# When a number decided everything

> Nineties game magazines put a percentage on a page and it settled arguments for months. The layout around it — slanted blocks, star strips, screenshot boxes — is a whole design language.

August 17, 2026 · https://justog.club/stories/retro-game-magazine-layout

`96%`. Printed once, in a magazine, by somebody you'd never met, and that was the end of the
discussion until the next issue.

There's no equivalent now, and the design language built around those numbers is one of the most
distinctive of the decade.

## Why is the number the design?

Because the number was the product.

Everything else on the page — screenshots, boxouts, the writer's opinion — existed to justify a
figure that people would quote for a year. So the layout put it at maximum size, usually slanted,
usually with a starburst or a rule under it, and arranged the rest around it.

That's why a percentage on a chest works so well as a print:
[a number is legible to everyone and meaningful to almost nobody](/stories/numbers-as-a-design),
and this one carries a whole era's worth of context.

## What are the layout components?

Five, and they're all about density.

- **Angled colour blocks** — nothing is square, everything is on a five-degree slant.
- **A huge slanted headline** in a heavy italic or a condensed display face.
- **A star strip** or a rating bar, usually with one star half-filled.
- **Screenshot boxes** with thick borders and caption strips underneath.
- **A saturated three-colour palette**: magenta, yellow and cyan on a dark ground.

The slant is the signature. It's what made those pages look energetic on cheap paper, and it's
instantly period.

## Can I use a real magazine's page?

No — the layouts, logos and reviews are the publisher's work.

The conventions are free. Slanted blocks, star strips, screenshot boxes and aggressive display
type were shared across every games magazine in every market, because they were all solving the
same problem with the same printing budget.

An invented review is also much better on a shirt. Scoring something absurd — a bus route, a
brand of instant noodles, your own week — with a slanted `96%` and a star strip is a joke the
format makes for you.

## What should be reviewed?

Something that doesn't get reviewed.

That's the funniest use of the register and the one nobody makes. `TUESDAY — 64%`. `MY COMMUTE —
41%, LOADING TIMES POOR`. `THIS SHIRT — 96%`. The design's built-in authority does all the work,
which is
[the same mechanism as an esports badge on a promotion](/stories/new-job-promotion-shirt).

The straight version — a review of an invented game — works too, and it's the one that reads as a
period piece rather than as a joke.

## What about the small text?

Keep it as texture, not as content.

Real pages are dense with body copy, and reproducing that at chest scale produces grey mush —
[the weave has a resolution](/stories/bold-shapes-survive-fabric) and eight-point body
text is under it.

The move is to imply density: a couple of readable captions, a star strip, and blocks that suggest
text without being it. The number does the reading.

## Does the palette need to be that loud?

For this register, yes. Muted defeats it.

Magazine print of that era was saturated because the paper was cheap and the covers were competing
on a shelf. A tasteful version of this layout stops being period and becomes generic contemporary
design.

If loud is wrong for the wearer, the register is wrong — not the palette.
[Choosing the register is the decision](/stories/several-directions-not-one), and this
one comes with its volume attached.

## How do I get one made?

Describe what's being reviewed at [JustOG](/) — the subject, the score, and one caption. Pick a
direction, drag the crop frame, see it composited on the real garment, and it's made to order and
shipped.

Designs other people have published are in the [shop](/shop).

Somebody typed a number and everyone agreed for a year. That's the design.