Dear Patrons,

I’m back from an adventure up the West Coast of the US. Yan and I drove from San Francisco to Seattle stopping at a variety of lovely towns along the way. It’s always good to get away from the hustle and bustle of Shanghai in order to stimulate the creative process. 

At Powell’s in Portland I managed to pick up two books by CG Jung which were influential to the first two Alice games – but I’d somehow managed to lose track of – “The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious” and “Psychology and Alchemy.” And I was able to meet and talk with RJ Berg about narrative, design, production, and business. Finally I had some very interesting talks with a large platform/publisher in Seattle… but can’t say anything about that other than it helps us move a step closer to making “Alice: Asylum” a reality. Exciting stuff!

While I was away Joey sent along some new images and I’ve replied to her in the message below. 

As always, we’d love to hear your feedback and ideas.

We’ll host another live stream on YouTube later this week. Be sure to join us!

Click HERE to visit the live stream page and set a reminder.

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Oct 31st, 2017

Joey, 

This new version of the Cat is great. I think this gets very close to what the fans had in mind when they talked about putting some fur on him. 

For the Bargaining stage… I am still uncertain about where this will take place. I’ve been thinking about it daily and reading the feedback from fans but nothing really sticks just yet. It does seem the area should be one which clearly represents the pain and suffering taking place within Alice’s mind. It’s this pain she’s willing to bargain in order to be rid of. So we could imagine an area of Wonderland being punished/injured en masse by some force of nature or other widespread damaging effects. 

Imagine a place in Wonderland where it never stops raining – and the characters melt if they get wet. 

Or a place where the sun no longer shines – and all the (talking) plants are dying slowly from lack of sunlight.

These sorts of events could represent the pain Alice is suffering – and her mission to restore things to normal is an analog to her bargaining her way out of that pain. Ultimately, whatever the mission, it must fail. I’ll think about an area where this would make sense – and I’ll discuss with the fans. Then get back to you.

Cheers, 

-a

Dear Patrons, 

Another wonderful image from Joey has just arrived. Below I provide feedback and discuss what we might see upon exploring the interior of this domain of Anger. There’s also a bit of thought on the next domain, Bargaining.

We’re closing in on our next Patreon goal and the addition of another artist to the project. With both Joey and Sonny working on illustrations Wonderland will take shape much faster. 

Someone asked in a comment how many artists I plan to bring onboard during pre-production. Ultimately that question is answered by the level of support we’re able to maintain. This is why Patreon is so critical to the process – your support directly powers this production. 

It’s my hope that we’ll continue growing our mailing list, Patreon support, and collection of design/art materials through to October of 2018. Who knows how big this thing will get? But I’d like to have a mountain of detail about the new game by then – and be ready to launch a massive crowdfunding campaign. 

But first we need to get a presentation ready for EA. That means a collection of images and ideas we can condense into a 10~20 page PPT. Keep this in mind as we race through high level illustrations of domains and major characters. That’s the content I need to tell the overall story for Asylum. After that’s done and approved we can dive into all the insane details.

—

October 15, 2017

Joey: 

I had a rough color sketch of queen’s castle, I will continue if you feel this is the right way.

I will be working on some ideas of Alice’s weapon until I have your feedback on the background, then I would continue on that.

Are you on a trip or sth.? Haven’t hear from you recently.

Oh, I am also working on Alice’s face on our very first image in Asylum.

American:

Joey, The initial sketch looks great. Really does a good job capturing the emotional concept of Anger. 

I imagine an interior space of dark/burnt corridors filled with smoke and flames. Pools of fire and jets of flame erupting all around. It would be like walking into the brightest point of pain in Alice’s psyche – all recalling the night of the fire which killed her family. An eternally burning building filled with burning enemies and traps, echoes of distant screams… excellent.
Please feel free to explore some of the interior areas in your next illustrations. 

After that, we’ll want to move to the next domain – Bargaining. In the Grief Cycle this is the stage where, without accepting the trauma/pain, a person tries to make a deal so it’ll go away. Alice might attempt to exchange her own life for that of her family or to exchange her sanity/consciousness for release from her psychological pain. How we represent this in terms of location/art is a big question. For the narrative part, we can lean on any number of tropes (as with the examples above). Who in Wonderland might hold the power to release Alice from her anguish? This character is likely to be pivotal – a devil in disguise who offers Alice a Faustian deal only to turn vengeful when Alice finally rejects the idea and tries to move to the next stage… 

Some ideas to chew on!

Yes, I am currently in Thailand working on my sailboat. It’s out of the water and we’re repairing many things – hot and dirty work but it needs to be done from time to time. 

You probably don’t need to spend much time on Alice’s face these days. I think we have enough of an idea of her and her dress for the presentation I’m building. I do think we could use more work on the Cheshire Cat though. Doesn’t feel like we’ve really captured the right image yet – many of the fans are asking for a version where he actually has fur. So maybe try a variation based more closely on the Cat from the first two games – but try to have him look a little more healthy, with a bit more fur. You should still include the idea of burning in the areas of his tattoos. 

Soon I’d like to add another artist to our group. Sonny is interested in joining us and I think he’d make a great addition to the team. He’s especially good with characters – so we could have him take a stab at the Cat. I’d also like to have him start on illustrations of other main characters like Hatter, Mock Turtle, etc. 

I look forward to seeing your progress with the weapons! 

I’m back to Shanghai for 2 days this week and then off to the US until 30th of October. Let’s keep in touch and continue making progress on all this stuff. I can work wherever there’s the Internet! 🙂 

Cheers,
-American McGee
Mysterious Inc.

Alice: Madness Returns benefitted from the creative output of a wonderful team of artists and illustrators. Among them Sonny made a lasting mark by defining the look of several key elements such as The Infernal Train…

And the domain of Queensland…

Now he’s ready to join the Asylum and help define visuals for Alice’s next adventure through the looking glass. 

Adding him to the team is our next Patreon Goal.

Get early access, a direct line of communication to pre-production, and help bring Sonny on board the adventure by becoming a Patron today! 

Dear Patrons, 

We’ve got a final version of the initial Wonderland scene and some renders of Alice’s “Ash Dress” from behind with focus on the Flaming Skull (sounds like a yummy drink). 

Live Stream where we’ll respond to YOUR comments and answer YOUR questions – Sunday, October 8th @ 18:30 PST. Set a reminder and join the fun over on YouTube.

Here’s my response to Joey’s latest drop of artwork and ideas. Let us know what you think in the comments below. 

A couple of points to consider… 

• What about an arsenal of weapons focused exclusively on “fire” as a concept?
• How else might we leverage a “light on command” Flaming Skull?
• Any further feedback from cos-players on the Ash Dress design (front and back)? 

—–

Joey, 

The final version of the Wonderland environment is wonderful! The nutcracker is great – it’s reminded several people of a scene from the original game in which we’d also placed a giant nutcracker. I think this image will be great as an opening to the presentation we’re working on. Please be sure to send me the final hi-res file. I will also be printing copies of these to send our high-level supporters on Patreon.

Regarding future environments and the connection to colors – I do think your suggestion is a good one. Let’s connect each area to a primary color and complimentary color pallet. The next area (emotion) we’ll see is Anger – and anger is usually represented by dark red colors. That means we should expect to go into an area of Wonderland dominated by red – so let’s try the domain of the Red Queen. 

You can read about the Red Queen here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen_(Through_the_Looking-Glass)

Because she is a chess piece we should expect to see her kingdom structured around elements from a chess board. This was something we did in the first Alice as well. Though in “Alice” the area was presented as black and white – devoid of color. As you see here: 

For the Red Queen area this time I think it would be nice if you showed Alice outside of a castle. She can be surrounded by a sort of red/angry forest and plants. Maybe we can see there are guards at a large gate which Alice must find a way to get past. It could be around sunset so that the sky has a fiery red appearance as well? The point is to have the castle look more organic and colorful than what was presented in the first game. How do you feel about that? 

We also need to start thinking about weapons and skills for Alice. One idea presenting itself to me comes from the Flaming Skull on the back of her dress. We could build areas in which Alice must use the skull in order to navigate the darkness – or to keep monsters at bay. The skull can only burn for a limited time (10 seconds?) and after that, it must recharge. If she’s caught in a dark place or surrounded by monsters when the flames go out – she dies. This would lead to some interesting timing puzzles. 

It also opens the theme of “fire” as one of Alice’s primary weapons/skills. Perhaps we should explore a number of fire-related ideas for weapons? Fire is something kids love to play with – matches (flaming darts), fireworks (timed bomb), kerosene (lamp/flamethrower), ash/soot (cloaking or choking cloud/area of effect), etc. Let me know if you have other ideas – and we’ll ask the fans the same. 

Dear Patrons, 

Just in time for Halloween! I’ve added a collection of “Inmate” shirts to the Mysterious Shop. These designs were done by our friend and supporter Jennifer D’aww. And I’ve created a discount code for YOU my Patrons. Just use “PatronShirt” at checkout to get 15% off the regular price. 

Let the world know we’re all MAD here! 

*Discount is code will work until October 31st at 11:59pm.

Dear Patrons, 

We’re through the looking glass once again… Today we’re greeted by a vision of Wonderland during “Asylum.” 

During the live stream earlier today we discussed possible inspiration for Alice’s imaginings in this latest adventure. When exploring this topic we must keep in mind the nature of Wonderland and its relationship to Alice. Through the first two games we saw Wonderland as an extension or reflection of Alice’s psychological landscape. The characters she encounters represent her emotions or elements of her psyche. The obstacles she encounters are symbolic representations of the dangers she confronts in the real world. 

If we stick with the Kubler-Ross grief model as a template for the stages of Alice’s adventure then the first area she visits will be modeled upon “denial.” In this stage we can expect to see Wonderland as “normal” and the characters we encounter will insist everything’s fine. That’s why in this first image we see beauty, wonder, and safety. 

The topic of world structure was also touched on briefly today. I suggested we might explore a world where procedurally generated exploration zones (forests, mazes, etc) connect a fixed number of “puzzle rooms” or pre-defined set pieces. This would offer Alice a chance to explore, discover, and fight in a larger sandbox while also providing structure to the platform/puzzle and narrative elements of the game. 

We’ll continue exploring landscapes through the lens of grief. Meanwhile we also need to start thinking about weapons, moves, puzzle abilities, and other game play elements. 

Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below. Are there areas of Wonderland you want to revisit? Places you think were left out of the first two games? 

—

Because Martin and I neglected to address Patreon questions and comments during today’s live stream we’ll make a point to focus on those things during the next stream. 

It’s a major national holiday here in China so we’re off for a few days but will be back this weekend.

Cheers, 

-a