NES Custom Game Case Covers

[rockabilly1983]

Hi everyone! Here is my very first NES cover for Shadowfox's NES Custom Game Case. His cases are the best, hands down! Here is Batman! I had the box for this game laying around in my closet for five years. I thought, "Why don't I try making that into a NES Custom Game Case cover?" This one took quite a bit of work because the box was pretty worn. In the CGC SNES Covers thread, I found some useful information from Moviefan2k4. He said that Shenske's template is a little off and gave the real dimensions on what the Custom Game Case covers need to be. He measured some covers at a video game convention to get the full size. I'm so thankful he got that information because it helped me. We need to make NES covers using his dimensions instead. He also said that he's working on making his own template for Shadowfox's NES Custom Game Case. I have a simple template in my Box account with Moviefan2k4's dimensions. Here are the size differences:

Shenske's Template
Width: 3431 - 11.437"
Height: 2100 - 7"
Spine is 338 pixels wide. The front is 1547 pixels wide. The back is 1546 pixels wide.

Moviefan2k4's Template
Width: 3470 - 11.567"
Height: 2080 - 6.933"
Spine is 330 pixels wide. The front and back are both 1570 pixels wide.

I resized the front, back, and spine and reprinted a few of Shenske's covers using Moviefan2k4's template. What a difference! The covers fit much better and they give more of a full coverage. I had to reprint 12 covers when I started using Shadowfox's NES cases. With Shenske's template, the covers stick out at the top and bottom of the plastic overlay and they come up a little short on the width. The spine also sticks out slightly over the front and back at 338 pixels wide. With Moviefan2k4's template, the covers don't stick out at the top and bottom of the plastic overlay and the width covers up the holes on the front and back. The spine is more center at 330 pixels. The covers fit like a glove with no wrinkling or bunching. This is the size the covers should be.

Now, without further ado, I present to you my first NES cover: Batman! I made the cover in full retail and TCP style retail. On the TCP style retail cover, I added a sharp, vector Nintendo logo for the system name that you see on the top of the spine. Shenske's Nintendo logo wasn't as round on the right end. It looked like it was cut off by a hairline. This game is one of my childhood favorites. My brother-in-law introduced me to this game when I was 7 years old in 1990. Happy gaming!

Batman (USA)

Shadowfox's NES Case (Full Retail): https://app.box.com/s/lg3oww5s4rrst3twexqlphqs6yn0df40
Shadowfox's NES Case (TCP Retail): https://app.box.com/s/oglr5f86z609egp5uyzeb4i4x4evycto

My Covers: https://app.box.com/s/hote51vbfehfqo0yu5j0

[rockabilly1983]

Hello again, everyone! Here is my 2nd NES cover: Anticipation. This is one of three games I picked up at the video game swap meet in Portland, OR last weekend. I will be making all my NES covers in full retail as well as TCP style retail. The Cover Project truly needed a better, higher quality cover for this game and it's now here. I got 7 Game Boy Advance games still brand new, 2 Game Boy Color games complete, and two manuals for $42 from one of the vendors. I got one of the best deals so far on this last trip to Portland. I am working hard to get the other three NES covers restored for this site. I'm so happy to make NES covers for the first time. I grew up playing that console and it was my very first one. Before I got that, we had our first computer Atari 800XL. I played so many games on that computer when I was 5 in 1988. When I was 6, we got our 2nd computer. It was an Atari ST. I still have the Atari ST my brother found at a thrift store for only $10 when I was 14 back in 1997. I will never sell it because it's going up in value. More NES covers are coming soon!

Anticipation (USA)

Shadowfox's NES Case (Full Retail): https://app.box.com/s/qa1uxtygramk50yedqfann4a1pdiw6xi
Shadowfox's NES Case (TCP Retail): https://app.box.com/s/0oi26xlm7j4pn0u65q2v830m3jx5bbns

My Covers: https://app.box.com/s/hote51vbfehfqo0yu5j0

[rockabilly1983]

Yay! I have another NES cover for all of you! I figured NES Play Action Football would be a really good one to do all this week because of the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl starts tomorrow. It's going to be New England Patriots vs. Atlanta Falcons. I don't watch sports. My dad watched football all the time. One of his favorite teams was Miami Dolphins. I updated the spine on my last cover Anticipation. It looked all stretched and I remade the spine using my raw scan at 2080 pixels high and 250 pixels wide. This helped keep the spine at the original size and it also kept the logos from looking stretched. I noticed how the spine didn't look right when I stretched the scan at 330 pixels wide. I also updated the words Entertainment System. I retyped it using the font NES Logo. That font looks good but it's not an exact match. The letters are a little taller than the font you see on the system name. I searched for an NES logo on Google Images and found one big image that had the words Nintendo Entertainment System. I traced it with Vector Magic and I replaced the retyped text with the vector letters. Now the spine on the full retail cover is more retail accurate. I updated the TCP retail cover too. That's what I wanted to give you guys a head's up on. NES Play Action Football took quite a bit of work especially with rebuilding the logo. The "Upload a Cover" link seems to be broken. I can't upload any of my new covers. I hope it gets fixed soon. I'm waiting patiently for the link to be fixed so I can upload finished covers again. Good things come to those who wait. Have fun watching the Super Bowl tomorrow!

NES Play Action Football (USA)

Shadowfox's NES Case (Full Retail): https://app.box.com/s/b3l2c9d30u9dn7eljk7imvjerh54xnyr
Shadowfox's NES Case (TCP Retail): https://app.box.com/s/c8k4bnz6hfqon00303k39jhs08lywkb1

My Covers: https://app.box.com/s/hote51vbfehfqo0yu5j0

[Mr. Pennington]

I'm not a regular on here, but as a purist, these are PERFECT. I wish you'd done the whole library!

[Vaulter98c]

looks good man, Huge fan of your DS cases for Gameboy series games, check it every day lol

[Moviefan2k4]

Rockabilly,

I appreciate your trust in my measurements. I later purchased a 25-pack of Shadowfox's NES cases, and remeasured them to be sure...no difference. I got in the habit of doing my own measurements a couple of years ago, designing DVD and Blu-Ray covers as a hobby. There's people who do great artistic work, for that and video games...but it bugs the fire out of me when the cover's too big or small. When I use someone else's work, I typically put it in Photoshop and fix the details to match my template.

[breakmanexe]

I don't think the height on Shensuke's template was ever meant to perfectly match the plastic sleeve. Seems like it's meant to fit inside the hard plastic borders on the top and bottom. That's my observation at least, after printing, cutting and installing over 50 of his NES CGC covers myself. They all fit pretty perfectly vertically, and the leeway given for horizontal placement doesn't really bug me too much, though since ShadowFox's cases seem to have less "variability" compared to the UGCs maybe the covers SHOULD be a bit wider from this point on.

Anyway, I don't mean to sound like a contrarian, nor to imply that you're "wrong" or "wasting time" or anything like that. Just offering another perspective. Your covers look great. Keep doing your thing.

[rockabilly1983]

@Mr. Pennington
Thanks, Mr. Pennington! I'm so happy you like my covers. Welcome to The Cover Project!

@Vaulter98c
Thank you, Vaulter98c. I'm so happy you're a fan of my Game Boy covers. More Game Boy covers are coming soon! Check back often.

@Moviefan2k4
Thank you for the kind words. Good to hear that Shadowfox's NES cases are still the same. I found out recently that your template keeps the height close to the original height of the original boxes. I measured the height of an NES box and it showed 6.93" just like on your template.

@breakmanexe
That's a nice perspective. I never thought of it that way. By the way, thank you!

[Moviefan2k4]

@Moviefan2k4
Thank you for the kind words. Good to hear that Shadowfox's NES cases are still the same. I found out recently that your template keeps the height close to the original height of the original boxes. I measured the height of an NES box and it showed 6.93" just like on your template.

That's cool; I never even bothered measuring the height of an original box. Just some plain legal-sized copy paper, a ruler and calculator, plus some very careful folding. The plastic overlay's height was simple; width was tricky though. My experience from measuring DVD and Blu-Ray cases likely helped as well (thank you, God!)

[rockabilly1983]

Rockabilly1983 strikes back with two more NES covers for your collections. These are the last two I picked up at the Portland Retro Game Swap Meet back in late January. I did it! I did my first five NES covers. I'm going to be getting more in the future. I cycled down to my local flea market on Sunday last week. I found a red barn with video games and DVDs. I couldn't believe the amount of video games this guy had for sale. It was my 2nd time going in there. He has lots of complete NES and Super Nintendo games. Many of them are very reasonably priced. I picked up a complete NES game for $8. It's coming soon. I'm going to a big farmer's market and swap meet in Roseville tomorrow. It's called Denio's. I haven't been there since I was a kid. I wonder if there are any vendors selling retro video games. You have to spend at least 2 hours at this place because it's enormous. We'll see what happens tomorrow. Enjoy my two newest game show game covers. See you next time!

Wheel of Fortune (USA)

Shadowfox's NES Case (Full Retail): https://app.box.com/s/w5h5pcdiufilo22kscpgfwx2zaswwesq
Shadowfox's NES Case (TCP Retail): https://app.box.com/s/rv0371hjgy8gt2fskg0ltuxdea50gvtf

Jeopardy! (USA)

Shadowfox's NES Case (Full Retail): https://app.box.com/s/ebrbf9fxkw5swdyndenqhjrhplddn80s
Shadowfox's NES Case (TCP Retail): https://app.box.com/s/o6dsc18o2junpwkqj2g9r40nbz1pm5lr

My Covers: https://app.box.com/s/hote51vbfehfqo0yu5j0

[Moviefan2k4]

You're doing very well with these; major congrats. I'm having trouble just finishing ones for my own collection, mainly because I'm a stickler for the smallest details. I like to retype my own text most of the time, but finding some of these old fonts is a real pain in the neck.

[rockabilly1983]

You're doing very well with these; major congrats. I'm having trouble just finishing ones for my own collection, mainly because I'm a stickler for the smallest details. I like to retype my own text most of the time, but finding some of these old fonts is a real pain in the neck.

Thank you very much! I'm going to continue doing my best to make more. Good luck finishing your own covers! I use MyFonts.com's subsection WhatTheFont to identify fonts. If I don't get a good match, I submit my image to the forums on that site. Font enthusiasts can give you a hand on there. Another website I use is identifont.com. This website asks you questions about the styles of the different letters.

[rockabilly1983]

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you my 6th NES cover: Snoopy's Silly Sports Spectacular! This is the game I picked up at my local flea market. This past weekend was crazy because I was in Reno with my mom. We couldn't come back on Tuesday because of a heavy snowstorm. All the highways were closed and we were stuck in Reno. Thankfully, it was nice and sunny on Wednesday and we didn't have to put on chains. I took a look at the cover of Snoopy's Silly Sports Spectacular! that is on the main site. I noticed that all the confetti is missing and the colors are way off. I wanted to help make a proper cover for that game. This game is also one of my childhood favorites. Every time I look at the front cover, it brings back fond memories of when I used to ask my mom to rent it for me at Albertson's. I never owned it as a kid, though. In Japan, the game is called Donald Duck. I have a lot of Game Boy covers coming soon in the 3DS cover thread. Happy gaming!

Snoopy's Silly Sports Spectacular! (USA)

Shadowfox's NES Case (Full Retail): https://app.box.com/s/3uaa1lj4d4nnmq3blmgtee7r4l9fscph
Shadowfox's NES Case (TCP Retail): https://app.box.com/s/rh0otfnxycheaewx5flenosznyndzh4j

My Covers: https://app.box.com/s/hote51vbfehfqo0yu5j0

[Moviefan2k4]

My apologies, for not getting back to you about this most recent cover. I loved this game as a kid, and your rebuild is astounding. I've been going through some personal problems, so most of my designs have been on hold for a while...but I do want to start again, sooner rather than later. One deterrent has been the constant chaos of my sister's house; hopefully I can find the enthusiasm again, once my environment is more quiet during the day.

[rockabilly1983]

My apologies, for not getting back to you about this most recent cover. I loved this game as a kid, and your rebuild is astounding. I've been going through some personal problems, so most of my designs have been on hold for a while...but I do want to start again, sooner rather than later. One deterrent has been the constant chaos of my sister's house; hopefully I can find the enthusiasm again, once my environment is more quiet during the day.

That's okay, Moviefan2k4! It's been that long since I made an NES cover? Time goes by fast, doesn't it? That's so cool you also like Snoopy's Silly Sports Spectacular! Thank you for the kind words. You made my day. I would like to wish you good luck on making covers. I'm also looking forward to seeing them.