The Mysterious Package Company
The Mysterious Package Company is an experiential service established in 2013 which provides stories, puzzles and mysteries purchased as gifts and sent through the mail.[1][2]
History[edit]
Colin Bolton, Misha Schneider and Tim Sullivan co-founded The Mysterious Package Company in 2013, as they wanted to create wondrous stories delivered through the postal service.
In 2014 Jason Kapalka, a Vancouver-based entrepreneur came on board as primary investor. Kapalka is co-founder of PopCap Games and owner of the Storm Crow "nerd bars" in Vancouver and Toronto.
Kickstarter[edit]
The Century Beast[edit]
In 2015 the company launched The Century Beast Kickstarter campaign. The campaign raised over $400K and was backed by 1,291 pledges.[3]
Filigree in Shadow[edit]
In 2016, the company introduced a Victorian horror Experience, Filigree in Shadow, as a Kickstarter campaign. Filigree in Shadow currently sits as the ninth-highest-funded art campaign on Kickstarter to date. It is also the second-most-funded mixed media campaign in the world.[4] This campaign raised over $600K and was backed by 1,786 pledges.
Experiences[edit]
Experiences are the Mysterious Package Company's primary product. They are stories or mysteries told over a series of mailings to the recipient. Each experience contains:
- Documents and other media
- An element of personalization or customization
- An artifact related to the details of the story, usually in a nailed-shut wooden crate
- A Reveal card identifying who sent the package(s), if they were a gift
Members purchase packages that they send to themselves or a recipient of their choice. The experiences feature genres such as mystery, horror, adventure, time-travel, and science-fiction, and range in duration from one to six mailings.
Curios & Conundrums[edit]
Curios and Conundrums was a quarterly subscription box that ran from 2013 to 2018. Unlike the Experiences, it was not meant to be a realistic, coherent narrative, but a grab-bag or anthology of puzzles, stories, and interesting trinkets.
Volume III[edit]
Issue 1 - A new Era of Thought
- Eight-page broadsheet newspaper, filled with stories and puzzles, a poster, several travel stickers, and the cover of a magazine that may have been.
Issue 2 - The Child of the Cavern
- Twelve-page broadsheet newspaper, several travel stickers, a copy of their first game, Motherland, and a variety of other tools and techniques.
Issue 3 - From Death and Dark Oblivion
- Twelve-page broadsheet newspaper, several travel stickers, additional cards for Motherland, and a gift of real gold.
Issue 4 - At the Mountains of Madness
- Twelve-page broadsheet newspaper, several additional stickers, a game of goats, and some very disagreeable paper-crafts.
Volume IV[edit]
Issue 1 - Gods of Madness
Issue 2 - Brain Butchers
Issue 3 - Clockwork Mutineers
Issue 4 - Countdown to Oblivion
References[edit]
- ^ "'Mysterious Package' campaign rakes in the cash on Kickstarter". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2015-12-09.
- ^ "Mystery package service brings intrigue to your doorstep". Cbc.ca. Retrieved 2015-12-09.
- ^ "'Mysterious Package' campaign rakes in the cash on Kickstarter". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 25 October 2018 – via The Globe and Mail.
- ^ "Discover » Art / Mixed Media » Most Funded : Kickstarter". Kickstarter.com. Retrieved 25 October 2018.