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

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

The Century Beast

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

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

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

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

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

Issue 1 - Gods of Madness

Issue 2 - Brain Butchers

Issue 3 - Clockwork Mutineers

Issue 4 - Countdown to Oblivion

References

^ "'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.

External links

Official website

[1] "'Mysterious Package' campaign rakes in the cash on Kickstarter". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 2015-12-09.

[2] "Mystery package service brings intrigue to your doorstep". Cbc.ca. Retrieved 2015-12-09.

[3] "'Mysterious Package' campaign rakes in the cash on Kickstarter". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 25 October 2018 – via The Globe and Mail.

[4] "Discover » Art / Mixed Media » Most Funded : Kickstarter". Kickstarter.com. Retrieved 25 October 2018.

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