Dear Insane Children, 

Please join me in saying “Hello!” to all the new inmates arriving in our asylum. Here’s hoping we make July the month to break 2000 Patrons and unlock the Chaos Coin Goal! 

Lots of great progress being made on Alice: Asylum these days. I’ve got in hand the mailing address where we’ll be sending the License PPT and assortment of physical goodies to EA. Just waiting on Chaos Coin production / delivery so we can throw a handful of those into the package… then send it on its merry way to EA HQ. (The email back-and-forth with EA these days is positive – so I’m feeling very good about where we’re at and where we’re heading). 

There’s even bits of movement along other fronts – funding, publishing, etc… but more on that when the time is right.

Live Stream Tomorrow

I’ve just scheduled a Live Stream over on YouTube (grrrr…) for tomorrow morning (July 5th, 9AM, Beijing Time) (July 4th, 6PM, PST) (Use IMP to translate to your local time/date). 

Hit THIS LINK to set a reminder. And TAKE NOTE: I am seeing a TON of people commenting that they are not being reminded by YouTube when we go live – even if they Subscribe, hit the Reminder Bell, and … maybe even when they set a Reminder via that link. INSANITY! 

I, like many other YouTubers, really hate what YouTube is doing to destroy the value of the audiences we build and to ignore the specific requests / intentions of viewers who subscribe to specific channels. Why even have Subscribe, Remind, and that useless “bell” if you’re going to ignore it all anyway?!?! /shakes fist at YouTube

Maybe you all just set a reminder in your personal calendars? 

The Alchemy of Fashion

Omri submitted the Blue Dress illustration you see at the top of this post. He’s asked a couple of questions and made some suggestions – his intention is to refine and improve the original Alice dress. This makes sense because it’s a new game but also because it’s a new Alice – she’s younger in Asylum. She changes. The dress changes.

Take a look at his comments (in the image) and give your feedback in the comments below!

For his question regarding which (alchemy) symbols – I wrote back to let him know that these symbols have very specific meaning and that we’ll need to define these as we move forward with defining the landscape of Wonderland (and Alice’s journey through it AKA her narrative). For details on the meaning behind the symbols in A:MR check out the Alice Wiki.

If you imagine the hero’s journey as an analogous to the alchemical process then you can plot stages of the transformation by combinations of elements. These will link the narrative to the locations and be reflected on the dresses. 

Seems this is going to be called The Guilt Dress! I didn’t say anything when first posting this image but I’m not a big fan of “Guilt” being a power-up emotion. “Rage” and “Hysteria” I get because they feel like the sort of emotions which might drive a person to great levels of energy. Yes, “guilt” can drive a person to many places, but it doesn’t feel like the sort of thing that drives powerful or frenetic behaviors. 

Anyway, tons of positive comments related to a “guilt” dress may have proven my instincts wrong? Another thing we can discuss tomorrow. Comment below, please! 

Final point regarding Fashion is that I’ve reached out to a number of prominent YouTube/Instagram cos-players and makeup stars to see if they might be interested in collaborating with Omri on the design and realization of some new dresses and makeup styles for Asylum. 

 That’s it from the Underground Lair today! 

With Love and Pockets,

-American (and Lulu)

Welcome Inmate,

You chose wisely. Now equip yourself for what lies ahead…

The Chaos Coin is a physical coin which grants the owner a small token of Chaos and a virtual coin in Alice: Asylum. Within the virtual coin you can embed a name and phrase of your choosing*. Carry this into battle as a constant reminder: Destruction contains the key to redemption.

Chaos Coins will be mailed to all Patrons at the $35 and higher level when we reach 2000 Patrons. 

You can help us unlock the Chaos Coin and lend your support to Alice: Asylum by becoming a Patron today. Patrons have early access to the ongoing pre-production effort where we’re producing design, art, and narrative content which is guided by your comments and feedback.

Check out some earlier Posts and read the Comments below to hear from our Asylum full of Insane Children. They’ll tell you just how much happiness is found in madness.

 *name / message length and rules TBD

Existing Patrons, This post is a landing page for Mailing List subscribers who choose to “Confront the Chaos” – a challenge from the latest Alice 3 mailing list email. Help me help them to become Patrons by telling them in the comments below what fun we’re having with the pre-production of Asylum!

From the Asylum,

-American McGee

Dear Insane Children,

WHEW! It’s been a hectic couple of weeks! Ten days in Texas, a week of packing, moving house, a week of unpacking… the unpacking continues… but finally getting caught up and settled down. 

I REALLY appreciate your patience and support during this phase. With your encouragement this move puts me in a better place to expand our efforts on Asylum, Mysterious, Out of the Woods, Pirate Jam, and future projects. 

In case you missed it here’s a link to the LIVE STREAM we did last week – this was the first stream from the new “Rabbit Hole” studio. In this stream we looked at a ton of new art (some featured below), answered your Patron comments, and discussed plans for Asylum going forward. We’ll improve the studio setup and creative presentation going forward – lots we can do with all the additional space. Feedback? Post it below!

Another live stream coming this week and I’ll post details for that soon.

Here’s what’s going on… 

PATCHES – These are arriving with Patrons all over the world. Lots of details on patch delivery to be found in THIS POST <– Read that first before commenting or messaging on the topic of patches. And if you still have an issue or question, send that to us via PM as requested in THIS POST. Missed your chance to get patches? They are for sale at Mysterious.

CHAOS COINS – Are being manufactured and should be delivered to our shipping  partner in Shenzhen in a week or two. Thing is, we cannot send these to Patrons until we hit our 2000 Patron Goal. We were hovering above 1500 Patrons until the last 48 hours – at which point a ton of Patrons jumped ship completely (to avoid any end of month charge) but I suspect they’ll be back soon. 

With the start of new month it’s my hope we can attract the required ~500 Patrons and get the coins sent out at start of August. You can help with this effort by spreading word of our Patreon Goal via your social media channels. 

I’m also doing a large marketing push this week via our social media channels, mailing list, and Fb advertising. 

To help sell the concept of the coin Alex put together some sample in-game UI for the Chaos Coin collection and inspection mechanic…

WIKI

Want to learn more about how this mechanic might work? Well, there’s a wiki for that! Check out the ASYLUM WIKI where you’ll find there’s exactly ONE page describing anything in the game (at least as I write this Patreon post). The Chaos Coin! Expect lots of content (design, art, narrative) to be added to this over the coming weeks.

Going forward… I’d like to invite community involvement with the creation of the wiki but I’m still uncertain about how we determine who gets access, how to define community editing rules, etc. Once myself and the Mysterious Team have built it out a bit more we can decide on these things – but please leave your suggestions and feedback in the comments below. 

I’ve always tried to design / write as a “democratic dictatorship” – meaning the design team (masses) get to come up with ideas, hash them out, debate fine points, and record design documentation – but the final decision (perceived to be fair or not) is always mine (the dictator). Everyone has to go into this process understanding that the goal is to avoid “too many chefs” – a creative nightmare I’ve witnessed and been involved with in the past. 

This method can result in hurt feelings (someone comes up with an idea they feel is the best the world’s ever seen – only to have it killed). So team members must understand and embrace the idea of “kill your darlings” and “never miss a good chance to shut up” – otherwise it’s best they stay off the team. I hate to open this topic with what might look like a lot of negativity but I’ve been down this road enough times with enough teams to know what works and what doesn’t…

Then again, this whole “design a game with your community” is uncharted territory… so what the heck do I know?! 

Again, thoughts and feedback below!

TAROT

New art from Joey this week presenting our characters in Tarot Card format. I am REALLY loving this stuff…

The idea forming here is that we present characters and locations in the game world based on elements taken (partly or entirely?) from tarot. Planets, elements, significant days, “houses,” and tons of symbolism from the collective unconscious / mono-myth… 

Expect more in this theme in upcoming posts. And let us know in the comments below your thoughts on these elements. Who wants an Alice themed Tarot Deck???

LOOT CRATES

Pretty sure we said something along the lines of “no loot crates”… but I think we were referring to in-game loot, not real world stuff.

Omri put together this sample of physical merch we might offer as a collection. Certainly this sort of thing makes sense for a crowdfunding campaign. 

BACK TO THE START

The image which started off this post. Another beautiful illustration from Omri. Of this image he says, “hey! so this image is about the fire dress. 

in the original game we had RAGE and the second we had Hysteria, i thought that on the third we can have “Guilt” which in my mind i imagined the scene that she picks up in game a small house on fire and that’s how the power up occurs. For me, her guilt is what drives her insane and that triggers her power.”

What do you think of a Guilt inspired power-up mode? And who wants to cos-play that dress? 

I’ve suggested to Omri that we might hook him up with a prominent cosplayer and / or makeup artist so they can co-design the final version of this dress. 

PICK YOUR ART

Lastly, Martin asks that you all help select the print image for this month. So, which will it be? A, B, or C? 

Back again later this week with our next YouTube Livestream link, more design, art, and story. 

From Shanghai, 

-American

Hi Everyone.

Martin here again with a friendly neighbourhood community announcement.

If you want to contact us and ask us something to do with your account or items or shipping or any other kind of questions specific to your situation, please just message us directly.

DO NOT post your customer service issues for all to see in the community section since we don’t want to be discussing your private info in the public forum.
Any future messages that don’t follow these rules that are posted to the community section will simply be deleted.

Please leave the community section for sharing cool stuff with your fellow Patrons   😀

– Cheers

Dear Insane Children, 

To SKIP straight to the PATCH UPDATE please SCROLL DOWN.

I am writing to you from the new underground lair out in the QingPu District of Shanghai. We spent all of last week packing and prepping to move – and then 7 hours on Saturday loading/moving/unloading two big trucks. It’s amazing how much crap can be accumulated in a house / studio over the course of 8 years! 

Now in the new location, we’re busy unpacking and exploring the new space. Once everything is set up this will be a wonderful location for our Mysterious Studio and YouTube Live Stream studio. But right now… it’s a bit of madness! 

That’s the underground lair (Lulu for scale) in which the Mysterious studio and our live stream space will live. 

Having now spent a few hours exploring the local area we’re at a loss as to why we didn’t make this move sooner. Things are just better out here – cheaper, cleaner, quieter, less crowded, more friendly, and featuring all the amenities necessary for expat life in China (namely a very impressive cheese shop!)

Anyway, more on the move as we unpack and get everything set up!

PATCHES UPDATE

The patches shipped last week (June 18th) and should take anywhere from 7 to 30 days to arrive in most locations around the world. We’ve already seen reports of patches arriving with Patrons in the USA. Since they ship from Shenzhen, China you can create a rough estimate of delivery time based on how long it might normally take a package to go from Hong Kong to your home country via standard overseas post. 

The patches shipped with tracking – but WAIT – please, do not write to us asking for tracking details unless a) it’s past July 10th and b) you feel reasonably certain you live in a place with “normal” post delivery times. For example, if you live in Chile, and it normally takes longer for mail to get to you, then please refrain from writing to inquire why your patches have not yet arrived. 

In the event of (a) and (b) above and you still want a tracking link then PM us here on Patreon. Martin can then pull your info and provide a link. 

If you missed your chance to get the patches via the promotion here on Patreon then you can still grab them (while supplies last) via the Mysterious Shop. 

Lastly… If you did get patches via Patreon and are confused/upset about the fact that they are also selling on Mysterious, please note that our Patreon Goal allowed you to get the patch set for $5 (which is the cost of our shipping these to the USA – never mind Chile) and that we’re selling them for $24.99 (plus $5 shipping) on Mysterious in order to protect the “value” of the reward for being a Patron. 

INSTAGRAM CONTEST

Another way to get your hands on Patches is to win the contest we’re currently running over on Instagram. Simply reply to THIS POST with an @ to a friend and you’ll be automatically in the running to win patches. We’ll pull a handful of names out of those who enter.

We’ll announce winners during this week’s live stream… 

LIVE STREAM

Live Stream on Thursday, June 28th @ 9AM Hong Kong Time

If you are confused about time/dates and the dateline in general, I highly recommend using International Meeting Planner to look at times/dates. 

Hit THIS LINK to set a reminder – and while you are there make sure you are Subscribed and that you’ve hit the “Bell Icon” for notification when we go live. Thing is… even if you set a reminder, subscribe, and hit the bell icon, there’s a good chance YouTube still won’t tell you when we go live. So… maybe also set a reminder on your calendar/phone. /shakes fist at YouTube

During the live stream we’ll discuss what we think is the FINAL version of the Alice: Asylum PPT. This is what we’re going to print and mail to EA along with Chaos Coins, Embroidered Patches, and other physical stuff we’ve been working on. 

OK… I have to get back to unpacking. 

From the Underground Lair,

-American (and Lulu)

It’s been said there are few things in life more stress inducing than death, taxes, and moving. So the stress I’m feeling lately makes sense. Last week I was in Texas to visit with family – several of whom are suffering illness and old age. The time there prompted discussion and thought on the fleeting nature of life and the proper use of the time we have. 

On returning to Shanghai I started immediately packing my home / studio for a move. I’ve lived in this same central-Shanghai apartment for nearly 8 years. It’s a great location surrounded by all the hustle and bustle of a 25 million person megalopolis. But rent inflation in Shanghai being what it is, we’re slowly being priced out of the market. Fortunately there is hope… Out beyond the outer ring road lies an area called QingPu which is filled with actual *houses* – things I only have the vaguest recollection of living in back in the US – a place where the rents are cheap, the trees are abundant, and life is more relaxed. 

So we’re moving out to the countryside! Yee haw! Our rent over the coming years will go down, the amount of space we have for work and life will go up, and best of all Lulu will have an actual YARD in which to run around. Yay! But first… packing and moving! Which is what this week is all about. 

Still, some new art! Above is an image from Alex – a design for the Chaos Coin and promotion, marketing, etc. Maybe a card we include with each coin? Not yet decided. 

Some art from Joey containing a Pig Baby! She’s also sent other cool images we’ll review and discuss during the upcoming Live Stream….

And Omri is working on realistic heads for the physical box product idea. 

All of this and more will be on display during this week’s LIVE STREAM. This will be our last live stream from the old studio. Next week (hopefully) we’ll be broadcasting from an actual underground lair (sub-level below the new house). 

Get your comments and feedback recorded below!

Live Stream is at 9AM on June 21st, Thursday morning (Hong Kong Time). Please check for your local time and remember the date line! 

Hit that link and set a reminder!

PS: Everyone yell at Martin to move his butt out to QingPu and get over his anxiety about travel, new places, etc! 😛 

From Shanghai with Boxes of Stuff,

-American