Danger Monthly

This issue of Danger Monthly shows off Frank Woodruff and his miraculous mechanical-leg technology as he meets with the President. The shot also conveys the extent of his injury. We talked a lot about the best way to show a disabled veteran in the most positive light possible.

When we first started the project we asked Ryan Wilkerson, our art director at Microsoft, to help out with some of the 2D assets. We provided his team with lots of reference material and they did a great job at replicating the style. They also came up with most of the slogans that you see in the images as well. Ryan and his team really got the ridiculousness that we were going for. I especially love the reference to man-eating eels on this cover.

Mad Scientist

We added this magazine late in development as a way to bridge the gap from the first cover montage into the first tutorial section of gameplay. It shows off our villain, Vladimir Farnsworth, using his Monovision technology to take over the world.

This cover has a slightly different flavor than the others. This is not a manly magazine; it's an issue of Mad Scientist -- the only periodical for mad scientists, by mad scientists. Jeremy came up with this idea independently as he was working up the art for the cover. Although it's not completely consistent with the men's magazine style we were going for, the whole thing was just too ridiculous and awesome to pass up. His sinister beard reference and the fold-out spread of the Elkenberg circuit (I don’t even know if that’s real) cracked me up, and we just went with it. We let more humor like this leak into the game over time, and I think it was a great direction to go with.