Working Designs & CD Labels

[Needle]

Working Designs has made a practice of switching up the labels on their CDs during production since they did it with "Lunar: The Silver Star" for the Sega CD. Despite this, it seems most people are uninterested in this fact.

"Lunar: The Silver Star" has seven different variants, of which I have all seven.

"Alundra", for the PSX, supposedly has nine different variants (although I've only managed to procure seven).

Does this sort of thing matter to game collectors, or is this seen as a company pandering to the community in order to raise the value of its own products? I've been interested in collecting label variants for Working Designs games for several years now, but it really seems like either no one has ever heard of this, or no one really cares. After finding this community (and being downright shocked yet delighted at the dedication some of you have), I figured I would chime out and ask.

Any comments, opinions, or information is greatly welcome and appreciated.

--Needle

[digitalpress]

I think lots of collectors care. And lots don't care. Personally I was never interested in "variations", mainly because it's the same game inside so I was never really interested in having duplicates because of differing print styles or runs - but to some completists, variations are everything!

[Queen Of The Felines]

I would like a description of what the different PSX covers look like please. For the rarity list, of course. :)

Kristine

[Needle]

Actually, as far as I can tell, I'm one of the only people on the internet who seems to have any information about a lot of the WD variations. As I said earlier, most people do tend to ignore it. A lot of times I'll ask eBay sellers to identify their labels, and they'll respond with "Wow, I never knew that!"

My research has tried to deal with rarities as much as possible, but sometimes it's just hard to tell. Most of the information is based off of survey information I compile after asking eBay sellers.

For the record, Working Designs has done this with A LOT of games - but I'll only reference Alundra for now. If you're interested, I can provide you information about other games as well in the future.

http://www.needle.org/wd/alundra_guide.html

This is a very simple web page I made that I send eBay sellers to so they can identify their labels. It has pictures of the seven labels I have. Originally, pictures of all nine labels were presented on Working Designs' website. Shortly thereafter, they were removed. Therefore, I have reason to believe that the list of nine labels is complete and official, even though there are two that I have *NEVER* seen. Note that my divisions of "Series #1" and "Series #2" are not official; it merely makes identification easier for some people. The rarities, as best determined by me, are listed below:

Alundra
1997 Working Designs
Playstation

Label #1
Rarity: Common

Label #2
Rarity: Common

Label #3
Rarity: Uncommon

Label #4
Rarity: Common

Label #5
Rarity: Uncommon

Label #6
Rarity: Very Uncommon

Label #7
Rarity: Very Uncommon

Label #8
Rarity: Rare (Never seen one!)

Label #9
Rarity: Rare (Never seen one!)


Hope this information was interesting or inofrmational. If you're interested in other WD games, I can keep going. :)

--Needle

[DEBRO]

You could go to the Working Designs web site (http://www.workingdesigns.com) and get the information too. Well, I know you can for the 7 Lunar disks.

[Needle]

Working Designs used to have the information available for almost all of the games they did this with. Strangely enough, for unspecified reasons, a lot of this information was removed.

They do still have the information available regarding three of their games. Here are direct links to those pages:

Lunar: The Silver Star (http://www.workingdesigns.com/museum/sega_cd/ourgames/lunar-tss/details.html)

Dragon Force (http://www.workingdesigns.com/museum/saturn/dragon_force/details.html)

Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete (http://www.workingdesigns.com/museum/playstation/ourgames/lunar-sssc/cd_labels/contents.htm)

Other WD games known to have variants but the information was removed or never divulged to the public:

Alundra (9)
Lunar: Eternal Blue Complete (unknown)
Elemental Gearbolt (2)
Silhouette Mirage (not verified but likely) (2)
Magic Knight Rayearth (3)

...and probably others I don't know about.

[Queen Of The Felines]

Thank you kindly! :)

* Starts digging on Google *

Kristine

[slapdash]

Thank you kindly! :)

* Starts digging on Google *

Good thinking -- the WD stuff might still be cached on Google.

And if not, there's always the Wayback Machine, or whatever that page was called (sorry, no URL, but they're preserving the web over time).

[Needle]

You know I didn't even think of the Wayback Machine until you mentioned it just now! The address is at http://www.archive.org.

I ran off to check it out... I had to wade through about 65 search pages of fan art before I tripped upon some Alundra pages. Eventually I was able to locate one of the images in the archive, and from there it was easy to find the other eight. So now, I present to you, the nine Alundra CD label images that were originally put on their web site. These images are listed in the order that Working Designs might have had them in (as determined by their filename).

http://www.needle.org/wd/1-1.jpg (seems to be pretty common)
http://www.needle.org/wd/1-2.jpg (also pretty common)
http://www.needle.org/wd/1-3.jpg (pretty common as well)
http://www.needle.org/wd/1-4.jpg (rare, but around)
http://www.needle.org/wd/1-5.jpg (still never seen one)
http://www.needle.org/wd/1-6.jpg (never seen one of these either)
http://www.needle.org/wd/1-7.jpg (rare, but around)
http://www.needle.org/wd/1-8.jpg (uncommon)
http://www.needle.org/wd/1-9.jpg (also seems fairly uncommon)

I'm going to snoop around the archive for a bit longer and see what else I can find.

[VACRMH]

I'll just post what i've seen...

MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR LUNAR SILVER STAR STORY COMPLETE


Okie dokie :) I've seen 3 disc variations for Lunar - Silver Star Story Complete, The 2 game discs are different for each variation

1 - Alex and Dragonmaster Dyne
2 - Luna and Althena
3 - Ghaleon and Magic Emperor (I just saw this a few days ago)

I've seen 2 variations for Lunar - Eternal Blue Complete

1 Hiro, Lucia and Ruby
2. I can't remember, I believe one was Ronfar but I can't remember the rest :(

Hope this helps

[Nick Goracke]

A month later...

Not sure if you've noticed or not, but the "back insert" (the part the disc covers) also has different artwork for most (each?) variations. Just one more thing to look out for!

[Needle]

A month later...

Not sure if you've noticed or not, but the "back insert" (the part the disc covers) also has different artwork for most (each?) variations. Just one more thing to look out for!

Yea, WD did this for a lot of their games as well. I know that for Elemental Gearbolt, the CD insert has a picture of the girl that matches whichever girl is on the label of the CD. So even though there are two CD labels and two CD inserts, there aren't four variations.

Things get more confusing when you consider Alundra, since there were nine CD label variations; yet only four or five CD insert variation for the right side of the case and two variations for the left side of the case. Then factor in stores that take the CDs out of their cases, and things get mixed up quickly. It's too hard to determine which inserts belong with what games.

[Dark_Sol]

IS there any pictures of all lunar variations? Working designs site is dead even through archive.com

[Gapporin]

Our own Dangerboy has put together this neat little guide:
http://www.game-rave.com/psx/playstation_perfect_guide/features/feature_wd/index.html