20:32 "I'm not going to have it on my shelf like this, nobody is doing that" *Looks nervously at my shelf with all my Oink games displayed exactly like that*
I keep all my games front side up. That's usually the only way to guarantee everything stays in its place. I really don't care how they look on the shelf
You've done the outside of the box, how about the inside. A tier list of the default insert that comes with the game. some inserts are great, while others can need to be replaced immediately.
Mysterium Park has one of the best inserts of any game, especially given how small it is. There's no wasted space, everything fits perfectly. It's excellent.
I don't have many board games yet, growing the collection of course, but seven wonders duel comes to mind! The cards can all be put away in their own separate stacks, The wonders on top of the score pad with the board fitting nicely into all the plastic and still having a dedicated piece for the military token... Everything just fits so perfectly inside
The Catan expansions coming with basically the same insert as the base game with absolutely no consideration of what components they actually come with is insane to me.
I'm on team Sagrada as well. Instead of doing the plain stone-grey border around the edges, they should have made the grey parts more in line with the architecture with inspiration from the spires, archways, etc. The colors look absolutely stunning though.
Wow. One of my pet peeves is actually when they DON’T put the little player count, play time, suggested age indicators on ALL sides of the box. No matter how I orient my games on the shelf, I like to be able to quickly scan my shelf and look for games that fit my current needs (players, time, complexity). It really annoys me when they omit these from the side of the box I actually have facing out from the shelf! To each their own, I guess. Another thing that annoys me is when they don’t have sides with the art/text to support both vertical OR horizontal display.
I don't necessarily want that info on EVERY side of the box, but I agree it has utility and I want the option of displaying it for ease of selecting a game for a given player count (typically 5+ or requires more than 2) and approximate play time. I don't care about recommended player age - I know which of my games are complex or simple. For me, the sweet spot is to put it on 1 long side and 1 short side, where none of the 4 sides have a bunch of "garbage" on them. That way you can display your box horizontally or vertically and with or without this additional info.
@@boardgameaddiction7081I respect that. If you're a parent or commonly playing with different aged kids, then it can be helpful to survey things by recommended age, but of course if you're an adult who only plays with other adults then this info is useless. But, to your bigger point, I fail to see how this is so hard to make everyone happy. There are, after all, four separate sides to the box... Keep the UPC on the back/bottom, then you get two sides for horizontal, two for vertical, and one of each could easily include/omit the metadata symbols. I definitely don't need logos for publisher, but if they want to include those along with the symbols, fine. Just don't put awards or other stuff. And don't just do one or the other... I can't be the only one who's annoyed by text going in different directions on a shelf
The orientation of the text on the side of the box (top-to-bottom vs bottom-to-top) is a holdover from books. In Germany, Italy and France it is/was usually the case that the title was printed in a a way that you could read it when you tilt your head to the left. In english speaking countries it is/was the other way round. I suspect if you take a look at the publishers/designers it would mostly match. The wikipedia article on bookbinding has some info on it.
I often find myself when looking at my collection, fantasizing of having the woodworking and leatherworking skills to make custom boxes for my games that make them look like a collection of classic novels on my shelves.
Just to give some insight into use of typefaces in design; many of the ones you find in a standard word processing software are absolutely fine to use in professional design. That is what they are for. Unless they are trained typographers, illustrators and graphic designers should avoid messing around with making or altering existing typefaces. It's delicate work that requires years of experience, and should be left to specialists. Instead they usually choose a typeface, play around with the font types and integrate them into their design. This is standard practice for even award winning graphic designers, and is naturally perfectly fine for tabletop game box art.
In German-speaking countries the Ravensburger triangle is kinda iconic and even invokes a bit nostalgia for old jigsaw puzzles in me. Also it manages something that the Kosmos logo does not do: It tucks itself away nearly in a corner. However I do agree with you - for El Dorado, it's just too much on the sides of the box, especially when it's not even a triangle.
The biggest sin is the number of boxes you have where the lid isn't correctly orientated. It drives me mad when someone puts the lid on a game incorrectly! Otherwise, excellent video as usual :)
I love how truly passionate Jon gets about many of these. There are so many great moments in this video. Also love that slight shade towards the Sagrada cathedral 😃 Thank you for an awesome and funny video!
@@montagen8084 because Jon obviously wrote that joke and put it into the video on purpose. I simply appreciate him doing it for the joke itself. Personally, I don't have a beef with that cathedral 😁
The front of the Skull box compels me to play it, but every other side of the box compels me to hide it. I'm glad someone else finally stated that publicly!
Apparently, I have a superior copy of Love Letter because mine has the name on the bag AND puts the tokens in a little ziplock baggy so they don't fall out.
I LOVE a good box. It’s my own little obsession. Haven’t watched the vid yet but my favorite box is unearthed - which holds (in the original box) the base game + the expansion SLEEVED with zero issues. Splendor could never. Edit: I’m now realizing you are rating the outside of the box… which is not what I was expecting. I’m calling for another tier list that evaluates the space usage and organization of board game boxes. I want a utilitarian box tier list!
That was not the first US release of Settlers of Catan. The first and second release was a dark brown box and the tiles used photos instead of artwork. 2nd edition was the same cover, but had 4 different colored player pieces so you could combine two sets and play with up to 8.
SO TRUE about the company logos on the box. Massage to board game publishers: putting your company logo on the box is nearly always irrelevant and always a negative, so keep it to a corner on the back of the box. I promise, the people who care about who published the game already know who published it before they bought the game, so you don’t need to tell them. The people who don’t know who the publisher of the game is will never care about who published the game because they’re not those people, so there’s also no reason to slap your logo all over the box.
I can't tell if it is a bit or not that he's talking about the way the boxes look, drawing a ton of attention to each side, but has the lids on upside down for so many of them.
El Dorado being in both French & English may be because it was printed to be sold in Canada! In most provinces it is legally required to have everything shown in both official languages
Hey John! I have a video idea that I don't believe I've seen anyone do. I'm a board game loving dad and I love introducing my young kids to new games. When I watched your review of Trekking through history it made me think how great it would be to teach kids about history. Similarly, I've thought Similo History would do a good job of exposing kids to important historical figures. Ticket to Ride Europe to teach my kids about European cities. Pandemic has major cities. I've played The Mind with my 5 and 6 year old with some number tools and its helped them with their 1-100 numbers. I think you can see where I'm going with this. Could you do a video recommending board games that could help kids (or adults!) with every school subject? Call it Best Board Games for kids that'll actually teach them something!
The different shapes are crazy. But I found use for them: - Base game boards into oceania box, as well as all automa stuff and base game dice - Just 1 Box with all cards in base game box, others stacked into each other in Europe Box This way, oceania and europe fit together in the base game box 😁 Asia can be played separately so stored separately 🙂 But sold mine and got the digital Version 😅
I was about to complain that he should have left the tokens in their plastic bag if he didn't want them falling out. I guess maybe the new version they aren't bagged.
You should do a video highlighting common misunderstandings of rules that people make when they first play a game. Had a moment this weekend where I misunderstood the voting system in Zoo Vadis and played that you only needed a majority of the animals in the exhibit, not a majority of the total spaces in the exhibit. Had huge implications and made the game feel much less fun until we clued in and corrected. Might be cool for you to go through your favourite 20-something games and call out ways you may have misplayed them early on, or struggles friends have expressed to you about learning them.
Ticket to Ride is IMO best box ever. It just made me want to play the game and still makes, even if I don't think the game is the best one out there (not saying it's bad either).
Love how grumpy he's getting with age. Embrace it. Also... Luxor. Literally one of my favourite covers (minus the stupid SDJ 2018 logo) and you put it on the bottom rung!
I'll say for foundations of rome, I had the expansion arrive today, and it came with a new tray designed to fit all the expansion stuff in the same general tray, so it fits exactly the same.
Every board game company needs to watch your video so that they can do a decent job of their box designs when it comes to the practical things that we want to see. Like no bar codes on the sides, don't put awards on the front of the box, don't plaster logos on every side, put irrelevant ugly numbers on the back, make the box size fit the game properly, no lid lift, give us a choice of sides with different versions of art and importantly the game name so that we can have a nice side of the box showing regardless of whether we store the game horizontally, vertically, or face on. These are some really simple basics that board game companies need to start getting right. The only place that ads belong is in a little extra booklet inside the game box which I can browse through quickly and immediately throw in the recycling (better yet, just don't do it, I bought the game and I don't want to be served up ads there are too many ads in my life already). Jon, if you ever get offered to have your currently non-existent logo on the front of a board game box, you've got to say no. Insist it should be on the back or your logo will no longer carry the weight and credibility that it would at the time of this video. I'm with you on almost all of your criticisms of the box art, except for Azul. I think that it's a perfectly legitimate choice for that box cover to pick out a font that works well, has some character to it, and is set well. The kerning looks pretty good to me. Good typography is an artform in and of itself and not every game requires artsy lettering. Look at the serifs on that font, they match in so beautifully with the styalised flowers. I think its quite the insult to compare the use of Azul's font to the over-used, poorly kerned, and often poorly applied font Papyrus. The really boring sans serif font with no stroke variation and some generic grunge brush on Codenames deserved much heavier criticism than Azul for being so very bland, characterless, and slapped on. Azul made a clear and purposeful choice which works well. That said, I'd agree on your ranking of it - it isn't quite Louvre. I also felt that on Sagrada you ought to have noted that it was a particularly subjective decision on its ranking. Sure all of these are subjective, but after discussing seeing the cathedral itself and understanding why the box has grey stonework on it you clearly understood the reason behind that choice, and your ranking seemed harsh due to personal preference rather than the vast majority of your points which have been based in design principles and functionality. Ooo, I just hit Decrypto. It's such a very ugly and uninviting design to me. Talk about a drab grey box. It's top-heavy in its design, it has too many things trying to be the focal point which results in no focal point, it's too fussy and busy (and this coming from someone who loves overly intricate detailed artwork). It's a poor design. I appreciate that the cover of Heat informs me immediately that it isn't a game for me. I've played Heat, it isn't a game for me. I agree it has a good cover design, but subjectively for me it's really ugly. It can't ruin my collection because I'll never own it. You just lost all credibility with me for putting Cascadia that low. It's gorgeous, the art is gorgeous, the cover is really well balanced and has a really lovely baroque line of dynamic movement leading the eye up to the name of the game. I agree that the fading out thing spoils it a little bit, but that's a rather minor quibble on the whole. The Cascadia cover should be in the Louvre. You should take a look at the covers of Life of the Amazonia, and Isle of Cats. Harmonies is also cool but it doesn't tell you anything much about the game (Amazonia doesn't either, but it's so eye-wateringly beautiful that I forgive it).
The pink version of Skull doesn't have the barcode on the side where the name is, but you do have either the designers or space cowboys logo with it (both integrated nicely). I do prefer the purple colour tho
I thought you were going to talk about the box size for the content inside - components size, insert, filled with air.... Now THAT drives me crazy. Love your channel though. Just dont care too much about the outside. My games are store inside a cabinet anyway x) Cheers
Barcodes are required for shop sales - they go on the side as specified by the US market. Parents Choice award is also for the US market. But we will be certain to pass on your feedback to the Kosmos publishing team!
I understand the frustration with how they orient the text on the sides of boxes. I don't store my games vertically, I have them all horizontal on my shelves and I don't run into that issue very often. Also A Fake Artist Goes to New York doesn't need its title on the sides. Little pink box is very recognizable. Name me another game that is in a little pink box like that.
It's kinda the idea I think of a friend coming to your house and looking over your collection and picking some games to play. They wouldn't know without asking or pulling it off the shelf.
One of the reasons I consider Cascadia’s box to be absolutely gorgeous is how good it looks with Verdant and Calico as well. I store games horizontally, and they just pop. Fit to Print doesn’t pop quite as well, but it’s the same size and all four share a shelf together.
@@actualolI did actually pull the sticker off of the shrink wrap and put it on the side of the box! But it hasn’t gotten much use. The box looks so good, I just put it on the very top of the shelf, facing forward.
I was about to call you biased until you changed your mind about Ticket to Ride lol. I completely agree on Through the Desert, the fit was one of the main reasons I didn't get the expansion.
I feel like Planet (one of the games I have), had such good potential with the artwork on the front, but then they put on logos/prizes and an entire side of the box is barcode and boring information and more logos(and just sticks out from the rest of the box)
HUGE agree on the Oink Games lack of naming on the sides. I just dealt with this when moving to new home. On the other hand, I adore the stone grey look of Sagrada. What a fun video.
When I first saw my copy of Codenames, someone had thrown a copy into the candy bar rack near the registers at Target. My roommates complained that I was buying a game on sight, but it caught my eye. We had been playing a lot of Spyfall at parties, so I figured it would be good. Soon after, a friend brought their copy and everyone liked it.
About the box direction on the shelf. I usually use the front of the box pointed to the door of the room, so increases the chances of seeing the front cover when you pick up a game
I always like the look of the Final Girl games. They look great on display and the way you take of the magnetized front and back to use as boards was clever.
There's so much empy space in that Lost Cities box that I use it to store not only the cards but a bunch of Buttonshy games as well. And when I found an old edition of Lost Cities at a thrift store, I was able to get those cards into that box with everything else.
About the double writing of Bonanza… You may not know that because you seem to be an english speaker, but as a bilingual and graphic designer, I can tell you that there is a convention with up/down title writing. You can verify this going to any bilingual french/english library. In English, the title will be written one way and in french the other way. So… I may seem pecky, but I do like to have my collection placed in a way that I can easily read the titles all in the same way (of my choosing). I just wanted to point you out the existence of that writing convention and that ignoring that convention would be ignoring other buyers cultures. Sincerely, Sebastien
I've never paid this much attention to my boxes but now I might look at them in a new light! I agree that the Portal Games logo changing for Detective is great. I also love magnetic clasp thingies.
I'd love to see a video about board games that do more or different things with their boxes, like the one you mentioned that incorporated the box into the game itself. Games that literally think "outside the box". I recently bought a card game called "Greif zu", where you play as the party guests of Mafia boss who has to flee in a hurry when the police raids the place, and now you and the other guests are searching the wallet he left behind for money and ID cards that make you look innocent when the police arrives (i.e., the round ends). The way this is done is that the game contains an actual wallet you need to reach into and draw the cards; however, the wallet also serves as the "box" of the game, as it can contain everything you need to play the game.
Great video! For me, the Canvas (plus expansions) boxes are very well designed. The fact that they can be hung up so you can (lie in) wait for someone to comment on them and you can reply with "want a game?" 😁 I LOVE that. Not only can they be hung/displayed together, forming one picture, but if you're storing them flat, the name of each can be found on the top of the decently-sized boxes. Move over, Mona Lisa.
Only 10 minutes into an almost hour-long video, and I absolutely love it!! Absolutely roasting and tearing apart some of these boxes, with a lot of very valid and real criticism. I would love to see another one of these done, but with the actual inside box storage being reviewed! It's one thing if a game looks and plays well, but some games take almost an hour to set up or put away, Not because they're so massive, But because as soon as you shift the contents of the box at all, every card and piece is a mixed up mumble jumbo! Put in some dividers and storage containers!!
You should make a video about the storage inside the box. Some of the boxes I open and it's a total mess every time. Other boxes are just a beautiful work of art how everything fits in. Parks is in my collection specifically because of how beautiful the game is and how amazingly it fits in the box.
I'll send you the game box I designed to roast 🙂 Pandemic looks drab both in and outside the box. Sorry you're wrong. I love hearing you go on about fonts too. Cascadia uses Futura, heavily used font.
That was fun. Thanks for sharing. My games are stored in a few different spots, but I do try to arrange them in a way the displays the artwork that I like most.
I'd like to reserve a special slot in hell for the Codenames XXL variants. I picked them up so I could play them with larger groups and older relatives, and the boxes are so heinously huge. The cards themselves are barely any bigger, and the text cards have laughably small text compared to their increased size, so turns out it was a pretty pointless endeavour anyway. But, in spite of all this, my main source of contempt is still the box size. Words cannot express just how empty these boxes are. If you strip out the atrociously-designed plastic organisers inside, the actual game itself takes up less than a third of the box. And then they took the already disappointing box art and just slapped an XXL "stamp" motif on it that's completely detached from the rest of the theming. And bright yellow. I've managed to squeeze the contents of all three into a single box and put the other two in the loft, but catching sight of even just one of these nightmares as I walk past the shelf puts me in a bad mood. ...Anyway, I'll see you next therapy session
I wonder how bad Bears vs. Babies would get torn apart here. As besides being a bit of an odd shape, it's completely covered in fur on all sides and most of the top, so it'll look like a poorly taxidermied tribble regardless of how it's placed on the shelf.
Where's Twilight Imperium? Of all box covers, that one is the most indicative of the game that's in the box. Epic across the board. How can you give Burgle Bros less than Louvre? It's a box that's also part of the game. It's interesting to look at purely on its own. It doesn't fit or stack perfectly with all other games, but that's a feature, not a bug, as long as what makes it stand out is itself great. Secret Hitler is different type of box, but doesn't meet the criteria of being a great box independent of 'normal' accepted standards. Giant collector boxes like Castles of Burgundy are their own category and shouldn't be judged based on if they fit on a game shelf or match other normal-sized boxes. They are ridiculous and need to be judged within that ridiculousness. Castles of Burgundy is a great example. It feels luxury. Minimal artwork. Lots of "white space" letting the logos and text and art breathe. The lack of bold art or characters on the sides is a benefit, because it's not sitting on a shelf like other games needing to stand out. The mere existence of this box is its own announcement of its presence. But I one million percent agree about non-matching covers of a series. Like.. WHY? How can you be a designer and not agonize that the covers don't match? How clueless must the company heads be that they have zero design sense? If it's an art director telling graphic designers to go ahead and make that logo smaller and shift it over slightly to where it no longer matches, then that's an amateur. Worse than board games, when I see ONE book cover of a five or seven book series have a cover or spine element that doesn't match the others, I usually almost have an aneurism. Don't people that publish books OWN books? Don't they have shelves? Great.. now my day is ruined. I'm all riled up now. Thanks.
Awesome video, as always! And i really did enjoy the theme, one of a kind. I also think and apreciate and get annoyed and display up front the boxes I like. The one that really surprised me and totally has a special appearance on the table, is the box concept from a Playte series called L-board, I have the game Moon Leap from them, and you really should experience it first hand, no youtube reviews or unboxing, just try and get it, you won’t regret! 🤗 Looking forward to the next video! 🤩
![ROSÉ (로제) - number one girl [더 시즌즈-이영지의 레인보우] | KBS 241129 방송](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/A9oByH9Ci24/mqdefault.jpg)
Babe, wake up, there's a British man being mad at boxes for 50 mins
I almost peed my pants because of this comment
thank you
You're welcome
More video ideas please
Partner up with a graphic designer to redesign bad board game art!
@@actualol An insert tier list!
Now I'm hoping for you to combine your let's try series with board games and do a video where you rank your collection based on the taste.
"So you won loads of awards... why does that have to be my problem?" 😂
That was my favorite quote as well. 😆
Jon is the Shania Twain of board game reviewers
20:32 "I'm not going to have it on my shelf like this, nobody is doing that"
*Looks nervously at my shelf with all my Oink games displayed exactly like that*
I have arranged all my Oink boxes upright in a circle, like a board game Stonehenge.
Same 😅
I also looked nervously at my shelf a couple of times, for example when he said that no one should stack the games (front side up)
I keep all my games front side up. That's usually the only way to guarantee everything stays in its place. I really don't care how they look on the shelf
You've done the outside of the box, how about the inside. A tier list of the default insert that comes with the game. some inserts are great, while others can need to be replaced immediately.
Mysterium Park has one of the best inserts of any game, especially given how small it is. There's no wasted space, everything fits perfectly. It's excellent.
I don't have many board games yet, growing the collection of course, but seven wonders duel comes to mind! The cards can all be put away in their own separate stacks, The wonders on top of the score pad with the board fitting nicely into all the plastic and still having a dedicated piece for the military token... Everything just fits so perfectly inside
And more on those oversized boxes!
And it would give reason to at least open the Dominion box!
The Catan expansions coming with basically the same insert as the base game with absolutely no consideration of what components they actually come with is insane to me.
I feel like the grey on Sagrada is what makes the colors pop and not overwhelm the viewer, one of my favorite boxes, personally
I'm on team Sagrada as well. Instead of doing the plain stone-grey border around the edges, they should have made the grey parts more in line with the architecture with inspiration from the spires, archways, etc. The colors look absolutely stunning though.
Yeah, I can't believe how hard he roasted Sagrada, just for grey.
Wow. One of my pet peeves is actually when they DON’T put the little player count, play time, suggested age indicators on ALL sides of the box. No matter how I orient my games on the shelf, I like to be able to quickly scan my shelf and look for games that fit my current needs (players, time, complexity). It really annoys me when they omit these from the side of the box I actually have facing out from the shelf! To each their own, I guess.
Another thing that annoys me is when they don’t have sides with the art/text to support both vertical OR horizontal display.
Same! Stonemeier has really spoiled me for having good box side design.
This!
I don't necessarily want that info on EVERY side of the box, but I agree it has utility and I want the option of displaying it for ease of selecting a game for a given player count (typically 5+ or requires more than 2) and approximate play time. I don't care about recommended player age - I know which of my games are complex or simple. For me, the sweet spot is to put it on 1 long side and 1 short side, where none of the 4 sides have a bunch of "garbage" on them. That way you can display your box horizontally or vertically and with or without this additional info.
@@boardgameaddiction7081I respect that. If you're a parent or commonly playing with different aged kids, then it can be helpful to survey things by recommended age, but of course if you're an adult who only plays with other adults then this info is useless.
But, to your bigger point, I fail to see how this is so hard to make everyone happy. There are, after all, four separate sides to the box... Keep the UPC on the back/bottom, then you get two sides for horizontal, two for vertical, and one of each could easily include/omit the metadata symbols. I definitely don't need logos for publisher, but if they want to include those along with the symbols, fine. Just don't put awards or other stuff. And don't just do one or the other... I can't be the only one who's annoyed by text going in different directions on a shelf
The orientation of the text on the side of the box (top-to-bottom vs bottom-to-top) is a holdover from books. In Germany, Italy and France it is/was usually the case that the title was printed in a a way that you could read it when you tilt your head to the left. In english speaking countries it is/was the other way round. I suspect if you take a look at the publishers/designers it would mostly match. The wikipedia article on bookbinding has some info on it.
I was looking for that comment, so I don’t have to write it.
This video should be renamed 'Jon roasts board game boxes' 😂 some of these are savage
And I honestly enjoyed it more than I thought I would. 😅
I often find myself when looking at my collection, fantasizing of having the woodworking and leatherworking skills to make custom boxes for my games that make them look like a collection of classic novels on my shelves.
Just to give some insight into use of typefaces in design; many of the ones you find in a standard word processing software are absolutely fine to use in professional design. That is what they are for.
Unless they are trained typographers, illustrators and graphic designers should avoid messing around with making or altering existing typefaces. It's delicate work that requires years of experience, and should be left to specialists.
Instead they usually choose a typeface, play around with the font types and integrate them into their design. This is standard practice for even award winning graphic designers, and is naturally perfectly fine for tabletop game box art.
“You’re not Reiner knizia!” Haha that killed me. But let’s face it, there are few people who are like the Doctor himself.
In German-speaking countries the Ravensburger triangle is kinda iconic and even invokes a bit nostalgia for old jigsaw puzzles in me. Also it manages something that the Kosmos logo does not do: It tucks itself away nearly in a corner. However I do agree with you - for El Dorado, it's just too much on the sides of the box, especially when it's not even a triangle.
Yeah, every time I see the Ravensburger logo I just get hit by a wave of nostalgia.
The biggest sin is the number of boxes you have where the lid isn't correctly orientated. It drives me mad when someone puts the lid on a game incorrectly!
Otherwise, excellent video as usual :)
Thank you!!
😂 if it fits, it's on correctly
If it weren't for you and Prozd, I wouldn't have got into modern board games. Nice crossover!
You know it's a good day when Actualol uploads.
12:04 I also can't resist chuckling every time the box farts
The Pandemic box looks like the cover of every DVD at a car-boot sale.
Dominion looks like the box art from a 1990s PC point and click game.
I was about to say this. It looks like a DVD box set of Lost or something. And that it ranks above Sagrada is crazy.
French and English on the box might be for legal reasons. Where I am in Canada, you must put French on the box.
Best boardgame box, imho, goes to Wingspan. If I knew nothing about the game, I would want to play that game just based on that box.
Every single Stonemaier box is a piece of art.
I love how truly passionate Jon gets about many of these. There are so many great moments in this video. Also love that slight shade towards the Sagrada cathedral 😃
Thank you for an awesome and funny video!
Why would you love a slight shade towards the Sagrada cathedral?
@@montagen8084 because Jon obviously wrote that joke and put it into the video on purpose. I simply appreciate him doing it for the joke itself.
Personally, I don't have a beef with that cathedral 😁
Going straight from "I feel like that's just a font and is lazy" for Cascadia to "I do really like the font" for Parks was wild.
The front of the Skull box compels me to play it, but every other side of the box compels me to hide it. I'm glad someone else finally stated that publicly!
Just spent an hour in your company thinking about boxes. Love it!
Apparently, I have a superior copy of Love Letter because mine has the name on the bag AND puts the tokens in a little ziplock baggy so they don't fall out.
I wish someone would get the rights to print correct sized boxes for games like Lost Cities, No Thanks, and Splendor to sell as replacement boxes...
I LOVE a good box. It’s my own little obsession. Haven’t watched the vid yet but my favorite box is unearthed - which holds (in the original box) the base game + the expansion SLEEVED with zero issues. Splendor could never.
Edit:
I’m now realizing you are rating the outside of the box… which is not what I was expecting.
I’m calling for another tier list that evaluates the space usage and organization of board game boxes. I want a utilitarian box tier list!
That was not the first US release of Settlers of Catan. The first and second release was a dark brown box and the tiles used photos instead of artwork. 2nd edition was the same cover, but had 4 different colored player pieces so you could combine two sets and play with up to 8.
SO TRUE about the company logos on the box. Massage to board game publishers: putting your company logo on the box is nearly always irrelevant and always a negative, so keep it to a corner on the back of the box. I promise, the people who care about who published the game already know who published it before they bought the game, so you don’t need to tell them. The people who don’t know who the publisher of the game is will never care about who published the game because they’re not those people, so there’s also no reason to slap your logo all over the box.
I can't tell if it is a bit or not that he's talking about the way the boxes look, drawing a ton of attention to each side, but has the lids on upside down for so many of them.
El Dorado being in both French & English may be because it was printed to be sold in Canada! In most provinces it is legally required to have everything shown in both official languages
Do you not close the boxes with the backside rotated to align with the cover? Omgggggg
Hey John! I have a video idea that I don't believe I've seen anyone do. I'm a board game loving dad and I love introducing my young kids to new games. When I watched your review of Trekking through history it made me think how great it would be to teach kids about history. Similarly, I've thought Similo History would do a good job of exposing kids to important historical figures. Ticket to Ride Europe to teach my kids about European cities. Pandemic has major cities. I've played The Mind with my 5 and 6 year old with some number tools and its helped them with their 1-100 numbers. I think you can see where I'm going with this. Could you do a video recommending board games that could help kids (or adults!) with every school subject? Call it Best Board Games for kids that'll actually teach them something!
Would love to see that
I feel kind of weird now for always displaying the side that mentions the player count because it helps guests pick a game.
I doo that too 😅
Its functional, but not as pretty
Everdell is my game box that certainly wouldn't be out of place in the Louvre.
He actually did it! He actually did it!
10:30 we have wildly different tastes. I'd say top tier or at least second to top
You should do the same thing with box inserts.
Now I know you aren't a fan of the game, but the various wingspan boxes are just gorgeous.
The different shapes are crazy. But I found use for them:
- Base game boards into oceania box, as well as all automa stuff and base game dice
- Just 1 Box with all cards in base game box, others stacked into each other in Europe Box
This way, oceania and europe fit together in the base game box 😁
Asia can be played separately so stored separately 🙂
But sold mine and got the digital Version 😅
The old version of 'love letter' says love letter on the bag and it's much cuter and the tokens are cubes that come in a bag.
I was about to complain that he should have left the tokens in their plastic bag if he didn't want them falling out. I guess maybe the new version they aren't bagged.
I love how passionate you feel about the game boxes. I can see myself when I go into a rant with my wife about certain games.
You should do a video highlighting common misunderstandings of rules that people make when they first play a game. Had a moment this weekend where I misunderstood the voting system in Zoo Vadis and played that you only needed a majority of the animals in the exhibit, not a majority of the total spaces in the exhibit. Had huge implications and made the game feel much less fun until we clued in and corrected. Might be cool for you to go through your favourite 20-something games and call out ways you may have misplayed them early on, or struggles friends have expressed to you about learning them.
Cool idea thanks! I messed up that rule too.
Now rank the inside of the boxes. The amount of boxes with wasted space or are too fiddly to put away really annoy me
Ticket to Ride is IMO best box ever. It just made me want to play the game and still makes, even if I don't think the game is the best one out there (not saying it's bad either).
This is the cranky rant I needed today. Thank you! I loved every minute of this 😄
Love how grumpy he's getting with age. Embrace it.
Also... Luxor. Literally one of my favourite covers (minus the stupid SDJ 2018 logo) and you put it on the bottom rung!
I'll say for foundations of rome, I had the expansion arrive today, and it came with a new tray designed to fit all the expansion stuff in the same general tray, so it fits exactly the same.
LOVE how passionate you are with you opinions! They're not all right, but it doesn't matter because I appreciate your confidence. Haha! Great video!
Every board game company needs to watch your video so that they can do a decent job of their box designs when it comes to the practical things that we want to see. Like no bar codes on the sides, don't put awards on the front of the box, don't plaster logos on every side, put irrelevant ugly numbers on the back, make the box size fit the game properly, no lid lift, give us a choice of sides with different versions of art and importantly the game name so that we can have a nice side of the box showing regardless of whether we store the game horizontally, vertically, or face on. These are some really simple basics that board game companies need to start getting right. The only place that ads belong is in a little extra booklet inside the game box which I can browse through quickly and immediately throw in the recycling (better yet, just don't do it, I bought the game and I don't want to be served up ads there are too many ads in my life already).
Jon, if you ever get offered to have your currently non-existent logo on the front of a board game box, you've got to say no. Insist it should be on the back or your logo will no longer carry the weight and credibility that it would at the time of this video.
I'm with you on almost all of your criticisms of the box art, except for Azul. I think that it's a perfectly legitimate choice for that box cover to pick out a font that works well, has some character to it, and is set well. The kerning looks pretty good to me. Good typography is an artform in and of itself and not every game requires artsy lettering. Look at the serifs on that font, they match in so beautifully with the styalised flowers. I think its quite the insult to compare the use of Azul's font to the over-used, poorly kerned, and often poorly applied font Papyrus. The really boring sans serif font with no stroke variation and some generic grunge brush on Codenames deserved much heavier criticism than Azul for being so very bland, characterless, and slapped on. Azul made a clear and purposeful choice which works well. That said, I'd agree on your ranking of it - it isn't quite Louvre.
I also felt that on Sagrada you ought to have noted that it was a particularly subjective decision on its ranking. Sure all of these are subjective, but after discussing seeing the cathedral itself and understanding why the box has grey stonework on it you clearly understood the reason behind that choice, and your ranking seemed harsh due to personal preference rather than the vast majority of your points which have been based in design principles and functionality.
Ooo, I just hit Decrypto. It's such a very ugly and uninviting design to me. Talk about a drab grey box. It's top-heavy in its design, it has too many things trying to be the focal point which results in no focal point, it's too fussy and busy (and this coming from someone who loves overly intricate detailed artwork). It's a poor design.
I appreciate that the cover of Heat informs me immediately that it isn't a game for me. I've played Heat, it isn't a game for me. I agree it has a good cover design, but subjectively for me it's really ugly. It can't ruin my collection because I'll never own it.
You just lost all credibility with me for putting Cascadia that low. It's gorgeous, the art is gorgeous, the cover is really well balanced and has a really lovely baroque line of dynamic movement leading the eye up to the name of the game. I agree that the fading out thing spoils it a little bit, but that's a rather minor quibble on the whole. The Cascadia cover should be in the Louvre.
You should take a look at the covers of Life of the Amazonia, and Isle of Cats. Harmonies is also cool but it doesn't tell you anything much about the game (Amazonia doesn't either, but it's so eye-wateringly beautiful that I forgive it).
This is ridicilous. I loved it.
The pink version of Skull doesn't have the barcode on the side where the name is, but you do have either the designers or space cowboys logo with it (both integrated nicely). I do prefer the purple colour tho
Mate I reckon the mind mgmt box is a work of art. The hidden messages using the time token 👌🏼
I thought you were going to talk about the box size for the content inside - components size, insert, filled with air.... Now THAT drives me crazy.
Love your channel though. Just dont care too much about the outside. My games are store inside a cabinet anyway x)
Cheers
I don't know which one hurst more, you hating on the sagrada box, or on the cathedral itself
The left half of my collection along a big wall has titles reading one way, the right half the other.
Barcodes are required for shop sales - they go on the side as specified by the US market. Parents Choice award is also for the US market. But we will be certain to pass on your feedback to the Kosmos publishing team!
I understand the frustration with how they orient the text on the sides of boxes. I don't store my games vertically, I have them all horizontal on my shelves and I don't run into that issue very often. Also A Fake Artist Goes to New York doesn't need its title on the sides. Little pink box is very recognizable. Name me another game that is in a little pink box like that.
It's kinda the idea I think of a friend coming to your house and looking over your collection and picking some games to play. They wouldn't know without asking or pulling it off the shelf.
One of the reasons I consider Cascadia’s box to be absolutely gorgeous is how good it looks with Verdant and Calico as well. I store games horizontally, and they just pop. Fit to Print doesn’t pop quite as well, but it’s the same size and all four share a shelf together.
Canvas has the most beautiful box IMO. The neat thing is, that you really can hang it on the wall.
There's no name on the side of it! And I know they offer a sticker but that's somehow worse. 🤣
What do you think of their new big box? The name does appear on one of its sides so I'm curious haha.@@actualol
@@actualolI did actually pull the sticker off of the shrink wrap and put it on the side of the box! But it hasn’t gotten much use. The box looks so good, I just put it on the very top of the shelf, facing forward.
Next you can rank the best and worst box inserts.
I was about to call you biased until you changed your mind about Ticket to Ride lol.
I completely agree on Through the Desert, the fit was one of the main reasons I didn't get the expansion.
I gotta know where you think the Facade Games “Dark Cities” games rank 📚
I love this, I love that you realise that some of what you say is just a bit silly but you go for it. Do more of this type of content.
An idea to have your games fit inside their box is to put them horizontally, how they belong.
I feel like Planet (one of the games I have), had such good potential with the artwork on the front, but then they put on logos/prizes and an entire side of the box is barcode and boring information and more logos(and just sticks out from the rest of the box)
I love how much of a deduction a box gets from advertising on the inside edges of the box. ;-)
Yes! Get the info and awards off the damn beautiful cover!
I love this! Thank you so much. Can you also make a few video's about boardgames with not too much elements? And board games for solo players?
HUGE agree on the Oink Games lack of naming on the sides. I just dealt with this when moving to new home. On the other hand, I adore the stone grey look of Sagrada. What a fun video.
This was great! Lots of fun. I have never seen anyone go so deeply into the details of box covers.
When I first saw my copy of Codenames, someone had thrown a copy into the candy bar rack near the registers at Target. My roommates complained that I was buying a game on sight, but it caught my eye. We had been playing a lot of Spyfall at parties, so I figured it would be good. Soon after, a friend brought their copy and everyone liked it.
About the box direction on the shelf. I usually use the front of the box pointed to the door of the room, so increases the chances of seeing the front cover when you pick up a game
Catan's color scheme is iconic. The box and the rising sun on the front is so recognizable.
I burst out laughing when you photoshopped HEAT pedal to the metal in to the Louvre but then you actually put this box into that category 💀
I always like the look of the Final Girl games. They look great on display and the way you take of the magnetized front and back to use as boards was clever.
There's so much empy space in that Lost Cities box that I use it to store not only the cards but a bunch of Buttonshy games as well. And when I found an old edition of Lost Cities at a thrift store, I was able to get those cards into that box with everything else.
About the double writing of Bonanza… You may not know that because you seem to be an english speaker, but as a bilingual and graphic designer, I can tell you that there is a convention with up/down title writing. You can verify this going to any bilingual french/english library. In English, the title will be written one way and in french the other way. So… I may seem pecky, but I do like to have my collection placed in a way that I can easily read the titles all in the same way (of my choosing). I just wanted to point you out the existence of that writing convention and that ignoring that convention would be ignoring other buyers cultures. Sincerely, Sebastien
It is obvious how much time and effort you put into this and it is even more impressive because you are just you without all the crew! Great work!
Literally reorganizing my board games shelves while watching this, and it's heavily impacting my choices.
I've never paid this much attention to my boxes but now I might look at them in a new light! I agree that the Portal Games logo changing for Detective is great. I also love magnetic clasp thingies.
I'd love to see a video about board games that do more or different things with their boxes, like the one you mentioned that incorporated the box into the game itself. Games that literally think "outside the box".
I recently bought a card game called "Greif zu", where you play as the party guests of Mafia boss who has to flee in a hurry when the police raids the place, and now you and the other guests are searching the wallet he left behind for money and ID cards that make you look innocent when the police arrives (i.e., the round ends). The way this is done is that the game contains an actual wallet you need to reach into and draw the cards; however, the wallet also serves as the "box" of the game, as it can contain everything you need to play the game.
Everyone - "You can't judge a book by it's cover"
Me - exclusively checking out the games which are in the top tiers on boardgamegeek
Great video! For me, the Canvas (plus expansions) boxes are very well designed. The fact that they can be hung up so you can (lie in) wait for someone to comment on them and you can reply with "want a game?" 😁 I LOVE that.
Not only can they be hung/displayed together, forming one picture, but if you're storing them flat, the name of each can be found on the top of the decently-sized boxes.
Move over, Mona Lisa.
It’s like watching a video Sheldon from big bang theory talking about something he loves 😂 and I can’t explain why
Comment section ruined
Fun with flags!
don't worry I see you more like Young Sheldon
Only 10 minutes into an almost hour-long video, and I absolutely love it!! Absolutely roasting and tearing apart some of these boxes, with a lot of very valid and real criticism. I would love to see another one of these done, but with the actual inside box storage being reviewed! It's one thing if a game looks and plays well, but some games take almost an hour to set up or put away, Not because they're so massive, But because as soon as you shift the contents of the box at all, every card and piece is a mixed up mumble jumbo! Put in some dividers and storage containers!!
Canvas is chef's kiss.
This is a fantastic video. I love listening to you criticize minute details of box designs. I am not alone.
You should make a video about the storage inside the box. Some of the boxes I open and it's a total mess every time. Other boxes are just a beautiful work of art how everything fits in. Parks is in my collection specifically because of how beautiful the game is and how amazingly it fits in the box.
Can I get an Actualol "worst game cover" badge to stick on the cover of my game? :D
Cute idea!
That was again a very entertaining video - I wouldn't mind a part two. 😁
I'll send you the game box I designed to roast 🙂
Pandemic looks drab both in and outside the box. Sorry you're wrong.
I love hearing you go on about fonts too. Cascadia uses Futura, heavily used font.
That was fun. Thanks for sharing. My games are stored in a few different spots, but I do try to arrange them in a way the displays the artwork that I like most.
"I feel like I should hate Carcassonne more than I do."
--Actualol, 2024
I'd like to reserve a special slot in hell for the Codenames XXL variants. I picked them up so I could play them with larger groups and older relatives, and the boxes are so heinously huge. The cards themselves are barely any bigger, and the text cards have laughably small text compared to their increased size, so turns out it was a pretty pointless endeavour anyway. But, in spite of all this, my main source of contempt is still the box size. Words cannot express just how empty these boxes are. If you strip out the atrociously-designed plastic organisers inside, the actual game itself takes up less than a third of the box. And then they took the already disappointing box art and just slapped an XXL "stamp" motif on it that's completely detached from the rest of the theming. And bright yellow. I've managed to squeeze the contents of all three into a single box and put the other two in the loft, but catching sight of even just one of these nightmares as I walk past the shelf puts me in a bad mood.
...Anyway, I'll see you next therapy session
Very fun video! Publishers LISTEN UP!
Good job downgrading Ticket to Ride.
I wonder how bad Bears vs. Babies would get torn apart here. As besides being a bit of an odd shape, it's completely covered in fur on all sides and most of the top, so it'll look like a poorly taxidermied tribble regardless of how it's placed on the shelf.
Where's Twilight Imperium? Of all box covers, that one is the most indicative of the game that's in the box. Epic across the board.
How can you give Burgle Bros less than Louvre? It's a box that's also part of the game. It's interesting to look at purely on its own. It doesn't fit or stack perfectly with all other games, but that's a feature, not a bug, as long as what makes it stand out is itself great. Secret Hitler is different type of box, but doesn't meet the criteria of being a great box independent of 'normal' accepted standards.
Giant collector boxes like Castles of Burgundy are their own category and shouldn't be judged based on if they fit on a game shelf or match other normal-sized boxes. They are ridiculous and need to be judged within that ridiculousness. Castles of Burgundy is a great example. It feels luxury. Minimal artwork. Lots of "white space" letting the logos and text and art breathe. The lack of bold art or characters on the sides is a benefit, because it's not sitting on a shelf like other games needing to stand out. The mere existence of this box is its own announcement of its presence.
But I one million percent agree about non-matching covers of a series. Like.. WHY? How can you be a designer and not agonize that the covers don't match? How clueless must the company heads be that they have zero design sense? If it's an art director telling graphic designers to go ahead and make that logo smaller and shift it over slightly to where it no longer matches, then that's an amateur. Worse than board games, when I see ONE book cover of a five or seven book series have a cover or spine element that doesn't match the others, I usually almost have an aneurism. Don't people that publish books OWN books? Don't they have shelves? Great.. now my day is ruined. I'm all riled up now. Thanks.
Thank you Jon for another great video! I would really like to see that same kind of video about the inside of boxes.
Awesome video, as always! And i really did enjoy the theme, one of a kind. I also think and apreciate and get annoyed and display up front the boxes I like. The one that really surprised me and totally has a special appearance on the table, is the box concept from a Playte series called L-board, I have the game Moon Leap from them, and you really should experience it first hand, no youtube reviews or unboxing, just try and get it, you won’t regret! 🤗 Looking forward to the next video! 🤩