Dear Insane Children, 

A couple of quick updates from Hatter’s Domain for you this morning. 

First up (top image), Omri sends over the “final” version of the new Alchemy Dress. This is what we would see Alice wearing as she enters into Hatter’s Domain. I like the addition of the Queen’s Gift (the Queen of Hearts asks Alice to carry a “gift” to Hatter) in a glass bottle. Since her domain represents “Anger” I’m reminded of the phrase regarding anger as a poison you drink hoping it’ll kill someone else. Well, our Queen is smarter than that, right? What if she’s found a way to bottle up her Anger and send it out into the world? 

The notion of “bottled up emotions” is one we touched on in previous design/narrative explorations. And I think it’s neat to see it represented here in a unique and functional manner. I think this is an idea we need to further explore. The collection and bottling of emotions – alongside the collection and use of alchemical elements. 

The Alchemy Dress represents Hatter’s domain as a place where alchemy is explored and made visible. 

We’ll see alchemy symbols hanging in the air – along with all the blown apart areas that once made up Hatter’s Domain. It seems that Hatter’s experiments into the nature of Wonderland have ripped a hole into their version of space and time. As if the physics of Wonderland wasn’t already mad enough! 

Hatter also joins the fashion show with updates to his wardrobe courtesy of Norm…

The idea for Hatter in Asylum is to show him pre-mechanization. When we first meet him he’s presented as a Victorian Gentleman Scientist-Scholar. When not drinking overly strong tea he’s in his library or laboratory poking at the elemental building blocks under the surreal skin of Wonderland. 

I imagine that when we encounter him he’s less mad than in the books and more comprehensible than in AMA and AMR. Why? Well, let’s say for now that he decided to “sober up” in order to pursue his experiments into the mysteries of Wonderland. 

Maybe there was a point when he realized that all the madness he saw in the world around him could not be explained purely as a function of all the (mushroom) tea he was consuming. Maybe he had a psychedelic epiphany that required serious exploration in an un-addled mental state? 

In any case, we’re casting him as a Wonderland version of Einstien. 

As for his workshop, Joey provides a glimpse into some of the mad machinery Hatter’s constructed to probe the “smallest of small” things our minds can comprehend. Think of these machines as his steam-punk version of the Large Hadron Collider. 

Joey has begun using 3D rendering to help realize some of these more complex geometries. And the results are fantastic. Can’t wait to jump and float around these environments!

Pirate Jam Planning

I’ve blocked out several days this week (including today) for planning and organizing Pirate Jam 2020. We’ve secured all the sponsors required to float the event – which is amazing. 

A big THANK YOU to Unity, Free Lives, Landfall Games, and a handful of as-yet-unnamed sponsors! Without the financial support these companies provide, Pirate Jam would be nothing more than a pirate’s crazy rum dream.

I was supposed to fly to Thailand this week and sail the proposed route for 2020 but I’m stuck in Chinese visa renewal process… and not going anywhere until I get my passport back!

Font Lord Says

Survey emails should arrive with you this week. That’s for 3-35 Art and Chaos Necklace selection. 

1000 “Lost” Insane Children are only a monthly payment away from selecting an Art Print.  Those are Insane Children (Patrons) who left the Asylum (halted their Patreon support) with 2x of the required 3x $35 payments made. With just another payment at $35 an Art Print can be selected and mailed anywhere in the world. 

Font Lord says he’ll send out some reminder emails and do some other marketing around this fact on Thursday, 12th of December – so keep an eye on your mailbox if you’re NOT a current Patron but were previously. 

Remember that the print we’re adding this month is the amazing “Blade Face” 

Arg, mateys! I’ve got to shiver some planning timbers and hoist the organizational charts for Pirate Jam 2020. 

Hope everyone is having a lovely day. You are all Very Much Appreciated! 

From Shanghai with Seaweed,

-American

Dear Insane Children, 

It’s been an “insane” day for me… I had planned to spend most of the day signing art prints with the world’s cutest signing assistant… 

But ended up fending off a flood of copyright claims against my “Alice: Madness Returns” Let’s Play videos over on YouTube. Arrrrrg! 

No idea what’s going on with YouTube but we still managed to get 100s of posters signed and prepped for mailing. 

Btw, babies are terrible workers. Lucky pooped his pants and then fell asleep on the job. You’re Fired! 

Speaking of YouTube

We’ve uploaded the latest Crowd Design Session. Check that out via THIS LINK. 

In that, we discuss Hatter’s Domain and LOTS OF SPOILERS. Plus there’s a discussion about where things are at the end of 2019. So if you’d like a semi-concise close to the year… there you go! 

Live Stream

And I just scheduled our Live Stream for tomorrow. 6pm PST. 10AM here in Shanghai. You know the drill…

Hit THIS LINK to head over and set a reminder for that event! 

Feels like it’s been AGES since the last time we did one of these. Alignment of holidays, travel, etc… 

Anyway, we’re back! 

Leave your questions and feedback in the comments below and we’ll address those tomorrow!

From Shanghai with Grrr at YouTube,

-American

Dear Insane Children, 

A reminder that Crowd Design Session #22 will start at 6PM PST TODAY. 

Join us over on the Discord Server!

Don’t be late!

From Shanghai with Discord,

-American

Dear Insane Children, 

There’s so much going on, I don’t even know where to start!

New Artist Joins The Asylum

Dario Marzadori is a freelance concept artist from Italy who produces lovely illustrations with an emphasis on locations, architecture, and “things.” 

His test sketches were focused on the Queen’s Castle and turned out great (main images above). These contain the kind of detail I like to see when we start thinking about the actual 3D assets used to build our worlds. 

We’ll task him with illustrating the various environments, buildings, dungeons, and castles of Wonderland. And I think you’ll agree his style is quite fitting…

Everyone, please give an Insane Welcome to Dario! 

Your support is what makes his involvement possible. Yay! 

Enamel Pins – Final Selection

We’re going with the following pin selections based on your feedback: 

And…

We need to send these designs to the factory so they can tell us what sort of adjustments might be needed (size/complexity of design) in order to produce samples. 

We’ll update you on that process as it moves forward. 

Crowd Design Session

We’ll have another session tomorrow at 6PM PST (Monday, December 2nd).

As usual, this takes place on our Super Secret Discord Server. 

Did you know that just by being on our Discord Server you’re automatically 57% more interesting than anyone not on our Discord Server? It’s true. 

Want to become 57% more Interesting? Follow THIS LINK to learn how!

During this session we’ll discuss the following topics: 

1) Year-end review and Q&A. Where are we? Where are we going? 

2) Latest narrative update review – check out THIS post and THIS post to get caught up on everything. 

And even if you can’t make it – leave your Questions and Feedback in the comments below. We’ll address those during the Sessions – and you can hear the answers when we post the Design Session to YouTube (after the fact). 

Font Lord Says

We’re sending out 500+ Art Prints in December! And because it’s near the holidays we need to remind you of the Dangers of December! During this special month, there’s a higher chance of the following: 

• Parcels getting lost in transit. 
• Parcels getting damaged in transit. 
• Parcels being stolen by Porch Pirates upon delivery. 

There’s not much you can do about the first two – but if you suspect something we’ve sent you has gotten lost – PM US 

Did you get a damaged package from us? We’ll replace it if you PM US 

About the Porch Pirates – try to make sure you check your tracking, make sure there’s someone home to take delivery, ensure your delivery area is monitored, etc. And if you suspect something was stolen – PM US 

Just a reminder, this is the Art Print going out for those of you who were at $75 in November (charged on ~Dec 5th) – behold! “Throne Room”

And also… the Art Print for December (charged on ~Jan 5th) is “Blade Face” AKA “Looking Into The Shadows” – one of my favorites! 

Lastly, Font Lord says that, as usual, “Surveys are coming!” 

Live Stream is BACK 

FINALLY, we’ll have another YouTube Live Stream this week. 

If you have Questions or Feedback you’d like addressed during that, please leave them in the comments below (and try to mark them as such). 

I’ll send out a link for the Live Stream in a post tomorrow or the next day. 

See you tomorrow!

From Shanghai with Stuff,

-American

Dear Insane Children, 

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in a place where that makes sense! And to those in the other places, we can still give thanks! I give thanks (HUGE THANKS) to you, our Insane Children, for making all this possible. Not just the art, story, and design work we’re doing – but the community, the collective creation, and the shared feeling of accomplishment. I’ve said it before but… I am having a BLAST working on this with you. And am hugely appreciative of your support. Thank you!

Though it’s a holiday for a lot of you, the Spice Must Flow! And our creative output is still on Full Blast! So I’m back today with a second (mini) part to the previous update in which I outlined my thinking for the General Narrative Presentation of Asylum. 

That presentation inspired some new artwork from Omri (above) and some questions from our Insane Children. So let’s tackle those and see where it takes us! 

BTW, If you’ve not already figured it out… HUGE SPOILER WARNINGS! HUGE! 

First up, Omri says (of the new dress design):

still Wip and also i need to design the back

like i said, my problem with the Ash dress is that it’s not different enough from the Original blue dress and also technically there’s no space to place Leds on the dress to create those lights on it.

In this i integrated the Ash with the Alchemy stuff, i took designs from the Hatter’s outfit, i took in consideration that where the cosplayers will place the Led to create that red fire light in the fabric. I also took inspiration from welder’s outfits. i this works but need tweaking and i need to do the back.

I want to rework it some more, i like the hair, i hope other people will too.

So what do you think of this new “Ash Dress” (version 2) plus “Alchemy Dress” for Alice’s attire when she goes to visit Hatter? 

Leave your feedback in the comments! 

Questions From The Inmates

A couple of you put forth some excellent questions to my previous post. 

 Gregory Paraubek wrote: 

QUESTION:   Is the initial “loop” that Child Alice stuck in part of the stages of grief or is it a state of existence prior to traversing them? If the former, is she trapped in Shock, exploring Denial without care, or going through all the stages?

Or is it the latter, and the Hatter’s experiment and the breaching arrival of the Mystery what triggers Shock?  Does the fire happen, Child Alice goes through Shock (in which perhaps she loses her Shadow/the splitting of Alices), and then loops through Denial until the Mystery arrives?

I wonder if endless loops through Bad Stuff wouldn’t leave the Child jaded to a point where they wouldn’t want to proceed through the adventure, would danger that threatens something idyllic be a good motivator for action?

The Loop is the stages of grief played over and over inside this bubble of reality where Child Alice has become stuck. Imagine it like a self-contained little Snow Globe of Wonderland where Young Alice traverses the landscape of trauma over and over. I imagine by the time we meet her she’s grown tired of going the more difficult/painful places and mostly dwells in Denial (until something triggers her and sends her to Anger or Bargaining, etc).

(That, btw, has me thinking about Triggers as a means of kicking the player around the various stages of the game). 

Imagine that the fire happened, she went into PTSD, spent years bouncing around the various stages in great pain and anger. She eventually managed to settle most of the time in Denial or Depression but has never been able to fully exit The Loop. 

When the explosion happens it’s triggered by, well, us. We’re picking up the thread of the narrative at the end of Madness Returns. Outside of The Loop, there’s Adult Alice trying to examine herself after the events of AMR… Peering into the Snow Globe and realizing that she’s broken. She needs to find and heal her Inner Child. So she tries breaking through the glass of that Snow Globe… but her efforts are viewed from the inside as violent attacks.  

Sarah Heist asks:

QUESTION: So would we then- seeing through the eyes of Child Alice- view Adult Alice as the dark “Shadow Alice” ?

I purposely avoided any mention of “Shadow Alice” in that post because I feel it’s caused confusion in the past. Whether or not we ultimately decide that Adult Alice is the same as Shadow Alice… I don’t know just yet. I imagine we’re first going to see Young Alice’s view of The Mystery as an invading dark blob/fog turning everything it touches to … shadow? 

Then Alice will realize that The Mystery is actually some version of herself – a Through The Looking Glass dark refection. And she’ll finally understand that she’s viewing herself “all grown up.” Peering out from inside the Snow Globe at her future self.

QUESTION: Is the final battle between adult Alice and child Alice or is it both against all of wonderland for the transformation to be complete?

Probably both. My current thinking is that the Wonderland of Young Alice must be Dissolved in order for Integration and Transformation to be made complete. But before Young Alice is willing to accept who/what The Mystery is (Adult Alice) she’ll have to fight it. 

During or after that fight we’ll reveal the true nature of The Mystery. After that… it’s going to be Alice vs. Wonderland as Young Alice overcomes the obstacles necessary to initiate The Dissolving.

QUESTION: Can/will there be multiple endings or one fixed storyline? Or can there be the illusion of free will choice in the game but with the same general result ? 

Haven’t thought about the multiple endings thing yet. But I would like to present an ending which warps the player’s brain a bit in terms of violating expectations. Still working on that. 

QUESTION: Would we be meeting Hatter before Bargaining then, accordingto the outline? When/how would that happen? 

Hatter’s Domain still represents Bargaining. But I think it’s Hatter who is the character representing Bargaining (not Alice). He’s the one who stumbled on the nature of their reality (a closed loop) and understands in his own way what The Mystery means (transformation of Wonderland in current form to something new and unknown). 

Because of this reframing of his role and the knowledge he contains I believe we’ll need to move up the timing of his appearance in the story. 

Right now I’m thinking something like: Denial->Anger->Bargaining->???

That sequence would also be interspersed with flashbacks and memories of the fire, the asylum, etc. Still work in progress!

More questions from Angel Wings… 

QUESTION:   OK we’re going to need a chart. We’ll work on that later, but for now we have a question. The loop, it is the prelude chapter world, yes? And then the explosion, or breach or shock is what tips it into the first chapter. 

Yeah, we’re going to need a chart… but we always need a chart! 🙂 Charts are great!

As for The Loop and timing… I think *we* (the players, the game) initiate The Explosion which knocks the world out of The Loop and starts the narrative of Asylum. This might be the meta aspect of the game which we later use for the brain warp game ending. 

James Olson commented: 

QUESTION:  Since this is self contained, is this like an adult Alice looking back at that child part of her that was hurt and working through the trauma as a child? To recognize that as a child, you don’t have the same faculties as an adult so when dealing with trauma, especially at a very young age, there is all emotion and little logical thought. 

Our perspective would be 100% that of Child Alice. So we (audience) won’t know what it is that’s trying to destroy Wonderland (Adult Alice) until quite a way into the story. [Except you… you’re reading all these spoilers!] So we’re seeing everything through a child’s eyes as these terrifying changes start ripping apart a place she’d made her sanctuary (as mad as it might be). 

That’s it for today. Again, take some time to digest all of that and let me know if you’ve got any follow up questions. I really LOVE your questions because they help me sort out my thinking and organize my view of how best to present things. 

From Shanghai in a Snow Globe,

-American

Dear Insane Children, 

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about PTSD and Transformation. And much of this thinking – as with much of my creative output in recent years – draws on a personal encounter with Chaos I experienced a few years back. I won’t go into detail other than to say these events resulted in a complete breakdown for me – emotionally, psychologically, and physically. Font Lord was there during the worst of it and can attest to how consuming, painful, damaging, and ultimately transformative the experience was. 

So when I write of PTSD and its immediate and lingering effects, I’m drawing heavily on personal experience and all the literature I consumed in the process of trying to heal myself. “Out of the Woods” was an attempt to channel the experience into a creative endeavor. I wanted to retell those classic fairytales because they contain a lot of the original Rules for the Avoidance of Chaos. After my experience, I thought a handy, graphically illustrated reminder would be useful for myself and others. 

And to this day I’m still struggling with the last remnants of that encounter. Triggers and pains which serve as daily reminders of the powerful lessons I was forced to learn and the transformation I had to undertake (and am still undertaking). 

Despite those pains, I can say that the transformation has led to a place where I am happier, healthier, and more alive than I’ve ever been. So there is a reason to hope that these encounters serve a purpose and can lead to a better place. Keep that in mind if you’re currently struggling. 

It’s no coincidence that Alice’s confrontation with Chaos and the return to the Child Self is being presented here-and-now. All of this is strangely serendipitous. I could not explore this story if I had not experienced that awful recent trauma. And, strangely, this mirrors how I channeled my childhood traumas into the narrative of AMA and AMR. Those stories were of my inner child told through the lens of “adult” Alice. Now it seems I’m channeling my adult trauma through “child” Alice. 

Well… they say writers are always telling their own stories. 

What they don’t say is that a writer’s own story is always changing.

The Illusion of Control

Pain is the brain’s way of protecting us from future harm. PTSD is the pain response pushed into relentless overdrive by exposure to an event so traumatic we’re unable or unwilling to cope with it. Unable to “get over it” the trauma consumes and destroys us. 

After an encounter with Chaos, we spend hours and days reliving the past, trying to make sense of what happened. Conversations and moments are relived over and over. It’s in these replays that we jump between states – shock, anger, bargaining, depression – trying to regain our understanding of reality. 

The problem is that reality is shattered. The rules no longer apply. What we thought we understood – the constants that defined our existence – are now violated and irrational. Everything on that side of the equation is changed. And our notion of grasping (let alone modifying) anything on that side of the equation is destroyed.

The illusion of control is gone.

If we’re lucky we might eventually realize that unless we change things on OUR side of the equation, we’ll never establish a new reality. 

But that sort of change doesn’t happen with the common elements we carry around in our pockets. We can’t sprinkle a bit of Salt on the situation and watch it transform into another common (and harmless) element. 

The required change is more fundamental than that. It requires dissolving. 

A Dissolving of Self

Dissolving is difficult and painful. It’s also described as “Ego Death” – a process in which we’re forced to face and dismantle the hall of illusions we’ve constructed around ourselves. So we avoid it…

One of the ways people avoid the fundamental transformation required to evolve after an encounter with Chaos (PTSD) is to busy themselves with new projects. They put effort into external problems over which they can feel some sort of control. But this only delays the required transformation. The Chaos elements are still scattered about the scene of the explosion. Ignored. Untransformed. 

Occasionally we trip over them. A “trigger” sends us reeling back to the events and outcomes of that thing that blew us to bits. 

What’s The Story?  

Those are the themes we’re exploring in Alice’s “Asylum” adventure.  And here’s how I imagine we present them:

Our story is told from Child Alice’s perspective. It’s the story of a young girl caught in a loop – visiting the various domains of Wonderland over and over, trying to solve a puzzle that can never be solved. This routine has gone on for years and years with no change until one day there’s a great explosion. 

Hatter’s increasingly complex experiments have ripped apart the reality surrounding his domain. In his effort to understand the nature of Wonderland – its basic elements, dimensions, and constants – he’s cracked open a gateway through which The Mystery is flowing. 

We don’t yet know what form The Mystery takes (hence the name) but we do know that it’s dark, terrifying, and can’t be trusted. Everything it touches is consumed in shadow and it will eventually consume Wonderland if nothing is done to stop it.

Hatter implores Alice to travel Wonderland, collect the necessary (alchemy) elements, and heal the cracks forming in their reality. If she fails in this all is lost. 

Alice must now confront a combination of internal and external threats. Wonderland was already transformed into something broken and treacherous. And now this new external threat is seeping in and destroying everything.

An enemy within. An enemy without. 

The core revelation elements for this narrative are: 

• At age 13 Alice cleaved herself in two. 
• The half that “got busy” is the one we know from AMA and AMR. 
• That Alice ran forward, knife in hand, to fight the dragons and slay the demons. 
• And she eventually prevailed in killing the antagonist (Bumby). 
• But something remained broken. She must dissolve and reform to complete the journey.
• Child Alice must be rescued from the PTSD loop and reintegrated. 
• But Child Alice is fighting from within against the forces of transformation.
• In her battle against The Mystery, Child Alice will eventually realize what it represents.
• A reintegrated Alice must finally fight to dissolve Wonderland so it can be reborn.

The Mystery

Alice’s other half – The Inner Child – is trapped in the past, stuck in a loop, reliving the horrors of the encounter with Chaos. Her world is a place of disorder and confusion from which she cannot escape. She’s been around and around the place, dozens of times – think “Groundhog Day” – and played all the scenarios from every angle.  

Adult Alice’s attempts to enter this place are frustrated by Young Alice.  

The Mystery is the manifestation of Adult Alice attempting to reconnect with her Inner Child. But viewed through the eyes of a child, the mature, shadow self of Adult Alice is alien and scary. She does not recognize The Mystery as her adult self. And what The Mystery calls “integration” Child Alice calls “destruction.” 

The Presentation

Presented in this way, we’re able to re-tell the story of AMA, AMR, and Asylum from a perspective (of Child Alice) that allows “discovery” of the elements veteran players already know. For someone coming to the franchise for the first time, this means they can play Asylum without first needing to experience either of the first two games. 

This also means that Asylum is a self-contained beginning-middle-and end for the series. 

But Wait! There’s More!

There is more but I want to pause here while everyone takes a moment to think about what’s been outlined. It will probably take me a couple of attempts to fully capture why what I’ve outlined above is important to constructing the narrative I think we need for this game. Your comments and questions will help me understand where to sketch in more detail. So…

You know the drill. Read. Think. And then drop your feedback in the comments below!

I’m very much looking forward to your thoughts.

From Shanghai with Mystery, 

-American