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Among the changes in the patch is a new boxart, which will be the topic of this blog post.
I'm not a good artist. In every interview, I've always downplayed my artistic ability. It's taken years of practice to get to where I am now, and the art style used in Bonded Realities has been called many things. Colourful. Naive art. Terrible MS Paint. Cute. Games can use all sorts of art styles because, by their nature, they are something to experience, not just look at. Boxarts are, for better or worse, different. They're for marketing. They don't typically belong in an art gallery. You don't really get any feelings from it.
You only have to check out this NeoGAF thread to see what a bad boxart can do to a game. Boxarts are detailed. They're colourful. Almost all of them use smooth gradients or shadows or other details to make them stand out. As someone who's never had to do anything this detailed, I had to really think about what I should put on the boxart to be taken seriously.
May I present: Bonded Realities boxart v0.1:
This art underwent a lot of changes. The sword was added to let you know it was an RPG. Enemies' eyes were added to show you what you were up against, and to fill space. There was going to the a picture of the lava cave at the top (in addition to the forest at the bottom), but that was removed because it caused the box to have too much colour and become unfocused. The best way to sum up this art is: "Things which seemed like a good idea at the time". I used a lot of GIMP techniques in a desperate attempt to ward off comparisons with MS Paint.
I kept this almost right up until release. But no matter what I could do, I still got negative feedback regarding this boxart. Sigh. So it was back to the drawing board, this time with some help from the App Hub boxart thread.
My dilemma: I can't draw well enough to make a good boxart, yet I can't afford to hire artists to make one for me. The solution was to embrace an art style where details can be imagined by the viewer, rather than done by the artist. This is where the idea of silhouettes came up!
The viewer knew these were the main characters, but the art kept them mysterious. At the same time, this was an art style which looked good enough for a boxart, but was simple enough for a dumb person like me to do, right?
Not really. The use of silhouettes divided people's opinions. I seem to have a habit of doing that with everything I make. Some people said they couldn't see what the silhouettes represented. One more try:
A silhouette of a boy with a sword, in a position similar to the boxart of every futuristic FPS ever (except the character isn't looking over his shoulder at you). A shine was added to the sword as a neat break from the plain silhouette.
I was getting fed up at this point. I wasn't angry at anyone, feedback is always good, but I can't afford the time to keep thinking up new boxarts. It was very hard thinking of a new picture to put on a boxart, and just as hard drawing it to look acceptable. My finished RPG was sitting there for days begging to be released. So I did so.
Now, while I completed my objective of avoiding MS-Paint ridicule, I still got people respectfully asking whether it was possible for me to change my boxart. The much-lower-than-expected trials gave me serious food for thought, but I came to the same conclusion. I was in trouble. I was back at my dilemma, I knew no artists who could make something nice for me.
Or so I thought.
In the next post, probably after the 1.1 patch comes out, I'll show you the new boxart and discuss its origins. It was almost completely accidental.
But please, Premium XNA members, help get this 1.1 patch out so I can start on the second part of this post!
New box art looks great... Think the art style works well, expecially for how ambitious your first adventure game was and the humor involved with it. At least you didnt just go with sprites like so many others...
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