We're quite a fan of boxed units of DVDs and games, because, well, they make the game whole / complete and keep it warm at night! Especially the nice shiny ones that packed full of goodies. So after a couple of rounds of brainstorming, we settled upon a nice shiny big tin, in which we would put a copy of Darwinia and Multiwnia and a load more cool stuff. But the question was what?
Darwinia dog tags were the starting point, but we soon found that they were 1. expensive and 2. only available in blue and yellow, which didn't sort of fit our idea of one red and one green darwinian. They were also available in gold and silver, but mindful that most of our customers wouldn't be starring in any rap videos any time soon we went on the hunt for a better idea. DarwiniaHammer 40,000 white metal figurines were considered, but were really heavy (i.e. very expensive shipping), and limited appeal. Lego Darwinians were also a nice idea, but we didn't want to get sued - well not until we can afford it!
As some of you know, whenever we go to a conference we throw out some rubber darwinians in the crowd. On occasions this has backfired - http://forums.introversion.co.uk/introversion/viewtopic.php?t=41 - see NeoThermic's post about my 15 seconds of fame. However it's one of the most requested things other than games! This presented a challenge, because frankly the quality of these had gone down in recent years. The first batch was ok, but by the 3rd batch of audience ammo, we were ending up with foam Darwinians made out of flip-flip sole material. Clearly we were going to need to raise the bar on production.
The other thing that's also been frequently requested is a book about IV. I still think it's a bit too early to be recounting our memoirs; of when we nearly lost Mark and John off the side of a cliff as part of a 'spirited' drive along route-1, or when Mark and I would call back distributors from Peru after Vic had taken a message, telling them we'd just popped out of the office for tea-break. Co-incidentally we'd recently had a page in a posh coffee-table book which we'd filled with some really great looking screens from Darwinia (award winning artwork you know
) , so we thought - how about a beautifully made picture-book about the evolution of Multiwinia. Expensive to make, but very cool.
And so it was - Darwinia / Multiwinia / a jazz mag for pixel fetishists / a couple of laser-cut foam Darwinians and one of each of the Multiwinia postcards presented in a shiny Multiwinia stamped tin.
Problem was, the only thing we had to had was a copies of Darwinia. Thankfully a contact in Hong Kong put us in touch with some well regarded tin-box makers and a factory that could laser cut foam (not of the flip-flop variety). So begun the long life of a Multiwinia limited edition tin. Having been made in Hong Kong, the tins were wrapped / packed / padded and sealed into large cardboard cartons and stacked inside a container on the Maersk Tukang.
Then tins were transported in their warm cartons, from the dropoff to the flying hamster 3 at a time, every time I happend to drive by the storage (which took several weeks) in my, ahem, tiny Smart Fortwo car (which frankly was a better bet than my 50cc scooter).
Still. The effort was well worth it - the (surprisingly heavy) limited edition tins and their contents look fantastic and we're very proud to present them for sale!
[EDIT] it seems that you think so too! they're going like hot cakes
