Mystery Box
The Mystery Box is an empty box that Glitchen can purchase from Vendors. After getting one, they can put in an item and give the box away. The box is now locked.
At this point, a hidden system comes into play—players will not see the value. Every time the box is passed along, it gains 1 point towards unlocking. If passed to a friend, it only gains a half of a point, and if passed to someone who has held it within the last, let's say, 37 passes, it gains no points.
Once it reaches, say, 100 points, or maybe a random prime number nearby, the box unlocks—but that doesn't mean it has to be open. The item placed inside will be multiplied or improved the more points the box gets. Around 31 points, a cherry may become two bananas, or a chick Cubimal may become a more rare one. After 100, the levels above grow more and more rare, with potential artifacts up in the 300 range.
When a player eventually opens the box, they will be told what was initially placed inside of it, and who put it there. Perhaps they could write a thank-you note!
In addition, when the box is opened, perhaps every player who passed it along gets a nice bonus! Especially players who decided to pass it along once it was unlockable instead of opening it!
At this point, a hidden system comes into play—players will not see the value. Every time the box is passed along, it gains 1 point towards unlocking. If passed to a friend, it only gains a half of a point, and if passed to someone who has held it within the last, let's say, 37 passes, it gains no points.
Once it reaches, say, 100 points, or maybe a random prime number nearby, the box unlocks—but that doesn't mean it has to be open. The item placed inside will be multiplied or improved the more points the box gets. Around 31 points, a cherry may become two bananas, or a chick Cubimal may become a more rare one. After 100, the levels above grow more and more rare, with potential artifacts up in the 300 range.
When a player eventually opens the box, they will be told what was initially placed inside of it, and who put it there. Perhaps they could write a thank-you note!
In addition, when the box is opened, perhaps every player who passed it along gets a nice bonus! Especially players who decided to pass it along once it was unlockable instead of opening it!
Comments
One refrain I often hear is not to forget about the solo player, though. Not everyone wants to join an organized madhouse event or belong to a group. I think that it would be good if there was a way to allow a singleton mystery box player to cycle through the whole unlocking ritual, but with the goal that it takes something like 1 Ur year to unlock a box provided you attend to it regularly - I think maybe a cooldown of 7 Ur days. And it would be fun if maybe the mechanism to attempt it solo was something other than passing it - maybe attempting to Pick the lock? Maybe you'd need to make lockpicks, after learning how from a Smuggler if you have the appropriate level of Tinkering. Maybe once you attempt to pick the lock it can't be unlocked the usual way. Maybe lock picking attempts are only cumulative to the player making them, making it impossible to pick 100/101 times and then sell it for someone else to finish and open. I also think that once the box is unlocked it can be passed normally no matter how it was unlocked.
Of course, this would also present community building opportunities, as people make a business out of prepping Mystery boxes.
Oh! And I also think that you should get the boxes from the Rube, not vendors! I think the Rube should offer them at higher proportions to higher level players, for whom the Rube is less useful and typically just look for a doll. This would get them out into circulation, I think?
And yes, still being able to pass them after unlocking was the idea. The thing is, passes after unlocking count for a lot more, and at certain levels of passes, the item inside can become an artifact, but this requires over half the passes to have happened while the box was unlocked, which, even in a community like this, isn't entirely likely, as that would be between 200 and 300 passes.