HN Reader

The box art for Haunted House (not the racy, original version) always frightened me as a child. I got the same feeling when I would go through my dad's vinyl collection and would run into the cover of The Moody Blues' "On The Threshold Of A Dream." The surreal style captured the types of nightmares I would have when young.

Atari Haunted House: https://e.snmc.io/lk/o/x/5585d64c8bad9592834b18b0c8394b44/10...

On The Threshold Of A Dream: https://rockandrollglobe.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/2505...

Have you played Atari today? 11 year old me was able to always answer that question yes.

So many times the box art would totally capture my imagination. I'd ask for some cartridge for Christmas or my birthday and it was always a bit of a gut punch to see the screen for the first time.

https://www.reddit.com/r/retrogaming/comments/11ddevl/atari_...

The spaceship beaming people up in Defender always looked like it's proportions were off. As a kid, I remember seeing the spaceship and thinking it looked like a metal glove.

I own the poster version ("The Art of Atari, the poster collection") and it's great. I have three of their posters hanging in my office right now. It's not just nostalgia, the art is terrific.

EDIT: the poster collection now costs $600+ on Amazon. Wow.

There is also one from Bitmap Books but more about the actual game graphics.

https://www.bitmapbooks.com/en-ca/collections/all-books/prod...

I always enjoyed the Magnavox Odyssey 2 box art as well

https://retrovania-vgjunk.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-wonderful...

I have this book. It’s fantastic.

These were really quite a piece of art. Unfortunately nowadays a box is so rare.

The Art of Over-Promising and Under-Delivering, ha ha. (Truly, I did just want something closer to a gently stylized screenshot so I knew what I was getting.)