Marie-Anne and CJ Cartier are twins who have gotten themselves into trouble after borrowing their father's time machine without permission. They have lost the map to return home and are now sending clues through packages delivered to your family over the course of six months in an attempt to piece together the map before getting stuck in the past. The Curious Crate is an interactive subscription adventure that will deliver packages containing clues to help the twins' journey across six centuries as the story unfolds. It aims to cultivate curiosity, problem-solving skills, and an appreciation for history in children ages 8-12 through an immersive multimedia experience.

1. The Curious Crate
Project Concept Overview
v2.4

2. The Story
Marie-Anne Cartier and her twin brother CJ are in trouble. Big trouble. Huge
trouble. The kind of trouble that sounds like, “You mean to tell me that we
just made one stupid ‘big-huge mistake’ and now we’re going to get eaten to
death by dinosaurs?!”
The plan seemed pretty solid at first. Marie-Anne and CJ had watched their
father using his time machine dozens of times. Surely no one would mind if
they “borrowed” it; they’d be back before they even left! The twins would
combine their special skills to form a brash and brainy two-person adventure
squad, what could possibly go wrong?! It’s not like they’d lose their only map
home, right?
(Right?!)

3. The Adventure
Of course, as nearly everyone knows, the only way to safely navigate
through time is to pack a temporal map into a sturdy case that you send
back to a safe time and location. Marie-Anne and CJ, unfortunately, sent
their only copy a little too far back. Now your family has the map, the twins’
only lifeline as they hurtle blindly into the past, jumping decades and then
centuries at a time.
Is all hope lost? Maybe not quite yet. Marie-Anne and CJ are still able to
send life rafts through the mail, little “time parcels” that arrive roughly twice a
month. Can you and your family unpuzzle the Cartier’s frantic clues, entering
their “whenabouts” into their lost map before the twins’ temporal trajectory
flings them too far into the past? Will you save the day or will Marie-Anne
and CJ end up as the daily special on some Triassic-era dinosaur menu?
Only time will tell!

4. The Curious Crate is a wild many-media adventure; a physical-object-meets-
digital-interaction subscription service that delivers a unique experience to
children 8-12 and their parents.
Marie-Anne and CJ Cartier stumbled into a time portal and only you - the
recipient of their mailings, video dispatches, puzzles, and games - can help
them find their way home.
The adventure dances across six centuries as it spools out over the course
of six real-world months. Eleven physical objects and corresponding digital
experiences follow the discovery and opening of the Curious Crate.

5. The Purpose
Remember the joy of getting mail or having to wait for the next comic book
or catalog to arrive? Remember when the answers to puzzles weren’t
merely a Google search away? Remember using “modern antiques” like
floppy disks, VCRs, drive-in theaters, and paper maps?
Modern technologies and the internet are wonderful - absolutely - but so too
are some of the invaluable lessons we learned as kids:
• surprise
• delayed gratification
• hands-on observation, and
• long-term problem-solving

6. The Goal
Our goal for The Curious Crate is to deliver:
A journey of The gift of
curiosity anticipation
An appreciation of
exploration
A delight in A discovery of
perseverance interconnection
A fascination with
history

7. The Idea
The Curious Crate is an immersive exploration story that unfolds over the
course of half a year, delivered by way of 12 tangible mailed objects and
12 corresponding digital experiences.
As the surprise recipient of a curious wood box and its mysterious contents,
your child/children will stumble into a role assisting the teenaged Cartier
twins in their accidental quest back in time. With your son or daughter’s help
the twins will find and activate a series of “date posts,” markers that trigger
subsequent mailings and dispatches - each one using the communications
methods of decades and centuries past.
Part book, part subscription, part game, The Curious Crate is an experience
designed for kids aged 8-12, with their parents in on the adventure too.

8. The Curiosity
Your daughter/son opens the curious wood crate to find a thick, faux
leather-bound journal tucked inside. The book looks dusty and care-worn,
its antique pages brittle with age. The journal is filled with technical drawings,
diary entries, symbology and hand-drawn maps. At first, it appears to be the
work of an old explorer, field notes from some long-forgotten scientist
but, upon closer inspection, it seems that things are much more puzzling
than that.
As your child begins to page through the astonishing manuscript, he/she
discovers that much of the text inside the journal is also muddled, words re-
arranged, unaligned and out of order, as if assembled after-the-fact. Several
items appear to be missing; a bundle of opened envelopes are without
their letters, while places in the book that once held specimen samples are
now conspicuously empty. More questions than answers - all inviting them
into the story!

9. The Framework
The story begins with the core crate. We’ll deliver that to you (the parent) in
December - by Christmas - for you to make it “randomly discoverable” by
your daughter/son. “Hey, whose present is this? It doesn’t have a name
on it...”
A few weeks later, the first of 11 deliveries will arrive by mail with
subsequent deliveries arriving every 2-3 weeks after that. A heads-up email
(for parents’ eyes only!) will alert you on what to expect and offer helpful tips.
With each dispatch, the protagonists move back in time - at first by decades
and later by centuries. Each dispatched object and digital experience relate
to a different historical time and place.
The crate and each subsequent package will include various clues, tips, red
herrings, and codes linking to text, video, and audio messages from the
story’s main characters.

10. The Roll-out
Using a specially made platform, audio clips, photo galleries, video
messages, and links to closed games/apps can be accessed privately and as
often as needed. Each month’s mailing reveals one such multimedia
component. Some may be passive entertainment while others are
interactive and consequential.
Often the dispatches require puzzles to be solved - everything from figuring
out a virtual VCR or typewriter to finding plot clues hidden in music box
melodies or 15th-century paintings.
Here’s an example of how the deliveries may roll out...

11. A small wood crate delivered in
December (to parents) contains a
mysterious and incomplete field
book and various artifact clues.
A code entered online reveals an
intro video and dispatch from the
main character.
An envelope mailed in early
January includes an old floppy
disk with coded label.
Another dispatch is revealed as
well as clues hidden within a
series of ASCII art.
An envelope arrives in late
January containing a
(playable)VHS cassette tape.
A code on the tape label unlocks a
virtual VCR on which to view an
interesting short film.

12. An envelope arrives in early
February containing an old IBM
computer punch card.
After decoding the card using text
in the field book, an interactive
fiction Q&A terminal is presented.
An envelope arrives in late
February containing a 35mm film
slide with an elaborate clue-filled
photo.
The video dispatch invites viewers
to visit a virtual drive-in theater
and to “pay special attention to the
newsreel”.
An oversize envelope arrives in
early March containing a
(playable) 7” record with two
exclusive songs relating to the
plot.
A code on the label gives access
to an online virtual record player.

13. An airmail-style envelope arrives
in late March with an official
looking typed letter.
Access to a typewriter app allows
for a form to be filled in and
submitted to the proper (in-game)
authorities.
A box arrives in early April
containing a hand-crank music
box which plays a classical song.
Per the video dispatch, the song
must be transcribed note-by-note
on a piano app to unlock another
storyline.
An aged and wax-sealed envelope
arrives in late April containing a
handwritten letter.
Instructions within the letter reveal
a small online gallery of 16th-
century paintings, each depicting
key scenes in the story.

14. A tube arrives in early May
containing part of a canvas map
(half of which was in the crate).
The map corresponds to a
special-access “old world
explorer” iPad app in which the
whereabouts of a key item can be
discovered.
A small crate arrives in late May
containing a real brass pocket
watch, the object which returns
our protagonists home.
After solving a riddle related to the
timepiece, a video plays out
concluding plot lines.
Finally, in June, a success poster
arrives in the mail which recaps
the many scenes and characters
in the story.
A farewell thank-you dispatch is
followed by access to a virtual
letterpress where “I was here”
posters may be created.
Timing and objects subject to change.

15. The Rewards
We plan to offer two types of packages to pledge for...
The Main package includes:
• The core crate and its contents
• 11 letter/object mailings (including postage)
• 12 video dispatches
• 12 digital experiences
The Deluxe package includes the same elements, plus:
• A personalized video message (by the actors)
• Your child’s name engraved on the pocket watch
• Her/his face drawn into the wrap-up adventure poster

16. The Requirements
• A computer with internet connection and the parent’s email account
• An iPad and iTunes account
• A postal address (countries to be determined)
• A kid with insatiable curiosity, ingenuity, and love of adventure!

17. The Team
The Curious Crate will be produced by the creators of Warms gift boxes
(givewarms.com); a team with toy industry, web/app development, video
production, and magazine publishing experience.
We also plan to collaborate with a variety of talented artists and suppliers.

18. Project Concept Overview