Dear Insane Children,
The team are putting finishing touches on a couple of elements related to Denial and The Circus Realm. Over the past couple of weeks they’ve sketched out details for the characters we’ll encounter and locations we’ll visit. We also have a rough outline of the major story beats – but will come back to complete that sketch later.
The image above is the final version of Omri’s “Madame Priscilla” poster from the Circus Realm.
This turned out great – and if it’s anything like the “Surprise Guest” poster – it’ll be amazing when printed. Of all the prints we’ve done… “Surprise Guest” jumped swiftly into my Top-3. There’s a magic quality about it when printed as an actual poster. For those of you receiving these as art prints… you’ll soon see what I mean.
Plushy Battle!
Meanwhile… in the dark depths of the Art Caves… Jen and Omri are sketch-battling over ideas for a third-and-final Asylum Plush. One suggestion (championed by Jen) is that we produce an “Asylum Alice” plush. Omri says that’s “depressing” and would prefer to see a Denial Dress Alice Plush.
What do YOU think? If we add another Plush to the line… would you prefer Inmate Alice – wearing a straight jacket and with head shaved? Or a Denial Dress Alice… cute and blissfully unaware.
Why All the Dolls? The Doll Maker!
A while back I did suggest that we’d see Alice visit The Doll Maker during her exploration of Wonderland in Alice: Asylum. At this point in the story she’s unaware (consciously) of the evil he represents. Her battle is not with him – but with herself. So he’s able to occupy a neutral (?) place in the Asylum representation of Wonderland. I think we might see him running a doll-toy-shop which Alice visits to acquire and upgrade her arsenal of toys-as-weapons.
If we continue along that line of thinking… imagine that The Doll Maker has the full set of Plush Toys – White Rabbit, Cheshire Cat, and an (Asylum) Alice doll.
How might this narrative element fit into Alice’s adventure in terms of game play, weapons, or other mechanics? Would Alice collect these dolls or the parts necessary to construct them as a task for The Doll Maker? Does she work to acquire the necessary Chaos Coins so that she can purchase these dolls – and add to her abilities based on attributes that they carry?
Let me know your thoughts on this – and what/if we should have a third plush in the form of (which) Alice – in the comments below!
Joey is working on storyboards for The Circus Realm. And this series of frames got me thinking in a message to Omri…
Regarding the singing… appearing on stage. I love that trope. Would be beautiful/scary to see… from Chaos through to the Circus Realm, little Alice is sneaking around, humming, slowly starting to form a tune and sing to herself. It’s something she does to calm her nerves. And perhaps a finished song emerges over this time… until she’s walking through some pitch-black space and really starting to sing. When suddenly the lights come up and she’s surrounded by all the eyes and faces of the circus?
I feel like it we wouldn’t have to try very hard to incorporate a bit more theatrics and singing into Asylum.
Please share your thoughts on that in the comment below. Are there games you’ve played where, like Alice: Asylum, there’s been an element of literal theater or singing integrated into the world and story? Would you like to see more of that sort of thing?
The Fire – Anger- And The Queen of Hearts
From next week we’ll move into the Realm of the Queen of Hearts. The manifestation of Anger.
What might we find there? How does Alice’s PTSD inform the characters, architecture, and narrative of this critical area? We’ve already established that Alice’s Rabbit will be kidnapped and held hostage by The Queen. Hatter is firmly in her targeting sights and Alice is on a mission to destroy what threatens her…
Collect your thoughts and experiences related to Anger. They will come in handy for where we’re heading next!
From Shanghai with GrrrrAngerrrr,
-American
