Playing With / Covers Always Lie

Basic Trope: A cover or poster inaccurately represents the content of the actual work.

• Straight: The cover portrays Alice walking down some woods with Bob. There is no Bob in the game, and the woods are only mentioned.
• Exaggerated: The cover portrays an exceedingly violent video game... but the game is actually an educational child's game.
• Downplayed: The cover portrays Alice dying in a forest. While the forest is in the game, Alice does not die in it.
• Justified:
  • Drawing an honest cover would spoil major story events.
  • The Cover was made from an early version of the game.^note Just check the Y91W21 to Y92W05 builds on The Cutting Room Floor
  • Alice and Bob and Dark woods of Everon had their covers swapped.^note In the game box maker's defense, both were chapters of the Everon franchise
  • It reflects Alice's tendency to Book and Switch.^note Technically a subversion, as you actually need to know the work to understand this.
• Inverted:
  • The game lies about the cover.
  • The cover spoils some of the plot.
• Subverted:
  • It appears that throughout the game, Alice will not walk down the woods with Bob.. but at the last second, she goes into the woods with Bob...
  • as the double framing should have made clear, the forest is actual a poster for an In-Universe work the player character is trying to get tickets for.
• Double Subverted:
  • It didn't properly portray the game it was tied to either.
  • The cover art deliberately rendered the game title as

George wants tickets forALICE & BOB!

making it hard to notice the top half of the title as being more than a not-worth-reading made-by blurb.

• Parodied: Mentions of "Guy on the Cover" are made throughout the game
• Zig Zagged: The cover portrays Alice walking in the forest of trees during summer. Alice walks into the forest.. of flowers. But then she goes into the forest of trees, in the winter. When it turns summer, Alice is not in the woods, but decides to go back.. but then fall comes around...
• Averted: The cover is honest.
• Enforced:
  • The advertising agency wants the game to sell more even though the game is terrible. The solution? A cool looking cover.
  • The publisher doesn't want the cover to spoil the ending.
  • The poster used shots that had to be cut from the final release^*due to a Mid-Development Genre Shift..
  • The publisher wasn't that attentive when it came to sending the cover art to the packaging department.
  • The publisher didn't bother to check what they got back from the packaging department.
  • An unappealingly boring cover can go a long way to preventing Forbidden Fruit.
  • The original cover was Screwed by the Lawyers, leaving them no time to QA the replacement cover.
• Lampshaded:
  • "That's not how the cover portrayed it!"
  • "Where is the guy that was on the cover?" "He isn't appearing here, we lied"
• Invoked: ???
• Exploited: The characters call upon the dragon that was on the cover when it has never appeared before.
• Defied: "Quick! Bring out the sword that was on the cover before readers claim it was dishonest!"
• Discussed: ???
• Conversed: "Don't judge a book by it's cover! They are always dishonest!"
• Played For Laughs: The cover is so dishonest that even the protagonists can't help but complain.

---

Back to Covers Always Lie

---