How To (And Not To) Do Survival Horror Boxart
For whatever reason, a glut of horror-themed pieces of boxart were released recently. As always when you look at a bunch of similar things, you begin to pick up on the differences. You begin to compare and contrast them.
So, for no better reason than sheer boredom and the desire to write something, I’ve decided to show three of these boxes and elaborate on what I liked and what I hated about each.
Lucky you.
Exhibit A: Saw
I think that the Saw series should have died about four movies ago, and I have no real desire to play Konami’s upcoming adaptation. Still, I’ve got to admit that this is one awesome piece of boxart. It’s something that is going to stand out on the shelf and actually get people to pick up the DVD case.
Why? It’s creepy as hell, for one thing. Look at that dude staring at you. Second, the designers actually know a thing or two about color balance. That red really stands out on the mostly single-color background. If you saw this and three Call of Duty titles on a shelf, which are you going to look at? Here’s a hint – the one that isn’t brown.
Also, I have to give the designer props for cleverly working the logo into the artwork. After you see the next cover, you’ll understand why I appreciate this so much.
Exhibit B: Ju-On
Ju-On was a great movie. Let me repeat this – a great movie. I honestly like it more than the original Ring.
That said, I’m slightly baffled by this game. I just can’t picture a movie tie-in working. I’m not going to dismiss it on concept alone, though, as I admittedly know nothing about the actual gameplay. Besides, that isn’t the point. We’re here to judge the boxart.
As the second of our three examples, Ju-On: The Grudge: Haunted House Simulator falls right in the middle on the box design scale. It isn’t particularly good or bad, just kind of generic. The background art is fine in theory, it’s a classic horror type of image. It’s only real sin is that it doesn’t really have anything to do with the product being sold.
The real offender here is whoever decided to use A) that typeface and b) that title. Looks at that font. Isn’t that the most generic font you’ve seen since Nintendo’s abortion of a box for Hotel Dusk? At least, with the logo taking up half of the box, no one will complain about being unable to read it.
Oh, and that title? Haunted House Simulator? Really?
Exhibit C: Silent Hill: Shattered Memories
Ladies and gentlemen of the audience, I present our last game – Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. Shattered Memories is a prime example of how not to design your box. Shattered Memories looks like it will be a spectacular game. Why did Konami decide to mar it with artwork that looks like it came from a piece of shovelware?
I mean, the Saw artwork at least has something to do with the franchise it is based on. What does a random frozen girl have to do with Silent Hill? Let’s not even get started on the inconsistencies in the artwork. This girl seems to have been swinging in the middle of the street on a swing that isn’t attached to any sort of frame. They took a random piece of character art and stuck it on a background that doesn’t even match.
Just in case you think I’m wrong about the shovelware thing, here is a random Fear Street
cover.
Can you tell the difference between that and the Silent Hill boxart? I didn’t think so.
Konami did have the decency to use an awesome logo, but that isn’t enough to sway my black heart. Feed them to the zombies!
Gregory Gay - August 31st, 2009 - 
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Jeison Raiju on August 31, 2009 at 5:29 pm
I’m gonna have to go ahead and disagree with you on the Silent Hill boxart. Disclaimer: I’m a fan of the series, but this isn’t blind fanboyism talking.
“I mean, the Saw artwork at least has something to do with the franchise it is based on. What does a random frozen girl have to do with Silent Hill?”
I’m going to go out on a limb and assume you’ve never played the Silent Hill series or watched the movie. That “random frozen girl” is Cheryl Mason, a.k.a. Alessa Gillespie, a.k.a. Heather Mason, a.k.a. Sharon Da Silva. She’s essentially /the/ central character in the Silent Hill universe as she’s almost 100% responsible for why the town is as spooky as it is.
“This girl seems to have been swinging in the middle of the street on a swing that isn’t attached to any sort of frame.”
It’s called a solid-to-transparent gradient, and it helps read the title easier. If the blue letters were on a blue background, you would be complaining that the lettering was too difficult to read.
“They took a random piece of character art and stuck it on a background that doesn’t even match.”
This I can’t argue with because it’s entirely accurate, but the argument against the cover art that should be made here isn’t the fact that you cant see the swing set (which, could be completely out of frame even without the gradient).
The argument that should be made is the fact that you’ve got a very clearly CG character model in the foreground which has very sharp highlights and shadows from some sort of light source (a flashlight, perhaps), which indicates surrounding darkness– then you have a relatively realistic-looking background of buildings which appears to be during daytime or sunset. There’s also the fact that the character model casts no shadow on the ground and the fact that the light source doesn’t illuminate the ground at all.
What you’ve essentially got here is boxart that has a decent enough concept, but sub-par execution.
Gregory Gay on August 31, 2009 at 6:00 pm
Wow, I was just being an asshole.
Nice analysis.
ALH on August 31, 2009 at 7:29 pm
‘What does a random frozen girl have to do with Silent Hill? ‘
The silent hill re-imagining is an ice world instead of rust and grime, check out the videos on IGN etc. At the end of the trailer the protagonist uses his camera to take a photo of a swingset, the boxart is perfectly valid.
..aanndd i just read jeisons post and it says it all. doh.
Personally i’d probably punch up the mist behind her a touch, make it a little more obvious by her surroundings that this is a flash going off in her face/overexposed photo and thats why its so bright, perhaps a touch more noise to graphically grunge it up a bit.
Its good to see a horror cover that doesnt just grab the splash grunge brushes and have a field day. Ju-ons cover looks FAR more shovelware, at least shattered memories has some nice typography D:
Crass on August 31, 2009 at 9:25 pm
I completely disagree with your order, I think my order is the opposite, I think that Silent Hill cover looks classy, not scary at all! But wicked classy, and the other two are kinda scary, kinda ugly. The Saw one seriously looks way too zoomed in, plus that face is just so… “I’m so ugly if I was the first thing you saw when you woke up you’d crap your pants”. It’s definitely not something I would display on my shelf, and you’re right about the Ju-on one though, totally generic, mostly ugly though.
AND ONE MORE THING!
Don’t you say a damn thing about R.L.STINE you son of a bitch!
(not really)
Crass on August 31, 2009 at 9:29 pm
To clarify, I only meant “not really” to the R.L.STINE comment
the.maverickk on August 31, 2009 at 9:55 pm
I wonder who get’s paid to design boxart covers… cause seriously… some are horrendous.
Can we like e-mail Konami and tell them that the Shattered Memories game box is horrible? Maybe they can still fix and change it right?
It’s frustrating simply cause it’s not even eerie to me or eye catching. You know what would be a more eerie image? A sign post for Silent Hill that would have icicles on it… with eerie building in the backdrop. Anything for that matter, lol.
MR_DNA on September 1, 2009 at 12:27 am
It’s probably been said many times before, but 3-D renders have pretty much killed decent boxart illustrations.
pinsho on September 1, 2009 at 5:53 am
So what about Cursed Mountain’s Boxart?
http://www.nintendoeverything.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/cm_final_cover_flat.jpg
I think deep silver done some great artwork, not only in this boxart but in the whole game.
pinsho on September 1, 2009 at 5:57 am
I’m sorry the link doesn’t work, I shortened it:
http://snipurl.com/cmcover
N Rumas on September 1, 2009 at 9:53 am
“Fear Streat SUPER CHILLER R.L. Stine CHEERLEADERS The New Evil”
That is one of the greatest book covers I’ve ever seen. I wish it was a game cover. Evil Santa Claus on ice skates FTW. And I love how he doesn’t even have a knife or anything cuz its for kidz.
Arcturian on September 1, 2009 at 3:21 pm
The Silent Hill boxart is atrocious,Ｉ think. I’m a big fan of the series, for sure and I greatly prefer the original SH art, SH 2/Shattered Memories, and SH Origins art to this crud. The cover art is a hard turn off for me, the CHEESY AS HELL frozen girl really does make this game look like shovelware (even though it isn’t).
Vinnieg007 on September 13, 2009 at 6:04 pm
The Japanese Juon boxart looks way better than the American version.