Some folks receive an odd letter in the mail from a law firm in Canada telling them that items are shortly to be bequeathed to them from a long-lost relative. Included is an old newspaper clipping wherein my relative (yes, it really is my relative) is reported to have found an item of great significance at an archaeological dig.
Others get a pile of notes scrawled on sundry scraps which seem to make little sense until you realize that they have been written by a time-hopping lovesick scientist trying to locate her lost husband.
Or you might discover that a Russian scientist has fled her country and is trying to alert you to a horror which will soon envelop you. When you finally meet her, she gives you the finger.
The diary of a boy arrives, but his terrified scribblings give way to those of another …
After two or three of these oddball encounters with bits of paper from your friendly, unsuspecting mail carrier, a wooden crate arrives. It has been nailed tightly closed and is a devil to open if you fail to have the correct implements in your position.
More on all that later.
The Mysterious Package Company's Curator is a shadowy figure who, along with a group of forgers and craftsman in Toronto, creates what they rightly claim are "experiences." This is fun fiction cum comic book/boys (and girls) adventure stuff come to life. You experience it in a tactile and old-fashioned way: items of varying and often unknown significance which you hold in your hands, aged and often creepy. By the time the wooden crate arrives after a month or more of teases, you're totally psyched and are likely holding a hammer in your hand when the mailman delivers it. If he bothers to glance at you (which most mail carriers no longer seem to do), he'd probably drop his bag and run from a person holding a weapon with a wild gleam in his eye.
(The asterisks between the letters of certain words which follow are there for a reason I will disclose later.)
Hoping to raise $16,000 (Canadian) on Kickstarter last summer for a new and more involved experience with as many as seven mailings and multiple artifacts entitled "The Century B*e*a*s*t," said beastie turned out to be enticing to the tune of $422,390 (Canadian) pledged by 1,291 backers. I'll admit it—I was hooked by the nose like a fat old trout. It took from then until just a month ago for the company to finally deliver all the pieces of "The Century B*e*a*s*t": things got a bit rocky for a while with people complaining about delays of great length beyond the announced dates in mailing packages and much grumbling ensued.
But the Mysterious Package Company has pulled itself up by the bootstraps, moved to larger headquarters, and greatly expanded its staff.
With the enormous experience of "The Century B*e*a*s*t" completed (which worked out to 10 mailings for those who pledged during the Kickstarter campaign and received all of the extra items), the company has just embarked on a new Kickstarter campaign for what is promised to be a more personalized experience, "Filigree of S*h*a*d*o*w*s." On the first day, when it was open only to existing members of the MPC, it received 359 backers and generated $101,546, overshooting its goal of $38,529, and it still had 29 days to go!
If you're an eager beaver and are already sold on the idea, you can jump right to the Kickstarter campaign now, or wait until tomorrow when we'll take a journey through the MPC's earlier experience "The K*i*n*g in Yellow."
