and art. Omri sent along a report on everyone’s progress. 

Dario’s work, i asked him to design the “Laboratory + Observatory (second floor)” we talked about what to expect there and gave him a direction. he made 3 versions of the locations and i thought that they all looked amazing BUT Mashed together, so he merged them up into one! hence the finished image (got it today). if you’ll look closely you can see the individual areas in the larger image.

Tragedy print- it wasn’t shown on Patreon the final version, attached.

(AJM: I pasted this above as the main image)

Alchemy symbols, fire and symmetrical shapes are infused in the image, also the house on a zoom-in

Norman’s more animals (now we will go towards the dormouse and hare) two animals that were not shown

All the animals in game are NOT killable, we don’t kill animals, they show the world.

Plague doctor crows, i think they can be great.

Royal Forest-  Again! you need to show the Two images.
If the hatter’s domain is so LSDed up it’s probably impossible to physically get there through Queensland unless you go by foot step by step. Mercury made everyone go insane, which will explain the insane characters you meet and see along the way.

I think that the entrance can be hidden in the Royal forest as a “mercury mine”, i took inspiration from Joey’s image (attached). i think Alice can be dumped there and this whole ordeal at Queensland, getting there can be a Dream-like sequence with slow motion and odd.
we talked about it and this is what i had in mind, i think it’s easier to give feedback after seeing the art.

Thank you, Omri! Great stuff! And more where that came from. 

Also, a reminder that we have a pretty HUGE conversation happening right now with a company that is interested in funding and publishing Alice: Asylum. And we should see more progress on that front in February. Keep your fingers crossed!

While I am out here bobbing around in the ocean I’m also putting some effort into thoughts and notes on narrative and design for the game. Time away from all the distractions of modern life can be great for this and I am thankful for that. Yay!

Only a few days until Chinese New Year and the start of The Year of the Rat! Hope all you rats have your red underwear ready 😉 

From Ko Lipe with Love, 

-American

Dear Insane Children, 

Ahoy from Shanghai! Captain American back on land after a week of travel, sailing, and location scouting in Thailand. LOTS to catch up on! And I missed you all so much! 

Oh… I did try on a couple of occasions to write an update from Thailand but was thwarted by unstable and slow Internet connections. Such is life at sea! Arg, matey! Back in Shanghai, I’ve been informed that our Internet connection is now “5G” … really? Anyway, it’s certainly faster than what I’ve had for the last week!

So… What’s going on… 

Pirate Jam 2020

Location scouting was successful. I found a number of great places we’ll add to this year’s Pirate Jam route. Islands and beaches where our pirates can explore secret caves, snorkel around coral reefs, and witness the nightly flight of giant fruit bat colonies. Oh… and enjoy some spectacular sunsets!

Want to join us? Well, you still have a chance! 

Starting at 8PM Hong Kong Time on January 10th, 2020 we’ll host a 48-hour Online Game Jam at itch.io where you could win the Grand Prize… an (almost-all) expenses paid trip to Thailand to join the Pirate Jam fleet! Arg, matey!

Check out all the details over on the Pirate Jam Pre-Jam Skirmish Page at itch.io

Plus, we’re awarding 50 Silver Doubloons as Runner Up Prizes. Shiver me timbers! These things are MASSIVE!

Enamel Pins are DONE

The factory just emailed us to say the Enamel Pins Sets are DONE. Yay!

They even used a handy Potato to take some Craptastic(TM) pictures on random weird backgrounds… Ok, factory. But… Why the dirty blue tower behind the one but not behind the other? And whose finger is … that… What? Why?!

Anyway, we’ll take some proper photos once we have samples in hand. Soon!

And we’ll make these a Patreon Goal for February 2020. Stay tuned for details on how exactly it’s going to work – and whether or not we can employ some Backerkit Magic to reduce the number of hoops you have to jump through in terms of adjusting Tiers and Pledges and whatnot. 

Back to the Snow Globe

But what of Wonderland? Fret not Inmates! TONS of progress was made on Asylum in my absence. 

Joey sent along a variation on the Snow Globe concept where we start to see all of Wonderland captured within…

And Norm’s been busy on some freakish new creatures for Hatter’s Domain…

And Dario further illustrates the exploded details of that domain’s buildings and locations… 

And Omri brainstorms on Modes of Transport in Wonderland with the Dodo (Train?) (above) and the Hall of Doors (fast travel mechanic)… 

And Omri went back and added a bit of detail to some illustrations from Queen’s Domain…

TOO MUCH STUFF

I’ve only scratched the surface here… We’ve got a ton more images and concepts to look at. I’ll post those soon – but we also need to have another Live Stream so we can review everything as a group… And guess what? 

Hit THIS LINK to head over to YouTube and set a reminder to join us!

It’s at an odd time. Because I just landed back in Shanghai late last night (Wednesday) and didn’t have the energy or time to make it work this morning. And I am flying AGAIN next week on Thursday – so we have to do it earlier in the week. 

So Sunday-Sunday-Sunday! Monster Dodo Rally! Live on YouTube! Don’t Miss It! Arrrg!

That’s it for now. I’ll post more images and design thoughts – plus share with you some Design Bible concepts from Alex – in the next update. Soon! 

From Shanghai with Dodos, 

-American