Sci-Fi-O-Rama

Game Box art produced by Peter Andrew Jones, as used for the 16/8 bit title ‘Artura’, published by Gremlin Graphics in 1989. More on the game here: http://www.mobygames.com/game/amiga/artura

Superb pixel illustration / retro game graphics taken from the ground breaking “Dune 2: Battle for Arrakis” considered by many to be the defining RTS  game (real-time-strategy game). Dune II was released in 1992 by Westwood Studios who later went on to evolve the game concept into “Command & Conquer” and beyond.  These Graphics by Ren Olsen were used to depict the various buildings and units attainable within the game, the actual in game graphics (down to hardware limitations) were representational and quite simple, so  Dune II’s real artwork -  Ren’s lavish animated cut scenes, menus etc - was necessary to set the mood.

Dune II’s was a hugely immersive experience set within the Dune universe but only loosely based on the Frank Herbert Novels. Basically Westwood deployed a shit-load of creative license and all for the greater good, in fact the game was that good I’m pretty certain that (via emulation) the Battle for Arrakis will still be raging on more than one laptop not too far, far away…

Read more here: http://www.mobygames.com/search/quick?q=dune+2&x=0&y=0

Artist Ren Olsen has a website with other examples of his work, heres a link: http://www.renolsen.com/

Images sourced via http://duneii.com/ an excellent dedicated fan site.

I’d just like to note that in terms of design I’ve always thought this rendition of  the Dune desert world and its protagonist’s are - all be it on a smaller scale - every bit of as inventive as David Lynchs much derided 1984 film - and I’ll add also that the depiction of the Saurdakar trooper (2nd down on left) is one of my all time favourite SF designs - dark as hell….

Excellent original Atari Art, I presume for the legendary 2600, that was the wood paneled console with the stiff as hell one button joysticks. The vaporising image is “Defender” and the lower art-  if you’ve haven’t guessed - is “Super Breakout”.

Many thanks to Ben at http://www.buhbomp.com/ for supplying the scans.

Another good example of Roger Dean’s leftfield take on Sci-fi demonstrated here with some slightly Alien-esque artwork for the Computer Game “Obliterator”,   Another classic Psygnosis title which played as a 2d Platform Puzzle / Shoot-Em-Up. More information at http://www.mobygames.com/game/atari-st/obliterator

Some more 80’s nostalgia - Retro Game Box Art from 1985; Mercenary was a very early attempt at FPS Sci-Fi adventuring with 3d wire-frame vectors to describe the game world as shown above. The whole design is of course a stab at virtual reality using an ‘advanced console’ and HUD (heads up display) to explore an immersive game world, ok that console might only of been the humble C64 or Speccy, but that’s not really the point. There’s a pure charm with these early ideas of machine/human interaction mirrored in movies and tv of the time; Tron, Last Starfighter, Airwolf, Firefox etc  - more on these soon…..

Image sourced from Mobygames.com, read more about Mercenary here: http://www.mobygames.com/game/mercenary

This is Roger Dean’s first piece of commissioned artwork for the legendary 80/90s Games House Psygnosis, and dates from way back to 1986. In addition to Roger Dean Psygnosis also used other Sci-Fi-O-Rama Favorites Tim White and Peter Andrew Jones examples of which I’ve featured earlier. Not all of the games were that memorable but the artwork certainley was and although some of it had been used before as SF Novel covers I think it’s fair to say that it reached a much wider and younger audience thanks to Psygnosis.  Read more about Psygnosis here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psygnosis

Another example of box art from the early 90s’s, Knights of the Crystallion (great title!) was a third person RPG mix of puzzling solving and exploring made solely for the Commodore Amiga in 1990 -  so I think it’s safe to say, fairly obscure. Whats so appealing about this cover? it’s a smoke breathing Crystal Stallion hatching from an egg!

Knights of the Crystallion is an interesting looking Fantasy Game and one I’d never heard of until recently, read more at: http://www.mobygames.com/game/amiga/knights-of-the-crystallion

(Above) Another sample of Chris Foss’s uber cool space hardware design style. This Example is especially interesting as it shows Foss’s style at it’s most minimal and therefore abstract, and as with all of his work has tremendous sense of scale.

See more of Chris Foss here http://www.chrisfoss.net/

Looking at this piece made me wonder how much of an influence/inspiration Chris Foss’s Art must of been on David Braben & Ian Bell’s legendary 80’s computer game Elite. Original 80’s Elite Poster featured below, It’s not another Chris Foss By the way, but in fact another Airbrush Legend - Philip Castle, more on him soon… (thanks for the tip Jim!)