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At a time when hundreds of new games are hitting
the Steam shelves, the Switch eShop, and the

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PlayStation Store every single month, the
most difficult thing about making games, might

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actually be just getting people to know that
your game exists.

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Now, there’s so much involved in a strong
marketing campaign.

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But one of the key components is a good trailer.

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This is about 90-odd seconds of uninterrupted
footage of your game, beamed directly into

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your potential player’s eyeballs.

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So, you better not waste this opportunity
- and it’s a good time to ask the question:

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what makes a good trailer?

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So, it’s important to know what a trailer
is actually for.

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A trailer is not a random montage of gameplay
clips.

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It’s not a dry rundown of features.

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It’s not your opening cutscene.

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And it’s definitely not a sales pitch.

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TRAILER VO: “Hey you, looking at the screen. Lemme ask you a question.

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Do you like awesome things that are awesome? Then you gotta play this game, dude.

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It’s frigging cool. And crazy addictive".

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Yugh. Instead, the primary purpose of a trailer
is to tell players what makes your game unique.

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You see, every popular indie game has a hook,
which Crypt of the Necrodancer developer Ryan

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Clark describes as “some interesting bit
of information about the game that compels

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people to try it, or to discuss it”.

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It could be a clever game mechanic, like a
dungeon crawler where you move to the beat

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of the music.

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Or an RPG where you can talk enemies out of
fighting.

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It could be an exciting mash-up of genres,
like a deck-building roguelike, or a stealth platformer.

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It could be a unique setting or story that
we haven’t seen before.

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Or a particularly strong art style.

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The trailer is a chance to explain your hook
to the player, and the press.

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Both of which will then share that idea in
conversations, tweets, headlines and so on.

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Derek Lieu is one of the most prolific trailer
makers around, and says “I think it's important

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to consider how someone will talk about a
game after seeing the trailer; I think the

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simpler you make an idea to share, the more
it will get shared”.

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Now, a beautiful game like GRIS practically
sells itself.

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But if your hook is a clever game mechanic,
you’re going to need to explain it.

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If the idea is particularly complex and can’t
be easily communicated through visuals alone

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- like branching narratives and procedural
generation - then maybe explicit communication is

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the way to go.

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That might be through pop-up text-based title
cards.

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Or, a voice over track.

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For example, listen to this trailer for Heaven’s
Vault.

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ALIYA: “I’m an archeologist. I dig stuff up.

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Every inscription I decipher is a piece of
the puzzle.

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Every moon I sail to, reveals a new path to
explore.

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And every new discovery, can change the story,
entirely”.

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These few words neatly describe the core of
this game.

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You’re an archeologist. You translate inscriptions. You travel through space.

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And the story changes based on your actions.

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It’s not just random scraps of dialogue,
but a clear description of the game’s idea.

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And best of all, the devs got the actress
for the game’s main character, to read the

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script - which feels more natural, less like
a sales pitch, and also introduces us to one

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of the characters in the game.

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But if the game can speak for itself, it’s best to just let it.

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I think viewers end up watching the trailer
more actively when they’re forced to figure

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out what’s going on for themselves - which
is more engaging.

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This can achieved by clearly and simply showing
how the game is played.

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In this trailer for the bonkers rule-changing
puzzle game Baba is You, we start by seeing

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the sentence “Baba is You” change to “Rock
is You”, and then the rock starts moving around.

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That elegantly sums up the way players get
to fiddle with the game’s most fundamental rules.

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Here’s another game: Way of the Passive
Fist, which is about parrying attacks until

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the enemy is knackered - and then knocking
them out with a single touch.

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To show this, the trailer begins with the
main character fending off attacks for 10 seconds.

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Then, the action slows, the music stops, and
the hero pokes an exhausted enemy to send

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them flying across the screen.

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And then in the trailer for Return of the
Obra Dinn, we see a corpse, the pocket watch,

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some death vignettes, and - finally - recording
information about the corpse’s death in

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the log book.

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You don’t need to turn your trailer into
a full tutorial, but players shouldn’t be

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left confused by what they actually do in
the game.

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Trailer maker M Joshua says “consider this
your first major hurdle: players can’t imagine

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themselves inside of a game they don’t understand”.

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Now, there’s no point explaining your game
if you’ve already lost your viewer’s attention.

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Pacing is critical, and if you don’t get
it right your viewer will click off your trailer

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quicker than players abandoned Fallout 76.

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And to get this right, you could do a lot
worse than cribbing from Derek Lieu’s graph

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of rising intensity, which looks like this…

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So step one is the cold open.

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The beginning of the trailer is crucial to
get right, so Derek often starts strong with

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an intense action moment, a slice of gameplay,
or even a joke -

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DELILAH: Manifest tells people not to go too far in
there - it’s pretty dangerous. You’re in it, aren’t you?

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HENRY: It doesn’t seem that dangerous - woah, ah!

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DELILAH: Henry!

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HENRY: Seriously, it’s completely fine in here.

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DELILAH: Damnit!”

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Don’t bore your viewers with exposition right
out of the gate.

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And unless you’ve got some serious clout,
hold back on the studio logos, as well.

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“From the makers of FTL” is a hook in
of itself.

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But Constipated Gorilla Studios doesn’t
mean anything because I just made it up.

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Now, you can’t keep that level of intensity
going throughout the whole trailer.

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Non-stop action is exhausting, and viewers
will start to zone out and stop paying attention.

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So it’s time for step two - introduction.

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At this point, Derek takes a moment to slow
down and turn the viewer’s attention to

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something less intense.

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This is a good time to set up the story, introduce
the world, or - as before - explain the main

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game mechanic.

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With the viewer’s attention secured by the
cold open, and their basic understanding of

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what’s happening achieved in the exposition,
we can move onto step three: escalation.

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Here, we can build on things.

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We can slowly increase the intensity, add
in more mechanics, ramp up the action, show

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more explosions, and reduce the time between
cuts.

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It’s really important to have lots of variety
here.

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If you’re always seeing the same type of
enemy, or the same location, the viewer will

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start to think “is that all there is?”.

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Make a point to show different things with
every cut.

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There’s a cute trick that a lot of trailer
makers use where the main character doesn’t

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move, but the backgrounds or enemies or costumes
do, to indicate oodles of content.

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It’s a bit played out, but still better
than a title card that says “60 levels”.

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Step four is the climax.

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This is where the action builds up to its
most intense point - and then stops.

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We don’t want to show everything, and ideally
we want to leave lingering questions in the

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viewer’s mind.

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This Hyper Light Drifter trailer ends with
an eeery boss fight.

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And this Firewatch trailer expertly sets up
a mystery that makes you want to play the

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game and see what happens next.

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DELILAH: “Wait, you’re already there? You’re not in your tower?

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HENRY: No, I’m not.

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DELILAH: Then who is?”.

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It’s here that we finally reveal the game’s
name or logo, and relevant information like

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platforms and the release date.

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And maybe a call to action - just, don’t
give your viewer decision paralysis: ask them

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to do just one thing.

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And, sometimes, there’s step five.

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The button.

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a cute extra joke, or bit of action, or a
tease after the end of the trailer.

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You want to end on a high note, after all.

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Presentation for trailers is particularly
important.

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With so little time, so many fast cuts, and
with first impressions being literally all

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you have right now, it’s more critical than
ever that you make every frame count.

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The most crucial thing is making the trailer
readable.

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This means reducing clutter to only focus
the viewer’s attention on the most important stuff.

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Lucas Pope could have shown Papers, Please
like this: this is how it appears in the game,

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after all: three different windows, all vying
for your attention with loads of noisy information.

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But, instead, Lucas crops the viewpoint down
to only what he wants to show - the line of immigrants.

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The faces. The documents. The stamp. The rule book. The photos.

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It’s generally a good idea to hide interface
elements like the HUD and mouse cursors.

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And use crops, close-ups, or even custom-made
areas to highlight the important bits.

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Don’t let noise compete for attention.

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Clarity between clips is important, too.

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The viewer will try to focus on something
on screen - usually the player character.

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But when the video cuts, they’ve got to
find that point of focus again - which is

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tiring and wastes time.

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Instead, try to keep the focus point in generally
the same place between cuts.

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Beyond readability, we want trailers to look attractive.

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So think about composition, and use tricks like
the rule of thirds, scenic landscape shots,

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tracking cameras, and heroic character portraits,
to make the game look great.

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And remember that as the trailer maker you’re
not just the director and editor, but also

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the actor: and so you want to show off gameplay
that looks super slick.

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Derek records dozens of takes of the same
action, like throwing this bottle in Firewatch,

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to get one that looks perfect.

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And unless you’re making a point about permadeath,
you don’t really want to be taking damage

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or dying in your gameplay footage.

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Sound is super important, too.

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Music should ideally match the intensity of
what’s happening on screen.

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So, sometimes the composer will write a specific
song for the trailer.

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Other times the OST can get chopped up to
fit the marketing.

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And sometimes the trailer gets cut around
a song.

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Putting cuts on the beat is fun, and so is
putting actions on the beat.

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Don’t forget sound effects, though.

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M Joshua says “your players feel the game
through the sounds, though they might not

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realize it.

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If you’re showing a trailer with just music
and no sound effects, more than likely, it

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feels dry and lifeless.”

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You know how important sound effects are in
the games themselves, so maybe don’t mute

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them for the trailer.

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So let’s look at it all of this stuff in
action.

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Here’s the trailer for Subnautica, made
by Derek Lieu

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We start with 12 seconds of high intensity
action.

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Explosions. Fire. A disintegrating ship.

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The music is high tempo and the cuts are fast.

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Then we change gears for the introduction.

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Things are calmer now.

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And we see what we’re actually going to
do when we play the game.

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We’ll jump into the ocean, swim around,
stab stuff, craft things.

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After a while there’s a voice over, which
sounds like an AI voice from our drop pod.

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And it elegantly explains the core loop of
the game:

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AI: “Utilising alien resources is a proven survival strategy.

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Explore. Study. Catalogue new species.

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Secure food and energy. And gather data on unusual phenomenon”.

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Things get more intense with the escalation.

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The music swells as we see just how much stuff we
can do in this game.

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All the things we can build.

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All the animals that are trying to murder
us.

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Bones in the deep.

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Plus: review quotes!

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If you’ve got ‘em, flaunt ‘em.

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And then the climax, an ominous line...

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TRAILER GUY: "We shouldn’t have gone so deep”.

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... a mysterious chamber. And then the game name and logo.

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Oof! This is a really well paced trailer which
explains how the game plays, and leaves unanswered

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questions that encourage you to play for yourself.

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It shows loads of variety, suggesting that
there’s a lot to uncover in this game.

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And Subnautica’s hook - that it’s a game
about crafting huge structures to survive

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in an underwater alien world - is expressed
really clearly.

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Top marks for this trailer.

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I guess the only thing left to consider is,
if you follow these rules too closely, your

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trailer will start to look like all of the other
trailers.

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And you’re back to your first problem: standing
out from the crowd.

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So it’s important to be creative and different.

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Use these ideas as guidelines, but not as
a template.

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So, for example, take this amazing trailer
for Factorio.

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It still shows off the game’s hook, tells
you how the game works, and ramps up the intensity

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over time - but it does so in a single, continuous
shot.

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And if in doubt, hire a professional.

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I’ve put links to the websites for all the
best trailer makers in the description, plus

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additional resources for things like capturing
high quality footage, using ESRB and PEGI

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logos, and more.

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Hey! Thanks for watching!

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Obviously this one isn’t about game design,
per se, but it’s still super important for

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those wading into the scary world of indie
game development.

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I guess I should take my own advice now and do
just one call to action.

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Okay, this time I want you to… just have
a really lovely day.

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Okay bye.