Top 5 Game Box Art

I like the black embossed one better, but both of these are very nicely executed...far more effective and evocative than a bunch of fucking Trapper Keeper artwork.



I actually think this game is one of the best looking on the market...surprising since it used t be literally the ugliest game on the market. But man, the choice of colors...I get it, and it's really appropriate...but it's the team colors of the Nazis.



This is probably the best board game package design I've ever seen. I regret selling it only because it looks amazing. If only other board game graphic designers had this sense of economy and atmosphere.



In sum, all black and no shitty fantasy drawings.

I struggled with this. Most board games have lousy artwork on the cover. The euros are too brown and drab, because their players tend to feel secret self-loathing about the fact that they are playing games. So they need their games to look very serious. Most other games are trying to hard to grab attention, and rely on bright colors and garish art to shout CHOOSE ME.

My favorites:

1. Arkham Horror: the Curse of the Black Pharoah expansion (revised edition): Too many of the Arkham Horror box covers feature excessively large tentacles, and that gets so samey. But this one is different, and really nice. The lighting of the foreground is dramatic, and really enhances the lunging mummy and the flying shards of glass. The background lighting is a luminescent blue glow that contrasts nicely with the brown and tan details in the foreground.

1. Fury of Dracula (FFG version): Nice use of color, and the picture evokes a sense of speed and urgency. I can practically hear that whip crack when I look at the cover.

3. Mall of Horror: Most zombie game box covers bore me. Maybe it's just because the zombie theme has gotten so pervasive and tedious in various forms of entertainment in recent years. But that zombie on the cover of Mall of Horror is very striking, and the contrast with that bold yellow border really punches up the impact.

4. Divine Right (TSR version): The cover is garish but somehow in an over the top Moorcockian '70s way. Maybe I just like the unusual juxtapositions of colors. Always made me think of that song Ghost Riders in the Sky.

5. Arkham Horror base set (FFG): I like the semi-realistic artwork of the Arkham Horror covers in general, and this one wins out because my favorite color is green. And there is a dude unloading a tommy gun at the monster, and a big full mooon in the background.

Two covers that I hate:

1. Strange Synergy: Yeah, I like superheroes. And I like Phil Foglio artwork if used in a funny context. But he didn't draw superheroes for the cover of this game about superhuman teams battling it out, he drew some lame b-s twinks and furries. I hated it so much that I re-covered my box lid with a scan of the cover to Justice Machine vs. the Elementals #2. And then I replaced the cardboard heroes inside with generic superhero pictures from somebody's online Champions game site.

2. Betrayal at House on the Hill (1st edition): With 50 scenarios, there were a lot of possible interpretations for this cover. The second edition cover was pretty damn good, and almost made my list above. But the first edition Betrayal cover is shitty, because the traitor looks like a refugee from Planet of the Apes. When I think of traitors and haunted houses and random horror, my thoughts never seem to travel in the direction of angry simians. I'm halfway tempted to cover up this box cover, too, with a scan of the second edition cover.

Michael Barnes wrote: I actually think this game is one of the best looking on the market...surprising since it used t be literally the ugliest game on the market. But man, the choice of colors...I get it, and it's really appropriate...but it's the team colors of the Nazis.

More than team colors. That eagle is a totally the Nazi Eagle and not the Roman one. The old Glory to Rome might have been ugly but at least it was distinctive.



The new "clip art" Glory to Rome is drab.

The reason I like the 1st edition Betrayal cover is that it reminds me of old Vincent Price movies.

Not sure if kidding, or bad taste.


Anyways, the art direction alone is what makes me consider this game:

Shame the minis are so expensive

I think it is just a great cover. Makes me smile every time. From 70's/80's turn of the decade fashion, the six cigarettes the guy's using, the spoofs of popular packs, the "Warning", the fact that he's trying to light an already lit smoke. It reminds me of a cover to MAD Magazine.

I always liked the cover of Flight Leader from Avalon Hill.

The 1st ed Blood Bowl and Epic Spell Warz are some faves as well.

I don't have a "Top 5", but I've always really liked:



You know how to tell if a box has a bunch of awesome shit inside? It has a cover like that.

This is the box art by which all box art is judged.

The second I saw this it was my favorite of all time and remains so to this day.

The Battletech cover could spin us off into another thread...what are the iconic, classic pieces of game box art?

That's definitely one of them.

Michael Barnes wrote: The Battletech cover could spin us off into another thread...what are the iconic, classic pieces of game box art?

That's definitely one of them.

The Dune box cover seems iconic to me, at least by boardgame standards.

The warhammer mech on that Battletech cover is insanely iconic.

Mufasa on the Twilight Imperium cover is not.