The Best Board Game Covers of All Time
The Dice Tower
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The Dice Tower takes a look at the best board game covers of all time, as voted by YOU live during the stream. You the viewers have the power to choose. Vote wisely.
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24.10.2022
This and the worst cover vids are some of the best entertainment I've seen. So much fun!
baffled that planetarium kept winning. it's just an image of a planet. cant even see the fonts that well it's so dark.
For the most part I agree with the crew here on the good covers. The only big shocker for me is Kanagawa. To me it's pretty bad and I just don't see what everyone is seeing in it. Of all the games shown here it would be one of my lowest, easily. It's just so odd how art can hit people differently.
surprised no one brought up that everdell cover looks inspired by wind in the willows.
The next time you do this, it'd be great if you could make the poll results constantly visible in one of the corners of the screen. Otherwise it's hard to tell what's going on.
Very hard to agree Everdell art is better than Sleeping Gods, Evolution, Dead Man and Scythe. Surprised no Arhkam Horror cover on the list. Board gamers seem to prefer more childish art though.
This is a fun series. I think it would be great if you talked a little about the games and what you like/dislike about them. Even though you’re not judging them on that basis, there were quite a few that were totally new to me and it would have been nice to hear a short 30 second pitch about the game, it’s mechanics and whether it’s enjoyed.
I’m really enjoying these voting videos. Some I loved were knocked out early, but I do think the best cover won. Before I played Everdell, I saw it as a beautiful cover. After I played Everdell, the cover now immediately draws me in and makes me want to play, because it so accurately reflects the feeling I get when I dive into that game world.
Still watching hoping this list gets some high fantasy on it.
Where was 5 tribes!?!?!
Great work Dice Tower! I would have love to see "Covert" in there!
The more people there are at the table, the harder it is for Tom to wrangle the chaos.
A bunch of games with great covers did not make it to the list. There were so many games (e Root, Takenoko, Tokaido, Parks) that don’t really have that great of a cover, that I was disappointed to not see these:
Kemet: Blood and Sand
Lost Ruins of Arnak
Blood Rage
The Hunger
Forgotten Waters
Treasure Island
Journeys in Middle Earth
Tainted Grail
Best and worst Dominion art
Either of the Brass games Birmingham/ Lancashire should have been in there!!!!
I feel like they lose the thread of the competition at times…this is supposed to be beautiful/best covers, and Wingspan is beautiful. It's like they were arguing that a simple cover is boring, but that just isn't true and isn't true for most people. Simple art is incredibly elegant at times, and certainly can be beautiful.
I wish there was a way to use the box art for Everdell for the big box. Many great boxes lost to the expansion or big box issue over the years.
When is the voting show for prettiest marble?
Scythe vs Everdel was the real final. Scythe is so artistically and represents very well the game, from the menacing robots to the farming and economic mechanics from the game, to area control. This is just amazing. But evederl was my favourite second.
Why not use Pubmeeple? You have all games facing off against each other and then the system ranks them based on how many times it was selected. This way you won't have good games/covers/… dropping out early in favor of lesser ones because of the luck of the draw.
For the future, because you can definitely do this a couple of times and then have the winners of these fight against each other:
Darwins choice has a great cover
ISS vanguard is gorgeous
Fractal into the void, noz out yet but looks cool
Call to adventure
Mind Mgmt
Transmission
Dixit
Oath
Callico
Dreams
Make it happen n.n
Best cover I think, and I know add it to the poll next, but its probably too new anyway, but iss vangaurd!! That cover is so insanely beautiful!!!
Abyss should have been on the ugliest list, because that is what it is.
The purple and red on Dwellings of Eldervale kill the cover for me. Just looks like a big mess. Also that split-tail bird on the Wingspan cover is super cool, why are people hating on it?
Windward!
Not even included for voting??
Next time you could have a wildcard where the top 4-5 losers compete for one last spot.
Out of these Oceans, Weather Machine, and Formosa Tea are my favorites
The best thing in board game covers is obviously the Hero Quest box art.
So you need to get Dan may on the phone to talk about making these covers.
Had to stop after Abyss lost to Aquatica. I'm out, y'all are wildin'
In my humble opinion on mars is a better cover than planetarium and everdell’s
Everdell, such a boring and generic cutesy cute cover where the yellow is just over blowing everything. I just don't understand this.
The whole Eagle-Gryphon deluxe line could have been pretty much been the on the list, and Kanban EV to win the whole thing. Why that cover was not even on the list is a mystery to me.
Struggle of Empires and Pax Pamir (2nd ed's both) should have been contenders (and I did participate in the poll :p )
I like how good Everdell is… but for many people this amazing cover is now being swapped for the collection edition. Doh !!
I find it fascinating how many of these colors have very static compositions. Primary subjects seem to be placed dead center on the covers. And in a case like Planetarium, where you have a very strong dynamic imbalance, the result is a huge win.
Many of these pieces are not good cover art, even when the piece is good art when standing alone.
Before seeing the video, mine is:
1. Brass Lancashire
Scythe
Brass Birmingham
Trajan
The Lord of the Rings LCG
Ultimate Railroads
Arkham Horror 2nd ed.
On Mars
War of the Ring 1st ed.
10. Terraforming Mars
Almost all of the best covers I was thinking of were mentioned in the video 🙂
Except for:
– Oath
– Tapestry
– Brass Lancashire
– Kanban EV
– Escape Plan
– Dixit
Thank you, Dice Tower! A Very interesting topic! Enjoyed tapping into the artistic realm.
I know it's a matter of taste, but I'm a little disappointed with many of the choices and tons of misses. I would have changed more than half of those covers. I nevertheless enjoyed as always and the winner is such a gorgeous cover. -as a side note to Roy, if he's reading this, I think the contrast was off on the screen. I double-checked some of these covers on bgg and regained my faith in what I originally thought they looked like, which were a little different due to brightness/saturation issues. Particularly Merchants of the Dark Road 35:49 is dark and dim and the details are not visible. Yet again, kudos to you Roy and love how skillfully you put all these together.
Salty that Inis(original) is not in contention… also escape plan, beyond the sun, euphoria, public market(port), solarius mission are some of my fave and worth including.. i hope they do this again..
Some amazing covers here. Had a feeling whoever came out on top of the Everdell/Scythe matchup would win the whole thing. Surprising omissions from the 64 were Brass: Birmingham, Lisboa and Kanban EV (though I suppose four Lacerda/O'Toole titles might have been asking too much). My top five from the ones chosen were Scythe, Everdell, Weather Machine, Formosa Tea and On Mars.
As entertaining as the bad covers video was, this was far more fun.
How the heck is Tapestry not on this list? I hate the game but I love the art.
I really enjoyed this exploration of board game cover art. There is so much that affects a person's response to art including color, texture, style, media, theme, and the incorporation of other graphic design elements (fonts, logos, etc.) that it can generally be quite subjective so it was interesting to see how people responded to the different covers.
The selections for this video were very good and I would like to see more of this including other artists such as Kwanchai Moriya (Capital Lux, Falling Skies, Catacombs, …), Satoshi Matsuura (Hidden Leaders), Tara McPherson and Scott Hartman (Dreamwell), Jacqui Davis (Euphoria), whoever created the Mythic Mischief cover, Gjermund Bohne (Riverside) … and so many more. This could be a fun series.
(Most of the games I own are an art collection as well as being games.)
I'm so glad you're finally using overhead mics! A little echoy, but hugely improved overall!
It's really hilarious how The Dice Tower's tastes are basically generic-American-teenager taste.
That is to say no taste.
Formosa Tea got done dirty. It was the best cover in the whole video.
I’m boggled that people like the Oceans cover. It looks like a Lisa Frank story exploded.
The panel has questionable taste. Days of Ire BLOWS Dead Men away. 🙂
WOW! Saying Wingpan should get blown away by Yamatai? I am now saying Wingspan is amazing but Yamatai is actively bad.
I like the Oath cover better than the Root cover.