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[Hangedman]

Your boxart should be the following.

A group of illustrated versions of the bad guys leaping from the edges of the frame at the back of the convoy in the middle of the frame with the most iconic main characters standing on the back brandishing weapons. Make it look like an ambush, lots of dust and enemies coming out of bushes or trees or something, convoy bouncing down the road at high speed.

There's the reckless right there.

[Dri]

Lot of good advices and ideas here, thanks! 

The game is all but serious, from the "reckless" part to the look, backstory and twisted personality of the characters.
I want to stay true to this as much as I can, so the stylized characters (looking like Playmobiles) doesn't bother me. After all, they already look like this in the game.
And it's not like if they were low poly or anything.

However, I'm not really confident about painting something from the ground, my programmer's art is not that good, and a full scene with a lot of action and an interesting perspective scares me.
Sure, it would have been the best option, but it's not feasible. I will have to improve a lot more before being able to tackle something like that.

So, with these elements in mind, I thought about what aspects of the game I want to focus on:
- Battle
- Journey
- Defense

I think the last cover did a correct job for the "Battle" part by showing the antagonism between the two sides.

For the journey and defense thing, I came with this:



What do you think? Should I continue on this path?

[aeiowu]

hey man, it's good to hear you're taking the box art seriously. it's a big deal IMO and it looks like you're willing to take the time to get it right. These suggestions may come off as harsh, but I'm just trying to give you an idea of an alternative process that you might find helpful.

I'd begin by starting over and doing upwards of 50 thumbnails of the box. There's not much going on in terms of basic composition that's interesting or eye-catching and I think you could figure something out pretty quickly by doing a bunch of iterations through thumbnails. Think about perspective, foreshortened characters and generally dynamic poses. Symmetry isn't the mainstay here and don't be afraid to play with other compositions.

If you want to stick with the elements you have right now, either the illustration (3d models) saturation or the type saturation needs to be one or the other. The type is really colorful vs. the background and not in a good way. Also, the "D2P Games" text should either be completely scrapped or sized down to like 20% of what it is. Lose the gradient and outline too.

Take a look at movie posters and how they deal with attribution and etc. While there's a lot to show usually on a movie poster, I'd think of your studio and whoever else you want to give a shout to on the front of your game as a very tiny passing element. Almost like a little pebble texture at the _bottom_ of the box. Right now it's at the top right of the box. If you were to read the box in the western tradition (top->down, left->right) it'd be the first thing you'd read. In a box, you probably want the first thing you read to be the awesomeness of the game itself (picture) and then the title. This is why newspapers usually title front page headlines underneath the picture (assuming there is one) then the article comes third. Graphic design in general is mainly about controlling how your design is viewed. What's the first thing people see, and what are they thinking as a result of seeing it? Then on down the visual hierarchy.

I think you're improving the box as you continue with this process. The latest one you've posted definitely has the most potential of the lot, however I think you'd do yourself a service by revisiting things a bit and thinking generally about composition and concept. If you are confident in those two things, the rest is just tweaking more minor decisions like color saturation, typefaces and etc.

Anyway, cheers and I hope this didn't come off as too terse. 

[walrus]

Layout-wise, I liked your first sketch more than the current layout: Showing three characters facing out shows a squad pretty well, imho! And the more characters and elements you throw in, the less focus any of them gets. Additionally, now the wagon is so small that its really de-emphasized. The first layout had a nice large covered wagon, which shows off well. Don't throw everything into the cover: Pick out a few main things and stay focused.

I agree with the earlier post about not using game art on the cover. This is your opportunity to make your characters and setting look as cool as possible. Art that looks great at 32x32 pixels [or insert your resolution here] doesn't necessarily look all so impressive at full-screen. You could work on your illustration or 3D modeling skills to make the characters really shine. I wouldn't suggest doing the full illo as pixel art, but that's just me. Either way, the most important thing to keep in mind is that the art should be vibrant and attractive. Stop trying to fade it all out so that there's no contrast. Don't hide your characters behind fog, just keep working on them 'til they're so awesome that you don't even want to hide them behind fog! Good luck! 

[Dri]

Unfortunately I don't have enough time and resources to do better for now, so I've just done little fixes to the layout.

I have to call it done, now:



I will keep in mind everything you said for the covers of my upcoming games

Thanks again everyone!

[rogerlevy]

you have a lot of different character types; a good way to attract interest would be to have all of them on the box, but also it will help to have a very engaging title treatment.  it's really common for the title to just be in a stock font, with a glow or drop shadow, and a bright color with a white trim.  that is functional and frankly, meh.  it could instead be constructed out of the resources and weapons used in the game.  that could be eye-catchy as well as informative.

edit: wow. sorry for not reading the last post. well good luck with your next cover.

[Nate Kling]

Hey the new version looks alot better!  Its not perfect but you definitely made it better.  The character's anatomy at the bottom look more like stick figures and less like your models but thats alright.  Good luck on the game.