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[HQ]

Longstory short: I'm working as the Art Director/ Lead Artist on an open world 2d sandbox game called "Farworld Pioneers"
We released the Announcement Trailer that we have been working on the past months yesterday:




The idea of the trailer was to show the games main setting (being stranded on a foreign planet after your droppod crashed), some game progression & some dramaturgy while straying away from any real story (as it is an open world sandbox game). We have got a lot of feedback and while it seems to have worked like intended, I am always open ears for feedback/ ways to improve.

So now, while the numbers are good on the trailer, we are in the process of working on a follow up for this/ a launch trailer for the games release on May 30th.

That means, its back to the drawing board & I'd love to get some feedback/ input on a good launch trailer/ stuff people might be missing on this one?

Looking forward to any reply!

[michaelplzno]

The trailer is quite polished and complete at this point. I don't think I could offer anything to improve it, though its a bit long.

Personally, I know you consciously decided to avoid this topic, but I'm a sucker for story trailers: stuff that answers "why do I care?" This trailer sort of tangentially gets into it, but I always want more about the plot motivation for why I'm exploring the world. For example, the new buzz lightyear movie was about being stranded on an alien planet, and I checked out pretty fast because I just wasn't too invested in it. There has to be a hint of what the payoff will be at the end. A hook.

For games, plot may not be commercially the best stuff, I know most people say "stick to gameplay" but I kinda want to be rooting for the mission to be a success story wise.

Edit: to be even more specific here, the characters are stranded on a far away planet, why is the planet special? why are the characters special? Is this essentially a bunch of anonymous star explorers that are stopping at a gas station in space, fixing up their ship and leaving to more interesting locals?

 

[michaelplzno]

Since I'm in a pontificating mood I'll start to expand on "why I care about fictional characters"

Three reasons: Theme, Conflict, and Mystery

Theme:

A character I care about has to have a goal that relates to me. As an example, I'll talk about One Piece. I've watched close to 1000 episodes of that show and I still care about Luffy's goal of becoming king of the pirates. Its a clever case study in what it takes to keep people hooked on an ongoing saga:

Luffy explains that he wants to be king and that relates to most everyone as a theme: Power. Pretty much all people on earth want more power. I would be wary of someone who says they don't want to be powerful because they are likely selling something. So the quest to be "king" a universal idea that Luffy wants to have agency and do what he wants. I can relate to the theme here.

Now, I know a lot of people will say that such themes are a "juvenile power fantasy," but seriously, power is an inherently interesting theme and if you don't talk about it in your art you are really tying your hands (I know some people are into that.) Kudos to people who pick less cliche themes in their art though, much respect, I just hope you are not making something boring and un-relatable.

Conflict:

So you start with the theme of power, already I'm listening, and then you add that this is power in a world of pirates, with colorful personalities and their own goals and dreams, and all kinds of powerful abilities on their side. So now we have an interesting conflict: what does it take to be king in a world of powerful pirates? Now I'm gonna watch some of this show. I'm hooked: you have conflict and a theme that I'm interested in.

Mystery:

The icing on the cake is the teaser of the hidden ending: only the king of the pirate knows what the One Piece treasure is. Oh, a surprise at the end for the winner? Daymn, I'm in for 1k episodes.

So you have these 3 elements, a theme that relates, conflict that is meaningful, and some mystery at the end. BAM: I'm in.

Example, Luffy's first story arc:

Of course, Luffy in the first arc of the show takes on a Marine who is erecting a giant Jesus like statue of himself. This gets me to watch for two reasons, first I want Luffy to win against this vain guy who thinks he is god, but ALSO, I understand why the bad guy is motivated: he wants to be powerful the theme is being explored because its asking who is deserving of power and how do we become powerful. Also it has the conflict because who knows which side is right? I want to see this play out. I'm invested. Then the icing on the cake is the mystery of Zorro and Goby, who we instantly want to know where they end up. Zorro is in the stocks, and Goby is stuck on a ship he hates: what happens to these characters?

Example of a story I stopped watching, Buzz Lightyear:

For Buzz Lightyear, we have none of the 3 elements: the planet buzz lands on is not particularly interesting, even though buzz is going on about the theme of exploring the interesting world of outer space, already buzz is crapping on the theme that exploration and bravery and boldly going to new worlds is the stuff of legends because the first thing he does on an alien planet is say "well this planet is a boring stink hole, why are we even here?" What is the theme then? A sort of dogged sticking to duty even though there is no real point. "Ya gotta do what ya gotta do?" Other than some kind of "Office Space" making fun of such an idea I have no reason to care about this theme.

So for the next element, Buzz is trying to escape the super boring planet and we have no interesting conflict: who is stopping him from leaving? Only Buzz's inability to manufacture special crystals, and the fact that testing the crystals takes 4 years for each test. Its not really a conflict in any meaningful way, its sort of dull.

To top it off, there is no mystery, no one is saying what the pot of gold is at the end of the rainbow. No question of what the "happy ending" is or what the endgame of the movie is. It seems like the explorers in Buzz Lightyear want to take their ship to some tropical planet and build condos on a beach somewhere? I mean, who cares?

So in summary and in conclusion, Make your game like One Piece, and not Like Buzz Lightyear. Thank you for attending my ted talk.

[ThemsAllTook]

This trailer looks real good to me as it is. It hits on all the points I'd care to know about the game before deciding whether to look into buying it. There are some tiny preferential things I'd change if it was my own game - I prefer to have a cold open to gameplay from the very first frame of the video, but the preamble is short enough for it not to bother me much. The post-ending scene doesn't work with my sense of humor, and I feel like it'd be overall better if that part was cut entirely, but I'm sure that's subjective - I might just not be part of the target audience for that bit. The second half in general could probably be reduced quite a bit, since the first minute told me most of what I needed to know. It's nice for surprises to be saved for the game itself.

The ideal trailer for me has a runtime of not much more than one minute, is 100% gameplay footage until the very end where the smallest possible amount of key info is included (platforms, release date, etc.), and has some sort of thread connecting all the scenes together, like a little implied story or progression I can follow. Sometimes I'll want to spend even less than a minute looking at a trailer and will skip ahead in the video (especially if the first few seconds don't communicate what I'd be doing in the game as a player), so having a variety of things over time with something interesting to see no matter where I land would work well with this pattern. If I landed in a slow bit like the scene at the very end, it'd be a disappointment.

I notice that some of this is opposite to Michael's feedback above, so maybe that just emphasizes the importance of having multiple trailer types. This reads to me clearly as a gameplay trailer. Story details are something I'd actively want to avoid before playing - the information I look for is what gameplay tasks I'd be doing moment-to-moment, and the overall vibe of the game.

[michaelplzno]

I'm willing to be wrong here:

I just like to see a story trailer, I may be the only one lol.

[HQ]

Thank you both for taking the time to reply so thoroughly! I have read all of it before but finally found the time to properly reply!
In short: I agree with a lot of it & also see the conflicting part concerning showcasing some sort of story besides the overall bigger theme of being stranded on a foreign planet.

I have been a huge One Piece fan since forever, so you really knew how to talk to me here btw haha

For the launch trailer we will be going for something less than a minute - catching the audience with the first frames. The storyline will focus not on only one singular timeline but rather spread in the multiple directions one could play & enjoy the game. The reasoning for that is, that the team & I believe that it is a potential better way - at least for this game-  to showcase & in the end also market the game. As an open world sandbox game the possibilities are huge & narrowing it down to one thing could be the wrong way of visual communication there.

[michaelplzno]

I'm rooting for this one HQ, msg me and I'll retweet you and your trailer when its out!

[HQ]

Thank you! We went all in with the fun -action shots on this one:

The launch trailer:

[michaelplzno]

congrats!