Manipulator of Dreams

Dear Insane Children, 

If you are in a place where it's celebrated and you're not opposed to it for social-political reasons, then allow me to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving! At least... it's Thanksgiving morning (but it's not) here in Shanghai. This would normally be a Live Stream day but I am, as many of you are aware, taking a Mental Health Day. Yan ran away to Yunnan in Western China for a Girl Vacation...  

Leaving me home alone with Lucky and Vampire Grandma. Lucky's too young to care about Thanksgiving and Vampire Grandma is too old... so... 

Martin (a Brit) will come over later and we'll celebrate American Turkey Day with a couple of frozen margaritas at the nearby Mexican restaurant. In China. Because that totally makes sense! 

Anyway, here are a couple of Holiday Gifts from the art team. First up, Adam sends along final versions of the Dream Machine and Manipulator Generator... 

I shared some feedback with him...

The Manipulator (Making) Machine and the Dream Machine both look great. My thought on the Manipulator from the start was that it might need to be small - I think I said (or maybe I just thought) something like telephone booths (remember those?). Anyway, somewhere in the space between a large washing machine and a telephone booth... And I imagine we sprinkle these around areas where they are needed to generate Manipulators on demand. And they are targets for destruction (by Alice) so that the production of Manipulators can be halted for a given area.

No, it doesn't make sense to dress up the Manipulator Machines with any particular theme. They are utilitarian devices - existing only for the purpose of creating the machines that create illusion... and presumably always maintained "behind the scenes" of whatever production is going on in that place.

Would a Manipulator (masquerading as a Circus Performer) think it was funny to put a Circus Hat atop the machine that created it? I guess? But I would leave that sort of level specific "dressing" to the Level Artists to do when they are creating the actual levels in game.

Omri sends over the Final version of the Londerland Scene where we see Alice handing her Rabbit Plush to a street urchin... 

He says he thinks this might make a good Art Print for our Insane Children... 

What do you think? Should this one be an Art Print? Maybe ... the December Art Print? 

CROWD DESIGN TIME

Alex is pulling art tasks from the Narrative Outline document that I'm writing and our art team is then illustrating those. One of the tasks that popped up this morning comes from the section after Judgement (The Courthouse) where Alice is sentenced to "Croak Forever" ... that turns out to mean "play a surreal game of croquet forever." 

Here's a bit of an excerpt from the outline: 

Alice falls. Her scream grows louder until her dress pops open and she floats gently to the ground below. A large wooden sign announces “Welcome to Croquet - Play Forever”

A motley assortment of other players are here - and have been here forever. No time to explain, the match is starting. Alice is handed a mallet and told to get to her starting place.

We PLAY as a bemused Alice engages in an epic game of Croquet played across a landscape of floating islands. This game mixes some of the traditional rules with elements of racing, combat, and surreal nonsense. It’s broken into Chapters that increase in difficulty from Tutorial to Final Test - giving Alice a chance to improve her abilities before progressing to more challenging sections.

Here's your Crowd Design task: 

Name the "motley assortment of other players" you'd like to see playing alongside Alice. 

Alex writes on this topic...

I feel a motley crew mix of random Wonderland inhabitants might work best, but I feel the theme should always be brought back to "Anger" with their designs. Maybe a disgraced Card Guard, some Fish People, Other inhabitants from other areas of the game... characters who don't belong.

So let us know in the comments below what YOU think... what characters would we see playing Croquet Forever? 

Last is a bit of Heart for you to nibble on at Thanksgiving... eww.

Actually, this is the Giant Mechanical Heart powering The Moon. Alice disables it in order to wreck The Moon... then collects it (she gets big so it ends up the size of a marble relative to her)... for later use with upgrading The Jabberwock. Nice bit of work from Dario! 

I suggested that a bit of fleshy stuff could be integrated into the design - so expect to see that with the next revision.

That's it for this morning! Hope everyone is safe and warm and happy... wherever you are and whatever you are (or are not) celebrating.  I look forward to your Crowd Design comments! 

From Shanghai Without Turkey,

-American