americanmcgee
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Best-Laid Plans
🕑 Added 2020-06-25 00:01:06 +0000 UTCDear Insane Children,
There's lots going on behind the scenes these days but I'm prevented by those pesky NDAs from sharing specific details. Still, you know me, I'll still try to provide you some hints at the sort of progress being made. Why? Because you're making all of this possible!
Without our Insane Children, we wouldn't have the funding for a team a artists, producers, and designers required to bring together the kind of high quality pitch materials needed for this kind of endeavor. Your support and involvement is CRITICAL. I only wish I could give you greater visibility into exactly what's going on... needless to say, it's good stuff.
So, while I can't say WHO this pitch is going to... I can say that we're getting into the nitty-gritty of schedules and budgets (for pre-production, vertical slice, and main development). The main image (above) shows a resource schedule for Alice: Asylum - a peek into the guts of the sausage.
Here's another slide from the new deck we're working on which illustrates a critical point that I think many of our online critics tend to miss. Merchandise and why it's important.
I'm not a huge fan of digital-only-DLC or online-only games. Because you purchase something and it only lasts for as long as that game remains playable or online. We had this experience with some of the online games built by Spicy Horse. And I'm still getting emails from players who put money into those games and are disappointing years later that the games are no longer online.
For years now (going back to my time at EA between 1996 and 2000) I've advocated a Physical Merchandise revenue stream model for games. I was preaching this before we'd ever heard of "DLC" or its inherent issues.
Anyway, I could go on for hours about the benefits and features of linking physical merch to games. But the point is that this is another feature of the pitch we're making. And it also explains why I've leveraged Patreon and Mysterious to try and prove some of the thinking behind this model.
My goal here is to avoid a bunch of digital-only DLC stuff. And to make the game successful on its own merits (single-player, narrative driven) plus tangible collectible items (toys, jewelry, art, etc). This isn't just because it's fun and we like all those physical goodies - but because we've got to give the Bean Counters a viable replacement for the revenue they'd want to create with digital DLC.
Art, Design, and Story
Lots of Biz Dev stuff happening - which is a big YAY - but we're still cranking out pre-production Design Work as well.
This image from Omri explores a new idea we're playing around with for the Main Baddies in Alice: Asylum. Remember that in our story we've got an Epic Battle going on between Chaos and Order. With the Queen of Hearts on the side of Order. And some Mysterious-something on the side of Chaos. And we're exploring how to represent Chaos in the world as enemies...
I am LOVING these concepts Omri put together. And can imagine these in-game with proper procedural generated growth and movement... wow.
Here are some notes from me:
I really prefer what you call "Naturalistic" and really dislike the Crystal stuff. Crystals are a bit of a joke in the game industry. "Collect the crystal shards to complete the puzzle," is a trope so tired it fell asleep while sleeping. Please, no. No crystals.
The Naturalist images you share = LOVE. This goes directly to the notion of Young Alice as a Little Naturalist. Chaos and its representation in Wonderland should be a natural attraction to Alice's curious mind. She should want to explore, dissect, and understand what's going on with The Chaos. So, yes, more of that.
Now... keep in mind that The Chaos might be something that's able to take over and Transform all the creatures of Wonderland. Like the Thing in the movie "The Thing" - a creature that copies and mimics its host. Or perhaps like The Borg?
Imagine a Card Guard being taken over by mushrooms, fungus, insect legs, octopus tentacles (there's something in that - need to think about the relationship to The Queen of Hearts), etc.
So... something to explore ASAP would be the Wonderland creatures and enemies we'd normally fight being overtaken by The Chaos (in the form of a fractal "mold" or "fungus" that turns them into a new type of enemy).
Expect more Techo-Tentacles soon!
Oh, and tonight I am meeting with the 3D Artist who we'll commission to make a High Detail Alice Model (13-year-old Alice from Asylum). If all goes well, I'll be able to show you that model in about a month. Woo.
PS: A GIANT THANK YOU to Alex for his effort on the Biz Dev Decks being put together these days. He takes all of our ideas and information and condenses everything down to a really sharp and beautiful series of presentations. We are SUPER lucky to have someone like him building these decks for us.
From Shanghai with Plans,
-American
Comments
Merchandise.... what do you think about a musik-box with a small Alice -Doll and the game Main Theme music?
Alice Marie James
Exciting news! I really hope the pitch goes well. I've never actually seen this sort of budget/schedule plan for a game before, it's very interesting. Absolutely love your Alice games and very much look forward to playing this one, assuming this pitch is accepted and everything goes as planned, presumably in 2023.
Saleh Abu-Rashid
Sweet
Therese
Stoked about this!
YAY! so exciting!
Very interesting to see these plans, hope the pitch will go well and am excited to hear more!!
All super exciting news, hope the pitch goes well and I can't wait to see the 3D rendering of alice at 13.
Not sure if I'm in the minority here, but I think it's super interesting to get a look at entries from these pitch slide decks, especially the dev/budget projections. Really exciting to see actual dates being tossed around, even if they're tentative Really glad I found out about this whole Patreon community-involved dev thing you're trying out. Being tuned into these updates is a million times better than just sitting around and waiting for a sequel!
Wendy Jaa
I have an entire spreadsheet that I use to keep track of purchases from Mysterious, and that "total spent" figure is proof that what you're doing works! I hope they see that!
American McGee
Tentacles!!!
American McGee
Really happy to hear that this information is interesting and useful. There's so much that goes on behind the scenes in just getting this kind of deal done... happy to make more of that visible to people - especially when I know you're getting something valuable out of it!
American McGee
I know, right? You would not believe the amount of resistance we get from the corporate types when talking about Physical Merch as an avenue for revenues AND customer satisfaction. Because they automatically relegate Merch to Licensing (farming the work out to merch companies who don't care about the property or the fans) they get crappy products and crappy results... which they then blame on the idea that merch just doesn't work. Well... we're going to show them! And with your help!
truth_decay
Hey, if they need evidence of the viability of physical product, show them my art print expenditures for the last 2 years. :D
I found the schedule and resource plan to be very interesting. After earning a business degree, it’s cool to see something like that laid out. Thanks for all your work Alex! And I’m totally with you on the merchandising angle. I’m sure bigger publishers/developers keep it in mind, on top of micro-transactions, season passes, etc. But showing that you already have a customer base could definitely help your pitch and move them away from other monetary streams like DLC. I also really like the creature/card designs. It could be cool for players of the previous games to see previous enemies that are morphed or combined with something else, emphasizing a more meta or gameplay type of Chaos, if that makes sense. Anyway, thanks for sharing American! Can’t wait for more.
I love all of this.
Lucky Dragon ‘She.They’
I’m loving the direction you are going with the enemies. It’s still reminiscent of the previous games while definitely being it’s own new thing.
