So who else makes home-made boxes for AGS games?

Gal Shemesh · Sat 15/04/2023 01:41:12

Hi everyone! Thought this would be the right place to make this thread.

@CrashPL, I suppose you will like it too.

So, I very like the AGS engine in particular and other people games made with it in general. But what I like even more is creating home-made boxes for favorite games that don't have any. And what about you? Do you also make your own home-made boxes for non-boxed AGS games?

I'd like to share with you the latest box I just made of the cute AGS game "Zniw Adventure". Let me know what you think.

cat · Sat 15/04/2023 09:11:15

Nice! Could you embed the pictues here in the thread? This would make viewing them much easier.

Gal Shemesh · Sat 15/04/2023 10:12:10

Quote from: cat on Sat 15/04/2023 09:11:15Nice! Could you embed the pictues here in the thread? This would make viewing them much easier.

Thanks!

I tried to embed the pictures with the "Insert an image" button which prompts for URL link, which I inserted, but all I saw after posting was empty rows instead of images... Any idea?

Snarky · Sat 15/04/2023 10:34:09

It has to be a direct link to the image file, not to the webpage that Dropbox creates. Dropbox makes it kind of awkward to do so, but you can edit the URL to change the ?dl=0 at the end to ?raw=1 and it will link directly to the image file.

Edit: However, it seems like Dropbox doesn't like embedding images on other sites. At least, when I tried to edit your post to embed the links, they still didn't show up:

(There's an embedded image above here of https://www.dropbox.com/s/op9r9f3qg0j73ha/Zniw%20Adventure%20-%20Top.jpg?raw=1)

I would recommend uploading the images to a proper image host, like imgur.

Stupot · Sat 15/04/2023 10:38:25

That is gorgeous.
Do you have more of these?

@Snarky I happened to refresh the page while you were in the middle of changing the URLs and they briefly showed up.

Gal Shemesh · Sat 15/04/2023 10:44:58

Quote from: Snarky on Sat 15/04/2023 10:34:09It has to be a direct link to the image file, not to the webpage that Dropbox creates. Dropbox makes it kind of awkward to do so, but you can edit the URL to change the ?dl=0 at the end to ?raw=1 and it will link directly to the image file.

Edit: However, it seems like Dropbox doesn't like embedding images on other sites. At least, when I tried to edit your post to embed the links, they still didn't show up:

You are great! I've updated my original post and now images are showing correctly. Unfortunately 'imgur.com' as AGS suggesting to use for uploading images for sharing here doesn't allow signing up from my region - that is why I tried dropbox. Many thanks for your help!

Snarky · Sat 15/04/2023 11:33:49

Quote from: Stupot on Sat 15/04/2023 10:38:25I happened to refresh the page while you were in the middle of changing the URLs and they briefly showed up.

Ah, they weren't showing for me because they were being blocked by the PrivacyBadger extension.

Gal Shemesh · Sat 15/04/2023 11:54:58

Quote from: Stupot on Sat 15/04/2023 10:38:25That is gorgeous.
Do you have more of these?

@Snarky I happened to refresh the page while you were in the middle of changing the URLs and they briefly showed up.

Thanks a lot! Glad you like them.

Actually, I began making miniature box editions for known computer games a long while ago for self education of how computer game boxes were made and for fun, which people on facebook where I once shared them seemed to very like. Attached below a few examples of 'LOOM', 'The Blackwell Legacy' and 'Zak McKracken". Soon after I was contacted by Anne Bras who made this mini version of 'Prince of Persia' which he named 'Mini Prince' (http://www.annebras.nl/miniprince/minibox.php) and asked me if I can make him a limited amount of physical boxes for selling to collectors. They were all sold out almost immediately.

In terms of big boxes, I only made a few (again, as part of a self education process) for my personal collection - not for sale. The only box that almost went commercial is this 'Simon the Sorcerer 1: 25th Anniversary Edition'; here's the story how I got to it and why it was only almost:

I'm one of the admins of a non-profit local Israeli facebook group which voluntarily translates good old (and new) point & click adventure games to Hebrew, in order to bring them to the local audience, especially for kids who can't read English yet (https://www.facebook.com/groups/hebrewadventure). 'Simon the Sorcerer 1' is a game that was officially translated to Hebrew back in the 90s. Though, the translation was only okay, not very much accurate and had many mistakes, if you compare it to the original English version. So I took this project on me and began (with some help of my other admin members) to re-translate it to Hebrew from scratch. In addition, what made this project unique versus the other projects we work on was that I took it one step further and decided to actually DUB the entire game to Hebrew, all by myself (yep, dubbed all characters). It took me around 3 years with stops here and there as it was a tedious work, but very worthwhile to the spirit - all the work was done voluntarily of course.

Now, along the project we got in touch with the current official distributor of 'Simon the Sorcerer' which is 'MojoTouch', who happens to be an Israeli guy by the way, and he asked us if he could put our hard work of the updated game in his 25th Anniversary Edition which is available on AppStore, GooglePlay, Steam and GOG. We of course agreed as it's an official recognition suggestion and we want the hard work to be available for everyone as much as possible. As for the big box - there was a suggestion to make a physical box, and so I re-designed a new version of the game box and made a prototype (see below). We aimed it to be available for people who ask for a physical copy of the game. However, although the current distributor has rights to distribute the game digitally, in terms of physical merchandise (like a physical box) it required additional approvals from the person who holds the intellectual property of Simon the Sorcerer (Michael Woodroffe), which in the end we found was a too cumbersome procedure for something that was made by a non-profit group of people who make all this hard work voluntarily. So we only shared a few pictures of what could have been.

cat · Sat 15/04/2023 13:28:55

Wonderful boxes and great story

Ponch · Sun 16/04/2023 02:00:11

Those are so cool. It makes me nostalgic for the days of old.

CrashPL · Wed 03/05/2023 10:34:27

Oh wow, what an unexpected but very lovely surprise! These look so cute -- I especially love how you handled the back of ZA's box, very clever! Excellent (and nostalgic) content indeed, I love when our fans do stuff like that - thanks so much!!

Gal Shemesh · Wed 03/05/2023 10:47:49

Quote from: CrashPL on Wed 03/05/2023 10:34:27Oh wow, what an unexpected but very lovely surprise! These look so cute -- I especially love how you handled the back of ZA's box, very clever! Excellent (and nostalgic) content indeed, I love when our fans do stuff like that - thanks so much!!

Thanks for the comment! Glad you like it.

Jabbage · Wed 03/05/2023 12:45:14

These are amazing! Its not something I've ever thought to do before, but Ill definitely think about it now!

I'm interested in fan bookbinding and this has the same kind of appeal - I love things that are carefully crafted by fans to make digital objects exist physically!

Gal Shemesh · Wed 03/05/2023 13:01:19

Quote from: Jabbage on Wed 03/05/2023 12:45:14These are amazing! Its not something I've ever thought to do before, but Ill definitely think about it now!

I'm interested in fan bookbinding and this has the same kind of appeal - I love things that are carefully crafted by fans to make digital objects exist physically!

Thank you so much for the feedback.

I was planning to make inner content for the box, such as a soundtrack CD and a printed empty encyclopedia booklet with stickers of each new area or dinosaur that Zniw meets to place onto the empty places, but I haven't found the time yet... When and if I will I'll share them here too.

AndreasBlack · Wed 03/05/2023 13:34:08

Nice work Gal, loved it

kconan · Sat 06/05/2023 06:28:49

Love that box, the side/binder art is cool! I had one made back in 2012 when I finished my AGS game. The style was similar to the old Atari 2600 River Raid box.

Last year I updated my game, and put it up on Steam for a buck.

Gal Shemesh · Sat 06/05/2023 08:43:55

Quote from: kconan on Sat 06/05/2023 06:28:49Love that box, the side/binder art is cool! I had one made back in 2012 when I finished my AGS game. The style was similar to the old Atari 2600 River Raid box.

Last year I updated my game, and put it up on Steam for a buck.

That looks awesome! So professional.

Is this a home-made or commercially done in a factory? I'm curious as the CD's artwork with the circular cut in the middle and around the outer circle which makes the CD's holographic shine in between looks like it was printed on a blank shine CD surface in a professional color thermal printer, like the Rimage Everest or similar. Am I correct? Or is it a sticker label with an accurate cut for the holographic CD shine that shows through?

kconan · Mon 08/05/2023 05:40:41

I was in living in Hong Kong at the time, and used a commercial place there that did a fantastic job. I went to the HQ office and they asked me how many thousands I wanted, and I said can you do like "20"...haha. I ended up getting 100. The image is actually printed on the CD.

Gal Shemesh · Mon 08/05/2023 09:03:55

Quote from: kconan on Mon 08/05/2023 05:40:41I was in living in Hong Kong at the time, and used a commercial place there that did a fantastic job. I went to the HQ office and they asked me how many thousands I wanted, and I said can you do like "20"...haha. I ended up getting 100. The image is actually printed on the CD.

Pretty cool!