3DS inside covers project

Tired of me using the FE Awakening box art? Well too bad.

Hello, Crescent here. If you are like me, then you love not only your 3DS, but also having the physical copy of a game in your hand rather than a digital one. There is something gratifying about having a massive collection taking up space on your shelf rather than having a single SD card that contains your entire hobby sitting in a small handheld device. There is just something about having the game sitting in it's case, reminding me not only of it's presence, but also of how awesome the game was. However, there was always one thing that kind of bothered me and it's those Eco-friendly cases. There is nothing wrong with the cases themselves, I think it is a good idea to try to reduce the amount of plastic used in manufacturing not only from an ecological standpoint but also an economic standpoint. No, what bothered me is these big holes to just a white background surrounding the game itself. It just seems like a waste to be able to see nothing. And thus I began what I personally called the "3DS inside covers project" an attempt to fill in those holes with something.

You know, kind of like this (Picture taken from Joystiq.com)

These Eco-friendly cases, as is, are just kind of boring. There is so much white not only on the case themselves but also behind the holes they put in to save material. I mean, no color drains more energy from looking at it than white.... well except maybe grey which makes me wonder why that is the new color of the modern age (What the hell Nintendo, red was an awesome color!). It reminds me of the Playstation and Dreamcast days where games where shipped in clear plastic CD cases and behind where the CD rests, behind the clear plastic, is artwork from the game which gave more character and personality to the standardized packaging. Now for some games, they actually use the same concept to add pictures to the back of the cover, in order to be visible, but not all games and some of them are only in Japan take for instance the treatment of Star Fox 64 3D between Japan (Above) and the US (Below).

What the Hell? Where are my Pics?

So to fix this I first started to look all over the internet to find if other people have started their own attempts at "filling in the blanks" to which I was incredibly disappointed. I could only find one such image designed for that purpose made by someone I could only identify as Mitsukootsuki to fill in the holes to Fire Emblem Awakenings case. Mitsukootsuki's attempt was noteworthy but for some reason (I don't know if it's because of how I printed it out or what) the template wouldn't fit, when I tried to center it within the case it not all the pictures would align. And so, with no other options other than to give up, I decided to start making my own inside covers for my 3DS games, because even a poorly photoshopped, highly pixalated inside cover is better than no inside cover at all. Unless it completely sucks, which is debatable.

Mitsukootsuki's Attempt. Not bad, but there are some things that bother me about it.

And so after a few months of working on and off, several attempts at trying to get the images to align properly, I have finally done it. I have a functional inside cover to two of my games "Fire Emblem: Awakening" and "Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor Overclocked" and I have decided to share this with... well anyone who even care, and if you don't like my designs... Well, don't use them. Instead, you can use my Template which not only should allow you to create your own 3DS inside covers, but also your own custom 3DS outside covers as well as even creating a custom reversal cover if you so choose. I hope to make this a collaborative project, so if you have created your own custom inside covers, please share them any way you like. And if you are using my custom covers, the only thing I ask is that you don't take credit for the creation.

Follow this Link for instructions and the cover designs: http://crescentreview.blogspot.com/p/3ds-inside-covers.html

Until next time.

-Crescent, MUCH better!