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Post by scott on Oct 27, 2021 9:58:11 GMT -5
Hi, friends!
I’m Scott, one of the core humans from The Boundless Library. I do some of our writing, a lot of our making, and I, uh, sound very much like Matt Comstock.
This kind of stepping-into-the-light isn’t something I’ll often do, but I wanted to reach out to some of our original core supporters in the aftermath of cancelling the recent Kickstarter campaign. We’re relaunching in a few weeks with a very different plan, and one of the (many) ways we’ll make that work is by getting people talking. So this is me asking for both a favour and some feedback!
The feedback is: what would make you excited about this project? I can’t promise that every single thing will make it in there, as the elements of this project have to serve a lot of needs, but I’m really interested in what fires you all up and what would make you excited to share that project with your like-minded friends.
The favour is: will you help us spread the word? The relaunch will involve a significant marketing push, and that kind of marketing can go much further when backed by grassroots support. The more backers we reach, the bigger and spicier we can potentially make this thing, which is a win for all involved
Thanks for your engagement to date with our thing- it’s a pleasure and a privilege to create this content, especially seeing how deeply folks like you engage with it, and I’m so excited to show you what’s next.
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Post by 12jtmg on Oct 27, 2021 10:18:13 GMT -5
Hi Scott!
Thinking back to A Feather in Dust, I really loved the tangible components of the experience. The aged paper, boxes, the tea ceremony all really grabbed my attention. In your kickstarter if you could provide teasers for either of the games (or prototypes) that might garner interest?
Another thing you might want to clarify is whether this will be wholly narrative, a wholly puzzles, and/or a mix - basically what kind of engagement of players will be required? That way players know the expectations of their experience a bit more. Boring Crimes had more puzzling and ARG elements while Feather in Dust was more narrative for example.
For sharing information - have you thought of doing a little activity over the course of the campaign? Mini talks from the Librarians, little puzzles, fragments of unfinished stories the Librarians and Alice have been collected? These kind of things can be shared around to garner interest, are easily shareable across platforms, and give backers an idea of what is going on.
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Post by parlortrick on Oct 27, 2021 10:34:30 GMT -5
Hey, Scott!
First off, loved every second of "A Feather in Dust." Loved the story, the presentation, all of it. The ephemera was awesome - some of the best tangibles I've received in one of these type of things.
First off, the puzzle element. From my perspective as someone who does a ton of these story/puzzle/mystery things, some clarity regarding the nature of the experience would help. Not spoilers, per se, but some sense, like others have said, of what it will be: purely narrative, puzzle-based, etc. I know from our collective discussion on Discord during Feather that we were all sort of hunting for puzzle elements, as we're all big puzzle fans going back to the earliest days of MPC. I think I can reasonably speak for a lot of us when I say we like puzzles that lean toward the more difficult side with some sense of what we're working toward - it doesn't necessarily have to be a clear-cut 'goal,' but I know a lot of us remember the MPC Vault very fondly. (I also understand that this may not be your goal with this - just throwing in some thoughts we had during the playthrough of Feather. For example, the librarian pushing everyone toward determining the next stop, when it didn't really matter if we figured it out or not.)
From a narrative perspective, I'd echo 12jtmg's thought - perhaps a random chapter with some sort of interactive element as a teaser from time to time to help people who aren't familiar with this format get a sense of the immersive elements?
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Post by deanodon on Oct 27, 2021 10:38:36 GMT -5
I was confused as to whether the stories would be running concurrently or consecutively. If consecutively, which is first, etc.? If concurrently, I need more info on which to choose. The super big question is "What do I DO?"
Boring Crimes had puzzles.
FITD didn't.
What will the new ones be like?
I'm also unclear what "Boring Crimes Redux" means. Is it a Season 2 with a new story, or is it the same story with physical objects sent out? I am excited to go one more adventures with Matt and the locksmith, not so excited to do a rerun.
What will the new ones be like in terms of interactivity? Can I communicate with characters? Help them? Is story gated behind puzzles? Form a community with other players to get something done?
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Post by macindc on Oct 27, 2021 10:38:46 GMT -5
Hi Scott and welcome!
For feedback honestly what would make me most excited is clarity. I feel the original Kickstarter left people with more questions than answers. (What sort of experience is this? What am I signing up for? I already am a legacy subscriber, should I be backing this?) If I can't answer those questions for myself, it's difficult to get excited for it, and even more difficult to get OTHERS excited for it when they too will likely have the same questions.
I know The Boundless Library thrives on mystery and secrecy but that's not always compatible with a crowdfunding platform where one is asking people to take a chance on something sight unseen from people or a company that they aren't terribly familiar with.
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Post by thegingerbarrister on Oct 27, 2021 11:33:37 GMT -5
Will the Membership Kit for ‘21/‘22 be available separately at a later date, or will it be KS exclusive?
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Post by scott on Oct 27, 2021 12:53:46 GMT -5
This is very useful- and largely in line with the existing plan, so it's good to know that I'm on the right track.
This is something that the Kickstarter will make clear, but it's a point we've been meaning to clarify anyway. Think of it as similar to a subscription to any other online collection of content- you can consume it in whatever order you like. You could even do a month of an experience, decide it's not for you, and disembark early to start a different one!
I'm not sure yet, but I'll know and have it made clear for the relaunch. It depends heavily on minimum orders for things, particularly when they're individually customized on the manufacturer side, which can work much better as KS-exclusive. But also, cool stuff is cool and I want everyone to have it, so...
As for Boring Crimes Redux, about which we've been asked in several forums: it's the same story that we ran in real-time in 2019/2020, reformatted for our subscription model - it worked very well as a follow-along in realtime, but it's quite difficult for a newcomer to put together in the aftermath. So we're rebuilding it as a three-month experience with a bunch of minor tweaks to suit the new format. The major difference is that you'll get physical reproductions of the stuff that Matt and Tell were working with. Alice's journal is the star, but you'll get a number of the other items (we will not, however, be shipping multiple cans of decomposing chickpeas). Most of that will, again, recur from the original Boring Crimes, but some items will change somewhat to work in the new context, and there'll be a few new things that will take advantage of the physical mailing format. It's not really intended for those of you that were along for the ride the first time- it's meant to show Boring Crimes to a new audience in a format that lets them feel like they're along for the ride.
That said, we're far from done with Matt and Tell, and it's really lovely to hear that there's an appetite for their further adventures.
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Post by centaurofattn on Oct 27, 2021 13:10:39 GMT -5
I echo the sentiments on clarity mentioned already. One thing that I don't know a good workaround for is the digital component of experiences. I loved the audio stories and additional readings that popped up for Feather, but I've had experiences in the past where websites become defunct and then a good chunk of your experience is lost. Is there a way to conclude experiences with a thumb drive or download link to self-store the digital content? I like revisiting the stories once a year or so, or showing it to friends, and the tangible stuff is awesome - but not as effective if someday you only have half an experience.
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Post by nathan1228 on Oct 28, 2021 13:43:46 GMT -5
Thanks Scott! My favourite piece of A Feather in Dust was probably the prestige, seconded by the "evidence" file in I think chapter 5. I really love the longer narrative documents and it would be fantastic if some of the ones that have been relegated to digital, likely for their length, were actually presented as physical journals, bundles of letters, or other documents. Another feature that would go along way would be a portfolio, clamshell, or some other means of compiling the items as they come to save and re-experience the story in the future. This could potentially be a good add-on as well. I wish you great success in the Kickstarter, and am looking forward to seeing your relaunch with a bit more strategy and clearer marketing assets!
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Post by Geodus on Oct 28, 2021 14:56:21 GMT -5
Hi, Scott!
My feedback seems to be a bit different from everyone else's, but that's to be expected from such a heterogenous group.
One of the things that would make me excited about the project is interactivity. I really enjoyed being able to interact with Matt and Tell on Instagram, and I missed the sense of having an effect on the world in AFID. Yes, there was the bit about the map, but I never really got a sense of being an active participant and it felt too passive for me. Interactability can be hard to scale, but I have confidence that this a problem you and your team can solve.
Another thing that would make me excited is personalization. Very often in experiences, the "you" becomes a generic observer rather than unique participant. This also has an effect on scalability for production of ephemera, but I get far more interested when I get a letter with my name on it than just of box of ephemera. Bespoke experiences? Sign me up!
As someone else mentioned, inclusion of something to store all the ephemera would be a bit plus. I have all the stuff from AFID sitting around in my office, and I'm not sure what to do with it. I like the circus poster in particular and might have it framed, but the rest? It's just taking up space, and except for the final artifact, I'm not even sure I'll keep. I just have too much *stuff*. I'd gotten in the habit of putting all the ephemera from a certain other company's experiences into the artifact crates (which don't look too bad stacked on top of a bookshelf in my library), but there's nothing like that from AFID.
Finally, something else that would get me excited is probably completely counter to the idea of a Kickstarter campaign, and that is the idea of secrecy and exclusivity. I really dig the idea of being a member of or in-the-know about a secret organization. Perhaps ironically, I am more likely to share something about a secret membership than I am about something that is publicly advertised (who doesn't want to share a secret?) There is also a thrill in getting past the membership application/trial (I made it!) that is missing when all I have to do is enter my CC info.
I don't really know who your audience is for this next experience and I imagine there's a big difference in making something for 5,000 people who pay $100 vs. 1,000 people who pay $500. I'm definitely in the category of wanting to pay more for better experiences (I realized probably spend a couple $K on Kickstarter every year in writing this), but if your goal is to reach a bigger audience, that probably necessitates a lower price point and a different type of experience.
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Post by scott on Oct 30, 2021 15:49:16 GMT -5
That’s a really interesting angle, and a very good point. I’m going to look into it!
In fact, that’s less a consideration of length and more of cost. There’s a hard limit at our monthly subscription price point on how much can go in the average mailing (though economy of scale means that we can build chunkier mailings with more subscribers!). Digital content has costs for creation, but no per-mailing inventory cost, which lets us build a lot of it into an experience (again, more subscribers help us pay for this!)
I like that too! Something we’ve found so far, and are still trying to grapple with, is “how do you market mystery?” A small and exclusive club isn’t how we build or sustain this, but the theme of secrecy and exclusivity is something we’ll continue to play with.
This is one we’ve heard from a few folks. It’s probably not a right-now thing, but it’s something we’re considering.
We also really enjoyed the interactive stuff! The plan has always been to do a bit of both. ”Stories” like A Feather In Dust might have gamey elements of figuring something out in a way that’ll be revealed when you get there, a bit like reading a whodunnit. We also aim to do more interactive experiences with live elements, which will be announced in advance and accesible to anyone with a active subscription. They’ll probably be more like one-off short-burn ARG events - something the length of Boring Crimes is a real challenge to sustain. The stories we’re Kickstarting will be the former kind of thing.
The core of the business model is going to remain one subscription price, and we’ll continue to create for that price point. That said, we get to make more stuff for a given price point as our subscriber base grows- the reason we’re on Kickstarter is to give us space to do that.
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Post by kelley on Nov 2, 2021 0:18:12 GMT -5
HI Scott thanks for asking us about our suggestions. First I loved both Boring Crimes and A Feather in Dust because there was a mystery to solve. Whether it was Matt and Tel or AFID they both had a mystery around them and I enjoyed the journey. My first and only gripe is that as a subscriber I somehow thought I was to receive 6 months of the next story at no charge. Is this true? If so it seems to be unclear and not said. So do I "need to Back the kickstarter for Bete Noire? Seems such a simple question that could be answered but isn't (and if it has been please excuse me and clarify as such). So, as loyal subscriber, I don't even know what to back... So that is confusing as I want to help and support.
The strength in both of these stories is the story telling and the writing. There are people who love narrative story telling mixed with a mystery and puzzles. Some epherma is good because it lends to more interaction. Too much is too much, and if its not around a puzzle to decode to help unravel the mystery, or add to the experience, it is just a little wasteful. People don't know what to do with too much epherma. I love that the stories can take place over 6 months and that a mailing or an episode is released once a month. I think a smaller version of AFID with a great story, and more puzzling and solving would be ideal.
I think releasing Boring Crimes with the journal and more puzzles would definitely appeal to the Hunt a Killer and MPC crowd. When you provide the Kickstarter you should offer that as a Long "story" with the digital audio component. It would be similar to a Hunt a Killer Premium box and if you can manage to offer it in that sort of price range you would do fine. If you can manage to offer a story like Bette Noire with puzzles for 6 months similar to A Killing Affair, and Detective Society in the $235 price range or so, you should do fine with a kickstarter. I think to appeal to the broadest group (your goal) you have to offer story, puzzles and epherma for engagement, but be clearer on whether it is a mystery surrounded by narrative, props and puzzles, or if it's a story (not a mystery) surrounded by props and engagement. AFID was more of a story than a mystery to solve. It was historical and charming, but I didn't have to puzzle it out.
Thanks!
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Post by scott on Nov 2, 2021 8:21:22 GMT -5
Alice will be in touch with the details, but our legacy subscribers (those who bought A Feather In Dust during our 2019 presale) still have 6 months' credit that can be used on any of the upcoming experiences. Bête Noire, Boring Crimes, and Higher Than Magic will each be a three-month story.
The balance of story versus puzzle is an interesting one - some folks really love one or the other, and others prefer a bit of both. It's my hope that we'll cover a wide range of possibility as we grow! A Feather In Dust was, in part, an experiment- without much of a specific puzzle element, can coming to understand a story carry the feel of solving a puzzle? Boring Crimes was able to be more direct- Alice solved puzzles and made puzzles, and now you get to work through them. A very important line for me is that any puzzles have to move the story or tell you more about the characters - a puzzle for the sake of a puzzle isn't our jam.
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