Dear Insane Children, 

While we’re working on a couple of possibilities for physical merch – calendars, snow globes, etc – I thought we should think about a couple of additional Plush Toys. Why? Because they’re relatively easy to produce, everyone seems to love them, and … I like making eff’ed up toys? 

So I first asked for a Vorpal Blade Plush – because I figure cosplayers and Alice fans alike will have fun with it. We can’t make/export “knife” things but I think we can get away with mailing plush/pillow objects in the shape of a knife? Anyway, based on the rough concept image turned in by Jen (above) we’re getting a sample made of this. I’ll try to ship it to someone outside of China to test whether or not it can escape… and if it can, then we’ll make more! Yay for bending the rules! 

As per the usual routine, we’ll want to connect this with an in-game perk. Ideas? It could unlock an early upgrade to the Vorpal Blade? Or an alternate attack with the Vorpal Blade? (Keep in mind that whatever it does, it WILL NOT be exclusive to people who purchase the plush – since we all agree that sort of thing is unfair/un-fun).

The next idea is a Humpty Dumpty Plush. This is the initial design Jen turned in. And here are my notes… 

For Humpty Dumpty… I’d like to see ‘more’ go into his design. Not to make him more complicated but to make him more “ours.”  Here are a bunch from a Google Search… 

How are we different? My creative direction (as per usual) is “eff him up” or “make him dark” etc, etc. 

Also, with whatever concept artwork comes back on the next revision… please include dimensions. That’s always the first question the factory asks me “how big is this thing?” I suggest we keep the longest portion of his diameter (top to bottom of the oval) around 25~30cm. Arms and legs can dangle off that central hub. 

Try to do something that inspires children to say, “What’s wrong with your toy?“

Same question here… what might Humpty Dumpty unlock in the game? 

Let us know in the COMMENTS below what you think of these designs and this direction. 

Which toy do you want more? A plush Vorpal Blade or an Effed up Humpty Dumpty?

From Shanghai with Plushness, 

-American

Dear Insane Children, 

We’re starting work on a new area in the game, The Realm of The Chess Pieces. 

To provide some direction to the Art Team, I wrote the following… 

The Realm of the Chess Pieces is made up of two sides (can be black/white or white/red… take your pick. I like black/white because if you then add the red of Chaos you get a nice black/white/red scheme). 

The overarching story of Asylum is Chaos vs. Order. Order is represented by the Queen of Hearts (the Realm of the Cards). Cards represent games that have rules so well defined that you can calculate the odds of card games. The rules and moves are relatively clear, simple, and logical.

Chess, on the other hand, is a game where the standard rules and equations don’t apply. Chaos (theory) plays a large role in determining the outcome of any particular game. It is a game of “organized disorder.” If it were otherwise, we’d not have struggled for so long to create computer programs capable of beating humans at it. 

So when we see the Queen of Hearts and her Kingdom – it’s all about keeping things clean, organized, and orderly. The rules must be followed. Timetables must be kept. Quotas must be met. And the show must go on. Even to the point of misrepresenting the situation (painting the white roses red) to maintain the appearance of order. 

The Chess Kingdom is accepting of Chaos. They’ve not so much been taken over by Chaos as allowed for a natural integration of its elements into their realm. Chaos is integrated into their kingdom alongside Order. “That which you resist will only persist” needs to be one of their mantras (carved over a door somewhere) – and since they do not resist Chaos, they are also not overrun by it. 

This is critical – a kingdom overrun by Chaos looks like the Queen’s Domain in AMA or AMR – covered in and consumed by Chaos. A kingdom integrated with Chaos looks like whatever we end up designing the Chess Realm to look like. 

What might that mean? Imagine columns that hold up buildings are shaped like tentacles – but frozen, carved?, unmoving. Imagine that the clocks all tell a slightly different time. That nature is integrated into various scenes – plants, vines, and tress growing up all over the place – but manicured and well tended. 

Note that the “color of depression” is actually gray. Which I think goes well with the notion of a Chess Realm made up of Black/White pieces and highlighted with the Red of Chaos… plus an underlying and ever-present gray. Add to that the green of plants… and I think you’ve got a beautiful setting.

Let me know what you think… 

Excited to see where the team takes this and what the Chess Realm ends up looking like. And also interested to hear YOUR feedback on this direction. Please let me and the team know your thoughts in the COMMENTS below. 

From Shanghai with Organized Disorder,

-American

Dear Insane Children

Font Lord here with that time of the month you’re all waiting for   😉
Yes! Who will lady luck smile upon today, as Google’s RNG feature picks 5 people from Patreon (and YouTube comments to keep us legal) to win the signed print “Tragedy”.

Could it be you?  Or how about you?  Maybe you there at the back?
Let’s see.

ROLL IT !!!

* Lyss
* Aeron Alto
* Ben Morris
* Bryan Pashakarnis
* Darren Close

Congrats to all, and look forwards to getting that print in the post in the not too distant future.  
Yay for winning stuff.

And what ‘lucky 5’ post would be complete without a Lulu, eh?

– Cheers

Dear Insane Children, 

Have I told you lately how much I love Tentacles? It should come as little surprise that when I opened the latest Tentacle Chaos Monster concept image from Omri – I laughed out loud and was smiling ear to ear. Seriously. 

I LOVE this concept. And I tweeted that we need to make Alice: Asylum for literally no other reason than to see this madness in action. 

We hosted a Live Stream over on Twitch yesterday and discussed these Tentacles and how they might behave in-game. We also talked at length about Alice’s design – translating the 2D concept images of her into a hi-res 3D model which we can then insert into an Unreal Engine scene. Lots of great topics covered and tons of your comments and suggestions read and explored.

The stream was recorded and uploaded to YouTube so you can WATCH IT HERE. 

The Moon and Manipulators

Meanwhile, the team continues to design the interior of The Moon and work on design notes for a boss encounter at the end of that scene. 

When Alice reaches the Control Room she’ll be confronted with… The Mock Turtle?! He was last seen in her “cell” in The Denial Realm – gently urging her to give up her dreams of running away from the circus. He’s like that terrible friend who, when you tell him you’re going to stop drinking, offers you a bottle of whiskey. Misery loves company after all. 

Well, turns out that The Mock Turtle – and everything in The Denial Realm – is an illusion. All created by creatures we’re calling “Manipulators.” These beasties can alter Alice’s perception of time, space, light, and more… 

But I want to be clear about something: Just because Omri included a note about “player losing control” as a result of an attack from one of these things: WE WILL NOT TAKE CONTROL AWAY FROM THE PLAYER. I hate that kind of thing and if you’ve ever watched me playing games during a live stream, you’ll have heard me state that fact several times. 

Anyway, Omri did up a concept where Turtle sits upon a turtle-themed throne at the start of his boss fight… I think this is kinda fun but I had further thoughts on how to design this Boss Fight:

One thing to think about is that under the “skin” or disguise of the Mock Turtle, this thing is actually a Manipulator. So… I don’t know if it makes sense to have the whole scene modeled after The Turtle. He’s just a prop. 

 The “scene” should be The Control Room of The Moon but since we’re fighting a master manipulator – we should go completely crazy with the Boss Manipulator (and his minions) “flipping reality” through all the sorts of things they think might get Alice to change her mind and go back to Denial. 

It would be like being in a Holodeck (Star Trek) gone haywire – first, Alice’s happy home and family, then The Circus, then floating on clouds in the sky (either meant to terrify or to lull Alice to sleep), a dreamy meadow, a giant Doll House, etc, etc… And in each scene Alice needs to find the “eye” and hit it with an attack. This would briefly reset back to real-reality (The Control Room of The Moon) as the Manipulators reset and then throw up a new False Reality. 

The Control Room of The Moon was not built with The Turtle in mind. He’s just a puppet used to control Alice. No one ever imagined that Alice would make her way to the Control Room. So… it’s just a utilitarian control room space. 

I would like to ask: Please stop trying to make the interior of The Moon into something it’s not. It does not need elements from Denial or inspired by Turtle, etc. It’s a Hatter Industry’s MACHINE. Nothing more, nothing less. 

So let us know in the Comments below… what do you think? 

Are you as excited for a Chaos Tentacle Enemy as I am?

Do you feel better now that I said we WON’T be taking control away from the player?

And what do you think about that outline for a Manipulator Boss Fight? 

From Shanghai with Toads, 

-American

Dear Insane Children  

Just writing another update about next month’s print due to a little mess up I did from yesterday.

I wrote that Dressed in Rage was next month’s print due to a little confusion, and even though I figured it out and took the post down within a few minutes, this does not matter since all new posts we write get emailed to Patrons anyway. D’oh!

So now THIS post (with the clear details in the title) is the 2nd reminder to Patrons that those people charged in July will get Ringmasters and those people charged in August will get Dressed in Rage.

Sorry for the confusion    🙁

– Cheers

Dear Insane Children, 

As you know from my last design post, we’re working on concepts for a selection of Enemies who are designed to manipulate Alice’s senses – Manipulators. In the last round of comments, I asked Omri to explore ideas around insect/machines that would fit in these roles. He’s delivered!

Here are our comments on what’s presented today. Omri says: 

I’m thinking about what you said, i don’t like the idea of holograms because it’s too modern. Yes there were plays with mirrors and stuff but that was more 1920. it’s still too modern. but i do like the idea of illusions or hallucinations. we can go towards two directions, 

1. we can have the illusions / hallucinations horrible like a nightmare

2. we can have the illusions / hallucinations Pleasant and block out the gameplay, like the more she is “injected/sprayed” she sees more flowers and gardens and her home in spring and what not. i think for this area it’s overkill right now, we need to reserve that idea for a boss. i would love to fight a boss that when i’m losing seeing the world more beautifully.

for now these two designs i think look practical for the moon AND look like enemies. i’ll design some more of these, but i think they make sense and still keep with the Nature theme.

Omri goes on to add a few more concepts and continues his comments:

I’m adding to the manipulators “Lobster” I think he can fix the “floors” and the lower areas. he can melee Alice and he can electrify floor areas where the player is standing. i want the enemies to “make sense” like you can imagine that an electricity based animal can fix circuits. a Welder animal can fix holes and bumps and a flying animal can kill off fungus and whatnot.

I’m adding a very odd idea that i had that i have no idea if it works- feedback on this. I thought that if we want something that will look like it’s “fake” then materials to fix the moon, copper, mercury, gold- even oil and water if we want, they can be animated into stars that will jump at Alice and explode on her. they should come in batches. just an odd thought.

To all of this I replied: 

All of this stuff is FANTASTIC. And, yeah, I should have been more careful in my choice of words. Anything hinting at advanced technology – simulator, holograms, etc – would suggest things that are very much out of place in Alice’s mind. You’re on the correct path with hallucinations and mechanical beasties that implement physical changes that alter Alice’s perception of reality. It’s more “smoke and mirrors” than “lasers and holograms.” 

The Gnat and Spider designs are great. Even though I hate flying enemies – I like the idea of these things forming a “cloud” that messes with Alice’s vision. For the Spiders I like the idea that they could weave webs of deception – imagine a wall of web onto which a hallucination is projected. Alice can destroy the web and the illusion with it. 

For the Fungai… The general concept and presentation is good. An element we can place in the environment to create toxic zones. Spores from it can cause hallucinations and disorientation. With regards to your comment about bringing “color to the moon” – this part I don’t get. Why? The Moon interior is separate from Denial. It has a style – Hatter Industries, mechanical, etc. Please leave it at that. 

Lastly, The Lobster is fun. Regarding the idea of them all serving different functions – I would suggest we focus on The Senses and assign each of these characters control over (the ability to manipulate) specific senses. Hearing, sight, etc. 

That last idea… I have no idea. ????

Let us know in the Comments below your thoughts on The Manipulators. What do you think of their function and their artistic design? We’ll discuss your feedback during this week’s live stream (more on that later in this post). 

Tea Time Wildlife

Jen sends along further exploration of the types of surreal creatures we might find floating around Wonderland.

I have … er, thoughts, about that teabag design… from having watched too many CS matches. Thankfully no 12-year-old kids will have control of these enemies in-game… or will they? (Note to self: Disaster Marketing idea #342,423 – how can we give 12-year-old kids control of the Tea Bag Enemies every time Alice dies in-game?)

She also submitted this pig… which…

(Note to self: Check how much of our budget goes to supplying hallucinogenics to our artists – reduce if necessary). 

Live Stream on Twitch

We will host a Live Stream on Twitch this week – the usual time. That’s 7PM PST on Wednesday. 

And we’ll discuss all the latest art, design, and business development on Alice: Asylum. Plus… 

Yan and I finally took a trip to the YiWu International Trade Market to source various products for Mysterious and Patreon. Among our main goals – to find a Snow Globe (or a suitable alternative). So, we’ll discuss the fruits of that search. 

If you want to see the trip to and from YiWu, I uploaded a travel vlog of it to my YouTube Channel. Hit THIS LINK if you want to watch that now. 

And hit THIS LINK if you want to head over to my Twitch Page and follow or register or whatever it is you do there. 

From Shanghai with Eeeee-wooooo,

-American