Famicom Cover Thread

[satoshi_matrix]

shenske: I think that looks great, but I don't think the spine color shouldn't bleed into the back cover. You can leave that black as it was before.

Pleaaase no pink....

The reason Mario USA spine is pink is because the actual cart is. Google Mario USA Famicom and you'll see the pink. Even the original box was pink!

Jigsaw:

I hear what you're saying and I agree with you with some of what you said Jigsaw, but the whole charm of Famicom games as any Famicom collector will tell you is that the games aren't uniform. As I said, nearly every game cartridge is a different color from the last. Think SNES Doom or a few N64 games that were different colors, but apply that on a much grander scale. 

Jigsaw did bring up a good point about the odd time a game cartridge will clash with a logo, but I think this is easily fixed by simply adding an additional outline of a natural color such as white to separate the logo from the rest of the spine so that it does stand out. In extreme cases (rare gold colored carts or ones with multiple colors) I agree that the spine should be changed to something that would work better, but those are rather extreme examples. Although yes, Famicom games can be any color, the bulk fall into the five basic colors: red, green, blue, black and white. Since none of those clash with the template, I don't see it being much of an issue. The only time it wouldn't really work would be in the case of pirate multicarts, but I don't see us ever hosting covers for those so again, non-issue.

[shenske]

@Jigsaw
I do agree the artwork was a bit cramped with the Super Maio USA.  I created the template with the first orignal few famicom games that came out, the 'newer' games that came out don't fit into the template as well.  The half front art, half black spine looked fine when i only had on cover but side by side with different cover it looks like crap.
The controller graphic on the back is more prominant in the SMB2 cover because the controller has the same color as the front artwork.  The SMB2 front cover is white and the controller had to be white too.  They all have the same transperancy on the black background, i just need to make the lighter colors more transperant with that one and future covers.  The colors of the controller may seem to pop out too much when looking at the cover but when they are printed out they will come out much darker.

@Satoshi_Matrix
I think I'm going to ditch the spine matching the cart color idea.  I think that was a great idea but when looking at the cover it will stick out akwardly as it doesn't correspond with the artwork.  I may have a few more ideas that i can try out to have a suddle hints to what color the cart is on the cover.  I'm going to be busy with the rest of finals untill Friday so I won't be able to have any mock-ups untill after then.
I'm considering just going with an all black spine with a small strip of color at the bottom with the cart color.  The back controllers would reflect the color too.  We'll have to see how it looks when i do it. 

[Drakul]

I agree i'm not a huge fan of the pink spine. It clashes too much with the rest of the cover.

but I do love what you're doing! I'm even debating doing all my NES games like this

[juan0tron]

Aw am I the only one who likes the art on the spine? Eh not much of a matter, I don't own any Famicom games, letalone the American NES.

[satoshi_matrix]

I think it's all a matter of taste and design. To me what separates Famicom gaming from NES gaming is that you have wildly different colors and when you have carts all lined up, some of them DO jump out at you. My idea of carrying that mishmash of colors over to the covers is really to keep in that same effect. I can understand what you guys are saying about it possibly not working 100% of the time, but for the most part, I think that a balance could be struck between the Famicom multi-color approach and what works for spines. I look forward to seeing more!

[shenske]

I think it's all a matter of taste and design. To me what separates Famicom gaming from NES gaming is that you have wildly different colors and when you have carts all lined up, some of them DO jump out at you. My idea of carrying that mishmash of colors over to the covers is really to keep in that same effect. I can understand what you guys are saying about it possibly not working 100% of the time, but for the most part, I think that a balance could be struck between the Famicom multi-color approach and what works for spines. I look forward to seeing more!

I'm sure i can figure out someone to incorperate both ideas of a unified style and different color for each game. It just may take a while before i can try to get the ball rolling again 

[shenske]

Instead of me wasting a lot of time converting all of the cover i made for another test i though i'd just give you an idea with the same cover.  Here is my idea for making a unified color for the spine while still keeping the color of the cart for the spine.  It will be up the artist if they wish to make the spine that color too but the stripe on the bottom must correlate with the cart color.

Like it? love it? hate it?

[sheep2001]

i get the idea of bringing the colour to the spine - but it just makes it look more amateur than retro.  i still love the look of the cover art coming half way across.

[Falconhood]

yeah, i need covers for all those SD Gundam games and Burger Time:
Burger Time
SD Gundam Gaiden: Knight Gundam Monogatari ＳＤガンダム外伝 ナイトガンダム物語
SD Gundam Gaiden: Knight Gundam Monogatari 3: Densetsu no Kishi Dan
SD Gundam Gachapon Senshi 4: New Type Story
since there are no American counterparts for any of these games (except possibly Burger Time?)

[shenske]

it just makes it look more amateur than retro

This is why i do test runs .... back to the drawing board.  I think it might be impossible to make everyone happy with this template so i might just have to pick a style that looks best to me and call it good.  

[satoshi_matrix]

shenske, I think that looks great, and perfectly satisfies what I was saying. I personally do not feel it looks amateur, but it does need a bit of work. A good idea would be to put a white "ghosting" over the game title text to help separate it from the black and make it stand out more. Other than that, I love your concept of using the Famicom cartridge codes along the bottom strip. That sort of thing adds a much deeper level of coolness in my books.

[shenske]

shenske, I think that looks great, and perfectly satisfies what I was saying. I personally do not feel it looks amateur, but it does need a bit of work. A good idea would be to put a white "ghosting" over the game title text to help separate it from the black and make it stand out more. Other than that, I love your concept of using the Famicom cartridge codes along the bottom strip. That sort of thing adds a much deeper level of coolness in my books.

Do you mean adding a stroke around the game logo?  How do you feel about the spine logo being the same color as the bottom strip? I was debating on whether or not to leave the spine logo the "orginal way" (like on the front of the cover) and still leave the strip color. I am playing with the idea of having the spine logo the same color as the strip (as shown above) ... not sure though.

On a random note, I just watched your Famicom version of Castlevania review on youtube. Once again a great job and really good review. 

[sheep2001]

I was debating on whether or not to leave the spine logo the "orginal way" (like on the front of the cover) and still leave the strip color. I am playing with the idea of having the spine logo the same color as the strip (as shown above) ... not sure though.

That sounds nicer - keep the multi colour thing a little more discrete

[shenske]

I've been through a lot of hoops trying to figure out a way for everyone to fully enjoy the template but in the end ... this is what the covers will look like. It will be impossible to 100% accomodate everyone. The template in its current state (as far as design goes) is final and uses ideas from everyone who contributed their opinion in this thread. I hope you all enjoy these covers and the more on the way.   

When I am able to finish the template and upload it to the site it will be a pretty hefty template. I plan on including full templates for:
Black Starry Classic NES
Newer 90s NES (like SMB3)
Gold Tengen (official and unofficially licensed)
Famicom
Famicom Disk System (in a style to compliment the my famicom covers)

Vector Magic helped me out a lot on this cover. Since there is next to no original scans of the artwork many of the covers will use images "recreated" in vectormagic. 

Ice Climber


Spined w/ previous covers


As always, let me know what you think 

[satoshi_matrix]

Brilliant. Perfect. It strikes a great balance and I'm so very glad you decided to go with " Nintendo Famicom" over "Nintendo Family Computer". Although Family Computer is the correct term, it just was not, and still is not ever referred to as such. I remember arguing this point years ago with lumberjack and a few others in the Famicom Cover Project thread of yore. I think that by now, this thread really ought to be merged with that one.

Here's the link to that thread: http://www.thecoverproject.net/forums/index.php?topic=418.60