LABOR OF LOVE
People are always saying that indies should charge more, so we're taking charge! Except, we have executive dysfunction ADHD and forgot to put batteries in the machine that makes The Blue Box cost money, so in 12 days from the time this was posted (that's 01/31/20) The Blue Box will be free! You will only need to give us $0.00 to play The Blue Box!
We're also announcing a brand new game:
Zero Towel Dilemma (Giskers Escape)
Zero Towel Dilemma (Giskers Escape) is a fast paced escape the room game where the only puzzles you'll need to solve are strictly kinetic. Plow your way through everything in the house until you find what you need to clean up Giskers' mess. This game will be made available at a later date. This game will be sold as paid DLC, but everyone that owns The Blue Box before 01/31/20 will get it for free when it comes out.
That's all -- psych; we're announcing a second brand new game:
Pocket Dootie
Pocket Dootie is the state of the art Virtual Pet Buddy you can take anywhere. He will protect you with his handy dandy switch blade. Train him, raise his stats, and try desperately to keep him alive. Visiting him daily will allow him to survive in this incredibly cruel world. Pocket Dootie will be made available as free DLC at a later date. This means all you gotta do is have The Blue Box installed and you get access to this digital delight.
WE GIVETH AND WE TAKETH AWAY
We're doing all this because we're actually converting each game inside The Blue Box into paid DLC except for Pube Spider, which will become free DLC. There's a lot of reasons going into why we've made this decision, but here are a few major ones:
It makes it easier to pick what you want.
Since the main goal of The Blue Box is to become an ever-expanding collection of games and fun diversions, it makes the most sense to split it up into DLC so that only the games that you want to play are installed at any given time. In the far-off future of there being 40 games in The Blue Box, not everyone is going to want however much size being taken up at once -- and we'd like to keep it slim so it doesn't take much time or space to keep it installed (or re-install it) and check out what's new every once and a while.
It makes paying people easier.
Did you know that every game in The Blue Box can sometimes involve a team with as few as one person, and sometimes as large as six people? We like to work together and do what's fun and spur of the moment, but when it comes to dividing up earnings, things get complicated splitting when up the entry fee. By making each game its own DLC, sales data will become easier to attribute to particular teams and will help steer development. On the flip-side, if you want to see more of a particular kind of game then buy that DLC and give feedback for it, so we know we're making things you like.
It helps us practice releasing things.
In the 2+ years since we've launched, we've only released one game title. This means we've not done much to get the attention of press or publishers, 'cause most people won't deal with stuff after it's commercially available. In the time since releasing, we've gotten virtually zero coverage. More releases give us more opportunities to get visibility on steam, as well as more chances to reach out to press. It helps build our communication skills which will be valuable to making better games and decisions in the future.
It gives us the opportunity to diversify at lower risk.
In the time that The Blue Box has been available, it hasn't earned enough money to cover a second Steam App Fee. While we did recover the funds for the Steam App Fee in sales thanks to everyone that bought the game, when divided up among each contributor, even the most frequent contributor could only ever buy a half-decent bottle of saké. Even if everyone pooled their money back together it wouldn't cover even 5% of what went into creating, promoting, and translating the games.
It gives us more focus.
We've attended major industry events and our sales during those periods trend downward due time spent preparing and running a booth detracting from our ability to work on the game and share our work online. Despite being at major events, the most coverage we've had in the last year was when a Vtuber, 男鹿ちゃんねる (Oga-chan) streamed BurgerGame. We're very thankful for everyone that tells their friends about our games. As evident from the points above, it wouldn't make sense for us to do what we've been doing for as long as we've been doing it if we didn't do it for the sake of seeing people enjoy what we make.
ON THE STRAIGHT AND NARROW
Everyone that owns The Blue Box before 01/31/20 will get The Deep Blue Box Bundle for free.
The Deep Blue Box Bundle is a package that gives you our first 10 games, including everything already in-game, Zero Towel Dilemma: Giskers Escape and Pocket Dootie. To be 100% clear for existing owners of The Blue Box, all the games are coming out and you'll be given it back right away in the form of DLC -- this should be seamless for you. For everyone that does not yet own The Blue Box, now would be a great time to buy it, before the value of its contents goes up by 800%.
If you purchased the The Blue Box in the last 30 days prior to this news post and this pending change is giving you second thoughts, we understand, feel free to cite this when requesting a refund, and hopefully support will grant it to you.
If you purchased this game before that period of time (30+ days prior to this news post), and you would like to request a refund, we understand, if support will not grant you a refund then contact EntranceJew and he will try his best to return your funds.