Font on Keen 6 Manual Cover?

Ikaragua · Post by **Ikaragua** » Fri Jun 24, 2011 11:01

Hello,

I'm looking for the font used on the manual cover, i.e. the one used for the "ALIENS ate my BABYSITTER" text.

Thanks in advance!

DHeadshot · Post by **DHeadshot** » Fri Jun 24, 2011 13:43

Which manual? Different distributers made different boxes, so the chances are the manuals are different too...

kuliwil · Post by **kuliwil** » Fri Jun 24, 2011 15:53

DHeadshot wrote:Which manual? Different distributers made different boxes, so the chances are the manuals are different too...

Didn't Keen 6 only have the one distributor? Hence all the difficulties getting ahold of a copy?

guynietoren · Post by **guynietoren** » Fri Jun 24, 2011 18:11

I remember the old manual, but it was a black and white copy of it that I got from some guy at my dad's work long ago. I don't have it anymore, but I remember it had the same art as the box. Had to look through it to find the names of the enemies to play the game.

Ikaragua · Post by **Ikaragua** » Sat Jun 25, 2011 9:06

This one:

Sorry, I didn't know that this is also the box cover, as I only have the manual.

Paramultart · Post by **Paramultart** » Sat Jun 25, 2011 10:22

The text seen on this box art is technically not a font by any means. If you analyze the lettering closely, you can see that each letter is unique in some way, and there are no repeating letters. This leads me to believe that they are hand drawn. My only real solution is for you to browse around a font database and try to find something similar. Even then, your chances are pretty slim in finding a font that resembles what is seen on this box art.

I am curious as to why you need the font, anyway.

Ikaragua · Post by **Ikaragua** » Sat Jun 25, 2011 11:04

It sounds reasonable now that you say it. What a pity. It really is a shame, because the font is the last thing I need to complete my project. I even found the box art without text and company logo, so that I can write my own text on it. Anyway, thank you very much!

The thing is I am trying to create a coloured facsimile of the Keen 6 manual in German for my dad. He asked me to do that.

You can take a look at it at:
http://ikaragua.de/images/ck6m.jpg

It won't be 100 % identical excluding the positioning and the fact that it's translated, since I didn't find a coloured front picture of Flect, for example, but I guess it does the job pretty well.

Keenfan · Post by **Keenfan** » Sat Jun 25, 2011 14:44

Nice project!

kuliwil · Post by **kuliwil** » Sat Jun 25, 2011 15:29

Sounds a lovely project!

Can't you just crop out the text from the cover though? Or, actually, modify the original cover to put in the German text everywhere except for the name of the episode? From the looks of things you're keeping the names of all the monsters the same, but I don't know what kind of name-retention scheme you have.

Keeper · Post by **Keeper** » Sun Jun 26, 2011 10:44

I suspect that the idea behind this "font" was to imitate this title. Just like the opening sequence of Goodbye Galaxy and AAMB obviously imitates this

You are right, this isn't really a font - the letters were probably drawn separately.

VikingBoyBilly · Post by **VikingBoyBilly** » Sun Jun 26, 2011 14:19

now that i'm looking at the cover art I'm noticing a lot of things. Like, in the background there's the BWB flying to fribbulux xax, but fribbulus xax seems to be orbitting another, much bigger planet. So is fribbulus xax a moon? Then to the left of the foreground there's keen fighting a bloog on the bloog space station, while in the foreground he's standing on the surface of fribbulus xax and there's a waterfall behind him. So many mixed settings in one image.

Eros · Post by **Eros** » Sun Jun 26, 2011 17:43

VikingBoyBilly wrote:now that i'm looking at the cover art I'm noticing a lot of things. Like, in the background there's the BWB flying to fribbulux xax, but fribbulus xax seems to be orbitting another, much bigger planet. So is fribbulus xax a moon? Then to the left of the foreground there's keen fighting a bloog on the bloog space station, while in the foreground he's standing on the surface of fribbulus xax and there's a waterfall behind him. So many mixed settings in one image.

blooglab/waterfall: it's overlooking bloogwaters crossing
moon theory: the green jupiter is a star

hope that helps.

Ikaragua · Post by **Ikaragua** » Sun Jun 26, 2011 18:21

Thank you all for your help!

In the end I really had to draw the remaining letters myself. With that, I have finished my project and the Commander Keen 6 manual facsimile in colour and German is completed.

Here is the box art with German lettering:
http://ikaragua.de/images/ck6m2.jpg

Post by **tulip** » Sun Jun 26, 2011 21:57

I was wondering what your project could be...

haha, cool, well done.

kuliwil · Post by **kuliwil** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 5:50

Ikaragua, you do great work!