I’m not sure I have any super helpful advice on fonts. I noticed that most of your other projects on itch have unique fonts. All caps is good for legibility, but your title might be too long for that. What is the feeling you’re going for? I haven’t played it, but maybe a Victorian or Jules Verne style would be appropriate.
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The feeling is futuristic, but not retro-futuristic. More like terrans from Starcraft? Then there are parts of the game that have all sorts of vibes like Scar’s cave from Lion King, the Munster’s mansion, a gleaming arcology chrome city, crumbling monuments like planet of the apes, Freddy Fazbear’s pizzeria, Thoreau’s cabin at Walden pond, the human zoo from Steven Universe.
Themes are free will vs fate, trying to save lives and understand other human beings.
A lot of the nice-looking ones on itch I paid for, a couple $100, which I don’t have any more. Some of them I did by hand, so I could look into doing that again.
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I mean, you can probably go without the title in the cover art, since most of the time it’ll show up next to the cover art. Though at that point, I’m not sure whether you can call that cover art…
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I have to admit, this is not the first time I have released cover art and had unsolicited help from friendly people saying they could fix it for me or do my art in the future. (I think it was the Absence of Law cover that last prompted others to suggest I get help?)
But, as part of my plans to keep from getting bored as I age, I’ve planned for a while now to learn art when I’m 40, which is in a few months! Perhaps typography will be one of my areas of interest.
Since I’m not selling this game or entering it in competitions, I’m not too worried about attracting attention through the cover art, so maybe I’ll just leave it. The picture is some of my mom’s crochet work, as the main character is partly inspired by her and is a ‘weaver of stories’. In an ideal world, I’d commission an artist, but like I said, I’m not pushing too hard for amazing art here. If anyone wants to take a stab at it, it’s here: Copy of Cover - Google Drawings
In a perfect world, I’d probably commission some art. It’d be nice to have threads of different colors woven together in a field of stars. But I’ll save up for that later on.
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My impression of the game is based on: the art, the trailer, a few posts here. From these I got the feeling the game is more elegant/artistic which is why I recommended that font, not because it’s retro futuristic. I was going to recommend drawing or copying the font by hand to get more character, but elegance may dictate cleaner lines depending on your drawing style/skill. I like to think that in the future we will not only be using sans fonts - this game isn’t dystopian is it?
What you need for readability is usually large x-height, google “google fonts with large x height” for some free ones.
Also, https://www.exljbris.com/ has couple of free large x-height fonts available (read their free font licence first though). Fontin from that site is my go to typeface for Gargoyle, Spatterlight, Lectrote, Parchment (basically anywhere where I can play text adventures and can set my own fonts).
Edit: Added another free font source.
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Kind of dystopian. Or, at least before the end - an apocalypse on a spaceship. A little space opera-y.
(Am I right @mathbrush? Correct me if I’m wrong.)
Send me a basic design idea and I’ll see if I can come up with something you like.
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That was me attempting to make a joke. Even a dystopian game should have a good font.
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This game releases tomorrow! I hope you will all enjoy it!
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This is going to be an awesome Christmas gift. Congratulations, Brian!
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It is. I have a 6 hour car journey in 2 days so I will play this through with all my knowledge of it, and this time I’m determined to get it all in one go. I probably won’t even finish it! But I’m determined to. This is going to be great! Well done!
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