(All box art for this post was sourced from MobyGames.)
Before we reached Box Art Singularity in the 2000s, where every game box had to have the official logotype, the character, and some Iconic Pose or Action going on, and well before boxes could reasonably get away with using in-game assets on the cover (the NES "black box" set notwithstanding), box arts for computer and video games could get a lot more inventive and imaginative. From the almost Norman Rockwell-esque depictions of Atari's 2600 library, to the "did they even play the game" designs found elsewhere, you were sure to pick up on some company or artist's signature style. And then there was Accolade, who in keeping with setting themselves apart from the pack (being comprised of former employees of Atari and Activision), took a very, very different approach to their boxes. I'd call it "vibes-based" designs. They probably had a different term for it.
Accolade boxes shied away from dramatic action-shot paintings or licensed photography. Most of their game boxes barely even have what passes for a logo; the game's title is often written in a plain font, the same as the name of the company. It's rare that there's even a human, or any character that appears in the game, visible on the box. With the above box for Hardball for the C64, the baseball action (depicted in a mere 2" square screenshot) is almost secondary to all the grass surrounding it. This, I believe, is where they wanted to focus. Any other game-maker can give you Baseball. But only Hardball gives you the very grass beneath your feet. The smell of the freshly mowed outfield. It's like you're there.
Ace of Aces, being a flight simulation, almost can't take the same approach, and yet, they take it all the same. The plane should be the focus, and would be, on any other game. Titles from other publishers focus on the action. Wings of Fury has the plane coming right at you, guns blazing. Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Trainer shows you a state-of-the-art fighter jet screaming down the runway, silhouetted by the flames coming out of the exhaust. Ace of Aces shows us, top-down, the RAF Mosquito, with only a dense layer of clouds below. The cover is not interested in showing us a dogfight in progress, or any imminent danger whatsoever. The cover wants to sell us on the vibes of being in flight. And heck, clouds are even quite appropriate to the game proper; this is one of the earliest flight-sims I've played that shows you flying over billowing clouds, rather than the flat-colored plains of other games.
For The Duel: Test Drive II, Accolade blatantly ignores another racing game cliche. Racing games are - for a reason - quite proud of the cars. They want you, the player, to be interested in the game based on the awesome car that you'll be driving. OutRun - even in the US Sega Master System's notoriously banal box art standard - wants you to appreciate the red roadster, the central character of the piece. The Duel's principal character, the white roadster, is losing the race. The red rocket that's clearly overtaking it at a significantly higher speed is blurry, out of focus. Accolade asks you, wouldn't you like to be in the red car?
4th and Inches, a simulation of American football, could almost get away with the same box as Hardball, since it's highly likely that a given player is going to have their face very close to the gridiron at any given moment. But here, the arguable focus of the piece (the border) is the textured leather of the ball. We don't see yardage lines or grass. The players are not obviously here to represent a franchised team, since the game proper doesn't have any NFLPA licensing, but they are probably wearing the uniform of the Los Angeles Rams. But their function here is not to represent the team you're playing. The macho posing and gesturing here is more akin to them saying, "Hey, buddy, bet you can't take us on. Like to see ya try."
Card Sharks here tries to highlight a fact of real-world card table games: they're often messy. Not everybody can flick cards across a poker table the way Vegas pro dealers do. Discard piles are rarely orderly when things get heated. By the end of a round of hearts (with Mikhail Gorbachev, Margaret Thatcher, and Ronald Reagan, for some damn reason), there's just gonna be cards everywhere. It's messy. It's sloppy. It's unprofessional. It's just like game night in the den.
Golf is so hard. Mini-golf, paradoxically, is even harder. So of course the focus of this box for Mini-Putt is not on the course, the putter, or the windmills - but on the frustrated player, working a twist into his putter. Maybe this is the wrong message to be giving, for a game that you presumably want players to buy.
Mystery. Intrigue. Murder. We can't even tell what kind of room the grisly deed has been done in; the focus is entirely on the dribble of blood. An incidental after-effect of what happened. The very seeds of piecing together your investigation. But first: figure out who the victim is, because they're not visible here, either!
And this one's my personal favorite of the ones in this set. The race, the car, the track - they're whooshing by in the reflection of this woman's mirror shades. The title frames the sunglasses, focusing our attention there, but barely 15% of this box art is dedicated to the race at all. The rest of it is on this particular spectator. We can't tell what she's thinking. But we can tell what she's looking at: that car, that driver, on that track.
By the early 1990s, Accolade had largely stopped designing boxes this way. They would at least keep titling them the same way (with standard font faces for both the game title and their own company name), but had generally pivoted towards licensed artwork and photographs. I'm unsure where the turning point was. I can say one thing for sure though: these still stand out, almost 40 years later.
that Killed Until Dead one is still amongst my faves; it's so simplistic yet it works so well, it's incredible. It's especially better compared to the European version's cover, where there's a lot more seen but it's nowhere near as effective and striking as just that drop of blood.
Also, your comments on the Test Drive 2 cover are amusing cuz the original game's cover is pretty much just "check out all these cool cars you'll get to drive", but the ignition key and keychain in the middle adds to the cover too, as a sorta "with this one key you'll get to drive all these", it's cool stuff.
And that 4th & Inches one reminds me of one of my other faves, the one for Mean 18, where it's literally just a closeup of a golf ball. Simple, effective, catches your eye, the works.
Oooohhh yeah. If I were to have a copy of Mean 18 for Golfshrine, it's gotta be that version.
