What The Future Holds
Added 2019-09-16 15:59:00 +0000 UTCDear Insane Children,
I'm back after a wonderful period of time spent with Lucky (吉克)! He's a good little boy who spends most of his time sleeping. And when he's awake his main focus is drinking milk... followed by explosive bowel movements and a bit of hiccupping. Here he is in the preferable mode of behavior...
The period of time we've had to adjust to this new life has been really wonderful. I feel blessed that Yan and I can be at home full time during this first couple of weeks. And really appreciate the support and understanding we've had from the Insane Children!
Now for some good-news-bad-news...
The plan was that this week would see us resume our usual schedule of Crowd Design and Live Streams but I've got a bit of bad news on that front.
First, the good news is that I spent a bit of time during the holiday doing a complete rebuild on our streaming setup. Flipped the room around, rewired everything, installed a pair of new LED lights (color temp adjustable - woo), and general tidying. Was looking forward to doing a stream this week...
But the bad news is... my throat is killing me and has been for weeks! Finally went to the ENT Doctor this morning and she shoved an endoscope down my throat and sent me for an ultrasound. Not finding anything which might explain the horrible pain I have when swallowing or speaking for long stretches, the discussion turned to diet.
Apparently, it's not recommended that a person consume 1~2x bottle of Tabasco per week? Along with a bottle of jalapenos. And various Chinese black bean spicy sauces. And it's "not normal" to put spicy stuff on breakfast, lunch, and dinner?
Who knew?!
Uh... So I've been told to knock it off with the spicy food. And given medicine. And told to take it easy on talking for long periods of time.
After a week we'll see how things go and hopefully, we can have a live stream using the new setup!
Madame Priscella
Omri sends over the finished illustration of the tent in which we communicate with Alice's in-game fortune teller and Tarot Card reader ... dealer? Turned out great!
Of this he says,
Attaching the final version of the Tent, Jen's feedback is really helpful.
With this we are done with the realm of Denial and we can play with ideas for gameplay with what we will do with the Tarot cards.
If it will be like Madness (possible!) or go with another way,
either way Alex will need to come up with a UIUX design that will flatter it.
We said that the Tarot will "feed" our tarot cards weapon but is it just that? so we meet Pris only once and get that weapon from her? at Bumby's we said that we upgrade weapons.
To which I replied,
This is fantastic. I think we should consider making this an option which player can access at any time.
Could be a menu thing... maybe we sell it as something Alice carries around in her pocket (shrunk down) and can jump into when she likes.
Actually... a kind of interesting idea on that topic... what if Alice collects all the places she's visited? And then carries them forward with her (in her pocket) as she goes. So as she overcomes a place she is able to shrink it and hold it in her hand... shove it in her pocket.
It's an interesting metaphor for overcoming trauma. It never really goes away. But after a while, it stops being such a big deal.
The more I think about it the more I like the idea of representing Alice's conquering of certain aspects of her PTSD by shrinking them down.
"It's all a matter of perspective. You make yourself bigger than the problem or make the problem smaller than you. Either way, the problem isn't bigger than you."
I imagine Alice at some point in the game having overcome several of these areas... and sitting in a space surrounded by the little representations of them. Maybe these are analogs to the Memory Items she recovered throughout A:MR? Might it be that the encapsulation of those memories helped Young Alice to overcome the pain they contained... while the breaking open and re-living of them helped Older Alice to recall her memories and her past?
Hmmm... Tell me what you think of that idea in the comments below.
More Soon
There are more bits of artwork and other things to discuss this week. I'll share those things in posts to be made ... in the future. Right now I need to have a bit of a rest. Hospitals, having things shoved down my throat... and, worse, being told I can't eat Spicy Food anymore... Uhg.
Font Lord Says
Martin sends along a quick list of points you should keep in mind with regards to the recent Cheshire Kitten Goal/Reward. These address some of the FAQs we've seen recently via email and in the comments.
1) Backerkit is the site we're using to collect your info for shipping - you can trust it! If you get an email from Backerkit please open it and follow the instructions. If you don't do that we can't send out your Cheshire Kitten!
2) The "$50 Tier" name on Backerkit doesn't impact your actual Pledge or Tier amount... Some of you were at $75 for the qualifying month but you'll see that someone (Font Lord, we're looking at you) wrote "$50" into the survey page, thus causing confusion and emails stating, "I pledged $75 but it's saying $50!" Please, just ignore that!
3) Reminder that if you've not seen your survey email, do a search for "backerkit" across all your email folders- junk, spam, promotions, etc. These emails like to get stuck into all kinds of strange folders.
4) We'll start shipping Cheshire Kittens next week around September 23rd. Maybe as soon as this Friday 20th. Kittens go out in batches of several hundred per day. That means some people will receive their Kitten 1~2 weeks before other people. Don't fret! Give the entire sending process 1~2 weeks. And then allow up to 5 full weeks for delivery (to most locations around the world).
5) If you got a survey for an art print then you earned an art print - trust us! Many Insane Children have expressed confusion at receiving an Art Print Survey. Keep in mind that you do not need 3 consecutive months at $35 to earn an art print. And the $50 counts towards the 3/$35... so if you paid $35 twice at any point in the past - and then did the $50 for the Cheshire Kitten - you can expect to get an art print as well.
6) Yes, you can safely adjust your pledge amount (and Tier) now. We've removed the $50 Tier entirely. No point sticking around at that level now that the promotion is over. But...
We do hope that you will stick around, even at a lower Tier level. At $5 you get access to our Discord Server and can join the Crowd Design Sessions (when I am not broken in the throat). And your support, whatever the amount, keeps this ship afloat! We apply your Pledges directly to paying for our team of artists, designers, and Font Lords.
Without you, we would never see who Alice encounters when she opens this door...
Can you guess?
You'll find out next time...
From Shanghai with Doll Parts,
-American
Comments
Speaking of future, have you seen the Aeronauts trailer? There is a great victorian dress at 0:55
sumblinker
2019-09-21 17:28:15 +0000 UTCI am new here but glad to say hi also play A:MR about 5 times I lost count and my significant other sent me the promotional video as one of my birthday presents. I spent hours reading through every possible link I could hit. Most of those hours was thinking if I was going to pay 2...5....10... Had to sleep on it decided on 5. Also, love to let you know I love the games you make. That and I can't decide if I am going to get a madness runic cup or the out of the woods illustration book first. That choice might take a few more days to pick. Both are so cool. I hope anyone that reads this has a nice day.
Jane Moffet
2019-09-20 09:08:30 +0000 UTCEverything looks great, can't wait to see it all come together 😁
2019-09-17 10:09:34 +0000 UTCLove the idea of Alice shrinking down areas of the game she goes through and keeping them in her pockets to access later in game. Hope you feel better really soon! And congrats again on Lucky💖 Enjoy all the peace while you can! They grow up too fast! My baby is 15 now..yikes!😅
2019-09-17 04:16:49 +0000 UTCBefore i go on about the game id like to first congratulate you and Yan on little bub mate and congratulate you on being the first person I've known to destroy their throat with hot sauce lmao. Now, I like the idea going with tarot cards. An idea if back tracking or reverse traveling to realms is a thing is Alice can travel back to for weapon customisation/upgrades. On that reverse traveling topic Alice has the realms in her pocket. Maybe these can be accessed like fast travel locations to travel back to the other realms. I'd love to see certain areas for special items and such in realms that you can't access until later in the game you can return back to and finish up like a lot of classic platformers. Gives more diversity and reason to go back and look for stuff you might of missed as well as access new areas and expand on those realms with even a mini boss at the end of some who knows. Just throwing some thoughts out.
2019-09-17 03:43:06 +0000 UTCHi there. You don't get an art survey at the $75 tier, you get the print of the month :)
American McGee
2019-09-17 03:31:19 +0000 UTCHi American and Martin, I was at the $75.00 level, when should I get the backerkit survey for art and chaos necklace, I did get the pick a size survey for chaos necklace, wondering about the art, you both have a wonderful day!!!
2019-09-17 01:09:53 +0000 UTCYeah, I love spicy food too... I couldn't imagine not having it on most things... also, there are health benefits to spicy food! So maybe you can argue the point of it with your doctor? https://www.self.com/story/5-healthy-benefits-of-eating-s I've actually had brain cancer, so I try to keep spicy food in my diet as a minor precaution.
Amy Gauna
2019-09-16 23:52:42 +0000 UTCYour baby is freaking beautiful! And sorry about having to give up spicy stuff. I put hot sauce on everything too.
2019-09-16 23:36:31 +0000 UTCI'm not the biggest fan of this toy shop design. It comes across as on-the-nose creepy whereas I think it should be far more subtle to the point of either initially being not creepy at all or the exterior looks completely friendly and unassuming. A brighter color palette and changing the doll head and the mounted heads to something brighter and cheerier would help substantially.
2019-09-16 21:56:05 +0000 UTCOmg I'm in tears. I wondered why I never got the Cheshire Backerkit email and I checked and my pledge didn't save when I changed it to $75 And now missed out!!! 😭 So upset. 😣
Alicia Harrington
2019-09-16 21:02:48 +0000 UTCGlad to hear Lucky is being Lucky, you're American mcgee not Dragon Mcgee lay off the hot sauce, I just hope the servers let us insane children stream, I like the idea of Alice fighting away her memories but make sure all three stories connect, yay for chesh I've been bragging, and I still prefer the sheep shopkeeper over the Bumby one
2019-09-16 19:35:29 +0000 UTCAcid reflux disease? The doctor told me the same thing and I've actually done well with staying away from spicy thing... unless they're crunchy. 🤤
Wendy Jaa
2019-09-16 17:17:19 +0000 UTCPoor thing, sorry to hear about the loss of the spicy foods. Lucky is just sweet perfection! Hope Yan is feeling well as she has been recovering. I like the idea of shrinking your problems down based on your perspective and still carrying them with you in a more manageable way, I think that's a clever way to do it.
2019-09-16 17:12:44 +0000 UTCI'm really enjoying all the updates, and love the idea of her shrinking and carrying the places with her. I do have a question about the backerkit email...when is it supposed to go out? I searched all folders without luck so I am hoping it just hasn't been sent out yet.
2019-09-16 17:10:02 +0000 UTCI like the idea of her icing her memories away for future analysis rather than trying to cope with everything at once.
Rosuav
2019-09-16 16:45:24 +0000 UTC^^^^^^^ that. All of that.
Sarah Heist
2019-09-16 16:14:36 +0000 UTCLOVE the shrinking of the places! LOOOOOVE the correlation of the shrunken places being similar to the memories in AMR! L O V E all the art. Adore you guys and am so proud of all the work and effort you're putting in. Thank you so much!
Sarah Heist
2019-09-16 16:13:56 +0000 UTCthere is an original "map concept" for the map of madness returns in the art book thatt includes a snow globe world. what if the stages are shrunken down into snow globes, as a lot of the elements of the "stages" (levels) can be represented visually, and also, snow globes don't always have white snow, and the inclusions can be thematic. also, there would be an interactive element for alice, as she can pick one up, peer inside, and consider the bits included. would also harken back to AMR in a way that brings back and ties into the snow globe world that wasn't able to be fully included, but was only referenced. would bring that dream for AMR to life fully and make that partial element whole.
2019-09-16 16:11:13 +0000 UTCAww what cute little bean <3 I hope your throat feels better soon! I love the whole idea of Bumby being in this game, his shop looks cool
Definitely not Adam Driver
2019-09-16 16:07:51 +0000 UTC
