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Manipulator of Dreams
🕑 Added 2020-11-26 00:46:03 +0000 UTCDear 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
Comments
Stephanie Groth
I think Londerland would be an awesome print! I like the vacuum tube Dream Machine versus the conveyor belt design. The main image is my favorite. Croquet should be some card guards, the March Hare, the Walrus and some Caucus Race/sea characters.
Sarah McKeegan
I love the Londerland art!! I agree it could be its own art print! I like the dream machine and I agree The tweedle brothers should be apart of it, maybe the white rabbit or the cards.
Saleh Abu-Rashid
Quite a lot of info. I like the dream machine. I love the art print, but something about it feels lacking. The giant mechanic heart on the moon is quite a nice idea.
I feel like the croquet game might be a fun time to "easter egg" enemies from past games too? mad caps from amr, the soldier bugs from ama, wasps from amr, maybe a broken up dolly. I don't think the idea is too far fetched because these creatures already exist somewhere in wonderland, we just haven't met them yet in this storyline.
Juan Romero
I have to ask...Vampire grandma??? why that moniker?
Love to see the Tweedle brothers in the game, they could certainly make things tough for Alice! The card gardeners who were caught painting the roses red, and the Duchess with her pepper grinder?
Nicholas Navea
Happy Thanksgiving.
Happy margaritas, American and Martin. The Wasp in a Wig should definitely be consigned to the croquet fields, along with Bill and his chums. The White Knight would be a comical character in there as well: how would he get to grips with a flamingo?
I thiught so too! Plus it'd make for some wild battles!
In the books it does seem like the other players are the remaining card suite kings and queens, and the Duchess rejoins the game after being hauled out of prison, so these are definitely all feasible characters for the game!
MeBonnieLass
Londerland illustration should most definitely be an art print. Absolutely love it. 🐇
Love the Londerland illustration, it should definitely be an art print. Omri makes such lovely art ❤️ The croquet game sounds fun, someone above suggested some of the wonderland people I was thinking of; the fish footman and mouse. Also I was thinking of other characters in the books and maybe a chess piece, the walrus or carpenter, one of the flowers, lobster or goat. So many options, I'm sure you will have fun coming up with the players
Happy Thanksgiving ! Hope its been a really decent mental health day for you :) as for the wonderland character. I recall in the novel that the other card suits had Royals of their own. So perhaps the Queen sentenced them all to play Croquet as well?? Im also thinking that these other card Royals (Diamonds,Clubs,Spades) could be absolutely volatile! They are so mad from playing forever that they scarcely know how to speak. They ignore Alice until she steps on the playing field and Alice finds that she has to eliminate them to survive the game! Perhaps we could even include certain animal characters (fish footman,the mouse that taught Alice the caucase race, dodo etx) and finally and I think she would make a nice mix. The Dutchess! She is the Queens absolutely Mad sister! She would inherit the Throne if the Queen met her demise and naturally you couldn't have that. So she threw her and her pig snouted son into the mix. But say that Alice helps her through the game? They as a team fight the mad Royals (the Dutchess using the pepper gun?) And Alice allows her to escape into the wonderland wilderness (where she would eventually get very small to hide from her cruel sister) maybe Alice gets the pepper gun again? I love that weapon alot and it seems to make sense! Anyways just some ideas to throw into the mix! Happy holidays🫀🫀🫀
I LOVE the croak forever croquet game punishment, and it should definitely include other (angry) characters. I also like the idea of it pulling characters from this (or the other) alice game/s.
