Dear Insane Children

Font Lord here with that time of the month you’re all waiting for   😉
Yes! Who will lady luck smile upon today, as Google’s RNG feature picks 5 people from Patreon (and YouTube comments to keep us legal) to win the signed print “Tragedy”.

Could it be you?  Or how about you?  Maybe you there at the back?
Let’s see.

ROLL IT !!!

* Lyss
* Aeron Alto
* Ben Morris
* Bryan Pashakarnis
* Darren Close

Congrats to all, and look forwards to getting that print in the post in the not too distant future.  
Yay for winning stuff.

And what ‘lucky 5’ post would be complete without a Lulu, eh?

– Cheers

Dear Insane Children, 

Have I told you lately how much I love Tentacles? It should come as little surprise that when I opened the latest Tentacle Chaos Monster concept image from Omri – I laughed out loud and was smiling ear to ear. Seriously. 

I LOVE this concept. And I tweeted that we need to make Alice: Asylum for literally no other reason than to see this madness in action. 

We hosted a Live Stream over on Twitch yesterday and discussed these Tentacles and how they might behave in-game. We also talked at length about Alice’s design – translating the 2D concept images of her into a hi-res 3D model which we can then insert into an Unreal Engine scene. Lots of great topics covered and tons of your comments and suggestions read and explored.

The stream was recorded and uploaded to YouTube so you can WATCH IT HERE. 

The Moon and Manipulators

Meanwhile, the team continues to design the interior of The Moon and work on design notes for a boss encounter at the end of that scene. 

When Alice reaches the Control Room she’ll be confronted with… The Mock Turtle?! He was last seen in her “cell” in The Denial Realm – gently urging her to give up her dreams of running away from the circus. He’s like that terrible friend who, when you tell him you’re going to stop drinking, offers you a bottle of whiskey. Misery loves company after all. 

Well, turns out that The Mock Turtle – and everything in The Denial Realm – is an illusion. All created by creatures we’re calling “Manipulators.” These beasties can alter Alice’s perception of time, space, light, and more… 

But I want to be clear about something: Just because Omri included a note about “player losing control” as a result of an attack from one of these things: WE WILL NOT TAKE CONTROL AWAY FROM THE PLAYER. I hate that kind of thing and if you’ve ever watched me playing games during a live stream, you’ll have heard me state that fact several times. 

Anyway, Omri did up a concept where Turtle sits upon a turtle-themed throne at the start of his boss fight… I think this is kinda fun but I had further thoughts on how to design this Boss Fight:

One thing to think about is that under the “skin” or disguise of the Mock Turtle, this thing is actually a Manipulator. So… I don’t know if it makes sense to have the whole scene modeled after The Turtle. He’s just a prop. 

 The “scene” should be The Control Room of The Moon but since we’re fighting a master manipulator – we should go completely crazy with the Boss Manipulator (and his minions) “flipping reality” through all the sorts of things they think might get Alice to change her mind and go back to Denial. 

It would be like being in a Holodeck (Star Trek) gone haywire – first, Alice’s happy home and family, then The Circus, then floating on clouds in the sky (either meant to terrify or to lull Alice to sleep), a dreamy meadow, a giant Doll House, etc, etc… And in each scene Alice needs to find the “eye” and hit it with an attack. This would briefly reset back to real-reality (The Control Room of The Moon) as the Manipulators reset and then throw up a new False Reality. 

The Control Room of The Moon was not built with The Turtle in mind. He’s just a puppet used to control Alice. No one ever imagined that Alice would make her way to the Control Room. So… it’s just a utilitarian control room space. 

I would like to ask: Please stop trying to make the interior of The Moon into something it’s not. It does not need elements from Denial or inspired by Turtle, etc. It’s a Hatter Industry’s MACHINE. Nothing more, nothing less. 

So let us know in the Comments below… what do you think? 

Are you as excited for a Chaos Tentacle Enemy as I am?

Do you feel better now that I said we WON’T be taking control away from the player?

And what do you think about that outline for a Manipulator Boss Fight? 

From Shanghai with Toads, 

-American

Dear Insane Children  

Just writing another update about next month’s print due to a little mess up I did from yesterday.

I wrote that Dressed in Rage was next month’s print due to a little confusion, and even though I figured it out and took the post down within a few minutes, this does not matter since all new posts we write get emailed to Patrons anyway. D’oh!

So now THIS post (with the clear details in the title) is the 2nd reminder to Patrons that those people charged in July will get Ringmasters and those people charged in August will get Dressed in Rage.

Sorry for the confusion    🙁

– Cheers

Dear Insane Children, 

As you know from my last design post, we’re working on concepts for a selection of Enemies who are designed to manipulate Alice’s senses – Manipulators. In the last round of comments, I asked Omri to explore ideas around insect/machines that would fit in these roles. He’s delivered!

Here are our comments on what’s presented today. Omri says: 

I’m thinking about what you said, i don’t like the idea of holograms because it’s too modern. Yes there were plays with mirrors and stuff but that was more 1920. it’s still too modern. but i do like the idea of illusions or hallucinations. we can go towards two directions, 

1. we can have the illusions / hallucinations horrible like a nightmare

2. we can have the illusions / hallucinations Pleasant and block out the gameplay, like the more she is “injected/sprayed” she sees more flowers and gardens and her home in spring and what not. i think for this area it’s overkill right now, we need to reserve that idea for a boss. i would love to fight a boss that when i’m losing seeing the world more beautifully.

for now these two designs i think look practical for the moon AND look like enemies. i’ll design some more of these, but i think they make sense and still keep with the Nature theme.

Omri goes on to add a few more concepts and continues his comments:

I’m adding to the manipulators “Lobster” I think he can fix the “floors” and the lower areas. he can melee Alice and he can electrify floor areas where the player is standing. i want the enemies to “make sense” like you can imagine that an electricity based animal can fix circuits. a Welder animal can fix holes and bumps and a flying animal can kill off fungus and whatnot.

I’m adding a very odd idea that i had that i have no idea if it works- feedback on this. I thought that if we want something that will look like it’s “fake” then materials to fix the moon, copper, mercury, gold- even oil and water if we want, they can be animated into stars that will jump at Alice and explode on her. they should come in batches. just an odd thought.

To all of this I replied: 

All of this stuff is FANTASTIC. And, yeah, I should have been more careful in my choice of words. Anything hinting at advanced technology – simulator, holograms, etc – would suggest things that are very much out of place in Alice’s mind. You’re on the correct path with hallucinations and mechanical beasties that implement physical changes that alter Alice’s perception of reality. It’s more “smoke and mirrors” than “lasers and holograms.” 

The Gnat and Spider designs are great. Even though I hate flying enemies – I like the idea of these things forming a “cloud” that messes with Alice’s vision. For the Spiders I like the idea that they could weave webs of deception – imagine a wall of web onto which a hallucination is projected. Alice can destroy the web and the illusion with it. 

For the Fungai… The general concept and presentation is good. An element we can place in the environment to create toxic zones. Spores from it can cause hallucinations and disorientation. With regards to your comment about bringing “color to the moon” – this part I don’t get. Why? The Moon interior is separate from Denial. It has a style – Hatter Industries, mechanical, etc. Please leave it at that. 

Lastly, The Lobster is fun. Regarding the idea of them all serving different functions – I would suggest we focus on The Senses and assign each of these characters control over (the ability to manipulate) specific senses. Hearing, sight, etc. 

That last idea… I have no idea. ????

Let us know in the Comments below your thoughts on The Manipulators. What do you think of their function and their artistic design? We’ll discuss your feedback during this week’s live stream (more on that later in this post). 

Tea Time Wildlife

Jen sends along further exploration of the types of surreal creatures we might find floating around Wonderland.

I have … er, thoughts, about that teabag design… from having watched too many CS matches. Thankfully no 12-year-old kids will have control of these enemies in-game… or will they? (Note to self: Disaster Marketing idea #342,423 – how can we give 12-year-old kids control of the Tea Bag Enemies every time Alice dies in-game?)

She also submitted this pig… which…

(Note to self: Check how much of our budget goes to supplying hallucinogenics to our artists – reduce if necessary). 

Live Stream on Twitch

We will host a Live Stream on Twitch this week – the usual time. That’s 7PM PST on Wednesday. 

And we’ll discuss all the latest art, design, and business development on Alice: Asylum. Plus… 

Yan and I finally took a trip to the YiWu International Trade Market to source various products for Mysterious and Patreon. Among our main goals – to find a Snow Globe (or a suitable alternative). So, we’ll discuss the fruits of that search. 

If you want to see the trip to and from YiWu, I uploaded a travel vlog of it to my YouTube Channel. Hit THIS LINK if you want to watch that now. 

And hit THIS LINK if you want to head over to my Twitch Page and follow or register or whatever it is you do there. 

From Shanghai with Eeeee-wooooo,

-American

Dear Insane Children

Font Lord here, with just a teeny tiny reminder about next month’s print.
(And I definitely didn’t just post up the wrong monthly image 10 minutes ago and delete the post)

RINGMASTERS !!

Available to all at $75 and above who are charged in July.
(And yes, it’s also going to be available at the 3x$35 tier too)
Finally rounding off the triptych of Circus Posters.  Yay !!

Also, would you look at that on our monthly print schedule calendar.

Seems we have an empty spot in August coming up fast!
What do you think we should do?
Escher Alice perhaps?
Alice and the Snail?
Anything else you’ve seen?

– Cheers

Dear Insane Children, 

One of the ideas we’re working on for enemies in Asylum is a type of machine called a Manipulator. They are Illusion Engines – capable of shapeshifting and scene building. And we’ll encounter them right at the start of the game in the Circus (Denial) Realm. 

Omri sent over some sketches (main images Above) for early designs to which I replied: 

Sorry to tell you but the design of the steampunk wheeled arm-whirling enemies in AMA… is among my Least Favorite of all enemy designs in all of the games. Why? 

First, I hate the idea of enemies or creatures with wheels. I prefer legs, flying, etc. The wheeled enemies in AMA were not from the core design team – they were done by some rogue artists at Rogue (rogue-ception). 

Second, I am not a huge fan of humanoid looking robot/enemies in Wonderland. So the top hat, the eyes… don’t really work for me. And the honk-honk horn nose… also not doing it for me. 

What I do like… the spider arms. Which has me thinking… something more akin to a spider – something that weaves a web of lies and deception. 

Perhaps a handful of multi-legged insect bots? A spider, a centipede, and a fly? All designed to help create an illusion (like flying, moving holographic projector type enemies)? 

We then got some ideas from Alex… 

To which I replied: 

I like the Spider/Cup thing but not the top hat part of that design. Can we try a couple of these without the hats? It makes them look goofy and not-at-all-scary. These things are supposed to be evil.

I like the *concept* of the hand (man = hand) but I am not a huge fan of the execution. Feels like there’s a version where the hand + spider design turns into something interesting. Maybe a direction to explore? 

Please, god, no, NO tread/wheel creatures. Make It Stop.

And treads + hat = No^No 

At the same time, the team is working on concepts for the Chaos Monsters… 

This would be the Chaos Powered (inspired?) “stuff” that’s taking over Wonderland. We previously wrote about how these creatures, which are basically made of fractal tentacles, will infect and control host creatures (friends and foes). 

I wrote these notes on the topic: 

My preference here … any of the designs with HEAVY emphasis on the tentacle aspect of the enemy design. The other elements confuse the message. 

 Imagine we develop a procedural engine (in-game) for the creation of tentacles branching out from “infected” enemies. Early on in the transformation the enemy is still clearly visible inside – and just sports a couple of tentacles popping out here and there. But the longer its allowed to transform… the more it becomes just a mass of tentacles. At some point the tentacles take over in locomotion – so that a Card Guard (as an example) is swept off his feet and carried around inside the mass of writhing tentacles. At this point, the thing becomes as much a threat to other Card Guards as it is to Alice. And it is able to consume (and grow from) anything it snatches up in its grasp. 

The idea here is that the faster Alice kills these things the better. Wait too long and a single Chaos Tentacle Beast can grow to consume everything in sight. 

And I think the tentacle beasty concepts provided by Omri (above) do a good job of capturing those ideas. In direct response to Omri’s concepts I wrote: 

This works. It’s a bit too orderly. Needs to be more fractal and Chaotic but it is in the right direction. It would be helped by smaller tentacles and tendrils growing in connection with the larger ones. 

 I like it! 🙂 

Dario is continuing his work on the interior of The Moon.

Good looking stuff! 

And Joey has updated the Alice model reference image based on your feedback. 

We’re going to send this to Roman (the 3D Modeler) to get him started on the 3D Model. 

Lots more art, design, and production going on. And we’ll have a Live Stream later in the week to cover everything. 

Also… we are making progress on Business Development – but I sadly can’t say more than that! 

From Shanghai with Tentacles, 

-American