Solve an immersive, 3D pop-up escape room in a box! From the devious minds behind Curious Correspondence and Mysterious Package Company
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.
Greetings Ghosts & Ghouls...
The FINAL WEEK is upon us! We only have a few days left in the campaign. To be specific, you have until Thursday morning at 9:54 AM ET to get your pledges and upgrades in. The next stretch goal is the printed hint book added into Doomensions, and wouldn't it be exciting if we hit it right before the campaign ends?
So, what are we waiting for? Let's make these final few days count! 💪
At the top of our Kickstarter page you'll see a button "Manage Your Pledge", from here you're welcome to upgrade your pledge. In fact we've recently added a few more VIP levels which are selling out fast. Curious? Read about what you get with the VIP pledge here.
One of the great things about Kickstarter is it allows us to sell our regular games and have those count towards the campaign! To tide you over before Doomensions ships, why not consider picking up a copy of our award-winning Curious Correspondence Club series, or try your hand at being a detective in Post Mortem? Add-ons are also available via the Pledge Manager.
Seriously, telling just one other person about the campaign is a huge help! If you know other puzzlers who might enjoy playing Doomensions, tell them! Why not share the campaign in your Facebook group, Tweet about it, post on your Instagram, or even send smoke signals into the sky. Whatever works for you.
Now, onto the puzzles...
In the latest update, we're tuning into the local town radio where Professor Musgrove is being interviewed about his life, his work, and his academic history. Hidden within here is the next digit in the code, listen closely...
Every few updates we'll be dropping a challenging audio puzzle which, when solved, will give you a single-digit number. But to find that number, you'll need to think outside the box! Don't be afraid to use a computer, your mobile device, pen and paper, or even Google to solve them!
After we release Puzzle #10 you'll be able to validate and submit your answers to each of the puzzles. Anyone who manages to solve all the audio puzzles will unlock a special, exclusive prize onto your pledge!
Please Note: This, and the other puzzles we're dropping in our backer updates are a fun bonus designed to keep our backers (that's you!) challenged and entertained for the duration of the campaign (ten puzzles in total)! Just know that they are not mandatory; if you choose not to solve them, that's totally fine, it won't impact your experience of Doomensions at all.
This is the ninth puzzle we've released so far. You can catch up on the others here:
Psst... Want more puzzles? Don't forget, Puzzletember takes place this month!
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.
Greetings Ghosts & Ghouls...
Did you know, there are just 7 days left of the Kickstarter campaign 🤯
(Wow! Time flies!)
First up, we've had some fantastic questions, thoughts, and feedback about our VIP pledge level. Initially this pledge level was limited to just a few slots and they sold out pretty quickly. Due to popular demand and to welcome so many few puzzlers to the campaign, we've extended the VIP pledge level!
But only by 50 MORE slots
If you're curious about what is included in the VIP Doomensions, now is your chance to grab one. They will go quickly. If you're still not sure, you can also read more about in this update here.
Last week we asked some of the good folks over on our Discord channel if they had any questions for the designers of Doomensions and you delivered some fantastic questions we'd like to answer below!
Who are you? (Joy, Discord)
Both MPC and CC are small teams of passionate designers. We try really hard as a company not to assign credit to specific people. We truly believe our entire team deserves credit for what we create. To constantly innovate and come up with interesting games requires everyone in the company to be fully invested and on the same page.
What inspired you to create this experience? (Joy, Discord)
We’re always looking for fun new things to create and compelling ways to engage in play. With Doomensions we were experimenting with ways to lift the narrative setting of a mystery off the page and allow players to experience a story in a new way. An early prototype became our answer to this, designed as a dynamic window into a physical environment while you puzzle. The ability to explore and examine your immediate surroundings opens up lots of investigative doors for interaction and immersion that we hadn't really seen done before in this way. It’s grown into something we were all pretty excited about!
What challenges have you run into so far in the design process? (Joy, Discord)
Measurement precision and tolerances always demand a lot of specificity when mechanical components are at play. The space occupied by the interconnected components as they fold also requires a keen attention to detail, more so on this project than many of our others so far. Designing an eight-chamber, three-dimensional haunted house took some planning, to say the least!
What Part of the Doomensions Experience that made it in are you most proud of? (ImmortalBenny, Discord)
We tried to push the boundaries of what we could do with paper engineering on this project. From our perspective, that also includes consideration for how many individual components our teams and fulfillment partners will need to assemble to construct your manor. We’ve worked hard to keep that number down without compromising on the dimensional detail you’ll see in the final experience. For example, did you know that the king bed, pillows, bedside cabinet, and footlocker combo are actually one piece?
What is the one thing in the entire process up to this point you would do differently if you would do another project/Kickstarter like this? (ImmortalBenny, Discord)
Difficult question. I don’t think there is an ideal world in which you have all the time and resources you need for projects. We are really happy with the way the Kickstarter was set up and is going so far. Our small community and their ongoing feedback have been wonderful.
Seeing how successful the KS has been so far, what are the chances of a sequel? (Mr Draco, Discord)
'We were absolutely thrilled with the support we’ve received through the campaign. We’ve certainly envisioned an anthology of Doomension scenarios, but while we're baking serialization into its DNA, to be honest, we’re just focused on producing the best version of Mystery Manor that we can. We plan to address expanding the universe once we’ve done it justice and are on the other side of this first installment!
The graphic design and illustration is amazing so far! What program do you use? (AlexTillard, Discord)
This is made with love in Illustrator, Cinema 4D, and Photoshop, with our illustrator’s pen passing over everything at the end of the process. While it’s a (lot of!) work in progress, and we’re thrilled with the direction so far.
Puzzle designers/creators: what other kinds of puzzles do you love (crosswords, cryptoquotes, Wordles, or whatever)? How did you get into creating something like this? (AlexTillard, Discord)
Another toughie! The puzzle landscape has always been diverse and everyone involved brings their own inspirations and interests to the project. There’s a shared foundational love of classic point-and-click adventures like Myst and the Monkey Island series. Real world escape rooms are another shared passion among the team. Doomensions arrived as a somewhat natural evolution of the CCC’s emphasis on paper-craft and the legacy of MPC’s experiential storytelling.
How do you all come up with such creative ways to make puzzles? I’m really enjoying the audio puzzles as they’ve been introducing new methods to me of hiding clues! I had NO idea you could hide pictures as sound-waves! (cuddlecuffs, Discord)
Thanks! We’re so glad the mini puzzles have been so well received. A tested approach to design of any kind can be to embrace the idea of ‘creativity from constraint’. Deciding first on a set of criteria your work should conform to allows you to zero in on and refine an idea. Because we didn’t want to double up on anything that would feature in the final game, for the KS puzzles we first decided on the medium of sound - auditory puzzles. Then we experiment with different ways of hiding, encoding, and obfuscating information using sound. Some are simple auditory variations of their visual counterparts - like a spoken spot-the-difference. Others utilize and rely more specifically on the medium of sound, such as recognizing musical notes.
Are there online puzzle making/creation courses out there that any of you have done or can recommend? I love how you are working things into a narrative. (cuddlecuffs, Discord)
There are many talented designers out there discussing their craft, and a number of great resources to be found. SkillShare is a platform that connects experienced practitioners across an array of disciplines with people looking for sound advice. Their platform offers several introductions to game design fundamentals. Freely accessible platforms like youtube also host a lot of helpful content. Game Maker’s Toolkit, for example, is a creator that produces regular, in-depth studies on various elements of the game design process. Incorporating a narrative into our work isn’t something everybody does, but we feel it's integral to the experience we’re trying to craft. We want you to step into this world and spend time with its characters - to trust and to be suspicious. A great story has been at the heart of MPC experiences for years, so it’s business as usual for us!
How long does it take you guys to create a new game? (kurigohann, Instagram)
Although it’s been a long road, we found the initial ideation process ran fairly smooth for Mystery Manor. It was probably the combination of two great teams, a real passion for the project and the drive we all shared to bring this to life. We’ve definitely worked on projects that have been a little more difficult to get across the line. Of course, the process outlives the success of the KS campaign as we continue to test and incorporate feedback.
Thank you all for the lovely questions! We hope this gives you a bit more info on why we do what we do. We really appreciate your support for us and our campaign so far.
If you'd like to become a part of the journey with us, it's not too late to back the project.
Keep an eye on the updates, tomorrow friends, as we will be releasing Audio Puzzle #8.
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.