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