I grew up with adventure games and even today i like them very much. I think the art on many of the boxes is something unique and could be a decorative thing
in your living room. But the original boxes often have different sizes, are very space consuming if you put many of them together and are often crowded with stickers
and other stuff overlaying the artwork.
So i decided to recreate them in a smaller format, just big enough to contain a jewel-case, with clean artworks. My boxes have a dimension of 135 x 175 x 25 mm.
Covers from Moby Games
I first search for images of the front and back of the old boxes. A good source for this is
Moby Games.
There are often various versions of them with different layouts and different languages. I pic up the one i like most and use it as my sample to build on.
Now i have to find high-res material that is used on the box design. Sometimes it could be found using image searches on the web. But for most of the time i had
to use scanned images of the original box. So i set up my scanner and scan one of my boxes, or if i don't have the box i try to find kind people who are willing
to scan their boxes for me.
Next step is the most time consuming part. I have to clean up the scanned images. Remove dust, scratches and all overlaying graphics. After this i have a clean
version of the image.
I do this for every image i need. But if possible, i try to recreate graphics as vector images (Logos, etc). So i can scale them as big as i want to.
If there are screenshots on the box, i try to find images on the web without artifacts (gif, png) or play the game to make them by myself. Sometimes its possible
to extract game ressources and rebuild the screenshot. This could be faster than to play trough a whole game.
When i have everything i need, its time to layout the new box.
I do not own all the boxes i want to recreate. Some games i bought without a box, got it from online platforms (
GOG,
Steam, ...) or simply was stupid enough to throw it away, when i was a kid.
So it would be really great if i could get help from the adventure-community.
Boxes I'm interested in:
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Zak McKracken - English Box Back
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Lure of the Temptress - Manual Front
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Grim Fandango - Box Back - if possible in different languages to easier remove overlays.
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Curse of Monkey Island - Manual front & back
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Requirements:
The complicated thing about the scans i need are the requirements. As i want to create high quality boxes, i need high quality source material. That means:
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High-Resolution Scans (If possible 1200 dpi)
I need to see the printing pattern, to use filters for removing it properly.
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Uncompressed Images (TIF or BMP)
This will produce large files, but a compressed image will contain artifacts, that prevent propper descreening.
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Unfiltered Scans
Some scanner software will automatically add filters to the scan to adjust levels or remove printing patterns. These settings should be deactivated.
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Flat Scans
Old Game Boxes tend to bend in the center, but they should lay totally flat on the scanner. I put a heavy book inside, when scanning, to prevent this.
Now if you like to help me and scan one of your boxes, contact me at: aq@frogspawn.de