BOH ADVANCE Physical Copy and BOH Deluxe Box

ADDITIONAL GOOD NEWS!

You see, there was a plan to produce physical copies of BOH ADVANCE and a special Deluxe Box that included both BOH ADVANCE and the original BOH.



The idea was to start a Kickstarter campaign on the day of the release of BOH ADVANCE. And that actually happened. However, the very first pledge made it clear that I had misunderstood the way Kickstarter handles shipping fees (I had assumed they worked the obvious/logical way, but they don't). Therefore, I cancelled the campaign a few minutes after it went live.
Moreover, Kickstarter doesn't just offer a reasonable way to handle a wide variety of fees (to ensure that everybody in the world pays only the minimum necessary), so making a new campaign was ruled out.

Initially, the whole project was cancelled. But it would have been a real pity, so I resumed it under a different approach: a limited amount of copies will be produced beforehand, without pledges or preordering! Who wants one, will simply be able to get if from the itch.io store (https://retream.itch.io/boh).
The objective is still to offer a quality product at the lowest price possible - i.e. about 10 euros for the Deluxe Box containing a copy of BOH ADVANCE + a copy of the original BOH (shipping excluded).

This is the Kickstarter campaign video - of course, some things are no longer valid, but it gives a good idea about the project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLT ... Z&v=W_mmrf2j9No&vq=hd1080

For the really curious ones, this is the page of the campaign: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/saimo/boh-advance.

Watch this space for further updates.

@saimo

I absolutely want the Deluxe Box version! Hope the ordering will start soon.

Nice to hear, thanks for letting me know!
It shouldn't take long. If you are on Facebook, keep an eye on the RETREAM page (https://www.facebook.com/R37R34M) - I'll be posting updates there.

@trixie

+1

Here's an open update about the status of the project.

The previous announcement revealed that work was being done on the physical edition of BOH ADVANCE and on a very special deluxe box that included both BOH ADVANCE and the original BOH.
The prototypes looked cool and the quotes obtained from vendors allowed to produce batches of 50 deluxe boxes at just 5.318 euros per box. That made it look possible to offer the customer a fully professional product at a very convenient price. Unfortunately, once the (crazily high Italian) shipping fees, packing materials, VAT, itch.io fee, PayPal/stripe fee, and taxes were factored in, the end user prices sky-rocketed inacceptably: about 32 euros for Italy, 38 euros for Europe, 33 for Africa, Americas, Asia, and 40 for Oceania - and that was without any profit!
Therefore, the project was cancelled.

A lot of work wasted. The bitterness was strong. To alleviate it, an idea came: producing a few special copies just for personal enjoyment and for friends.
After much research, 10 BOH ADVANCE copies were produced using alternative techniques like digital printing for the inlay/booklet, thermal printing for the CD serigraph, and mastering for the CD content. The result was literally excellent. To make the item extra cool, a double-disc transparent case was chosen so that also the original BOH could be included in the case (see picture here and the higher-resolution pictures in the Facebook BOH album).



Holding such a product in the hands suggests three things:
* a few technical improvements;
* it is very possible to produce a top quality product at a reasonable price even in very small batches;
* the lovers of the game should really be given a chance to get hold of a beautiful BOH ADVANCE copy.

Consequently, alternatives to reopen the BOH Deluxe project are being considered. It might happen, it might not. If you're interested, please give your feedback here or by email (boh@retream.com): it will be much appreciated and, more importantly, could help the project succeed!

@saimo

Sorry to hear about the production trouble. I'm still interested in the Deluxe Box. I'll even prepay for my copy if that is of any help to get the project done.

@trixie

Very, very kind of you - thanks! However, I don't intend to take money in advance. Knowing that you are interested already helps :)

The difficult part is not producing the copies (I could have produced 50 deluxe boxes for just 265.90 euros), but selling them at a reasonable price and legally. The solution of a third-party publisher causes prices to explode as explained above, so the only option is selling the product directly; however, I don't have a company, so that complicates things quite a lot.
Lately I've done some research, and it looks like the Italian laws allow that for very small sales volumes and, more importantly, for irregular activity - i.e. the product can't be constantly available for purchase. Therefore, the way to go seems to be a small and limited batch per year.