Dear Insane Children,
Omri sends along a new image to represent the Shock Stage from Alice: Asylum. This is the stage at the very start of the game – as is detailed over on the Design Wiki. Here’s my feedback to him…
I love this image. And I really like the thinking behind moving away from the fire motif. It is a bit overdone. And… shock isn’t a burning hot thing. It’s actually a numb cold thing. Everything is broken and blown apart. It’s difficult to breathe. Your ears stop working. Everything coming into your mind is muted, dull, meaningless. So… I think the overexposed brightness of the image; all the visuals being obscured… this makes a lot of sense.
How do you feel about this representation of Shock? Have you personally experienced a true and traumatic shock? How did it impact your perception of the world and people around you?
Let’s get our shared expediences collected in the Comments on the Discord and over on the Wiki so we can represent this stage in-game with the highest accuracy and impact.
Discord + Crowd Design
Lots of new Insane Children joining the Asylum these days. Welcome, all!
A reminder to newcomers that what we’re doing here is a bit unique:
Using Crowd Design to guide the development of the next game in the Alice series: Alice: Asylum. To that end we have several tools in place which you should check out:
1) A Private Discord Server. Where you can interact in real-time with our Asylum of Insane Children. This is accessible to those who pledge $5 or more per month. And you must be processed for one month at $5 before access is granted. More details VIA THIS LINK.
2) A Design Wiki. This is where we collect artwork, design notes, narrative elements, suggestions, and everything else we hope will go into Alice: Asylum. You can add comments to articles and we’ll review those during the Weekly Design Discussions. View that via THIS LINK.
3) Weekly YouTube Livestreams. This is where we discuss all the art, narrative, and design work being done on Alice: Asylum – with updates on other projects like Out of the Woods, Pirate Jam, and our efforts to establish a new development studio in Thailand. Post your QUESTIONS and SUGGESTIONS in the comments on Patreon and we’ll respond to those during the Livestreams. Subscribe to American’s YouTube Channel via THIS LINK.
4) Social Media Channels such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter also contain updates and notices about all our projects.
5) Weekly Crowd Design Discussions via Discord. This is where the entire community gets together to review suggestions and comments on the Wiki. We discuss the merits and feasibility of ideas – then determine whether those ideas might make it into the game (or not). If you miss a live Design Discussion – fear not! We post those to the YouTube channel for later viewing.
Design Discussion Tomorrow!
Speaking of Design Discussions… the next one is happening in about 24 hours. That’s 10AM Hong Kong Time on 1/15/2019 or 9PM EST on 1/14/2019 for those of you in the US.
If you have Discord access then please join us as we continue through the list of design suggestions over on the Design Wiki.
During the last Design Discussion we touched on the idea of Emotion Bottles which got Alex sketching…
What do you think of the idea of Alice collecting bottled up emotions in order to unlock or power-up certain attacks and abilities?
The Stages So Far
Joey sends along an overview map of the areas we’ve defined so far for Asylum…
Along with a guide to enemies and where we’ll find them…
All of which leads me to believe we’re building up to an EPIC adventure!
White Rabbit Goal Update
Over the weekend we’ve added around 50+ new Patrons per day. Wow!
This is partly because I created a $1 “Unlock the Rewards” Tier for those who want to stand in line for the least $$$ per month – and then bump up their pledges when we hit 3222 Patrons.
Currently we’re at 2,585 which means we have 637 Patrons to add before we hit the goal. To make that happen I’ll continue the big marketing push we’ve got underway.
YOU can help us by spreading the word on your Social Media Channels! Grab this picture…
And tell all your friends that for the low-low price of $45USD they get:
1x White Rabbit Plush Doll
1x Inmate Property Bag
1x Lulu Embroirderd Patch
1x In-game DLC Rabbit Dress for Alice: Asylum
All of that mailed anywhere in the world with tracking – and shipping is FREE. That is a literally insane good deal! So tell your friends, fr-enemies, family, furries, future self time-travelers, and any other f’ers you can think of!
You can use the bit.ly link I created: bit.ly/RabbitPlush – which will take people to a Patreon page with all the info.
Let’s hit that goal! (Full details in THIS POST).
Pirate Jam 2019
This week also finds me pulling together all the info collected during my previous trip to Thailand – and mapping out all the locations we’ll visit during Pirate Jam 2019.
Are you a game developer interested in joining our fleet from March 28th to April 7th? Then hit that link and submit your application.
Sponsors are also welcome! Again, hit the link!
Alice Tarot Cards
We are exploring the idea of presenting a Tarot Card Set based on Alice artwork as a Kickstarter campaign. If you have interest in this project please let us know in the comments below.
One thing we need to judge is just how many people would back a project like this. Other questions include: How much is a deck like this worth to you? What type of deck is most interesting? What sort of pitfalls or common mistakes should be avoid?
This is a big “unknown” to us – so all the feedback and advice is much appreciated.
It’s a Circus
Whew! That’s a TON of stuff going on across a wide range of projects. It’s a bit MAD…
Do let me know in the comments below if you have any questions, suggestions, or just words of wonder.
Hope to see many of you during the Design Discussion on Discord tomorrow!
And I’ll send out a reminder for this week’s YouTube Livestream soon.
Martin Message(TM)
Martin says, “We are playing catch-up since the holidays with sending out posters and whatnot. If you are waiting on something to be delivered, rest assured it’s on the way! And if you have a question or concern about the delivery of a physical item, PM US.”
So, there you have it. Yes, your stuff is on the way, and yes, we are a bit behind but slowly catching up!
From Shanghai in the Circus,
-American, Martin, and Lulu