📚 Alba - an Open World Adventure Book 📚

Chapter 4...
over 3 years ago – Tue, Jan 19, 2021 at 02:07:32 AM

Hello Explorers!

Another great day as we head towards the weekend and another stretch goal!

Last night we unlocked the upsized pins and patches! That’s right, now all our gorgeous pins and patches will be bigger. The engraved vault pin will now be a whopping 25mm (1 inch), and patches will be twice that size at 50mm (2 inches)! Patches come with ALL physical reward levels, and the vault pin comes with all Dagger’s Dagger pledges.

In addition to that, we’re well on our way to the highly-coveted slipcase for all special editions! We’re expecting to hit this over the weekend, and it’s probably the stretch goal that I’m most excited about!

Here's what we have in store for our next goals. Make sure to share this Campaign all over the interwebs to smash these stretch goals!!

Competitions!! 

We’re also launching our first writing competition tonight, which will be posted in another update (Prologue Part 1) - you’ll be helping us write a prologue chapter to the book, and all winners will receive a free Dagger’s Dagger pledge!

If you’re interested, check out that update for full rules - and remember, the more entrants we have for it, the more likely we are to unlock those competition achievements! Can you say more pin and patch designs?

Finally, as it’s Friday and the weekend approaches (woot woot!), we just wanted to let you know that although we’ll still be checking, we won’t be online quite as often.

If you have any questions, suggestions, or comments, we love love love hearing from you, so keep it up! It just may take us a little while to get back to you.

We’ve had some absolutely stellar backers responding to questions in the comments these past few days (seriously, you’re absolute legends), so if any of you see a question you know the answer to, don’t be shy!

Team ITB x

Chapter Three...
over 3 years ago – Sun, Jan 17, 2021 at 05:28:41 AM

Hello Explorers!

First of all, since our last update, we managed to smash ANOTHER stretch goal! We are going through these at an AMAZING rate, and we couldn’t be more excited! Thank you all so much!

Thanks to all of you, EVERY physical copy of the book will come with a gorgeous Alba bookmark, and all copies of the special edition will also have a ribbon insert, so you never lose your place!

At almost 38k, we’re heading steadily on towards upsizing the pins and patches, getting a slipcase for the special edition, and having dyed cores on the art cards, so keep your eyes peeled! Make sure to like/follow us on social media and share our campaign to unlock some more exciting treats! 

COMPETITIONS!!

That’s right - we’re launching our first competition tomorrow!! It’s a bit… experimental, so we may need to adjust as we go, so we wanted to give you a heads up before we launch it, in case anyone has questions!

This is a writing competition, where YOU help write a prequel chapter for Alba! The ever-talented H. L. Truslove has written the starting section, as well as 4 different endpoints for the chapter - one for each of the four character traits you acquire during the game. We know how to get to these end-points, and we want you to help write it!

How to enter:

Tomorrow, we’ll be releasing the starting section in a prologue titled “Prologue - part 1”, as well as information on the three directions it can go, and where that section needs to be able to lead. Choose one of these pathways, and write that section!

Each submission should be between 200-500 words in length - post what you write as a comment on the update that has the starting section! We’ll be choosing one entry for each pathway, and next week we’ll be getting people to write the sections that come after.

Each week, we’ll be announcing winning entries in a new “Prologue” update, and submissions for the new week will move to that update.

What you win:

Every winning entry will receive the Dagger’s Dagger pledge (which comes with the Special Edition of the hardback, exclusive pin, signed print, signed bookplate, art card pack, and more) - for free!

Depending on what kind of response we get, we may give out prizes for any entries we’d class as “honourable mentions”. Remember that if we get loads of entries to the competitions, we’ll unlock more patch and pin designs to be included with your pledges!

Things to keep in mind:

When you’re writing, please keep in mind where your section has to lead! You could write the most beautiful prose, but if your submission wouldn’t be able to lead to the next section, we won’t be able to choose it.

Additionally, this competition is using an EXTREMELY basic chapter flow - literally, no chapter in Alba looks anything like this! We’ve had to keep it compact to do three rounds of this competition.

If you’d like to take a look at the very basic flow for this prequel chapter, it’s here:

As I said before, this is a very experimental competition - if you have any questions, please ask them in this update so we see them!

Until we meet again fellow Adventurers.... 

Team ITB x

Chapter Two...
over 3 years ago – Fri, Jan 15, 2021 at 05:35:08 PM

Hello again, intrepid explorers!

WOW, another amazing day - between our last update and now, we’ve almost doubled the number of backers, and unlocked a couple more stretch goals!

That’s right! Since our last update, you’ve managed to unlock not only illustrations for all the lost endings and the end chapter illustration achievement sheet for every pledge, but the map print will soon be available as an extra add-on! We’ve also gotten a preliminary sketch back from Marco for one of the ending’s illustrations - what do you think?

(This is a preliminary image and will change, so don’t get too attached!)

Marco’s hard at work on the other ending illustrations - we may not be sharing them during the campaign to avoid spoilers, but we’re extremely excited by what he’s going to come up with! Once he’s made a few more, our graphics guru Liam will start working on the end chapter achievement sheet!

In terms of what’s yet to come…

In addition to these stretch goals, we’re also getting closer to even more of those achievements!!

For those of you who haven’t read through them, Achievements are a way to engage with the campaign beyond a pledge, and unlocking them means more art cards are included in the art card pack! Over the first two days, we unlocked The Ship set by reaching 500 backers and the Before the Bridge set at 1000!

If you want to help push us towards our next Achievement goal of 2000 Backers and receive some more Alba goodies, give us a like/ follow and share our Campaign! 

• Inside the Box Facebook Page
  
• Inside the Box Twitter Profile
  
• Open World Adventure Books Facebook Page
  
• Open World Adventure Books Twitter Profile
  

On a personal note, all of us here at Inside the Box are so humbled by the support you’ve shown - Open World Adventure books are completely new territory for us as a games publisher, but we’re so proud of what we’ve created with Alba and are so glad that it’s resonating so well with all of you. 

Team Inside the Box x

Chapter One...
over 3 years ago – Tue, Jan 12, 2021 at 11:03:22 PM

Hello Explorers!

Wow, what an amazing first day we’ve had for the Alba campaign!

Not only did we absolutely SMASH the original goal, but we’ve also managed to smash through not one, not two, but THREE stretch goals already!

For those of you who don’t know, all 29 main (narrative) chapters have gorgeous illustrations done by our talented artist Marco! Now that we’ve well surpassed the first stretch goal, Marco will be completing illustrations for the 12 main endpoints in the standard edition, as well as the two additional endpoints in the special edition. The remaining 7 endpoints will be unlocked at a later stretch goal, so spread the word!

The second stretch goal we unlocked is just as exciting - I mean, who doesn’t like special finishes on their books?

While the standard retail edition will have a lovely matte finish, we’ll be making the Kickstarter print run even more beautiful by adding spot gloss varnish and embossing to the cover! We’re in talks with our manufacturer to see what else we can add on at this price point (can anyone say foiling?), but haven’t had confirmation yet - rest assured we’ll be making this book as beautiful as possible for you!

The third stretch goal only impacts backers of the special edition - to make it even more gorgeous, we’re adding coloured edging to this beautiful edition!

We’re also well on our way to some other stretch goals, here's what we have in store...

In addition to the stretch goals that we’ve absolutely smashed, we’ve unlocked our first achievement! Achievements are a way of helping the campaign beyond a pledge, and our way of saying thank you for supporting the project!

We got off to an absolutely amazing start to the campaign, and we can’t wait to see what else we unlock! At a whopping 506 backers and counting, we’ve unlocked the first set of additional art cards - The Ship! These cards will be included in every art card pack.

Some of these achievements are based on competitions that we’ll be releasing later this week (keep your eyes peeled for another update), but most of them are based on the number of people who’ve backed the campaign, and the number of people who’ve liked our pages on social media. Keep your eyes on the campaign, and we’ll keep you updated as we unlock!

Be sure to give us a quick like/ follow on Facebook and Twitter - we’re on our way to unlocking more art cards!

Thanks again to all our amazing Backers, such an amazing first day! Team ITBx