I’m finally back from Poland and I finally received my copy of the Special Edition of TRAUMA – the physical copy of my very own game. I could not resist to make an unboxing video:
Needless to say, I’m pretty floored by the result. I designed every bit of the packaging and the bonus material myself. However, the actual experience of holding it in my hands is humbling and unreal. The print quality is superb. Especially the packaging and the polaroids turned out way better than expected. It’s feels substantial and incredibly sleek. A dream comes true.
Inside you will find a Steam key and a DVD version of the game. So you will get two copies of the game. There is a lush, detailed, full-color, 30-page making-of booklet with tons of background information and behind-the-scenes material. I designed and wrote everything myself. I really wanted this to be informative and not just some random marketing fluff.
There are also 3 polaroids with my favorite shots from the game. Of course, they are not actual polaroids but polaroid-sized cards. They are printed on glossy, heavy, high quality paper. Sadly, because of the size of the full-color booklet, there wasn’t any room to add any fancy clear-coat effects on the polaroids. Nevertheless, I experimented with some subtle textures and it blew me away how effective they were. It takes a closer look to realize that these aren’t actual polaroids. And even then, they are vivid and colorful like real photos. Each polaroid is signed by me and it has a number with the Google Maps coordinates of the corresponding locations. I really wanted Martin Straka, the musician and Anja Jazeschann to sign two of the Polaroids. But sadly, they weren’t available at the time and we couldn’t post-pone the printing any longer. Bummer.
Finally, there are two digital goodies on the DVD itself. There is an MP3 soundtrack and an over 1 GB gallery of photographs. I have included all the original photos I shot when creating the game. There is tons of photos that never made it into the game. You can also see all the photos before they were manipulated. I have included some every bit of behind-the-scenes material I could find on my hard drive.
Oh yeah, and of course the actual game is unique too. It’s the first version that features the new German voice track. We thought it was an obvious choice for the German retail release of the game. I actually got Anja to re-record all her lines in German so it’s still the same voice as in the original. And if you don’t like it, you can always switch back to English.
I should note that due to production errors, some DVDs may be missing the soundtrack. In any case, I will include the soundtrack in the Steam key. And otherwise, the guys from Headup Games said they will answer and help out anybody, who finds their copy of the game missing that feature.
The game is out in Germany and you can get in on the german Amazon. If you don’t live in Germany, I’m not sure what the best way to import it to other countries is. I’m not sure if amazon.de ships to abroad. I’m ordering stuff from amazon.co.uk using the same account on a regular basis so give it a try and let me know if it worked! Otherwise, enjoy! I know I am.
That’s beautiful, Krystian. Well done!
QUOTE:
Finally, there are two digital goodies on the DVD itself. There is an MP3 soundtrack and an over 1 GB gallery of photographs. I have included all the original photos I shot when creating the game.
GREAT!
i loved to see behind the scenes, so this is really great.
i find it extremely cool that you included original material! i remember how much fun we had, when we where younger: we would de-assembled gamedata files and program little tools to read the graphics or even extract/convert audio data. (mostly in qbasic, those where the days
i remember how all started with being able to edit the “credits.txt” file of the original civilization 1. on our friends computers we all had our own credits text scroller saying funny and quirky stuff (c:
one question about the collectors edition:
why does amazon itself sell it for 20 euros when you can get resellers for as low as 10 euros? whats the street price of the edition? and: its not a collectors edition, with limited run, right?
Not sure myself. The suggested retail price is 20 euros. And the vast majority of that is swallowed up by the distributors. So I guess it’s the distribution doing some deals.