During research for the Panic 1982 Box Project, Cabel and I came across a unique Package Design Time Paradox: game boxes, made over 20 years ago, that look as if they could have been designed yesterday.
For the game developer Accolade, the period between 1984 and 1990 marked a serious and unbeatable streak of awesome. We’re talking bold, timeless art; none of this so-bad-it’s-good nonsense. Click ‘em:
It’s obvious that all these games are from the same company, and yet the variety of illustration/photo/type styles is fabulous. That Killed Until Dead image: how understated and powerful is that? Who does that sort of classy thing with video game covers anymore? (No, really, who? Please feel free to tell us!) Take heed: the simplicity and clarity of these boxes has given them eternal life.
Note also that since these are very design-y, often abstract covers, there’s less potential for Box Disappointment™. I mean, Mr. Grumpy obviously won’t be there in photographic flesh when you fire up Mini-Putt; no one expects that. But his curmudgeonly spirit will be, regardless of how many pixels he’s built of. That’s what a product box should ideally do: make the product more badass.
Unfortunately, right around 1991, as Accolade began to hire Boris Vallejo as a cover artist, things became… a little too much badass. And a whole lot less timeless.
You had a great run, Accolade. I wonder who the art director was?
(All images found at the invaluable MobyGames.com. Oh, how many nostalgic hours we’ve spent there!)
Sebastiaan
2/18/2010 11:20 AMBeautiful indeed. I was unaware of such a period in game cover design, and it’s a sad thing that it has disappeared.
Fred
2/18/2010 11:26 AMDear Panic,
Just letting you know that your blog posts are slightly crooked.
Love,
Fred
PS: SO COOL!
David
2/18/2010 11:28 AMI almost don’t believe you. Those are too nice to be game covers.
Lucius Kwok
2/18/2010 11:31 AMIt’s not just Accolade, but many of the retail boxes for software were great. I think it’s just when a company transitions from a generic floppy-in-a-bag to their first real boxes, and they don’t have a marketing department telling them what sells the most boxes, you can have artists do great stuff.
Daniel Jalkut
2/18/2010 11:32 AMIt really is fascinating how modern those all look.
Wilson Miner
2/18/2010 12:10 PMOh man, The Duel was an amazing game. I can still see the paper-thin trees whooshing by from behind my hyper-realistic 1-bit Porsche dashboard.
Eric Peacock
2/18/2010 12:28 PMThese are great. Graphically interesting, easier to digest, unique and completely on-brand. Also a great one for packaging was Infocom.
That Turrican box stylistically reminds me of Cabel’s classic 2007 Learn Forth post on his blog: http://www.cabel.name/2007/01/blog-bits-001.html (cabel’s archives are 404′ing from the popup menu, so this is the best I can do)
Matthias Schonder
2/18/2010 1:01 PMI not only love the covers but also the games…
Test Drive and Test Drive 2 are one of the greatest racing games I ever played.. Especially the Scenery disk.. When I played (and I still play it from time to time) California Challenge I can smell the sea.
Chris
2/18/2010 2:36 PMI had about half of those on my IIGS. Good times…
Stormchild
2/18/2010 2:43 PMNice! I hadn’t seen these ones before.
Benjamin Chait
2/18/2010 4:10 PMAs Fred dutifully noted, the page seems to be on its side. Took a moment of reading before I realized that no, it wasn’t me. And yes, my head was slightly turned in an attempt to see clearly.
Scott Reeves
2/18/2010 5:01 PMWow. Panic, you are my new favourite blog. Design and content are both top-notch.
Steven Hambleton
2/18/2010 8:43 PMI’d like to vote Ultima VII as one of the best game covers ever. You could literally feel the evil.
http://media.strategywiki.org/images/b/b3/Ultima_VII_Black_Gate_box.jpg
room34
2/18/2010 9:24 PMI love it!
After my big Atari 2600 phase, my parents refused to buy me an NES like my friends all had. Instead, they bought me a Tandy 1000 computer (MS-DOS 2.11 baby!) and I spent the latter half of the ’80s playing the hell out of every Accolade game I could get my hands on. I remember loving the box art, too, but it’s been 20 years since I’ve seen it. Thanks for the memories!
Than
2/19/2010 2:43 PMOh how I loved playing Hardball on my dad’s Mac Plus. Someday I’ll pull that thing out of the storage closet and try to get it running.
Marty Plumbo
3/1/2010 5:18 AMI like the old Synapse 8-bit game covers – a lot more stylized, but they game the Synapse product line a real personality. And talk about evocative – in an age when game box art was generally more visually exciting than the graphics in the actual game, they were a great departure point for your imagination!
Justin Reese
3/4/2010 11:57 AMGorgeous!
It’s interesting that in every one except the Accolade’s Comics and Mean 18, they ensured the byline was the same width as the game title, whether through some super-kerning (Killed Until Dead) or adding By/From. Really provides a beautiful symmetry. And the two exceptions had good reason, mimicking real-world counterparts.
Yeah, that’s superb.
Justin Reese
3/4/2010 11:59 AM@Fred and Benjamin: http://www.zachstronaut.com/posts/2009/02/17/animate-css-transforms-firefox-webkit.html
aeiowu
3/6/2010 8:29 AMmaaaaan, my brother and I were huge into hardball II and III. Accolade made some quality sports games before EA took over most of the market share.
Pak-Kei
3/8/2010 7:56 AMA lot of Japanese games still have pretty classy covers. Take a look at the Final Fantasy series… the Japanese ones, not the American ones. For some reason, everything gets f-ed up, amped up to the 11 unnecessarily, when it moves across the Pacific.
I also like the SIM game covers before Maxis was acquired by EA. Back then, from SIM City 2000 to SIM Golf, they all have a coherent style and package. I collected them all!
GDS
3/10/2010 9:44 AMSuch memories. I went the C64 -> Amiga path, and I remember ALL of these covers from ads in the Commodore-centric magazines from those days. I owned about a third of those games and, yes, the slightly abstract nature of the cover art probably made the gameplay/ownership experience better by not narrowing one’s expectations.
Chester Schendel
4/27/2010 4:14 PMI distinctly remember every one of these covers on the store shelves when I was growing up. I even owned a couple of these games. Thanks for sharing these.