Dear Insane Children,
Did you miss the live stream over on Twitch today?
No worries... we uploaded it over on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCZDV-7AaUw
Yay!
From Shanghai with Tentacles,
-American
Dear Insane Children,
Font Lord here AGAIN.
Just wanted to run this past you.
We're thinking we want to change the $75 tier next year.
Starting from February (we think) we will be replacing the Chaos Necklace in the $75 tier to a Hysteria Rabbit plushie.
What do you think? Good idea? Bad Idea?
So to be clear, from February onwards, if you join us for the first time at the $75 level, you will get...
* The Print of the month
* A Hysteria Rabbit
Dear Insane Children,
I'm joining @patreon's "The Lab - Community Connections" to discuss how we make Patreon work for our projects. Joined by
Starting at 3PM PST
Dear Insane Children,
Alex sent the "final" version of the Decision Coin to me this morning...
Looking awesome!
We're sending this to the workshop for a sample. Should have something to share with you in a week or two.
Once we have the first sample we can do another round of Crowd Design for any final changes.
After that, we'll need to decide on t...
2020-12-08 03:58:52 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear Insane Children,
Font Lord here with a teeny tiny bit of info about the current crop of prints and what it means for you :)
At the very top of this post, you can see "Londerland" by Omri Koresh.
A very popular image that was requested by many of you to be one of our Patreon prints.
Your wish is our command.
All those people who paid $75 this month will be getting th...
Dear Insane Children,
Alex is an artist of many talents - for example, he's a wizard with AI design layouts, a meticulous project manager, and an expert on the fine details of commercial printing. Each of these things requires attention to detail at a very high level - and the features of his detail-oriented brain really come into focus when he sets his (digital) pen to work on vector designs for our products and project.
Case in point: His latest iteration on ...
2020-12-07 00:34:01 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear Insane Children,
Yan and Jen continue their work on the next Plushie Dreadful toy: Scruffy Bumps
And the workshop just delivered a prototype based on the last round of feedback:
Yan got the idea to include a Mini Bumps with the initial orders of the regular-size toy... so, meet Mini Bumps!
2020-12-06 07:47:41 +0000 UTC
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Dear Insane Children,
Omri sent over an updated version of Alice's confrontation with Inferno Alice in the Chamber of Anger. And I just had to post it because... well, it's amazing.
Of this update Omri says:
i thought that the child is a prisoner- literally a victim so why not make it so she's trapping herself in a sense. also i thought to merge the tentacles with the chains so it's ONE mesh. it's not exactly chains and not exactly... 2020-12-04 01:17:36 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear Insane Children,
First up: A quick note to confirm that there will be NO live stream today. Sorry about that - but I have been super busy across projects and personal life such that I'm not able to set aside the time. For the record, when we do a live stream it really means a "live stream day" for me since it involves Martin coming over at 8AM and not leaving until 8PM (or later) due to his dislike of traffic on an elevated freeway. So it's an all-day commitment an...
2020-12-03 00:11:59 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear Insane Children,
Ok, first off, I just want to say that I am very nervous about doing this... As a rule, I try to avoid sharing my Writing In Progress. Partly because I just don't like sharing unfinished work. But I've pointed out previously, that's hypocritical given that I am constantly sharing the unfinished work of our artists. It's at the core of Crowd Design!
The other thing I worry about - because it's happened to me with previous stories - is losing my dri...
2020-11-30 00:52:03 +0000 UTC View Post
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...
2020-11-26 00:46:03 +0000 UTC
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Dear Insane Children,
Just a quick (and sad) note to say that there will be no Live Stream this week. We're dealing with a Confluence of Stupidity that has me emotionally drained and technologically blocked.
For several weeks now, we've been dealing with an issue at Facebook/Instagram where our Ad Account is Suspended without reason. This has happened several times now, resulting in lost business for Mysterious. We go through the Appeal Process and then get a "Sorry fo...
2020-11-25 05:37:19 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear Insane Children,
For those of you interested in Narrative Crowd Design, here's a little teaser... which I hope to use to test out how this process works prior to sharing the Alice: Asylum narrative outline. I mentioned in a previous post that I want to share the Asylum outline with some holes in the middle - so that there's a place where YOU can engage with Crowd Design and help fill in the details.
But before we go down that particular Rabbit Hol...
2020-11-23 06:06:08 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear Insane Children,
Our team of 7 artists continues to crank through a pile of tasks related to defining all the major scenes, characters, and elements that define the journey Alice takes through Alice: Asylum. If you've watched the live streams, you've seen me scrolling through all the tasks and discussions contained inside the management software we use (called Monday). As I go scrolling through Monday this morning (on a Sunday) I'm finding a ton of great updates...
<... 2020-11-22 04:08:40 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear Insane Children,
Yan is working with Jen on a new Plushie Dreadful design - Scruffy Bumps!
A prototype based on initial sketches by Jen arrived a few days ago:
There are several issues with the first pass which include:
1) He's too plump (round and fat). We want Slender Man-style creepy.
2) He's too happy. He's meant to be scary; not a f...
2020-11-21 01:54:26 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear Insane Children,
Just a quick note to say that I am not dead. But I am dead busy.
If you're waiting on Art Prints (in the mail) then I'm the reason... As I've been playing catch-up on getting everything sent out. Today, I finally cleared out the last of the previous month's art prints that were in the system... except for 10 stragglers that I'm waiting on a restock of prints for. Did you know that every art print you get has to pass through my hands, get signed, p...
2020-11-20 11:08:08 +0000 UTC View PostDear Insane Children,
Font Lord here.
How are you?
I hope you're all doing well :)
I have a little bit of info for you and also some questions.
We are thinking about making a commemorative coin for the start of the new year.
A sort of 'good riddance' to 2020 and 'good luck' to 2021 kind of thing.
What do you think of that idea?
We have experience of making these types of coin before as you might have seen the Chaos Coin we did...
Dear Insane Children,
Biz Dev is one of the constant processes that happen in the background on an almost daily basis - emails, phone calls, quick messages, strategy chats, spreadsheet building, document editing... that isn't very interesting to record, share, or talk about. But it is critical to our success - because all the amazing art and story in the world will not self-fund its way to a published game.
I do try to provide some insights into what goes on in the Biz...
2020-11-16 00:01:47 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear Insane Children,
We hosted an excellent Live Stream over on my Twitch Channel yesterday.
Not subscribed to my Twitch Channel?! Sign up here:
And if you missed the Live Stream when it was live... don't worry! You can watch it over on my YouTube Channel via THIS...
2020-11-13 01:09:20 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear Insane Children,
Work on writing and illustrating the narrative outline for Alice: Asylum continues - with the team fully engaged on a large number of art tasks we're pulling from the game story. The idea is to present a Design Bible - something like an illustrated novel - that you can read through from start to finish to get a full understanding of the game in its final form.
2020-11-10 22:40:25 +0000 UTC
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(Note: This post is for promotional purposes and we want to give a HUGE thank-you to all current Patrons)
This is your one-stop destination for ALL things Alice: Asylum and other projects too such as Pirate Jam, Mysterious and Oz: Adventures.
We hope you will join us and the rest of The Insane Children in The Asylum and get your voice heard in the creation of the world's first ever crowd-designed triple-A games.
By joining ...
2020-11-09 07:33:37 +0000 UTC View PostDear Insane Children,
As I continue to write through the narrative outline for Alice: Asylum, I've come to a point where the main scenes that define the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Act are written (or outlined and ready to be written)... but where there's room to explore the Series of Adventures that define Alice's path to victory during the 2nd Act. In other words, she's given her Clear Goal(s) at the end of the 1st Act and sets off to overcome all obstacles leading up to the start of the 3rd Ac...
2020-11-06 00:50:21 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear Insane Children,
I forgot to post THE LINK to last week's Twitch Livestream (which is recorded and uploaded to YouTube)... so, if you missed the Halloween Special (and me dressed as Joe Exotic), hit that link and go enjoy the madness.
Pro Tip: Dressing as Joe Exotic improves Madness Returns play skills by 93%.
As we hit mid-week here in Shangha...
2020-11-04 00:13:15 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear Insane Children,
A Warm and Happy Halloween, Insane Children, from the Liddell family. And a spooky reminder that IT'S YOUR FAULT!
It's Halloween morning here in Shanghai and Lucky is dressed as Captain Cute. Lulu's wearing her favorite beggar outfit. And I'm still having flashbacks to life as Tiger King. Yee haw.
Thanks to Joey for this fiery illustration of Alice joining the Liddell Family BBQ during a nightmare flashback. This is a scene from the early moments of Ali...
2020-10-30 22:46:24 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear Insane Children
Oof !!
Font Lord here and I left this one a bit late, it'll almost be time to do November's Lucky 5 soon.
It's been a busy ole month due to rabbits and calendars.
Still, I'm here now, let's do this :)
As you know, this is a monthly thing where Google's RNG feature picks 5 lucky people to get some goodies. Chosen from our Patrons AND the last YouTube video comments (to keep things legal)
Let's see...
This month, the ...
Dear Insane Children,
Welcome to another session of "Let's finalize a weapon design!" brought to you by "American got up at 4:30 AM for a phone call that doesn't actually happen until tomorrow morning." A product of Doh! Co. (TM)
In our last episode, we saw how Alice will acquire two weapons from the Boss Encounter with Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. And we reviewed Alex's redesign work on the Jack Bomb.
Today we're taking a look at the second weapon Alice will ...
2020-10-27 22:04:34 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear Insane Children,
It's the week of Halloween! YAYAYAYA!!! The best week of the year!
And what better way to kick off this week than with an exploration of themes and styles for the re-imagined Jack Bomb weapon in Alice: Asylum?
The team is working through a variety of ideas led by Alex's concepts for a redesign. At the top of this page (main image) is the "original" redesign idea done by Joey a while back.
2020-10-26 04:02:05 +0000 UTC
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Dear Insane Children
Font Lord here AGAIN.
As you can see from the various pics and the video we have on this here post, the calendars are made and shipped to the warehouse.
This time, a little unusually, we purchased the packing materials ourselves to send to the warehouse and have also given the people there super specific instructions on how to pack the calendars as seen in the ...
2020-10-24 06:19:58 +0000 UTC View PostHelloooooo
Font Lord here with a reminder about how the previous $75 tier print+rabbit promotion works.
It actually says this in the FAQ I wrote, but here it is again as I've had a handful of people asking about this.
There will be no email of any kind sent to you in regards to the rabbit or print.
There's no need.
We already have your address.
The only email you will get is if it's your first ever month at $75, and then you will get a mail asking about the Chaos...
2020-10-21 01:42:10 +0000 UTC View Post
Dear Insane Children,
Whew, somehow the recent days really got away from me... and it seems I've not posted anything since last Thursday-ish when we did our Twitch Livestream. There was a LOT of information covered in that stream so if you missed it, be sure to check out the recording over on YouTube. You can do that via THIS LINK.
We are heading into the home stretch on prep work befor...
2020-10-21 00:32:42 +0000 UTC View Post