Tentacles On All The Things!

Dear Insane Children, 

You know how much I love tentacle monsters. And you know that The Chaos in Alice: Asylum will be a blob of tentacles that takes over Wonderland creatures and turns them into well... 

So I'm thrilled with the Art Brief that just went into Monday (from Alex)... 

Joey and Omri, in regards to the enemy design for the Burning / Flooding London "Cataclysm" area, American would like this area to be populated with "Chaos Infected London Citizens".

Which is really just Chaos-ing normal London Citizens.

Butchers, Policemen, Chimney Sweeps, Rich People, Poor People, Prostitutes, basically anyone Alice would normally encounter in London, but they are affected by Chaos.

Some references for existing London Characters are below, as well as the Chaos infected reference. Please do not use Card Guards for the enemies here.

A specific idea American mentioned, was "A Butcher and a slaughtered Pig being consumed by Chaos together, and then a grotesque, Chaos, Butcher-Pig hybrid is the enemy Alice faces."

There will also be regular citizens dotted about in this area, (bystanders, lawyers, nurses etc.) and then this leaves them open to be infected by Chaos, and turned into monsters/enemies.

Any questions, please fire away but think this explains the concept clearly.

That means we get to see The Chaos converting Alice's memories of London's inhabitants into tentacle monsters. Yay. And it's not so much the final product that I love but the animations and reactions we can build into the concept. London characters who witness their friends being consumed... are going to FREAK OUT. Can't wait! 

Bye, Bye Bill

I've posted some Bill the Lizard images recently... and here's a new one that's just getting started: 

This scene shows Alice waving farewell to Bill after kicking his ass and taking away The Brain. Fun stuff!

Let us know in the comments which is your favorite! 

Other Updates

I kept meaning to write some general updates about progress on various fronts... and then a week will pass with tons of tasks, writing, business... and that update never gets written. Lots of this is covered during our live streams but I know not everyone gets a chance to sit through those... 

So here goes: 

Writing the Narrative on Asylum. It's almost done! Alex and I have been hammering away at the narrative document back and forth for... months(?) now. It's been a great process and we've come up with some fun ideas. I think we should be able to share the PDF of that document for your review next week (the Week of August 16th). 

It will be shared in a PDF format with line numbers and instructions on how to insert your comment INTO the document. We'll then ask you to email your notes back to us at an address we've set up for this purpose: story@mysterious.design 

We've also put that document in front of my long-time writing partner, RJ Berg so that he can provide feedback, editing, and help with dialog. Look forward to some epic Crowd Design on that! 

Alice: Asylum Design Bible. Once the narrative stuff is nailed down - should be able to hit that goal in another ~1 month(?) - work can resume in full on the Design Bible. The goal remains the same: Deliver a graphic novel of a game design that allows you to read through our entire vision for the game. You've already seen all the elements coming together here. And we've shared some Work In Progress PDFs of that document in previous posts (search for Design Bible). I don't know if it's realistic to get this done before the New Year but we'll certainly have a ton of work done by that point. 

Business Development on Mysterious Studios. Since bringing onboard a full-time financial advisor to manage the process of securing funds for our projects, things have become much BIGGER and more complicated than ever before. The vision for what we're building has grown to include a process whereby we secure 50 million USD (minimum) and use that funding for a trans-media play across games, film, merch, etc. I can't provide exact details - but Alice is in there somewhere - along with Oz, Scruffy Bumps, Akaneiro(!), and a number of other properties that are owned by Mysterious. 

There are no guarantees that this thing will take off and fly but we aren't just dreaming on paper here. MOU's have been signed with potential development partners; potential investors are helping to shape the "ask" (for money, etc); and we have REDACTED 1 (and 2!) at the table and active in the conversation. Meetings with both of those parties in the past 1~2 weeks. All very positive. 

I'm not so much nervous that this won't happen... I'm nervous that it WILL happen and is going to strap a rocket to all of our projects and send us flying to the moon! WOo, boy. 

Btw, everything we're building is centered on the concept of Crowd Design. So you're invited to come along for the ride! 

Random Notes. A variety of our IPs (Scruffy Bumps, Akaneiro, Oz, and REDACTED 3) are being reviewed by potential partners for adaptation to either big or small screen (or both). All this work we've been doing - art, story, design, merch - is attracting a LOT of attention. All of it good. 

Um... it's been incredibly busy! So many bits of art, biz docs, story outlines, and ideas coming to life. I'm sorry if I've not been sharing enough of this in writing here on Patreon. I swear, the weeks just get away from me so fast! Guess that means I'm having fun! 

A HUGE THANK YOU to all of our Insane Children. You're the best. And you've made all of this possible. 

From Shanghai with Gratitude and Excitement, 

-American