Custom Super Mario Advance boxart slipcovers.

[Xander]

I joined MFGG back in 2001 when the GBA was making its debut. Over time, the GBA has become my favourite console of all time, and I've slowly been archiving my collection into DS cases. Not content with the other solutions out there, I started making my own custom sleeves for use in DS cases.

Here are some of my Mario slipcovers:




















I've made over 30 covers so far, though I don't have them all printed just yet. Check out here for more: https://xand0r.imgur.com/

I'll probably be making covers for my GBA pokemon games next, or maybe F-Zero.

I'd love your feedback.

[Syaxamaphone]

DAMN that's impressive! Those look amazing!

Where have you been getting spare DS cases?

My games | My twitter | My stream | Sprites Unlimited

[Xander]

DAMN that's impressive! Those look amazing!

Where have you been getting spare DS cases?

Thanks! I got a whole bunch of empty DS cases on ebay that were for various shovelware titles like Lizzie McGuire.

Me.

[Cruise Elroy]

Dang, that's pretty impressive. This kinda stuff makes me want to do something like this, heheh.

GOTM Awards:

Spoiler

[Xander]

Dang, that's pretty impressive. This kinda stuff makes me want to do something like this, heheh.

It's a fun way to sort of honour your collection. I've been fleshing out my GBA collection in the process as well, picking up some gems like Drill Dozer and the Castlevania series.

I've also picked up some new GBA consoles like the AGS-101 and a self-modded AGB-101.

So yeah, I'd definitely suggest doing something like this.

Me.

[Render8]

Definitely 1-Up'd this post. Man, those are really impressive and would easily pass for official covers. Really makes me want to start doing something like this.

[Xander]

Definitely 1-Up'd this post. Man, those are really impressive and would easily pass for official covers. Really makes me want to start doing something like this.

Thanks for the compliment.

It's been great fun so far.

Me.

[Xander]

Update!

Finally got my new designs onto some empty DS cases. As usual, I overlooked one, still need to do Mario Kart, though now I am out of empty DS cases, I'll need to find more!





https://imgur.com/a/BnARm

Now I want to do Pokemon, F-Zero, maybe Boktai.

Me.

[PAC-BANZAI]

Can you do DS covers too?

​​​​​​

[Xander]

Can you do DS covers too?

I suppose I could, but since they already come in cases, I'd have to be pretty motivated to improve upon the existing designs.

Me.

[Snessy the duck]

These actually look official, well done!

My Switch friend code: SW-5399-6466-3493

[Xander]

These actually look official, well done!

Thanks Snessy! I've been enjoying the process. I've found it's a pretty fun way to really make my GBA collection unique to me. To really "own" it, if you will.

Me.

[Mariotroid]

What are different about these? Am i missing something? The art looks the same as the official covers.

[Xander]

What are different about these? Am i missing something? The art looks the same as the official covers.

Well, for starters, GBA games came in flimsy cardboard boxes that aren't useful for storage or display of games. DS games came in sweet cases that are useful for both; and most DS cases had a GBA cart slot in them! So in order to store and display GBA games in DS cases, it's necessary to make slipcover designs. The slipcovers are a different size than GBA boxart, some early slipcover designs (at The Cover Project, for example) were stretched horizontally like an old TV channel on a widescreen TV! So I remake them at a proper size. Additionally, many attempts at slipcovers use scanned GBA boxes, which tend to be grainy and not as high a quality as they could be.

When possible, I will simply recreate an official cover design but use high resolution assets. High resolution assets are sometimes difficult to find for games that are around 15 years old! Some games, like Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade were Japanese only releases, so I adapt the rectangular Japanese boxart format to the more square international format.

Another fun part is the spines. I like to make the spines for a given series similar to one another so that they look nice when lined up.

Me.

[Mariotroid]

What are different about these? Am i missing something? The art looks the same as the official covers.

Well, for starters, GBA games came in flimsy cardboard boxes that aren't useful for storage or display of games. DS games came in sweet cases that are useful for both; and most DS cases had a GBA cart slot in them! So in order to store and display GBA games in DS cases, it's necessary to make slipcover designs. The slipcovers are a different size than GBA boxart, some early slipcover designs (at The Cover Project, for example) were stretched horizontally like an old TV channel on a widescreen TV! So I remake them at a proper size. Additionally, many attempts at slipcovers use scanned GBA boxes, which tend to be grainy and not as high a quality as they could be.

When possible, I will simply recreate an official cover design but use high resolution assets. High resolution assets are sometimes difficult to find for games that are around 15 years old! Some games, like Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade were Japanese only releases, so I adapt the rectangular Japanese boxart format to the more square international format.

Another fun part is the spines. I like to make the spines for a given series similar to one another so that they look nice when lined up.

Ah ok. I thought it was all completely original art. If I did this and had art skills that were good enough, id definitely make my own box art. These are really cool though, interesting and awesome idea

[Retriever II]

Oh man GBA....

I'm really impressed by this project. You could absolutely fool anyone young enough to not be that familiar with the GBA. They look amazing

[Saltman]

They look great!


(But seriously, you sure have a lot of GBA games. If you want to keep doing this then I'm sure you've got even more lol.)

[Xander]

Oh man GBA....

I'm really impressed by this project. You could absolutely fool anyone young enough to not be that familiar with the GBA. They look amazing

Thanks RII!

They look great!

(But seriously, you sure have a lot of GBA games. If you want to keep doing this then I'm sure you've got even more lol.)

Thanks! I really love the GBA library. It was this magical 3 year period of games where all the refined designs of the SNES era had a second life that didn't get near enough love or attention as people started to deride the use of sprites in favour of polygons.

I definitely keep adding more games. I just picked up Pokemon Sapphire and Pokemon FireRed, so now I have all 5 Pokemon games on the GBA. So those boxart designs will come soon enough.

In the meantime, I made some Harvest Moon DS cases.

Me.

[Mariotroid]

I loved the Gameboy Advance as well... it might be worth investing into once again.

[Xander]

I loved the Gameboy Advance as well... it might be worth investing into once again.

Definitely.

I live in Canada and new console games are like $80 ($90 after tax).

For that, I can get like 4 or 5 very good GBA games. So that's basically what I've been doing. In the past year and a half or so, I've played all 3 GBA Castlevania games, all 3 GBA Fire Emblem Games, The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town, Advance Wars 2, F-Zero: Maximum Velocity, Mario Golf: Advance Tour and I'm currently playing Mario Tennis: Power Tour, Mother 3 and Drilldozer.

It's been super fun. Plus, I can play them anywhere, and have done so. In the car, on airplanes, at lunch, at the in-laws. I honestly didn't even realize just how many GBA games I had played recently until I wrote it out just now.

Me.