Dear Insane Children, 

This week’s livestream is set for Thursday, 17th, January, 2019 (Hong Kong Time).

Hit THIS LINK to set a reminder over on YouTube. 

That’s Wednesday, 16th of January at 6PM PST for those of you in the US. 

Join us!

American and Martin come to you live from the Bunny Arena! Two bunnies enter, two dozen bunnies leave. What… That’s not how that’s supposed to work! Let’s talk about White Rabbit Plush outfits – onesies, dresses, and DLC!  

Less Than 500 To Go!

Keep up your sharing across various social media platforms – we’re now less than 500 Patrons away from hitting our 3222 Goal. Feel free to use this image: 

And this link: bit.ly/RabbitPlush

If you have questions about how this Reward works, check out THIS PAGE. Lots of info over there. 

Two common questions I’ve seen recently: 

1) There’s no “$45 Tier, how do I pledge?” No, there’s no $45 Tier but “Tier” and “Pledge Amount” aren’t the same. To see what I mean… Hit the “Your Memberships” page from the Patreon Main Menu. Then click on “Edit” for a given Creator. You should see something like this: 

You can set Tier and Pledge separately. So… when we hit out goal simply adjust your Pledge to $45 and leave it there to be processed for one month. You can also select the $35 Tier (or any Tier below $45) if you’d like to record a month of the $35 Tier. 

And… I’ll tell you a secret… if you select $75 and it’s your first month at $75 you will receive the entire Rabbit Plush Collection PLUS an Art Print and Chaos Necklace. Shhh. Don’t tell anyone that… it’s a massive amount of stuff!

2) Yes, we will send out all sorts of notifications and alerts to let you know when we’ve hit our goal. And you’ll have until the end of the month in which we hit the goal to adjust your pledge. You just need to be charged at $45 for the month in which we hit the goal.

I hate explaining this stuff because it makes it all sound more complicated than it really is. We’ve been through this with the Chaos Coin and several thousand of you got through that without injury or insult… I am pretty sure we can manage it again! 🙂

If you have questions, first check out the info page linked above. Then post them in the comments below. We’ll do our best to make it all make sense! 😉 

From Shanghai with Bunnies Onesies,

-American

Dear Insane Children, 

Omri’s back with a revision of the Rabbit outfit. This time it’s a onesie! And, yes, it can come in orange. 

Give us your feedback and suggestions in the comments below.

Keep in mind that these images are Work In Progress. 

Also WIP is the concept that we might attach this in-game clothing item to the physical White Rabbit Plush – as in, “You need to purchase the Plush in order to unlock the in-game clothing.” 

I’ve seen more than a few strongly emotional reactions to the idea of exclusive DLC linked to a real world item. Not sure I fully understand what’s going on there… seems there’s a fear of missing out (for people in the future who weren’t aware of this deal when it was proposed)? Also some sense of wanting to complete all the acquisition of stuff in-game but not wanting to participate in the collection of physical items outside of the game? 

I am uncertain how this squares with how we presented the Chaos Coins… those to are physical items with exclusive in-game content attached. And I don’t recall any sort of negative reaction to those.

Anyway, it’s not yet decided… so let’s discuss the issue and come to some sort of resolution. I’d like to be able to link physical items with in-game items… and would like to have some understanding of your sense of “bad” ways to do this… and good solutions as well. Thanks! 

Patron “Fred and Desiree” shared this mock-up of a Rabbit Onesie over on our Community Page. If you have ideas, you can always share them there. We love seeing the creativity of our community! 

Only 500 To Go

We’re only 500 Patrons away from unlocking the White Rabbit Plush Collector Set and adding about 50~100 new Patrons per day. Spread the word! If we keep up this pace we can unlock the reward this month. Yay! 

From Shanghai in a Onesie, 

-American 

Dear Insane Children, 

Back when we were raising awareness for the “Out of the Woods” Kickstarter I promised that we’d send a free PDF copy of the Illustrated Book to everyone who signed up for the Mysterious Mailing List. 

Tomorrow, we’ll send out a link to the PDF via the mailing list. 

So, this is your chance to sign up in order to get that link and grab the free PDF. 

You can SIGN UP HERE. 

Note that this mailing list is different to and separate from the Alice mailing list and is used primarily to highlight products and deals available at Mysterious. We usually only send one update per month to this list. 

From Mysterious with Wolves, 

-American 

Dear Insane Children, 

I woke this morning to find a gift from Omri waiting in my inbox!

Behold The Plush Dress!

This is his design proposal for the DLC Dress we’d give to Plush Rabbit owners in Alice: Asylum. 

What do you think?

A couple of things to discuss: 

First, I like this dress. But what I had in mind was a “onesie” sorta like this…

There are a few reasons I think this might be the way to go… For one, it’s a costume literally anyone can pull off – girls and boys. It’s something I can easily mass produce and offer for sale at Mysterious. It can double as real-world pajamas – a practical use! 

But those are the real-world rationales… 

In-game, I think the onesie idea fits better with my image of young Alice sometimes wanting to hide, blend in, or call less attention to herself. In a broken Wonderland, who is going to notice a bedraggled looking little rabbit scurrying around in the shadows? The  Plush Dress (onesie) might be Alice’s ultimate stealth outfit… She doesn’t just seek comfort from her plush bunny… but is comforted by becoming her plush bunny. 

Then again, we could have both. The dress as seen above – and with a button-press that dress transforms into the onesie. 

Thoughts? 

Second thing to consider is accessibility of this DLC to those who don’t own the physical Rabbit Plush. Is it a bad thing to say, “In order to acquire this Rabbit Plush in-game you must first acquire the physical Rabbit Plush in the real world?” Is that very different from a DLC dress which you pay to download? 

I am not on one side or the other of this topic. In fact, I think the whole topic is a bit of a minefield. Which is why I’m asking that we discuss it now and then decide the best way to present this. 

What are you ideas on how we might link the White Rabbit Plush doll with the in-game dress? 

I look forward to your suggestions and ideas in the comments below!

Crowd Design Reminder

A quick reminder that we are hosting Design Discussion #3 over on Discord in about an hour. That’s 10AM Hong Kong Time (1/15/19) or 9PM EST in the US (1/14/19). 

We’ll be discussing the community suggestions from the Design Wiki. 

Want more info about Discord? Hit THIS LINK. 

Rabbit Plush Goal 

Oh, and as of this post we only need to get 600 more Insane Children into the Asylum to unlock the Rabbit Plush Goal! I’m doing all sorts of marketing and social media posts to raise awareness. You can help!

Help us hit the goal faster by sharing the Rabbit Plush Dress on your social media accounts and using this link: bit.ly/RabbitPlush 

From Shanghai in a Onesie,

-American

Dear Insane Children, 

In the process of cleaning up my inbox after my Thailand travels I came across a batch of Joey art which I fear wasn’t fully shared… 

About the edit to the dress she says, 

I edit Omri’s version of Alice’s burning mode a little bit, I like that transparent arms so you can see her bones, that part is totally cool. But those fires on her shoulders, I think they are too much, especially when she’s moving, those fires will bury her head and make her face unable to see. I personally like her butterfly and black strips back dress, but that may not quite suitable for a 13-year-old girl, kind of too sexy for her. And I know Omri doesn’t want her back all in black dress, so I add some empty hearts, where you can see her back. 

Which I think is fair enough. What do you think?

And the other images are pretty self-explanatory. 

Just wanted to make sure all that stuff was shared here so that it finds its way into the Wiki 🙂

From Shanghai with Mailbox Cleaning,

-American

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