Dear Insane Children, 

During our recent Crowd Design discussions over on Discord we’ve stumbled on a sticky question with regards to dresses. So we’ve decided to put the question to a poll and see which option wins based on votes. Here’s the deal… 

How do we want the collection of and use of dresses to work in Alice: Asylum? 

Option 1: Alice: Madness Returns Style. That means dresses are linked to domains and only accessible as a function of the linear narrative and presence in those domains. In other words, The Denial Dress is only seen/worn in the Denial Stage of the game. But once you’ve completed the entire game you unlock the complete wardrobe of dresses and can choose to wear any dress in any location. 

Option  2: Gangnam Style. You unlock dresses as you move through the game and can select and wear any dress at any time in any location. That means you could unlock the Denial Dress and then select it later in the game at any stage (including taking a dress from later in the game back to an earlier stage).

So… which of these do you prefer?

Dear Insane Children, 

Greetings from behind The Great Firewall! While the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and the National People’s Congress (NPC) continue in Beijing we’re still suffering Internet Sadness Disorder. All the VPN companies are embattled and expats around China are variously sad, furious, and feeling a general sense of disconnectedness. There are articles on the topic if you’re interested. But the bottom line is that we likely have a few more days of this until things go back to normal. 

That being said, I do have a fancy new VPN router which is providing my current connection to the outside world … and it seems to be doing alright. Fingers crossed. 

We’ll give it a shot for tomorrow’s Crowd Design Livestream on Discord. 

If you’d like to join us while we continue to discuss Alice’s Dresses and aren’t yet hip to all things Discord, then check out THIS article on the subject. 

We’ll kick things off at 9AM HKT (Tuesday), 6PM PST (Monday). 

Omri’s provided us with the an image of the dresses collected together and sent along a note with some clarifications: 

Numbered and in order:

1. Prelude, Fire, at the Hospital, Alice was directly taken from the fire.

2. Prelude, The Asylum, washed and clothes were replaced. Can possibly be bald.

3. Shock – Rabbit, white sky concept, Stealth, DLC version Also

4. Denial, Classic yellow dress, goes sees the circus

5. Denial, Circus – Forced to perform, sings whatever.

6. Denial, Moon, Rabbit’s Realm. There are Two versions of this dress, this is it.

7. Anger, Queen of heart’s realm. Chaos Dress. 

I think the Queen can give her the outfit AND the Knife AND the Compass

8. Bargaining, Joey’s version is better but it looks like the asylum dress, We might need to revisit.

9. Depression, If Alice will travel with this dress around, i think it can be fluffier.

10. Testing – Aggression. When she wants to fight the jabberwock.

11. Acceptance, Harvest- Final Boss fight

12. Slumber, i think the original dress should appear ONLY at the very end of the game.

13. INFERNO and Rage are both MODES not dresses, they should be a Collectible.

OVERALL:

1. I liked the modular approach to the dresses. that the player can “take out” the power up of the dress and combine it into another dress, so the dress is actually only aesthetic

2. We have some dresses that are kinda viral and i’d recommend creating them as a DLC like “The Red Dress” it’s really viral.

3. People never get enough of these designs and i’m good at it, i think perhaps i should create more clothing for more characters, something to consider.

4. I don’t mind if Alice will get the blade with the Chaos dress as it’s the central theme of the story.

5. I would like if there will be “Glitches” in the character, so the On Off concept will always be visible, no matter what’s she’s wearing. in ALL the outfits.

— — — Thanks, Omri! 

White Rabbit Plushes continue arriving with Insane Children around the world!

One of our Inmates, kitsune.kid (on Instagram) transformed herself into a White Rabbit with this amazing makeup artistry! Wow!

If you are still waiting on your Rabbit from Patreon or Mysterious… don’t fret!

Tracking Info is on BackerKit for Patrons. If you ordered a bunny from Mysterious the you’ll receive a tracking link via email (allow ~48 hours from the time of order for this email to arrive). 

Delivery time varies depending on your location, weather conditions, etc… but in general ranges from 2 weeks ~ 1 month. No need to freak out unless your wait time exceeds 1 month. In that case, PM or email us. We’ll get you sorted!

If your tracking hasn’t updated for a while that’s normal. There are no updates on tracking while the package is on a boat crossing the ocean. Just think of all those bunnies crossing oceans! So brave! 

We still have 50 Patrons who have not filled in their BackerKit info for their Rabbit. You can’t get a rabbit if you don’t respond to the BackerKit survey! Check your Junk folder and do a Search of your emails! 

And we’re still getting caught up on sending out art prints. Patience, please 🙂 

Questions? PM US! 

Suggestions for the Dress Discussion? Post them in the comments below!

Did you get your Rabbit? How soft is that bunny? What did you name them? 

Look forward to reading your comments and discussing dress designs with you!

From Shanghai with Lulu,

-American

Dear Insane Children, 

Yesterday morning we had another in our series of Crowd Design meetings via Discord. The overarching topic was Alice’s collection of dresses but this quickly morphed into a discussion regarding the methods/designs surrounding the collection, organization, access to, and powers contained within those dresses. 

For instance, do we allow dresses to be collected and accessed at-will throughout the game – or do we present dresses in a linear fashion and then remove them from inventory once we’ve left the area which is linked to a particular dress? 

We made progress on a couple of important points but left the larger decisions to be settled at a later date. That will give us all time to consider these important choices. 

You can listen to the conversation over on YouTube via THIS LINK. 

Be sure to leave your feedback on this discuss in the comment below (here on Patreon). If you have a particular point you think should be highlighted in an upcoming stream, be sure to tag it with QUESTION or SUGGESTION. 

Want to join the Crowd Design sessions in the future? Please read this article on Discord Access. 

Many thanks to AsteriaVisual for recording, editing, and uploading this video for us!

Say Hello to Norman! He was the illustrator who, back in 1997, helped to define the look and feel for all the major Alice characters. Working with a collection of more than a dozen artists I’d really struggled to define what our Alice ought to look like. I had an idea in my head and was doing my best to describe this in words and music… but it wasn’t until a sketch from Norm showed up that I was able to say, “nailed it!” 

Today I’m thrilled to announce that Norm is back! He’s joined our little team of illustrators and designers and will contribute to character designs going forward. He told me that he’d like to start with The Mad Hatter and we had a quick chat about how the Asylum Hatter would be different from the one we meet in AMA or AMR. I’m really looking forward to what he comes up with. 

Check out his Facebook Page. 

This is a really happy day. And we’re here because of YOU. Without your support and encouragement our little project simply would not exist. I would not be in a position to bring on board this amazingly talented artists. So, THANK YOU, for helping me build our team. HAPPY DAY 🙂 

Other Progress

The main image above is another page from the our team is working on. Alex is putting his touch on the visual presentation – and I have to say, I think it’s looking great. 

What do you think? Would this convince you give us 20+ million dollars?

Once this is done we’ll start the process of pitching our project to a collection of potential financiers and publishers. Fingers crossed we get good traction! 

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Ok, now that we’ve got all that good stuff out of the way… I do have some sad news. Our Internet connection here in China is still struggling. Between Express, Nord, Ninja, and another of our dedicated VPN boxes I’m unable to maintain a stable connection. For office tasks I can get by (frustrating) but for video streaming… this won’t work at all. 

That means there will be NO live stream on YouTube tomorrow. Sad face. 

But we will continue researching alternative options… and, maybe Beijing will just stop screwing with VPNs… they do this sort of thing in waves once or twice per year. I think the issue right now is that the Chinese Congress is in session (something they do every 5 years) – and that during this time they generally tend to throttle the outgoing Internet connections. 

Art Prints, Necklaces, Shipping

Just a quick note to say that, yes, some of your physical items are a bit backlogged in terms of shipping. You can blame me for taking a 30 day vacation in February. Sorry! 

But we are catching up! I really appreciate you patience while we sign, pack, and ship 100’s of art prints and other items. 

Font Lord says all the Survey Monkey and Backerkit emails have been sent out (caught up) for rewards… so check your inboxes. Do an actual SEARCH for Survey or BackerKit.

He also says we might need to clarify that in the last livestream he said this month’s art reward is “Welcome to Rutledge” but that was actually last month’s art reward. We don’t yet know what this month’s art print is… should be something new from Joey or Omri (they are both working on new poster illustrations). 

If you have a question about any of this stuff, please PM US. 

From Shanghai with Firewalls,

-American

Hi everyone.

Martin here again with a few bits and pieces to tell you about while American is up to his eyeballs in salty sea-dog pirate shenanigans.

1) DISCORD !!
Yes, tomorrow (March 12th)  we’re back doing the Discord live-chat/design meeting.

This will take place at 9am HK time, so please check to see what time this is in your particular location due to recent daylight savings changes, and then come and join us for the fun.

2) JOEY ART
At the top of this page you’ll see some rather lovely sketchings from Joey that shows you what other images she’s currently working on.
Joey says….

I am working on several concept idea, mainly focus in “Bargain Area”, ’cause we have so few images for this place.

I have now 6 images, depicting different phases of this area, they are either fighting ground or puzzle solving or just leaving/arriving part.

Now I am setting the theme of ‘Amusement Park’ to bargaining stage, all those happy items are trying to drive Alice away from her sorrow, the boss of this stage are those Tweedle brothers. When Alice first arrived this place, she would either fly here with her umbrella or through a long tunnel, she may climb out from a huge broken doll, like in the sketch, and see the whole place. 

Ghost house or Haunted house is needed for each amusement park, I am setting Alice on a cup wheel instead of just walking, she needs to duck those attack from the wall and also use long distance weapon to hit either enemies or bars.

Slides is like what we have in AMR, but I don’t think we should have them on each stage. Only here maybe, she jump on the slid and heading to the circus tent, where the boss fight is going to take place.

Flying carousel is also a phase between 2 different places, she may encounter the cat, they talk while on the rabbit instead of the horse. I will describe how the carousel flies in the later images. (cannot see the function on this sketch)

Cup maze, Alice need to figure out how to get to the stairs via jumping onto those tea cups, and not hurt by the hot tea underneath and from the bottle.

Botanical Room/House, Jump on lotus leaves, there are several ways Alice may choose, each leads to different area, she will get a bonus or face some enemies or see a sub-mission, I will draw more detail and possibilities when I get to work on this one.

Here are all the things coming up to me till now, I will work on them one by one later:)

So, what do you think? Sound off in the comments below.

3) PLEDGES
Just reminding you all again, that if you’re at a custom pledge amount, can you please set yourself back to simply being at a tier.  There’s over 200 of you who this applies to.  You know who you all are   😉

4) …AND FINALLY.
Those of you who’ve had their 3rd month at the $35 tier, and also those of you at $75 who will get a necklace will be getting your emails in the next couple of days.  Yay !

– Cheers   

Dear Insane Children, 

Get ready for a LIVE STREAM over on YouTube! I’ve set the time for 10AM on Thursday, March 7th (Hong Kong Time). That’s 6PM PST on March 6th for those of you in the US (West Coast).

You know the drill… hit THIS LINK to set a reminder over on YouTube. Hit the Reminder Bell. It’ll remind you that YouTube’s notification system is crap. So set an alarm on your dog. That’ll probably work better.

WARNING: External Internet connections from China are still being attacked by The Great Firewall. We can’t guarantee this stream won’t get The Hammer … but we’ll just have to try and see. (Way to go, China… really inspiring digital creators to stick around…)

Have QUESTIONS or FEEDBACK for us? Leave those in the Comments below – and mark them as QUESTION or COMMENT so we can easily find and address them. Make Font Lord’s life easy!

Fleshtacle Knight

Not to be confused with his porn industry cousin. Alex sends along an enemy concept with design notes on his attacks and method for defeating him. Lovely stuff! Reminds me a bit of the challenge arenas in Breath of the Wild – not at all a bad thing. I really enjoy fighting enemies who require engagement with the environment in order to defeat them.

What do you think of this design? Would you like to see more enemies designed in this fashion?

Omri says he’s working on a glorious new poster illustration which is going to take some time to complete. If it’s anything like “Welcome to the Asylum” I’m sure we’ll all love it.

Speaking of “Welcome to the Asylum,” we’ve made this the art print for February… meaning those of you who were at an eligible tier for that month will receive this in the mail.

Font Lord says, “Those of you waiting on surveys for art prints – fear not! They should be sent out next week.” I think he’s hoping to reduce the number of emails and comments on this topic – hint, hint 😉

Ashen Rabbit is taking shape. Not really sure this is the final name for the new studio… but we’ve yet to come up with something better. What do you think? Name ideas?

This is a page from the Work in Progress “Studio Pitch Document” we’re currently working on. This document will be personalized for each of the large publisher/financiers we’re talking to. This one is obviously pointed towards Amazon. No, that doesn’t mean Amazon will end up being involved with the project in any way – we’re still in the pitch phase. But they are one of several companies with whom we’re engaged in discussions around a new Alice game (and a new studio).

We can take a quick peek at this document during the livestream tomorrow – and talk about the progress we’re making on various fronts – Thai government, potential publishers, platforms, financiers, etc. Lots going on.

We did a poll recently regarding platforms and devices on which you play games. Again, I want to stress that we’ve made no decision on this sort of thing … other than being committed to publishing across as many platforms as makes sense. I imagine that means we’re going to target PC (and all that implies), Xbox, PS, and Switch. By the time we go to market these platforms will have a massive combined install base which should help ensure the widest possible launch. That’s our goal.

An insane amount of my time lately has gone towards organization and planning for Pirate Jam 2019.

I know most of you aren’t here for updates on my salty sea adventures…  So, I feel I must apologize. The event kicks off on March 29th and runs until April 7th. From March 24th to April 10th I’ll be in Thailand overseeing everything.

Once the event is over you can expect things to go back to “normal” around here. Until then, please excuse anything that looks like less attention being paid to Alice: Asylum. There’s still roughly the same amount of energy being spent on All The Things… it’s mainly an issue of not having time left to write Patreon Updates regarding everything that’s going on.

I wish there were more hours in the day! Or maybe I can train Lulu to type…

See you all tomorrow!

From Shanghai with Love and Args,

-American

Dear Insane Children,

I’m back in Shanghai and working hard to get caught up. It’s cold. And raining. And it doesn’t help that just as I arrived back in China our primary VPN provider got hit with a massive take down. Things are slowly improving but it’s been tough getting work done when half the Internet is blocked. Boo. 

As a result of Internet instability I’m going to hold off on this week’s Crowd Design session. Was really looking forward to that but if today was any indication I don’t think we’ll find much joy with online communication tomorrow. 

Hopefully things will be better by later in the week so that we can host another Livestream over on YouTube. 

There’s lots of art, design, and story to review! Fingers crossed…

Joey sends along some new Alice Paper Doll illustrations. She thinks these would make great rewards for some future Patreon Goal (a small one). What do you think? Which is your favorite? 

Speaking of Patreon Rewards, I’ve added the White Rabbit Plush Collector Set to the Mysterious Shop for those of you who missed it here on Patreon. The main difference is that when purchased on Mysterious it does not include the Lulu Embroidered Patch. Other than that, you get the same stuff – rabbit, bag, and code for early access to the Plush Dress in Alice: Asylum.

Hit THIS LINK to head over to the Mysterious Shop and check it out!

I’ll share another post tomorrow (or the next day, depending on The Great Firewall) with more artwork and a link for this week’s livestream. 

If you have QUESTIONS or SUGGESTIONS for the livestream, be sure to share them in the comments below (and mark them as such). 

From Shanghai Behind a Wall,

-American (and LULU!)