Custom Cases

Those of you who have known me for a while will know that I adore having a physical collection of games. I'm by no means one of those people who's all "no physical, no buy", but where the option exists to have a physical copy, I will most definitely take a physical copy.

This option doesn't always exist, however — and in the cases where I get review copies, I'll inevitably receive digital versions instead because those don't have to be "shipped" anywhere. So, what to do in that situation, then?

Why, roll your own, of course.

Okay, I'll grant you this isn't an option that is going to appeal to everyone given that it takes time, effort, expenditure and resources to do this, but I like having these things on my shelf, so if that means I have to print my own inlays and labels, so be it!

I don't just do this to fill my shelves up for the sake of it, either; I find that having a physical copy of something is an excellent reminder that you actually own something rather than it ending up buried deep within a purchase history list, email account or Steam library. It's a nice memento of having actually played something (as in these instances, all these cases are for games I've played and enjoyed) as well as a reminder for a year or two (or more!) down the road that I might want to revisit one or two things.

There's a more mundane, practical reason for it, too: archival and backups. In the case of something like Fate/stay night, which never got an official English release, but which has received a wide variety of patches and updates from the fan community, I'm keen to preserve those efforts in a form that I can easily show to someone else, install on a new computer in a few years' time, or just look back fondly on.

It also, to me, instills these games with a greater sense of "value" — as soon as they become physical copies they become actual possessions rather than just something you downloaded on a whim one day. They're something to be enjoyed rather than just passively consumed.

So how do I go about this? Well, I don't do anything particularly complicated. I simply knock up a quick case design in OpenOffice Draw (template attached to this post!) using official box art where it exists in suitably high resolution, or using other high-resolution official art that I just like the look of in other cases.

On the spine I try to include the authentic logo where possible (and where it's readable!) otherwise I'll go for an approximation using the same fonts, colour schemes and designs. And on the back, I just use another piece of artwork; while it's tempting to mock up screenshots, blurb, system requirements and suchlike, there's really no need to, and where actual box scans exist, they're inevitably much too low resolution to print at any decent quality.

I then print the artwork at the highest possible quality onto A4 photo paper, then trim it down to size with a guillotine. The photo paper gives a lovely glossy finish and really makes the colours shine much more than with plain paper.

And that's how they look on a shelf alongside "real" physical editions. Pretty nice, non?