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Box Art . . . It Could Be Worse

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27 Jul 2015 13:48 #207175 by jeb
Replied by jeb on topic Box Art . . . It Could Be Worse
My biggest beef with the new QUEEN'S NECKLACE art is noted by Shellie: you can't read the name of the game. If they maintain that crazy cursive gold/white look on the box side, it's going to be totally unrecognizable on the shelf unless it's front-forward where Mlle Titz-a-poppin makes you remember what game it is. Yeah it's goofy, and the cards look goofy (is there a reflection/drop shadow thing on them for no reason?), but goofy is fine--it's a game. I just don't want it to be bad. The BOHNANZA beans look bad. Phil Foglio's shit looks bad. That WIZ-WAR drawing looks junior-high bad.

I want games to look like professionals made them. Like it has some sense of craft. Like they thought about it more than, "Hey, you know anyone that can draw?" FFG, with their somewhat generic look, at least has a look. We can complain about how hard it is to tell all their games apart, but that's a function of how many games they make more than some art-direction quibbles.

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27 Jul 2015 13:49 #207178 by Michael Barnes
Yeah, that is totally a thing right now and has been for a while...the thing where you do the art to look like a casual IOS game or something. Yuck.

More like Risk: Black Ops and Escape from the Aliens in Outer Space, please. More black-on-black printing, embossing, minimalist graphic stuff. All fonts must be Helvetica. I would seriously be OK if Danish Modern were the prevailing inspiration for board game product design.

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27 Jul 2015 13:57 #207181 by boothwah
Boss Monster is one of my favorite games we picked up this year - I know the 8bit NES themed boxes and art are technically bad art but I really dig that they sold out and did it 100%.

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27 Jul 2015 14:29 #207189 by engineer Al
Seems to me we've been down this road before, but yeah there is some really bad cover art out there. This one has been bothering me the most lately because I LOVE the game. But, can you tell this is a game about WIZARDS? And how many different fonts can one cover have?!?!

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27 Jul 2015 14:36 #207191 by boothwah

engineer Al wrote: Seems to me we've been down this road before, but yeah there is some really bad cover art out there. This one has been bothering me the most lately because I LOVE the game. But, can you tell this is a game about WIZARDS? And how many different fonts can one cover have?!?!


Fonts - I'm pretty weirded out that they managed to cut and paste 5 different artists onto that bad boy.

Lol - It looks like the photoshopped cover of a really bad Hogwarts softcore fanfic.
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27 Jul 2015 15:22 #207199 by ubarose
Q

boothwah wrote:

engineer Al wrote: Seems to me we've been down this road before, but yeah there is some really bad cover art out there. This one has been bothering me the most lately because I LOVE the game. But, can you tell this is a game about WIZARDS? And how many different fonts can one cover have?!?!


Fonts - I'm pretty weirded out that they managed to cut and paste 5 different artists onto that bad boy.

Lol - It looks like the photoshopped cover of a really bad Hogwarts softcore fanfic.


Then maybe this box art is more successful then it seems because it is essentially Hogwarts fanfic. Personally, I did not get that at all from the box cover. To me, both the box art and name were so confusing and non-descript I didn't give it more than a glance and a cringe. Fortunately, someone convinced me to play it, and it is an excellent game. Definitely in the top three new games played in the past year.

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27 Jul 2015 15:40 #207202 by ubarose

Michael Barnes wrote: But most people don't understand that technical execution does not always equal great art...or art at all, really.


On games, I am happy to settle for competent technical execution in both illustration and graphic design. It's rare enough to get both in he same box, that I appreciate it when I do get it.
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27 Jul 2015 16:03 #207206 by Motorik
Queen's Necklace is a great game! That's all I got.

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27 Jul 2015 16:30 #207207 by Sagrilarus
It's an interesting hybrid between a board game and a card game, both in the way it looks and the way it plays. I'm surprised Days of Wonder didn't continue printing because I think it would have sold.

You get to see almost all of the cards that your opponents get, so in theory there should be no surprises at auction time. But there's an advantage to win with smaller bids -- you get bonus points (big ones at that) for rarity, so there's a real incentive you not bid your best even on the last turn of the game. So you have this very odd dynamic going on in the game that gets that "he thinks that I thinks that he thinks" kind of thing going on in it.

The action of the cards' prices going down each turn takes a little discipline in how you make the pieces in the game work, and we've found that we assign each player a single job during the purchase turns so that there's no confusion. One player replaces cards, another lowers the price, another manages the rarity stack. That way things stay organized.

S.
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27 Jul 2015 16:35 #207208 by Hex Sinister
Argent: The Consortium also has to be one of the most awful names ever. Designers, please stop with this Something: The Something crap. It's so bad. Just like that terrible trend in movie titles with "Something Somebody". Like "Raising Black Barney" and shit like that. I hate it. That IS going to be my first screenplay though.
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27 Jul 2015 16:42 #207209 by Black Barney
lol @ "Something Somebody"

I wouldn't be able to say with certainty if that isn't an actual Sofia Coppola flick.
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27 Jul 2015 16:51 #207211 by Mr. White
Yeah, this new Queen's Necklace art is in terrible taste. I agree with Von Tush, it looks like it should be called Pearl Necklace. I mean what is the Queen looking_up_ at? Should all her subjects be below?

The original art looks very cool. That water color effect is pretty unique. The new...looks like a ton of other 'wacky, goofy' games. I'm sick of it also.

Here's the crime though. The Wiz-War artist can't really draw, but dammit they tried. 'Having heart' is correct. The new Queen's Necklace artist _does_ have talent, but _chose_ to go with that.

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27 Jul 2015 16:52 - 27 Jul 2015 16:55 #207212 by ubarose

Hex Sinister wrote: Argent: The Consortium also has to be one of the most awful names ever. Designers, please stop with this Something: The Something crap. It's so bad. Just like that terrible trend in movie titles with "Something Somebody". Like "Raising Black Barney" and shit like that. I hate it. That IS going to be my first screenplay though.


Worse than that, when I saw the name in the subject of the emailed press release I thought it was a Euro about renaissance precious metal trading. Either that or something to do with chemistry.
Last edit: 27 Jul 2015 16:55 by ubarose.

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27 Jul 2015 16:53 #207213 by Shellhead
I don't require game art to be on par with the work of the Old Masters, but crappy game art can impair my enjoyment of an otherwise good game. I'm less worried about box art than the art used on the components, because I will potentially spend many more hours looking at the component art than the box art. Even though I like the cartoony artwork of Phil Foglio in the context of a funny comic, I hated it for the boardgame Strange Synergy so much that I re-did the components for my set.

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27 Jul 2015 16:56 - 27 Jul 2015 16:56 #207215 by boothwah

boothwah wrote:

engineer Al wrote: Seems to me we've been down this road before, but yeah there is some really bad cover art out there. This one has been bothering me the most lately because I LOVE the game. But, can you tell this is a game about WIZARDS? And how many different fonts can one cover have?!?!


Fonts - I'm pretty weirded out that they managed to cut and paste 5 different artists onto that bad boy.

Lol - It looks like the photoshopped cover of a really bad Hogwarts softcore fanfic.


And I should clarify what I meant by really bad Hogwarts softcore fanfic :

"Beebayre was speechless and like breathless as Demilo Vato looked him up and down. All he could do was clutch his wand like a fool.....He wished Perrin or Rand or Matt were here....They always seemed to know what to say to the girls."
Last edit: 27 Jul 2015 16:56 by boothwah.
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