Arts and Crafts and Games - Part 1: 1980s


Nowadays, almost all the video game covers are just CGI, or sometimes digital paintings if we get lucky. Back in the previous millennium, it was mostly traditional illustrations. But there were some that went the extra mile to make their game covers more real, almost graspable. Just like practical effects in movies, there surely where more limitations than the infinite possibilities digital graphics offer now, but much like Ray Harryhausen's monsters or Jim Henson's Muppets, they often convey a plasticity and personality you can't get from a computer. So here's a big collection of cool images of box covers and advertisements from creators that found alternative ways to bring their worlds closer to you than their limited in-game graphics could. There's far too many to fit on one page, so this part is only covering games released before the end of 1989. Also I've kinda used up all the kinds of commentary I could think up for now. I'll try and make another page for the more recent past when I find the time!

The Imagic catalog (1982-1983)

In the early days of the video game industry, Imagic were one of the first multi platform third party developers that started out on the Atari VCS, but soon went on to port their games to various consoles and home computers, and they did it with an unconventional approach to cover design. One among their original trio of releases, Demon Attack might already be the most magnificent of them all. A bunch of badass dinosaur figurines, spray-painted silver and with jet wings and missiles glued onto them? Can't go wrong with that! Around the same time we got Star Voyager, for which the cover designer blatantly glued a Star Wars Millennium Falcon toy to some other space ship parts and called it a day.

But there's another Imagic cover for a title starting with "D", namely Dragon Fire. It's hard to tell if this one uses store-bought parts as well, but it's a much more elaborate model either way. The common cover for most versions is neat, but for the C64 port released a few years later, Imagic had an even more impressive variant in store (seen below), with some nice moody fog in place of the somewhat cheesy flames from the original.

Their final 1982 title, Beauty and the Beast features a massive caveman and some figures that almost seem custom-made, given their rather specific poses (but probably not really). All the foreground buildings also seem like physical models, which would probably have meant more effort was spent on this than any of their other covers.

With Swords & Serpents and Wing War from Imagic's 1983 offerings we have a return to fog and dragons, even though it looks like the beast and its wings don't even belong to the same model. The gemstones it holds seem quite out of scale, too.

For their later titles, Imagic had mostly switched to illustrations and photos of people in costumes for their box art, but Moonsweeper still got a nicely lit scene with a cool (likely also off-the-shelf) space ship for magazine ads.

Image sources: The Cover Project (Demon Attack), MobyGames (Star Voyager), The Cover Project (Dragonfire Intellivision), TheGamesDB (Dragonfire C64), Launch Box Games Database (Beauty and the Beast), The Cover Project (Swords & Serpents), The Cover Project (Wing War)

Door Door (1983)

When Enix originally published future Dragon Quest co-creator Koichi Nakamura's first commercial game Door Door for home computers, the tape shipped with a regular cartoon drawing. But in subsequent revisions (starting around 1984, I think?) and the eventual Famicom port this got replaced by a charming collage of paper cutouts, which I think captures the mood of the game even better, despite (or maybe because) being a bit more abstract looking.

Image source: Gaming Alexandria

Ninja Princess (1985)

This early (and super fun!) Sega arcade title doesn't just feature one of the first female action stars in a video game, it also introduces a new technique for its marketing materials into the mix. The characters on the flyer appear to be dolls made out of something like papier mâché (or possibly clay - can't say for sure) with actual textile parts for some of the clothes, all in front of an actual photo of a palace cloaked in shadows. In a just world, these would be preserved in a museum somewhere, but they probably got just thrown out after.

Image source: Launch Box Games Database

Mail Order Monsters (1985)

This game hails from an era when Electronic Arts still remembered what their name stood for and they tried to position themselves as a fancy boutique publisher, with game boxes designed like record album covers, complete with the creator's profile on the back. So it's pretty funny that Mail Order Monsters comes with a design that's goofy AF with one of the titular monsters seemingly bursting out of the cover, which is just some Godzilla figurine but decked out with all kinds of silly accessories, from an assault rifle to a medieval morning star. And also it's got headphones on, probably to listen to the hottest '80s mix while mashing the other monsters.

Image source: MobyGames

Yōkai Tantei Chima Chima (1985)

Yōkai Tantei Chima Chima is a maze action game where you are a huge eyball on legs and hunt a variety of Japanese folklore monsters on a graveyard, and that's pretty well captured in this advertisement diorama. The shrubbery looks like it was repurposed from model train or war gaming accessories, while the characters seem to be made of burnt and painted clay.

Image source: LOGiN 1984/10 scan on the Internet Archive

Shin Taketori Monogatari (1985)

It was only a matter of time when our first specimen of a modeling clay sculpture would show up. Shin Taketori Monogatari is an old text parser adventure game for Japanese home computers by Cross Media Soft, which was apparently successful enough to get a sequel and a remake for the Famicom later. As far as I know, this image wasn't featured on any cover, but merely appeared in magazine advertisements for the game. It's a shame, really, as the clay models show a lot of personality and stunning details, like the glitter in the fans and the differently colored layers of their clothes.

Image source: LOGiN 1985/4 scan on the Internet Archive

Mole Mole (1985)

Mole Mole is another title from Cross Media Soft, so it doesn't neccessarily surprise that they'd go for the modeling clay again, but this time it looks like they used cheap play dough instead of the more professional material seen in the Shin Taketori Monogatari ads and the model isn't quite as lovingly detailed. Still, it's not exactly a lazy job, as the cute little clay freak comes complete with an entire modeled level of the game. On the second page you even get another look at him without the helmet and goggles, and his eyes look just as dorky as you'd have had imagined. I also love that his teeth are blue-ish cause apparently they had no white clay at hand?

Image source: LOGiN 1985/7 scan on the Internet Archive

Xanadu (1985)

Nowadays they might seem like unusual offshoots of the genre (which eventually brought us the Action RPG subgenre), but back in the day Yoshio Kiya's creations where deeply rooted in the fantasy role-playing gaming world of their time. So what could be more fitting for a cover than a diorama with tabletop style fantasy miniatures? In contrast to most of the efforts from the US we've looked at so far, Falcom took a deluxe approach by teaming up with established model sculptor Kow Yokoyama (who's more famous for his mecha designs) to get some unique custom designs for Xanadu. The expansion release that soon followed after the original featured a different setup, although it seems to be the same sculptures shown in another composition from an opposite viewpoint.

It's hard to find decent scans from the original releases on the internet, so the above wide angle shot is from the record cover to Xanadu Anthem, a heavy metal single dedicated to the game, while the game covers below come from the 1995 Revival Xanadu releases.

The knight from those scenes also shows his face as a cut-out on the cover for the Japanese version of Faxanadu, but alas he didn't make it all the way to the western NES releases. (Nonetheless, that box is still fairly classy as far as US-designed 8-bit game covers go!)

Image source: Retro-Type

Kaleidoscope (1985-1986)

Don't worry if you've ever heard about this - Kaleidoscope was an early, short-lived sci-fi RPG series by Hot-B that only ever appeared on Japanese 8-bit computers and didn't leave much of a cultural footprint. But it left this very moody image of a bulky space suit walking across hills in front of a blurry structure in the distance. I'm kinda getting Kow Yokoyama vibes from this one again, but I don't know any actual credits for it.

Later ads also show a cute little alien creature, which Hot-B introduced for an early attempy at selling merchandise around their games, namely a keychain with a somewhat cruder version on it.

Image source: LOGiN 1985/9 scan on the Internet Archive, LOGiN 1986/4 scan on the Internet Archive, LOGiN 1986/8 scan on the Internet Archive

The Return of Ishtar (1986)

Like Xanadu, the Tower of Druaga series was an action-oriented reinterpretation of fantasy RPGs, and so the first sequel borrowed a similar gimmick for its advertisement. It looks like Namco didn't quite spend the same budget or effort as Falcom on the figures, despite unquestionably being the larger and richer company. We got some cool designs from them nonetheless, and even the tower in the backround seems to have been a physical model, although that can be better seen on the box for the 1988 MSX conversion. Magazine ads for that release also featuered a sole new figurine (but it seems a bit cheaper yet than the earlier ones).

Image sources: StrategyWiki, Generation-MSX, MSX Magazine 1988/7 scan on the Internet Archive

S.F.3.D (1986)

Even more obscure Japanese computer sci-fi stuff, this time with another confirmed Yokoyama creation. The vibes are a bit similar to the earlier Kaleidoscope image, hence why I imagined that one might come from the master as well.

Image source: LOGiN 1986/3 scan on the Internet Archive

Hurry Fox (1986)

Yet another obscure Japanese only graphical text parser adventure few people will have heard of, but the pair of cute paper cutout foxes sitting in what seems like an actual hedge are just too adorable to not include!

Image source: LOGiN 1986/8 scan on the Internet Archive

Dawnssley (1986)

If you're willing to wade through a metric crapton of... well, crap, then the ZX Spectrum's library can be a real treasure trove of all kinds of weird stuff. Not a lot of good stuff, mind you, but very weird. The original shovelware hub! Look no further than Dawnssley - what kind of a title for a video game is that even? And in the blandest font you could imagine! And the cover shows a freaky alien with some kind of device planted into its chest, but in reality it's a crude maze game where you play as a crude elf named Hobbo (design-wise more in tune with the christmas variety rather than the Tolkien ones) who's up against crude evil smile emoji. Whatever, the alien's looking cool. No idea what it's made of, but it has this really neat glossy texture that makes it stand out.

Image source: MobyGames

HAL Laboratory games (1987-1988)

Later rebranded as Adventures of Lolo, Eggerland was Hal Laboratory's biggest IP before Kirby. While Lolo and his love Lala kinda look like smooth blobs on the illustraded covers of the other entry, Eggerland for the Famicom Disk System shows them as fluffy furballs you can't help but symphasize with against the slimy green toad monster King Egger. But on the manual cover, the dizzying tower structures in the back almost steal the show.

It seems after that HAL developed a bit of a taste for sculptured covers. Even though they never revisited the style for Eggerland they went back to the same well for another title, the space shooter Air Fotress. This one features only one sculpture, but what a magnificent work it is! Basically it's an astronaut in a space suit, but with intricate ornaments all over so it looks more like some baroque reinterpretation of a medieval knight's armor. Quite a favorable depiction of the game's main character, who's just a little yellow dude on the screen. You even get another view at him on the cartridge label from the back, which ist just as extravagantly decorated.

The third and (as far as I can tell) final example from the house of HAL was created for Fire Bam, an interesting if a bit clunky and brutal Japanese Famicom Disk System exclusive side-scrolling action RPG. With his odd proportions the jungle warrior on the cover is kind of the least aesthetically pleasing of the bunch, but no less elaborate with attention to detail than the others. There were even advertisements that showed him from a more frontal perspective so you could get a better look at his ugly mug, albeit with some sort of greyscale filter (or repaint?)

Image sources: Gaming Alexandria, GameFAQs, Retro Video Games, TheGamesDB, 箱のすみっこげーむ資料

Templo Del Sol: Asteka II (1987)

Falcom are back with another Kow Yokoyama collaboration for this adventure/RPG hybrid about an archaeological expedition. This one was actually released in the US as Tombs & Treasures, but it ditches the incredible floating statue and Aztec pyramid-inspired models for an illustration that looks more like something of an American comic book from the 1960s.

Image source: LOGiN 1987/3 scan from the Internet Archive, LOGiN 1987/11 scan from the Internet Archive

AshGuine (1987)

AshGuine is an unusual relic from the MSX2 computer library. No less than three games featuring the ugly green cyborg lizard man, by three entirely different developers no less, saw release within a few months, and he was also the star of an stop motion meets live action TV commercial full of special effects for a MSX machine by Panasonic.

Someone clearly wanted this character to become the next big thing very much. It's not obvious who was the driving force behind this push, but the games do contain credits for "original character designed by". If the style of the sculpture above seems somewhat familiar to you by now, you might get some satisfaction from the fact that one of those once more goes to Kow Yokoyama (here rendered as Kou Yokoyama). (Presumably) his plastic iteration appears only on the first (and by far the least playable) title, whereas the other two go for traditional illustrations.

The other is one Tae Young Lee by CM Land, a studio apparently specialized in advertisement character designs. Their major contributions to Japanese popular culture seem to have been the cartoon penguins featured in the Suntory Beer commercials of the 1980s and a snack mascot called Uncle Carl, which couldn't be farther away from the gritty ugliness of the AshGuine guy.

Image source: Generation-MSX

The Fairyland Story (1987)

The Fairyland Story is an unassuming arcade style platformer for MSX computers, based on the simple but effective screen-by-screen enemey sweeping formula popularized by Bubble Bobble. The clay model cover likewise is nothing too extravagant, but it's got some really creative decoration ideas with the glitter stars for the heroine's magic and the framing of the scene with common sand.

Image source: GameFAQs

Minelvaton Saga (1987)

The Box for this Famicom RPG already has a very cool illustration by master fantasy artist Hitoshi Yoneda, but I still think Taito should have gone with this absolutely epic scene from their advertisement. I don't wanna be the kind of person who guesses Kow Yokoyama at every uncredited sculpture, but you could put these together in a composition with the figures from Xanadu and no one would bat an eye. Just a shame there doesn't seem to be a clean high res scan around.

Image source: GameFAQs

Lancelot (1988)

I know, I know! "Arts and crafts" is more than a bit of a stretch for this. But! It's just too funny to not talk about? The Knight in shining armor, just having saved the maid by slaying the dragon. Whose corpse is depicted by means of a blow-up stegosaur turned upside down. Get into some heavy metal indeed!

Image source: ExoticA

Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa (1988)

This cutesy platformer by Konami was only ever released in Japan, but the hero - a little baby that cannot walk upright yet but is capable of impressive leaps all the same - appeared in a few other Konami series, like Wai Wai World and Parodius. As so often, the main cover art for the game is a traditional 2D drawing, but there's a piece of advertisement showing an adorable clay rendition of the baby and some kind of ... pig lantern?

Image source: Socratetsu

Ganbare Goemon 2 (1989)

Most people know the Ganbare Goemon series mainly from the later 16- and 64-bit outings since only a few of them were ever released in English and, unlike most long-running series, they never followed a continuous numbering pattern of any sort. But the early entries are also interesting to look at, especially to see the transition from character designs that more resembled traditional Japanese art to the distinct cartoon style of the later years. I'm not quite sure what the technique for this cover is - it looks mostly like stacked paper cutouts to me, but Goemon's hair actually seems like it was standing out, like some sort of fabric or maybe very finely cut paper strips?

Image source: Gaming Alexandria

Tom Sawyer no Bōken (1989)

Every once in a while, there's a video game tie-in with a work from another medium that seems completely out of left field. Fester's Quest in 1989, two years before the theatrical movie would revive interest in the Addams Family, anyone? Or Jekyll and Hyde for the NES? Well, in Japan there might have been some more recent Tom Sawyer nostalgia from the 1980 animated series, at least. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a great scan of the unique box art on the internet.

Image source: Famicom Game Catalog

Hany in the Sky (1989) / Hany on the Road (1990)

Rare is the game where a crafts artwork is so appropriate as with the Hany series. This pair of PC Engine action games feature an odd protagonist loosely inspired by the Haniwa clay figures of ancient Japan, so while the games themselves use conventional pixel art, it only made sense to build the covers with clay models as well. The style for each cover is quite different, though. (Perhaps to reflect the different genres of the games in a way?) The earlier Hany in the Sky goes for a mysterious, almost ghostly atmosphere with a lot of mist, whereas Hany on the Road is a lot more cartoony.

Image source: MobyGames, The Gay Gamer

Kyuukyoku Harikiri Stadium (1989-1991)

We haven't had any sports games on this list yet, but luckily Taito is here to fill that void. In the 1980s and '90s, they worked a lot with the artist Tong King Show, who's also known for illustrating many video game magazine covers (in Japan). Most of the work he did for them were 2D illustrations in various manga styles, but for a few projects he got out the good old clay to sculpt some stuff, including two parts of this prolific baseball simulation series. I especially like the artwork for Kyuukyoku Harikiri Stadium III, which goes around the box to show a panorama of the full stadium. (I couldn't find a scan of the sleeve with the middle part, but there are advertisements that show the whole thing.

Image source: GameFAQs, GameFAQs

More info on Tong King Show: VGDensetsu on X

Cloud Master (1989)

Cloud Master is a game with many different versions and almost as many different covers, but the Japan-exclusive Famicom box is no doubt the most impressive of them all. I gotta say, this is one of my favorite game covers overall. It's got paper cutouts for the environment, very expressive clay figures for the characters, and I'm not sure what the dragon is made out of, but it's impressive at any rate.

Image source: GameFAQs

Cyber Police ESWAT (1989)

Is it just me, or has this list gotten a lot more crowded for 1989? Anyway, here's Sega's grimdark cousin of Mega Man as a stylish figure. Too bad the robot in the background is so out of focus, though the junk to the left looks more like old timey machinery rather than cyber punk stuff.

Image source: Glitchwave

Bonk's Adventure (1989)

The original cover for Bonk / PC Genjin is a cute collage of separate pieces of paper, colored and cut out to depict Bonk and his world. It has a few charming DYI style details, like some unrelated English print text still visible on a few on the pieces or one of the mountains partially built out of a photo of some bisquits. The magazine ad for the game is in a similar style, except the background is even more abstract, and Bonk's pose looks like it would make for an excellent jumping jack toy.

While the Western releases of the series have very hit-and-miss art in terms of style and quality, the Japanese covers more or less stay true to the tradition, albeit with a little more polished cartoon art and a somewhat more subtle use of the collage gimmick.

Image source: MobyGames, Alive, GameFAQs

Boomer's Adventure in Asmik World (1989)

OK, by now we've seen our share of play dough characters. But have you seen real dirt on a game cover yet? Didn't think so! Also I think the little yellow guy is something else - the texture makes it almost look like painted wood.

Image source: GameFAQs

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