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Post by thegenii on Nov 2, 2019 12:05:58 GMT -5
I didn't hop on board the MPC train until the summer of 2015, but the company has existed since 2012.
Using the Wayback Machine, I thought I'd post some of the original information from the company in its early years.
At the moment I'm discovering that photos are hard to come by, but the text from the MPC's website still exists and I'll start listing it below just out of general interest (if anyone gives a flying fig at this point).
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Post by thegenii on Nov 2, 2019 12:08:27 GMT -5
From December 17, 2012.
Mysterious Packages Delivered To Your Door More than a gift: an experience!
Telegram THE COOLEST GIFT THAT I HAVE EVER RECEIVED. —Linda Boden PACKAGES The Mysterious Package Company provides unique and custom-made gifts delivered by mail or via courier, wrapped in a premium, hand-crafted experience unlike any other. Custom made crates, included letters and telegrams from long-lost relatives, and seemingly innocuous newspaper clippings add a richness to the curious goods contained within. Each experience is uniquely tailored to each person, and no two packages are alike.
Objects tell a story, and we make the stories as tangible as the gifts themselves. —The Curator SIMPLE Send a simple and unique gift! Select a gifts, a theme, a crate and several pieces of literature to include with the package.
Simple doesn't mean that we spare any of the attention to detail. The package will still be the most intriguing gift ever received by the lucky recipient. We spend a great deal of time making sure that our simple gifts are nevertheless exceptional.
Simple packages are in the $250 range.
ROBUST Select any of our gifts, a theme, a crate, several pieces of literature to include with the package, and a puzzle sequence. The literature will all fit within the theme and be tailored to tell a story over several mailings.
Puzzles can be built into the gift itself, or they can expand out onto websites, requiring emails to be sent, passwords to be entered and so on. They add richness to the overall experience, and make the gift into a game.
Robust packages are in the $500 range.
CUSTOM We pride ourselves on producing high-quality custom artwork. Give us some details about the recipient and a general sense of what you'd like to send and we'll craft a unique artifact for them, from scratch. You can select as much or as little customization of the literature as you like, and we'll work with you to develop a puzzle or two that fits with the theme and contents of the package. This is a gift they'll never forget.
Storylines made up of multiple packages and puzzles are also possible. Please contact The Curator for more details.
Custom packages start in the $1000 range, but can vary wildly depending on the contents.
PORTFOLIO We handcraft everything we ship. Here are some photographs of our work in development. We hand-make everything, from the gifts themselves to the included literature. We cut, we weld, we age, we nail and we package it all with care. Our process is time consuming, but the results speak volumes.
Folio_pic1 An Unusual Idol
Folio_pic2 A Strange Telegram
Folio_pic3 A crate, "Cunard"?
Folio_pic4 A complete package
ABOUT US We are The Mysterious Package Company. We are obsessed with curious goods. Objects tell a story, and we want to expand the stories and make them as tangible as the goods themselves. We love to craft things by hand, we love to tell stories and we love to watch people's eyes when they open something truly unique and amazing.
THE CURATOR The Curator is the man behind the curtain, a shadowy figure with a devious streak. No one is ever sure exactly what he's going to do next.
Professor MISHA, THE PROFESSOR The Professor is in charge of making sure all the packages are tied together in a coherent and interesting way. He is also the puzzlemaker, and is cunning in his machinations.
Artisan COLIN, THE ARTISAN The Artisan designs and creates all the marvelous antiquities we sell. If it's pretty, he had a hand in it.
Mechanic TIMOTHY, THE MECHANIC The Mechanic ensures the ordering of the package and the ongoing progress of the experience goes smoothly.
BUY SOON! Address // 70 Mill Street Toronto, ON M5A 4R1
Telephone nr. // (888) 838-8519
E-Mail // curator@mysteriouspackage.com
Mysterious Packages are shipping soon. If you're interested, please sign up and we'll contact you as soon as we're ready!
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Post by thegenii on Nov 2, 2019 12:15:47 GMT -5
By January 1, 2013 the website text had changed.
We tell stories you can touch. A Unique Gift Provide the ultimate gift for a loved one: a customized experience that makes them the hero of a mystery.
A Treat for Yourself Give yourself a mystery to call your own with our Omakase offerings, or with a subscription to our mysteries by mail.
A Mysterious Community Our organization is members-only, and we strive to create connections between our members. Membership is 100% free.
Photographs and Documentation Our stories are told in pieces of supporting documentation: telegrams from unknown relatives, diary pages, newspaper articles, photographs of anachronisms, ancient scrolls and more all reveal a story in which the recipient is a vital piece.
Crate A Strange and Beautiful Crate All our packages culminate in a handmade crate, crafted out of reclaimed wood, aged, painted, and then nailed shut.
They are not easy to open, requiring a tool to pry apart, which simply adds to the intrigue. Getting into the crate is a pivotal moment in the experience.
Artifact A Custom-Made Artifact Within the crate is the Artifact, a bespoke art piece revealed at the climax of the story. Every piece is lovingly created and no two are alike. Artifacts are developed using a variety of techniques and materials, including handmade sculpture finished with cold cast bronze, interactive trinkets, and in some cases, CNC machined bronze.
Experience The Experience Is The Gift Our packages are designed to create a lasting memory, with the artifact as a touchstone to spark conversation, storytelling and delight. Whether the experience was a single package, received one cold fall afternoon, or many mailings that lasted several months, it will be lovingly remembered as the strangest and most wonderful gift ever received.
The Mysterious Package Company is a bespoke gift company specializing in unannounced deliveries of a strange and otherworldly nature, acting as narrators of past century archaeological esoterica with an occult twist.
We provide unique and custom-made gifts delivered by mail, wrapped in a hand-crafted experience unlike any other. Custom made crates, letters and telegrams from long-lost relatives, and seemingly innocuous newspaper clippings add a richness to the curious goods contained within. Each experience is uniquely tailored to each person, and no two packages are alike.
We are a members-only service, in order to put a barrier between the person sending the package and the person who receives it. Membership is free, but you must fill in our application form in order to be considered as a member. We are more than simply a way to send packages, we are a community of like-minded people who believe that life needs to be less mundane.
Mark R. Recipient, 2013 The attention to detail? Totally stunning. There was no point at which I questioned the veracity of the material. My suspension of disbelief was maintained the entire time. In fact, I’m kinda disappointed it’s over, and I’m really, really envious of anyone who gets sent a package. It’s a mother of an experience.
Contact the Curator (888) 838-8519 curator@mysteriouspackage.com
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Post by thegenii on Nov 2, 2019 13:17:33 GMT -5
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Post by rob on Nov 2, 2019 15:57:34 GMT -5
Thanks, thegenii! This is all great stuff.
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Post by wortelboer on Nov 2, 2019 16:01:24 GMT -5
Yes, thank you. having the history is very nice.
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Post by thegenii on Nov 2, 2019 16:48:58 GMT -5
There is so much missing because there are no graphics for the early web pages, and once they put it behind a registration wall, Wayback can't see those pages. If you login, you are just brought to the current site.
Still looking for some record of exactly what years they put out the first membership kit. My first is from 2015.
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nathan
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Post by nathan on Oct 29, 2022 21:52:31 GMT -5
Thanks for your efforts. I'm hunting for prior packages / experiences / etc and while this isn't quite a chronological list of what was released when, it begins to give me a sense of it....which will tide me over until I can find that list.
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Post by centaurofattn on Oct 30, 2022 0:18:16 GMT -5
Thanks for your efforts. I'm hunting for prior packages / experiences / etc and while this isn't quite a chronological list of what was released when, it begins to give me a sense of it....which will tide me over until I can find that list. It's not a perfect account of the timing but this forum has all of the experiences in roughly the order if you look at when the thread was made.
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nathan
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Post by nathan on Oct 30, 2022 1:55:58 GMT -5
Cool.
In part it’s not just academic curiosity but I’m trying to avoid picking up a game that is so old it won’t be supported any longer.
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Post by centaurofattn on Oct 30, 2022 14:53:38 GMT -5
Ah, well in that case, I can say that most of the experiences are self-contained, in that you have everything you need in the box. I may be forgetting something but I can say that Nyarlathotep and The Disappearance of Cadet Turner are heavily reliant on a phone app (currently both still active though), Taako's Correspondence School, The Buried Puppet, and a small part of Hastur are website dependent (which I'd have to check and see if they are still live). A few others have some easter eggs of sorts if you look into something using a website you find here and there, but nothing that if missing would ruin the story/experience. Everything else though is all self-contained.
I'm not sure how familiar you are with the whole catalogue of the MPC, but most things are less of a "game" and more of a tactile story-telling experience. So most don't have puzzles or anything to "figure out" but more so taking time to read through everything and really get immersed in the story. Many have been disgruntled by a lack of puzzles in the experiences, but they were never really meant to be puzzle-y. That's what the Curios and Conundrums (1-3 anyway) were for.
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nathan
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Post by nathan on Oct 31, 2022 15:07:20 GMT -5
Thanks. very helpful!
So, then, in our household the experiences (other brands) that have been most enjoyed appear to be the ones with fewer puzzles.
Example of an experience that made the household smile: Box One.
Another example of a good one: Fire in Adlerstein
What has become tedious: Things like the EXIT games, which are fine but often feel like a list of puzzles and very little story and immersion.
What has become tedious: Some of the Chronicles of Crime, which end up feeling like a grind to just scan dozens of QR codes in order to uncover the story. The story might be good but the process is BORING pretty quickly because it is SO repetitive.
SOOOO
It sounds like the MPC stuff is likely to be in the sweet spot then.
Ironically a lot is out of print and the ones I am seeing on the used market are the C&C (which are apparently more puzzle oriented so possibly of less interest to us, but lets be frank, those puzzle games we have done are not the best examples), but I'll keep looking.
But a couple of those you mention are still in print, so I'll probably pick up one that leans toward what we like thematically (sci fi, fantasy, history, archeology, sometimes more than crime, and often more than horror).
appear to be in print, and the phone app stuff doesn't bother us.
aren't in print any longer, so maybe I'll be more cautious about those given what you say.
Thanks!
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nathan
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Post by nathan on Oct 31, 2022 17:20:21 GMT -5
Ah, well in that case, I can say that most of the experiences are self-contained, in that you have everything you need in the box. I may be forgetting something but I can say that Nyarlathotep and The Disappearance of Cadet Turner are heavily reliant on a phone app (currently both still active though), Taako's Correspondence School, The Buried Puppet, and a small part of Hastur are website dependent (which I'd have to check and see if they are still live). A few others have some easter eggs of sorts if you look into something using a website you find here and there, but nothing that if missing would ruin the story/experience. Everything else though is all self-contained. I'm not sure how familiar you are with the whole catalogue of the MPC, but most things are less of a "game" and more of a tactile story-telling experience. So most don't have puzzles or anything to "figure out" but more so taking time to read through everything and really get immersed in the story. Many have been disgruntled by a lack of puzzles in the experiences, but they were never really meant to be puzzle-y. That's what the Curios and Conundrums (1-3 anyway) were for. And Curios and Conundrums vol4? I ask because 1-3 seem to be hard to find and reliant on resources that are gone, but 4 is more easy to find and maybe doesn't rely on resources that have disappeared..... I say this after just saying that heavy puzzles are not a win in our household, but I was just reminded that if the puzzle is integral and thematic it might hit the sweet spot.....
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Post by centaurofattn on Oct 31, 2022 19:11:58 GMT -5
Haha, well V4 does have some puzzles in it as well, they just aren't as interestingly integrated (in my opinion) as previous versions.
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nathan
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Post by nathan on Oct 31, 2022 21:16:33 GMT -5
Haha, well V4 does have some puzzles in it as well, they just aren't as interestingly integrated (in my opinion) as previous versions. Oh well that's the opposite of the kind of puzzles I can sell in my household. I'm assuming the "they" in your sentence refers to the puzzles themselves and NOT to the the different boxes in Volume four. (I understand the earlier volumes tied the boxes together -- and maybe that is what you mean by "integrated."....)
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