sure. but it does at least have some specific details in there, the white house and the sword glowing blue

story behind it is that Zork's original publisher ("Personal Software" as mentioned on the box) didn't really give a shit about it 'cause they were gearing up to drop all games and focus on serious application software exclusively... which they did, they dropped the hammer in 1981 just before Zork II was ready to be published, forcing Infocom to scramble and start self-publishing their games... with full control of their own brand, they then came up with the "chunky white brick words" motif for future zorks

there's a good blog about this bit of Infocom's history here: http://www.filfre.net/2012/05/infocom-going-it-alone/

also Box Art Megaman made a triumphant return in Street Fighter X Tekken last year

for some reason I always pictured myself as some tresspassing scooby doo-esque meddling teenager schmuck when playing zork, not some winged helmed, scale-mailed mustache waxer with bodacious man-thighs
 
I wish I had a better imagination at the time
 
also I <3 bad boxart megaman in all contexts

game cover art was notoriously unrelated to the actual games in those days, though. look at megaman box art for example (apart from being terrible:

Zork does feel like a particularly interesting one to me though... with Megaman even if you haven't played it you can tell immediately from a few reference screenshots just how unrepresentative it is...

....but Zork is a text adventure that goes out of its way to not describe the protagonist, leaving appearance and motivations and history and so on up to the player's imagination/projection. so i don't think there's any paragraph of Zork's gametext that actually contradicts the idea that you're this mustachioed beefcake roughing up the locals.... i mean the whole objective of the thing is to ruthlessly strip-mine the area of gaudy valuables, scoring armfuls of loot and dealing with obstacles & rivals by whatever means necessary (e.g. you do need to use a blue-glowing sword to kill a fantasy-creature to progress, pretty early on) and yet it's still such a jarring depiction



anyway here's another good bit of early box art, for the first King's Quest:

 

​ wowww!! thanks jmickle, you're the best! these are fascinating

also there is even more great stuff in the "concept art" tag from that link! I love this tile sheet for the original Zelda:

from mixnmojo.com's collection, an unused background for Monkey Island 2 (click for full size):
what once lay behind Phatt Island waterfall...
 
 

Nintendo Power celebrates Maniac Mansion coming to the NES with one of its famed model covers:
 

some pacman in print...



 
 
 

Doom II fanart by S. Steininger (circa 1994-96)
^{thanks to vintagecomputing.com}
 
Zombies Ate My Neighbors! fanart by "Bones" (2006)

selection of ads for old commercial game-creator engines (thanks to: cpcrulez.fr)

selection of ads for old commercial game-creator engines (thanks to: cpcrulez.fr)
 











 

 

 
i remember all of these and actually used GRAC. that box brings back a lot of memories.

 

I don't exactly post on the forums often these days (or ever), but I had to come out of hibernation to mention that this is the best of all threads.

I don't exactly post on the forums often these days (or ever), but I had to come out of hibernation to mention that this is the best of all threads.

thanks buddy!! i appreciate it 

US TV ads for the original Game Genie device
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xi4m2qnZaY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qi7vYiYUrjE