americanmcgee
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That Which You Resist Will Only Persist
🕑 Added 2020-07-07 23:52:17 +0000 UTCDear Insane Children,
We're starting work on a new area in the game, The Realm of The Chess Pieces.
To provide some direction to the Art Team, I wrote the following...
The Realm of the Chess Pieces is made up of two sides (can be black/white or white/red... take your pick. I like black/white because if you then add the red of Chaos you get a nice black/white/red scheme).
The overarching story of Asylum is Chaos vs. Order. Order is represented by the Queen of Hearts (the Realm of the Cards). Cards represent games that have rules so well defined that you can calculate the odds of card games. The rules and moves are relatively clear, simple, and logical.
Chess, on the other hand, is a game where the standard rules and equations don't apply. Chaos (theory) plays a large role in determining the outcome of any particular game. It is a game of "organized disorder." If it were otherwise, we'd not have struggled for so long to create computer programs capable of beating humans at it.
So when we see the Queen of Hearts and her Kingdom - it's all about keeping things clean, organized, and orderly. The rules must be followed. Timetables must be kept. Quotas must be met. And the show must go on. Even to the point of misrepresenting the situation (painting the white roses red) to maintain the appearance of order.
The Chess Kingdom is accepting of Chaos. They've not so much been taken over by Chaos as allowed for a natural integration of its elements into their realm. Chaos is integrated into their kingdom alongside Order. "That which you resist will only persist" needs to be one of their mantras (carved over a door somewhere) - and since they do not resist Chaos, they are also not overrun by it.
This is critical - a kingdom overrun by Chaos looks like the Queen's Domain in AMA or AMR - covered in and consumed by Chaos. A kingdom integrated with Chaos looks like whatever we end up designing the Chess Realm to look like.
What might that mean? Imagine columns that hold up buildings are shaped like tentacles - but frozen, carved?, unmoving. Imagine that the clocks all tell a slightly different time. That nature is integrated into various scenes - plants, vines, and tress growing up all over the place - but manicured and well tended.
Note that the "color of depression" is actually gray. Which I think goes well with the notion of a Chess Realm made up of Black/White pieces and highlighted with the Red of Chaos... plus an underlying and ever-present gray. Add to that the green of plants... and I think you've got a beautiful setting.
Let me know what you think...
Excited to see where the team takes this and what the Chess Realm ends up looking like. And also interested to hear YOUR feedback on this direction. Please let me and the team know your thoughts in the COMMENTS below.
From Shanghai with Organized Disorder,
-American
Comments
For some reason I think of how would the places look normally before chaos etc happens, if possible it would be nice to build the level on a base then add the elements to that so when the game is beat we can run through a restored version, by building on a base it should be easy to disable the extras. Never many games that allow you to see the world restored
RedBreloom
A thought that came to mind when I read about grey being representative of depression in the chess realm. If they have somewhat accepted chaos, perhaps exploring the themes of 'giving into depression' vs 'struggling and going forward depsite it' would fit well. Because there can be acceptance of chaotic life events, but sometimes it can really beat someone down to the point of resignation. In the sort of 'accepting the viewpoint depression gives you' sort of way. Because in that vein, that mentality can become a comfortable existence. Insofar as you feel like you know what to expect from life (nothing) and how to feel (worthless). I think that'd be a very cool thing to work into the narrative. Especially since even trying to pull yourself out of that state can be exceedingly difficult and painful.
Death of Ink
In AMA the Red Pieces were mostly just enemies to fight in their area, so the ideas you suggested could work!
Sarah McKeegan
Love it all
I think you're on the right track with all this, I for one support the idea!
I love the ideas around this Will game play work in a sort of Alice as a pawn path kinda like in Through the Looking Glass? Maybe run into some versions of things like the Wasp in a Wig?
I really like the ideas here, especially how Chess ties into Chaos. What if the black pieces turned red once their king or queen is overran by Chaos? Maybe after their lover is killed? Then the Chaos vs Order balance could be thrown out, leaving Alice to get out of the chess world ASAP. Their turn to red could be once Alice is leaving so you could mostly keep that black, white, and red color scheme. Unless you let the player go back to the world, but then the different, red-dominant, colored world could be another way to visually show the influence of Chaos. It could also tie back into the red pieces from AMA, but I don’t really remember what happened with the chess pieces in that game, so maybe it doesn’t fit. Or the secret reveal could possibly make it void. Note: I wrote this before seeing Lucky Dragon and DeathofInk’s comments above, but it kind of fits into what they were talking about. Anyway, I’m excited to see what comes next for The Realm of Chess Pieces!
I actually like the more human looking card guards for this game. It just seems right. They look more like they would've before the fire, then in AMA they start looking meaner, and then in AMR they are resurrected from the dead, kind of like the Queen of Hearts.
Death of Ink
I do prefer the Mock Turtle's design in AMR more.
American McGee
It does not "represent" Depression but it is in the group of realms that Alice explores after visiting the Hatter in a place that represents Bargaining. We're grouping a whole set of characters into a zone generally described as being "in the Realm of Depression" ... but that doesn't mean that the theme is only about depression. Just that when suffering with PTSD you tend to linger in depression quite a lot... so we'll contain a lot of the game under the umbrella of "depression."
Lucky Dragon ‘She.They’
Also, I would like to say that I prefer the skeletal card guards. I know there is an issue of canon since they are only supposed to look like that post AMA, but I think we should be willing to let that one go because the AMR guards are just more iconic and frankly a better design. The Mock Turtle looked and sounded completely different in AMA when compared to AMR. Couldn’t we chalk up their appearance to a design choice and let go in this instance of being to slavish to canon?
If the Chess Realm has integrated chaos, which I think is a good thing, why does it represents Depression?
Death of Ink
I really love this whole thing!! It makes the set-up of the first game even more fun to dive into when seeing how this ties into it! The whole "chaos takes over" set-up really excites me, and visualising how this could look and the process of Wonderland going from classic book look to the hellish landscape it was in AMA is so fun. Finding out how this all leads to the creation of the "Queen of Red Heart" is a major interest for me! :)
Lucky Dragon ‘She.They’
The Chess Realm does come from Through the Looking Glass after all, so going through mirrors to get from the more peaceful black and white version of the world to the mirrored chaotic red and white version would be cool and you could do some interesting puzzles with that.
Lucky Dragon ‘She.They’
Why not separate the Chess Realm into two mirrored versions like in AMA? The Pale Realm and the Red Realm which has been taken over by the Chaos.
