bennywhitebread Posted August 29, 2022 Share Posted August 29, 2022 (edited) EDIT: I've change the title to "Lucasarts games" instead of MI1 and MI2 because I had more content to make it HD with Zak " Hi all ! My name is Benjamin, from Belgium (french part) and I have recently made an HD version of MI1 manual and I'm working on the MI2 version at the moment. See the work here: https://forums.mixnmojo.com/topic/200432-recreating-the-original-manual-of-the-secret-of-monkey-island/ Following this, another idea emerged from this work...recreating from scratch a brand new version of MI1 (and MI2?) PC big boxes, as it was sold : with floppy disks, manual, wheel, etc Some kind of work done in this post but with all items of the original box https://forums.mixnmojo.com/topic/200485-custom-lucasarts-boxes/page/2/ This idea has been in my head for months now...since January...really. So I have started some Proof Of Concept and did some researches/ Project code name: Big Box love ! I will skip the origins of PC big boxes and all that kind of stuffs and get right into the project. Why recreating PC big boxes with the whole package ? Because I'd like to have it for my personal collection in good conditions and when I look few months ago, prices were totally crazy ! 999$ for an old version of MI1 ?? WTF ?! I already owned some big boxes from my childhood and recently bought some from eBay but prices are really crazy. So why not trying to recreate some with all the information that exist on the Internet ? (I will talk about copyrights later) Also I'm 42 and I grew up with those games, it reminds me so much good times and as part of my professional life, I need to have some fun aside projects to do ! That's a good one ! You can check my medium page (sorry in french...) to see that I'm sharing my work (retrogaming, printing, electric car, etc) when I can https://bennywhitebread.medium.com/ Goals ? My first goal would be to make 50-100-300 copies (depends on the number of floppy I would get) with everything that was on the original boxes (floppies, manual, etc) and sell it to other fans for an affordable price (around 50$?). The second goal is NOT to make money about it and reinvest the generated money in gaming associations, people who spent time on it, I don't know. This section has to be discussed. I already have a lot of work on my professional side (I'm a cybersecurity freelance) and honestly, if it was for the money then...I would prefer working for clients !😄 It's really about passion and love about Point and Click games. Where I am now: The design of the box First, my idea was to make MI1 version. So I tried with what exists on the internet: big box fan art (from Big Box Collection for example, manuals (in poor quality), pictures, stickers, logos, etc ) All the text and images are editable in Photoshop or Illustrator. My goals were to make possible to translate it into a spanish or french original version ! Please note that I found this forum lately, after the first version of it, and I would LOVED to found this forum BEFORE going in :- ) It would have save my time and money !!! So I have create a "high-res" version from a big box webp file of a macintosh version found on the internet, cleaned it and recreate the text of front and back side. Nothing comes, at this stage, from the HUGE work Laserschwert has done ! Unfortunately 😄 The hard part was to extend the green background because it's not "usually" pattern. It comes from a painter who specialized in marble called "Peggy Skycraft" (watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfdCWzd5MiM). Where am I now: the package Box: I have the printer partner in Spain and prices. The size of the box is 233mm x 183mm x 41mm. taken from my original Day of the tentacle PC version ! For the design, since I found this forum, I really upraise the requirements about the final quality and would like to associate the work done by Laserschwert to this project. I'll have to ask him🙂 Manual: A local printing company can make the manual from my HD version so no worry about this ! I already have the prices. Floppy disks: It's the hardest point. It's hard to find and the new ones are too expensive for the project. So I've collected hundreds of floppy disks (with lot of dusk!) from friends or administrations and I have to filter and remove old stickers. I don't know how many I have but let's say nearly 1000 I guess. So the number of copies would be definitely limited unless I find other floppy disks. Old Adobe version Corel Draw, windows 3.11, NT, I have a lot of old stuffs. I even have 5"1/4 floppy disks so I can create only few 5" 1/4 version ! Note: I WON'T put the original files of the game on the disks. It's not the goal. I even bought a USB floppy disk ready to erase every disk I will use (for GDPR reasons). Wheel: I have to recreate it and see what are the price on my local printing company. But it's Ok Floppy disk sticker: I have recreated it and it's perfect size🙂 And now ? I could have go further and go the the end of the project by myself, setting up an e-commerce webshop and start selling it or sell it on ebay BUT since I found this forum and started reading the posts, I found people like me: passionate with good feedbacks and other points of view. So I'd like to have your feedback about this project and answer those questions Am I mad or do you think I can find 50-100 people like me ready to buy this stuff for an affordable price ? (+- 50$) Would someone want to join the project and bring it a step further ? With full transparency regarding the community of course. The money generated (minus the costs) could be reinvest or given to others... The only blocking thing would be the copyright question. I guess I'm violating the copyrights of the original work. I tought we can add a special mention on the bottom side saying it's not a real copy and it's from the "Big Box Love" project. I don't know. I would really love to make it happen. At this time I can make it happen for my personal use. The box will cost me around 120 euros (with the original way of work with 2 sides for the box) and that's it...Too selfish for me. I already spent around 400 euros for a designer (I'm limited as Im' more a developer) and hours of researches and emails in it and I'd like to make something of it🙂. So it hadn't be "for nothing". Hope you will enjoy my post, understand it and I would like to hear from you guys. Good night ! Edited October 11, 2022 by bennywhitebread Typo update 4 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scummbuddy Posted August 30, 2022 Share Posted August 30, 2022 Wow, you have already done some impressive work and research. I could see you getting a small number of people interested in some of the items by themselves but I cannot expect the demand to be too high here for the whole package/box and contents. There are boxes for Monkey Island 1 and 2 rather readily available on marketplaces like eBay at decent prices the last time I looked so I cannot think the cost for your hard work may make sense for you, besides your desire to recreate something beautiful, and just that good feeling finishing this recreation. A recreated box for Zak may get some extra attention here, as that is something selling for over $300 at times, which is ridiculous. I have also wanted to make a few custom boxes for LucasArts titles, like a slipcase to go overtop the Collectors edition of Tales of MI (like old Sierra titles) and a separate box for just the Monkey Island Madness CD collection, but I haven't made the time to work on those much. The work you have already done is very impressive and I can see the hard work that has been done. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bennywhitebread Posted August 31, 2022 Author Share Posted August 31, 2022 13 hours ago, Scummbuddy said: Wow, you have already done some impressive work and research. I could see you getting a small number of people interested in some of the items by themselves but I cannot expect the demand to be too high here for the whole package/box and contents. There are boxes for Monkey Island 1 and 2 rather readily available on marketplaces like eBay at decent prices the last time I looked so I cannot think the cost for your hard work may make sense for you, besides your desire to recreate something beautiful, and just that good feeling finishing this recreation. A recreated box for Zak may get some extra attention here, as that is something selling for over $300 at times, which is ridiculous. I have also wanted to make a few custom boxes for LucasArts titles, like a slipcase to go overtop the Collectors edition of Tales of MI (like old Sierra titles) and a separate box for just the Monkey Island Madness CD collection, but I haven't made the time to work on those much. The work you have already done is very impressive and I can see the hard work that has been done. Thank you for your answer ! For the prices on eBay about Secret of Monkey Island, I just had a look and the prices are like 280 euros, 350 euros, 535 euros for the big box of MK1 and even 116 euros just for the 3" 1/2 floppy 0_o I even spotted an offer of 40 euros for the floppy number 4 of the 5" 1/4 version! Totally crazy. That's why I'm aiming to have a decent price around 50 euros just to be able to reimburse the costs of printing and design. Thank for the suggestion, the box of Zak might be a good idea too ! I will share my achievements. Working on the wheel and I will print the stickers soon ! Stay tuned ! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThunderPeel2001 Posted August 31, 2022 Share Posted August 31, 2022 I'm always interested in these recreation projects. I don't know how professional you want it to look, but from an ex-graphic designer I'd just say if you want absolute 100% accuracy you should try using InDesign instead of Photoshop. It's what the pros would use in a situation like this, and it will result in higher quality text fidelity on print (and make it easy to control how you build your blacks). However, that's only if you want insane level attention to detail. Most people wouldn't notice the difference 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bennywhitebread Posted September 1, 2022 Author Share Posted September 1, 2022 17 hours ago, ThunderPeel2001 said: I'm always interested in these recreation projects. I don't know how professional you want it to look, but from an ex-graphic designer I'd just say if you want absolute 100% accuracy you should try using InDesign instead of Photoshop. It's what the pros would use in a situation like this, and it will result in higher quality text fidelity on print (and make it easy to control how you build your blacks). However, that's only if you want insane level attention to detail. Most people wouldn't notice the difference Hi Thunder ! Thank for your feedback. I have nearly finished the wheel and I 'm using Illustrator. I like Illustrator and I think it fits better with printing solution. I agree with you, it shouldn't be pixel perfect and won't be. I don't have the skills of Laserschwert but I'm pretty happy with what I have done ! Will share of course ! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThunderPeel2001 Posted September 1, 2022 Share Posted September 1, 2022 6 hours ago, bennywhitebread said: Hi Thunder ! Thank for your feedback. I have nearly finished the wheel and I 'm using Illustrator. I like Illustrator and I think it fits better with printing solution. I agree with you, it shouldn't be pixel perfect and won't be. I don't have the skills of Laserschwert but I'm pretty happy with what I have done ! Will share of course ! Excellent. Congrats and good luck with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bennywhitebread Posted September 4, 2022 Author Share Posted September 4, 2022 (edited) Quick update: part 1 of the wheel is done... Going for part 2 now ! If some members have the real dimensions of the 2 wheels (I have MK2 AMIGA version with the wheel but not MK1), I'll be happy to have the real size of it ! Just the diameter of the 2 wheels in millimeters. Thank you Edited September 4, 2022 by bennywhitebread Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laserschwert Posted September 4, 2022 Share Posted September 4, 2022 All the great work done here aside, I'm just going to be the dick who asks: Why do you shorten Monkey Island to MK, instead of MI? It's neither important, nor a big deal, and yet, I can't get over it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scummbuddy Posted September 4, 2022 Share Posted September 4, 2022 Big fan of Monkey Kombat. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bennywhitebread Posted September 5, 2022 Author Share Posted September 5, 2022 (edited) 9 hours ago, Scummbuddy said: Big fan of Monkey Kombat. Haha that's what I planned to answer ! sorry @Laserschwert didn't even noticed Title and text modified ! Edited September 5, 2022 by bennywhitebread MI1, MI2 and not MK1 and MK2 ! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laserschwert Posted September 5, 2022 Share Posted September 5, 2022 Ah, that eases my OCDed mind 😄 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bennywhitebread Posted September 16, 2022 Author Share Posted September 16, 2022 On 8/30/2022 at 6:54 PM, Scummbuddy said: Wow, you have already done some impressive work and research. I could see you getting a small number of people interested in some of the items by themselves but I cannot expect the demand to be too high here for the whole package/box and contents. There are boxes for Monkey Island 1 and 2 rather readily available on marketplaces like eBay at decent prices the last time I looked so I cannot think the cost for your hard work may make sense for you, besides your desire to recreate something beautiful, and just that good feeling finishing this recreation. A recreated box for Zak may get some extra attention here, as that is something selling for over $300 at times, which is ridiculous. I have also wanted to make a few custom boxes for LucasArts titles, like a slipcase to go overtop the Collectors edition of Tales of MI (like old Sierra titles) and a separate box for just the Monkey Island Madness CD collection, but I haven't made the time to work on those much. The work you have already done is very impressive and I can see the hard work that has been done. Just a small update saying I have worked also on a HD version of Zak McKraken as suggested Pretty happy with the floppy upgrade 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QueZTone Posted September 26, 2022 Share Posted September 26, 2022 When you mention creating a quantity of 50 or 100 boxes, I cant help but feel they'll eventually end up on ebay as hard to identify bootlegs. My advice, continue your product for yourself and people who may approach you for a copy of their own. But dont start selling this from a webshop or anything like that. It will ruin more than it will bring good. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bennywhitebread Posted September 27, 2022 Author Share Posted September 27, 2022 (edited) 19 hours ago, QueZTone said: When you mention creating a quantity of 50 or 100 boxes, I cant help but feel they'll eventually end up on ebay as hard to identify bootlegs. My advice, continue your product for yourself and people who may approach you for a copy of their own. But dont start selling this from a webshop or anything like that. It will ruin more than it will bring good. Yes I don't want people to buy it and sell it for ebay for 200$ but at the other hand, if I want to make it available at an affordable price, I need at least to have 50 copies to have prices for the boxes, stickers, manuals, etc Copy by copy it won't be affordable. That's why I thought I would put a sentence on the back of the artbox saying "this is a copy made with love by xxxx". But definitely will think about this. Edited September 27, 2022 by bennywhitebread Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bennywhitebread Posted September 27, 2022 Author Share Posted September 27, 2022 Sharing some update...wheel finished ! It was an hardwork (for me) because I need to denoise every sketch, clean it bring to its right positing... But the wheel is working ! I will make a Github with all the final files I will create and share it. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bennywhitebread Posted October 11, 2022 Author Share Posted October 11, 2022 (edited) Another update from parallels rebuild: Zak mcKracken. Rebuild everything in vectors using illustrator: nose logo, logo with gradient, barcode, texts, etc using front image and background from @Laserschwert Front of the box => OK 3" 1/2 floppy => OK Next, Back of the box Stay tuned ! Edited October 11, 2022 by bennywhitebread 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laserschwert Posted October 11, 2022 Share Posted October 11, 2022 That's the Maniac Mansion pattern though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bennywhitebread Posted October 11, 2022 Author Share Posted October 11, 2022 1 hour ago, Laserschwert said: That's the Maniac Mansion pattern though. Yes, it was for testing, I can replace it easily but I don't have the skill to reproduce it myself honestly And I don't think you have tried to recreate the one from Zak McKraken right ? If so i'm interested This one and MI1 pattern are pretty tricky I guess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laserschwert Posted October 11, 2022 Share Posted October 11, 2022 (edited) 26 minutes ago, bennywhitebread said: And I don't think you have tried to recreate the one from Zak McKraken right ? If so i'm interested I have: These are all seamless as well, so if you need to scale them down, they can be repeated in each direction. They are not perfect, but I haven't had time to refine them further. Edited October 11, 2022 by Laserschwert 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bennywhitebread Posted October 11, 2022 Author Share Posted October 11, 2022 (edited) Haha my bad ! What an idiot ! I already had it since the beginning ! 🙄 Just picked up the wrong one I guess ! Just fixed it, way better ! I owe you a beer on that (and a belgian monk beer for sure) 😛 Anyway, again, amazing work from you @Laserschwert, thank you Edited October 11, 2022 by bennywhitebread Spelling 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bennywhitebread Posted November 2, 2022 Author Share Posted November 2, 2022 Hi all, Quick update, I had few hours to work on within the last weeks on back part of the box. I'm pretty happy of what I have done regarding my skills. Again, everything except the paper background is made using vectors in Illustrator. Spent a lot of time to try to find the right fonts in this part.... really time consuming even with platform like Whatfontis, etc If someone has an idea of what are the real fonts I'm missing, I will really appreciate !!! To fix: 1°/ Find the right fonts for the back part. Some I'm pretty sure of the names but some I couldn't find the right one Title "National Inquisitor" => Engravers Old English (100% sure) Sub-title "March 29" & price (12$50) => Minion Variable Concept - Italic - (feel the same but it's not I think) Title "Worldwide..." => Enge Etienne (100% sure) Title "Could they be space cowboys" => Aver (feel the same but it's not I think) sub-title "Brain-Boggling...." => Acumin Variable Concept (feel the same but it's not I think) Sub-titles "A typical day...", "another comedy...", "Porky..." => CandidaEF RegulardCond (pretty sure at 99%) Body text => Classic Times new roman (sure at 60%) 2°/ Put the right in-game images for the 3 black boxes. I was thinking putting some existing screenshots of the FM-Towns version which looks better but it won't match the subtitles then ! If not I will have to play and make screenshots Any feedbacks are welcome ! 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bennywhitebread Posted November 21, 2022 Author Share Posted November 21, 2022 (edited) Hi all, Juste update the back with some in-game images I've taken. I think it's the final version ! Next step: printing the box ! Edited November 21, 2022 by bennywhitebread 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bennywhitebread Posted November 21, 2022 Author Share Posted November 21, 2022 Another try with maniac mansion Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenni Posted November 22, 2022 Share Posted November 22, 2022 I'd definitely be willing to buy some of these for the games I own without big boxes. Do you know a good printing company that can manufacture these big boxes? I'd love to get some made for older consoles I own like the CoCo. There are so few good boxes left in the wild since the originals were extremely flimsy and poorly made. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bennywhitebread Posted November 28, 2022 Author Share Posted November 28, 2022 (edited) On 11/22/2022 at 6:59 PM, Jenni said: I'd definitely be willing to buy some of these for the games I own without big boxes. Do you know a good printing company that can manufacture these big boxes? I'd love to get some made for older consoles I own like the CoCo. There are so few good boxes left in the wild since the originals were extremely flimsy and poorly made. Well, I guess pack.ly would fit your needs. I'm working right now with a spanish company but you have to order 100 boxes min to have a decent price. Edited November 28, 2022 by bennywhitebread 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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