joe randel's art dump

What defines art?  Are games art?  Maybe, games defiantly have art in them.  What about the packaging?  Lots of people, including myself, hold on to game boxes for the art.  What about the art on the cartridges?  Can that be art?  If you think “no, your out of your tree” then you might want to take a look over here.

It’s a Famicom case exhibit where artists where asked to make and submit cart art for their fictitious game.  How much fun is that!  I mean seriously, this is the kind of thing that really appeals to me being an artist and a huge game freak.  The area on the front of the cart is pretty small so you really have to think about what you want to show to make your game interesting.  There are some fantastic submissions there too.  Looking at all these takes me back to the early days of games where things where more quaint in development.  I even look at these carts and seriously want to play them.  They look that great and believable.

I also like the look of the Famicom carts better then the NES carts that we got over here.  Big grey and ugly.  Boo!  The Famicom ones look some much cuter and fun.  And the colours!  Ahhhh…

This is the kind of thing that really makes me smile.  Truly.  I love art.  I love games.  I would totally put one of these in a shadow box and hang it on my wall.  Simply wonderful ^_^