Ray Ardent and the art of the Thumbnail image

Ray Ardent is up for bidding on flashgamelicense.com and I was given some very good advice from a total stranger. PJ Baron was nice enough to play Ray, and give me some very valuable feedback.

The crew at Flash Game License has been doing some research on the importance of the thumbnail image. It’s that little picture that tempts you to play the game.

Before seeing the results of the research, I believed that a descriptive image would be the best bet – show people what the game looks like.

The research that Flash Game License had done showed that games with a better quality thumbnail image regularly received more money from sponsors, received better editor reviews and were visited much more frequently. The research also showed that ‘screenshot’ thumbnails didn’t perform as well as a dedicated original thumbnail image.

With PJ’s advice and the research from Flash Game License in mind, I set off to redo Ray Ardent’s thumbnail image.

Before
After

I’m really happy with how the reworked thumbnail worked out – I somehow managed to capture the retro/pulp feel that I’m going for with Ray.

Looking at these now, it’s almost silly that I thought that a screenshot would be sufficient. It’s the little things that matter people.

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