Posted By: Paul Hallett
Date: June 28, 2024
Receive anything fun in the mail lately?
And it wasn’t easy either.
Introducing Quimbley's Toys and Games
For those of you who are uninitiated, our team sent out a physical envelope to tens of thousands of people that contained among other things, the official introduction to Quimbley’s Toys and Games. We added specific story elements to it, as well as puzzle items that can win you prizes and even $10,000 in Quimbley’s merchandise to one big winner. We wanted to make the whole thing as fun and challenging as possible.Hopefully we pulled it off.
Right now, we have so many people accessing the game, we’ve had to put extra eyeballs on our website to make sure things are running smoothly. If you want to jump on and give the puzzles a try, CLICK HERE to access the digital contents of the mailer.
The Challenge of Creating a Mystery Package
You may think that putting together a mystery package like this would be simple and straightforward. You write a letter, throw in some cards, make some anaglyphs, add a couple webpages into the mix, and presto, you’re done.If I’m really honest (which I am known to be), we went into this with that same thought process. I remember one of our first meetings with our executive team and we were like, “Can we get the mystery package out in like two weeks? Sure! How hard could it be?”
*shakes head*
Here’s the thing about making a mystery package like this: there are a lot of moving parts. Plus, since we had just started the manufacturing side of Quimbley’s, there was so much going on that it would make your head explode (I’m surprised mine is still on my shoulders, to be honest).
Gathering Addresses
The first thing we had to do was petition for addresses of people who wanted the package in the first place. Obviously, we had committed to fulfilling all the Petersen Games Kickstarters, so we went to their fans first. No one had ever heard of Quimbley’s Toys and Games, but Sandy Petersen had a well-earned fan base, and we went there first. After that, we sent out feelers in all directions until we had a massive number of potential fans who were intrigued enough to provide their addresses.
Finding the Right Printer
From there we had to find a local printer that could produce at the quantity we needed. Our printers here at Quimbley’s were just going online and wouldn’t be up and running in time to fulfill the package. We were able to find a good partner in our area for that, but it pushed our timetable up quite a bit. Such is the way of the printing industry. Still, we now had a partner we could work with that could not only print, but mail everything out too, which was great for us.Creating the Package Content
Once we had the printing side figured out, it came time to write the announcement letter and decide what was going into the package. Just the letter by itself was a long process of drafts and redrafts. Again, it seems simple, but we had to pour over every sentence to make sure we were saying enough but not too much, mixing in the story elements of H.C Quimbley right alongside the real-world elements of the company. It was a balancing act that required a lot of time and a lot of editing.While the letter was being drafted, our design team was working on images, puzzles, anaglyphs, enigma wheels, and tarot cards to show off what Quimbley’s planned to create. We wanted good quality products that were visually stunning (with a bit of flair too). That meant everything had to be designed and redesigned; printed and reprinted. In the case of the Strange Dominions card (the game that is currently in playtesting with Sandy and Lincoln Petersen), we were designing cards and logos and stats and everything for the first time. It was pretty cool to play around with designs, get them printed, and have them ready for play-testers the next day. As you guys all know, artwork is key to any good card or board game experience, so we had our artists working overtime. And every change we added to each card needed to be printed and checked for quality.
How many times did we make changes to the artwork and components of the Quimbley’s Mystery Package you ask?
You don’t want to know. I don’t even want to think about it. Lots. Too many. Let’s just leave it there.
Quimbley Journal Pages
One of the biggest parts of the package itself is the Quimbley journal pages. Everything we do at Quimbley’s, whether it’s a new board game or a toy, is story and lore based. That being the case, we needed to draw from the first Quimbley novel and the character that we had created based on the real H.C. To pull this off we turned to our resident author Steven Heumann who of course wrote the first book and all the current short stories. Steve went to work fashioning Quimbley’s adventures and turning them into the journal pages. He even crafted the weathered page design and the sketches so everything would have the right feel. Quimbley has a unique voice, and it was fun seeing that come to life in the journals. It will be a website feature we’ll continue going forward.
Designing the Puzzles
And then, after all the writing and design work, it came time to figure out the puzzles themselves. For this we turned to our good friend Arthur Petersen because he excels at puzzle design. He went through and started figuring out ways to make every part of the mystery package a feature in the game. He developed symbols, ciphers, hidden word keys, even adding purposeful spelling mistakes that could then be used in the game. I don’t want to give too much away in Arthur’s puzzle quest here, but I will tell you to pay close attention to the FAQ section on the website here to see if there is anything invisible.That’s all I’m going to say!
I’ll be honest here; some of the puzzles were so hard for me that they broke my brain. I know most of you have been able to fly past them at times, but I admit, they were pretty hard for me. I’m not the puzzle guy after all. I’m the business guy.
Playtesting the Package
As we were finalizing everything, just like with any good game, we needed to playtest. We brought in a dozen people on a couple different occasions and gave them the envelope with the contents of the package to see what they thought. We learned so much from these experiences. Originally the letter was twice as long, and we found some glitches on the website where the puzzle would be. Both of those problems were pointed out by the players, and we were able to streamline things. You’d be surprised how key playtesting is. I knew it was something that needed to be done, but once I experienced a playtest night, it became clear that you can’t have a stellar game without play-testers trying to break it again and again over the span of a couple months.On a side note, we are so grateful to our group of play-testers. They are awesome, and their insights have pushed us creatively in so many ways. For anyone who wants to be a play-tester, keep your eye on the News and Updates section to see when we’re in need of new groups.
The Waiting Game
After all of this, the puzzles were done, the cards designed, and the pages written. We then turned everything over to our printing partner. And the waiting began. Waiting is hard. But the waiting taught us some good lessons. First and foremost, it taught us that we want to produce as much as we can here in our factory, so we don’t have to wait.I hate waiting.
But once the printing was done (after a misprint or twenty thousand, of course), we had to stuff the envelopes. That’s right, envelopes don’t stuff themselves. You need to pay people to do that sort of thing, and it takes time. We had lines of tables set up in our factory where people were stuffing envelopes for days. Everyone ended up lending a hand to get this big job done. And then the envelopes needed to be sealed too! You ever tried sealing tens of thousands of envelopes? It’s no fun, my friend.
Successful Launch
Finally, everything was done! It had taken months to accomplish, with literally thousands of man hours, but we had it complete. The packages were mailed, and people started receiving them all over the world within a few days.And now here we are. You know about Quimbley’s and the mystery package. You know what we went through to get it to fans both new and old. It was a ton of work, and no small amount of money either, but it was worth it.
This is why we started Quimbley’s Toys and Games in the first place, to create fun experiences and bring a little more joy into the ‘Realms,’ as Quimbley would say.
I hope you had fun with the package.
This is only the beginning. We’re all going to have a lot of fun together over the next few decades.
Be ready!
