Making and Marketing Your Game

Part 4: Of Box and Board

by Steve Peek

The Lowdown on Artists' Lingo

Once an artist is selected, he is going to be your guide and translator in the world of printing. He is going to teach you in depth, what I am going to provide only in passing-an understanding of the terminology you'll be hearing. This may seem unexciting, but misunderstanding what people are talking about will cost money

Right now we'll be sticking with art talk, though some of it will overlap into printing. As I've already said, the most important piece of art in your game is the box top, sometimes known as the wrap or label. its job is to get prospective buyers to see your game among all the others and make them want to pick it up.

There are basically three approaches to the art for most box wraps: a full color illustration or photograph using the processing known as four color separation; a graphic design on one or more colors accomplished by mecbanical separation; and a combination of the two.

Since this is going to be one of the most expensive and important pieces of art, spend some time planning and discussing the alternatives. More than likely, you'll wind up using the four color separation process. it's not cheap; in fact you might be surprised at its cost. But it is cheaper than mechanical art when the mechanical art is designed to display a large number of colors and hues and is going to required a lot of stripping. Stripping in this case, I'm sorry to say, does not involve people taking off their clothes to music, nor does it, I am happy to say, involve removing paint from old door frames.

It is the act of craftsmen, who are called strippers, taking negatives, pieces of film, and cutting them into place. In many cases, especially in the newspaper industry, these pieces are in long thin strips-hence the name.

Stripping is an art. A good stripper has an eye like an eagle. He can cut, position, and fasten film in such a fashion as to create the most intricate and beautiful patterns of colors imaginable. Using only the three primary colors (blue, red, and yellow) and black (hence the term "four color process or printing"), a stripper can work the negatives to create an endless rainbow of colors, shades, and hues. The problem is good strippers are not only hard to find, but they don't work cheap. If your artist is trying to talk you into doing an all mechanical, multi- colored piece of art, make sure he plans on separating the colors mechanically on different overlays.

I digress too soon; back to basics. The kind of printing used is known as off-set. it's called this because a roller picks up ink from the well and transfers it to another roller containing a metal plate bearing the image of what is being printed. This plate, now wet with ink, meets yet another rubber roller and transfers an impression to it. That roller meets a final roller carrying a sheet of paper and puts the image on the paper.

The concept, I've heard, was first invented by an Egyptian around 2,000 B.C, who made a crude, manual off-set press from smooth stones, bees' wax, oil, and ink. In any event, using this type of printing and four color process, any picture and virtually any number of colors may be printed. If the printer has a four color press, one which puts down all four colors as the paper travels through, the paper is blank when it goes in and is finished when it comes out.

Most people take printing, especially quality printing, for granted. When they see a particularly attractive piece, they'll give it a passing glance and say something like, "Gee, that's nice." They don't understand they are seeing an intricate and complex pattern composed of dots individually invisible to the naked eye, These tiny dots, called screens, are the secret of four color printing. By combining these screens any color can be made using the primary colors and black.

It is important to understand the difference between four color process separation and mechanical separation. Mechanical separations may also be done for four color printing, but they are done by hand stripping, using dot screens in combination at varying angles and individual camera shots. If the art is simple enough, this method will be cheaper than having a full color separation made. A four color process separation is done with a camera, or in some high-tech operations, with various devices employing lasers and computers. If your art is an illustration, photograph or complex, multi-colored design, this will probably be the least expensive way to go. Most likely, the art will be a combination of illustration and type-after all, there has to be a title for the game. In this case both methods may be used to obtain the results you're after.

Now that some of what the artist is trying to say is understood (most artists are not known for their ability to communicate even to people who know their lingo), discuss the type of art to be used for the wrap.

If the artist wants to do an illustration, a painting, or full color drawing, make sure you're comfortable with his style, ability and can live with the price. Don't be afraid of hurting his feelings on either account. If he goes through with it and winds up with something awful, you'll still be obligated to pay for the thing. So make sure he or she has the ability to create the kind of results you want. Do this by looking through the artist portfolios. All artists have these to show prospective clients their past work and to keep their egos boosted.

If you can't settle on an illustration, price, or if you just don't think the artist can deliver the quality you want, its time to head back to the library, this time to look for existing photographs or paintings.

Nearly every library has a collection of magazines. Some are for, and deal with, photographers. Pore through them, looking for a photo which seems ideal, or close to ideal, for the cover. Finding one will probably save a good bit of money because the photographer of the picture will generally let it be used for a modest sum so long as he receives credit (name and address) in the rules of the game. if nothing looks like it will work after going through all of the magazines, don't give up. Switch to art prints and books of art prints.

Over the last several hundred years literally millions of scenes have been painted and preserved in print. Look long enough and you'll find a famous, or semi-famous, piece of art which will work very nicely It may be a bonanza for a couple of reasons. if it's very old, it's probably in Public Domain (though you'll have' to check this out), Public Domain is a legal term meaning it can be used without paying anyone for the right to do so. This means you will have found an illustration without having to pay an artist eight hundred dollars or more to execute it.

While looking through the magazines and prints, don't be narrow minded, Be open to box wraps the images suggest. Who knows, one of them might offer a better idea than what you had in mind.

Once you have an illustration for the cover, it's back to the artist, who will probably find all manner of things wrong with it since he didn't do it or get paid for it. But don't let that bother you; it comes with the territory.

What's needed now is to select a typestyle for the title and subtitle of the game. Choose something to fit both the illustration and the game theme. The artist should have free rein here. After all, he should be familiar with hundreds of type faces and should be able to select half a dozen or so from which to choose. The only other alternative is to sit down and spend a day or two going through page after page of type books looking at thousands of type styles.

The next step is to select a background color which will border the illustration and wrap around the sides of the box to give color. it should complement the illustration yet be bright and dense enough to give life to the side panels. After picking it, select a color for the type faces which will appear on both top and sides. This color should contrast with the background in both cases. When done, leave the artist alone until he's finished. If he needs you, he'll call.

All of this reminds me of two experiences I had with box wraps. I was working with the artist I mentioned earlier and the first episode was with the fifth or sixth game I'd done. Mike, the artist, always said, "You know enough about printing to be dangerous," and I'm afraid this story proved his point.

The game was called Submarine. I'd found this marvelous photograph of a submarine surfacing at night, illuminated by an exploding freighter. It was perfect except for one thing; it was in black and white. By then I knew enough to know the box wrap needed color and, being of Scottish ancestry, I could not resist attempting a two color, mechanical cover to save money.

I told Mike, as I showed him a rough sketch alongside the photograph, to enlarge the photograph to the proper size, cut a mechanical separation on an overlay for the bright area of explosion and make the type white. The effect would be an all black box with bold white type and a bright yellow area in the center for contrast and color. White does not count as a color if the paper is white and is reversed out of an ink.

Mike told me he didn't think it would work, saying he should airbrush (a painting technique) the yellow area and have it separated. Being cheap, and thinking I knew more than I did, I told him no, I was sure it would be fine.

Needless to say, it wasn't. When the job came off the press, parts of the yellow area had blended with the black ink to create a hideous green tinge to the whole affair. it was horrible. But I'm not made of money and I had to live with it. Fortunately for me, it was a rather limited print run which sold fairly quickly and I sold the game to another company before I had to worry about reprinting.

The next episode had a somewhat more pleasant outcome. I think it was my tenth game which had a science fiction theme. I had seen a color photograph of the Crab Nebula taken by an observatorv It was beautiful, containing subtle shifts of reds, blues, greens, and yellows against a midnight blue, star filled background. I wrote to the observatory asking how much it would cost to obtain a negative of the photo to use on the box top. Two weeks later I received a four by five inch color transparency and a bill for sixteen dollars. The artist dropped the type into the area occupied by the photo and the box wrap was done. It was simple, gorgeous, and very eye catching.

The point of the first story is listen to artists and printers, no matter how much you think you know. Printing is one of those professions which is plagued with details and in all the years I've been associated with it, I've never met anyone who knew everything about every aspect of it.

The point of the second story is sometimes simple is best. Not every box wrap has to be a complicated masterpiece. As long as it fills the main objectives of being attractive, attention getting, and makes a statement about the theme of the game, it could be just a black box. But don't use that, someone has already done it.

When the box top is finished, the next item to be tackled is the gameboard. Most gameboards are large enough physically and simple enough graphically to be set up for mechanical separations. When four color process separations are done, the charge is basically by the square inch, and a twenty by twenty gameboard is an awful lot of square inches.

When planning the art for the gameboard, make sure to adhere to the game theme, keep the colors complementary to each other as well as the box wrap and use the same or compatible type styles. in other words, try to be visually consistent throughout all the art work.

Many first-time game producers are told to keep their games colorful and they try to make each component a different and brighter color than the one before. Pretty soon the whole thing winds up looking like a Mexican circus. Color is important, but pleasing the eye is even more so. Stay consistent and the game will look like a well conceived, quality product. Bounce around with colors, like a first time finger painter, and the finished product is going to tell people it is for juveniles and color blind imbeciles.

A final comment on box and board artwork. Make certain, on both pieces to leave enough tolerance for the box and board maker. Tolerance is the distance from the edges of the finished art to the edge of the actual box top or gameboard. Usually one- eight inch is enough. And for God's sake, make sure the gameboard, when folded, will fit in your box. This is a silly mistake, but I've seen more than one person go crying to their artist when box and boards were delivered and wouldn't fit.

If you're dead set on having an illustration executed by an artist but you aren't confident with the artist who'll do everything else, find another for that one item. It is not uncommon for good graphic artists to be terrible illustrators or vice versa. So don't be embarrassed to tell a graphic artist that an illustrator is doing your box wrap art.

Steve Peek is president of Yaquinto Publications, Dallas, Texas. He has designed, developed or produced over 100 games.

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