Dear Insane Children, 

Here is Shanghai it is New Year’s Eve. Woo! 2020 is almost here. 

It’s been a busy year in which we added Norm and Dario to our art team. We finalized the 2nd proposal for EA and sent that to them back in August – still waiting on a proper reply! And we managed to create some really wonderful physical goods and Asylum related art, design, and narrative. 

Heading into 2020 I’d like to see our team drill down on the narrative for Alice: Asylum with a goal of having a complete Design Bible in hand by end of year. This is an ambitious goal for a team as small as ours but one I think we’re prepared to tackle – especially with the help of Crowd Design and your support!

Throughout the holiday our art team has continued to produce illustrations and ideas for Hatter’s Domain. 

Norman sends along new additions to the Creature Menagerie (main images above). 

And Dario shares a color illustration of a cottage in Hatter’s domain – also my new desktop background!

Schedule For 1st QTR 2020

A number of seemingly unrelated things have combined together such that I’ll be away for most of January – and generally very busy (with travel) during the first couple months of 2020. 

Normally I would go to Thailand for Pirate Jam route planning in December. And then Chinese New Year sailing in February. And then go to Pirate Jam in April… But my passport was “gone” all of December (visa renewal). And Chinese New Year is in January this year. And we’ve moved Pirate Jam to March! 

So in ~24 hours, I’m flying to Thailand for route planning – 7 days. Then back home for a week. Then back to Thailand for my annual sailing/diving trip. Then back home a few weeks until the start of Pirate Jam 2020. 

During that time I’ll continue to work and update as much as possible. And our team will still be cranking out art and design. Font Lord is around to provide support. But our usual online Crowd Design and Live Streams are going to be impacted pretty heavily. I appreciate your patience and understanding during this period. 

Asylum Plans for 2020

I have my calendar marked to “bother EA” mid-January. This is when I expect most of the people we’re dealing with to be back from winter vacation(s). At that time I plan to email not just the BD guy we’ve been working with but a couple of other parties I know who are interested in seeing Asylum made. We’ll try to get things moving – and I’ll keep you updated on what sort of response we get. 

2020 feels like “The Year” to me – the year in which we finally get things moving with EA. They’ve had an excellent response to their recent Star Wars (Fallen Order) game. And they’ll need more single-player action games in the pipeline for next-gen console releases. We’re well-positioned to present them with a compelling argument for why Alice: Asylum should be in the lineup. 

On a more spiritual note – 2020 is a Rat Year (Chinese Calendar). And I’m a rat. So is Yan. And my mom. And lots of other important people I love. 

Do you know who else is a Rat? Someone born in 1852 on May 4th…

Lots of fun stuff in store for 2020. I’m glad you’re along for the ride. And thankful for all the support you’ve provided. 

Let us know in the comments below what you have in store for the New Year. Hopes? Resolutions? 

From Shanghai with Eek, 

-American

Dear Insane Children

Font Lord here, ready to excite your Christmas/Boxing Day/Festive Celebrations with actual images of real pins being made   🙂

Take a look at the pic and see which of these 3 samples tickles your fancy the most and sound off in the comments below.

* Over on the left, we have ‘Silver Metal with Black Enamel’.
* In the middle we have ‘Black Nickel and Silver Filling’. (yes, it really does have that kinda 3D look on the symbols)
*And on the right, we have ‘Black Nickel with White Enamel’.

Me and American have our own ideas about which style to go for, but without letting you know which way we’re leaning, we wanted to hear from you.

So, say LEFT, RIGHT or MIDDLE in the comments and then we’ll see if all our ideas line up and we can tell the factory to pull the trigger on getting it all made    🙂

– Cheers and a Merry Christmas to all

 Dear Friends, Family, and Insane Children: 

Wishing you a very Lucky Christmas and hoping that all your Awoo come true. At three months he’s yet to find a job. And spends most days lazing around on his back. Or looking for boob. But he’ll still manage to give us lots of “presents” to unwrap today. And tomorrow. And the next day. He’s the present that keeps on giving!

Happy Holidays to all. And Awoo to you.

Love From,

-American, Yan, Lucky (and Lulu!)

PS: Back with updates (new art, story, etc) in a few days. 

Dear Insane Children, 

Apologies for the late notice. Lots going on this week!

So we’ll have a Crowd Design Session over on our Discord Server in a little while… 

That’s 6PM PST for those of you on the West Coast of the USA. And it’s 10AM over here in Asia (Hong Kong Time). 

You can learn more about our Discord Server HERE. 

Plush Debates

A lot more fun than a political debate! We’ll talk about the various concepts being floated for a new plush design. 

Would you come out of your shell for a cute Mock Turtle Plush?

Or perhaps it’s 4:20 and time for a puff with Caterpillar? 

Do we go insane and create an Asylum Alice plush? 

Or are we in Denial? Should we stick to the original vote and stop pushing to Remain (in the Asylum) with Denial Dress Alice (above)? (I’m not sure that pun analogy joke worked). 

Bring your thoughts and feedback to the Crowd Design Session!

Insanity awaits.

From Shanghai with Discord,

-American

Dear Insane Children, 

It’s Wednesday here in Shanghai which means tomorrow is Live Stream Day!

Hit THIS LINK to head over to YouTube and set a reminder for the big event.

PLEASE HELP ME – check the scheduled time for the event. It should translate to 10AM on Thursday, December 19th Hong Kong Time. But the YouTube Livestream setup stuff is Really Crap (TM) so it’s impossible for me to know if it’s set correctly.

That should be 6PM PST on the 18th for those of you in the USA. Check and see if it’s showing up correctly. Thank you!

And be sure to share your feedback and questions in the comments below. We like to read those out during the live stream.

Shattered Wonderland

We’ll continue our exploration of Hatter’s Domain – the narrative, art, and design for a location really central to Alice’s adventure in Asylum. 

There’s so much great art pouring in for this area. I love it! 

These exploration of possible enemies we’d find in Hatter’s Domain are excellent. Norm is riffing off the idea that Hatter’s experiment upended the rules of reality and caused all the normal forest creatures to combine and mutate into Lovecraftian nightmares. 

Combine these beasties with locations like the “floating island” illustration from Joey (main image above) and you start to get a real sense of how wild this area of the game can be. 

Plush Politics

Lots of debate happening behind the scenes with regards to what we might do for our next Plush Doll design. And lots of example art and concept images to support the various arguments for-and-against all these ideas. 

Please join the stream tomorrow so we can discuss these things in real time with YOU our Insane Children! 

Nothing like a good debate! 

See you soon!

From Shanghai with Mutations,

-Amerilulu

Dear Insane Children, 

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend wherever you are! Here in Shanghai, we celebrated Lucky’s 100 Days and birthdays for myself and Yan’s mom. Which made it a busy weekend full of babies and balloons. Yay! 

Back in the Asylum… 

Crowd Design Delay

We’re moving our next Crowd Design Session to Thursday, Dec 19th, afternoon PST (Friday morning in Shanghai) so that one of our Insane Children Mods can be there to help with recording. I’ll send out a proper notice with the topic, time/date, and info on our Discord server with the next Patreon Post. Apologies for the delay! 

Another Insane Plush

Since we’ve finished Crowd Design on the Enamel Pins and will wait to start promoting those in February… I was thinking we might start looking at what comes next for a Collector Plush. 

Omri reminds me that we previously held a vote on this topic and that Denial Dress Alice won… but I really have my heart set on a little Asylum Alice Plush. So I asked Omri to take another stab at the design of the Asylum Alice Plush… which you can see above. 

For any new design, we’ll seek out a new factory. I felt that we were hitting the technical limits of what the previous factory could do in terms of materials, shapes, and quality. And I’d like to push to make these plush dolls better and better as time goes on and we gain experience.  

Let us know in the comments below what you think of this design. Would you like to place this in the collection with your Cheshire Kitten and Rabbit Plush? 

Enamel Pins

The factory sent along an image to show where they will place the studs on the pins.

I did read a comment from someone on my Instagram who suggested that some of these larger pins might require two studs. That note was sent to the factory as soon as I read it… but they claim the molds have already been made. Too Fast! 

So we have to hope that these placements work and that one stud per pin is sufficient. 

We should have samples in hand soon. At that time we’ll take pictures, talk about the designs, and see if any revisions are needed. 

Mad Chaos

Our new addition to the art team is making excellent progress with his exploration of Hatter’s Domain. Dario sends along a number of early sketches to show what Hatter’s “exploded” domain might look like. And what the remaining structures look like floating around in the debris cloud. 

Finally! We’re starting to see what Hatter’s Domain looks like with all these elements blown to bits and left floating around in a chaotic space of weightless weirdness. Yay!

Expect to see these fantastic locations detailed and colored in the next pass. Can’t wait!

Dario also sent along this final color render of the Queen of Hearts Castle. So much “floating in space” goodness!

Oink!

So Hatter’s domain is this place where space and time have been blown apart. Where Alice’s imagination has come truly unhinged. So what sort of nightmares might a little Victorian girl imagine when the physics of her imagined reality are turned upside down? 

Yeah. Some Pigs. 

There’s more of this where the pigs came from. Norm has created some FANTASTIC beasties to inhabit the ruined reality of Hatter’s Domain.

But more of that… in the next post! 

Let the team hear your feedback in the comments below! 

From Shanghai with Oink, 

-American