How to Make an Indie Game Trailer | Game Maker's Toolkit

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

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

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

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

But one of the key components is a good trailer.

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

your potential player’s eyeballs.

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

what makes a good trailer?

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

A trailer is not a random montage of gameplay
clips.

It’s not a dry rundown of features.

It’s not your opening cutscene.

And it’s definitely not a sales pitch.

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

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

It’s frigging cool. And crazy addictive".

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

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

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

people to try it, or to discuss it”.

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

of the music.

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

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

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

Or a particularly strong art style.

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

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

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

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

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

Now, a beautiful game like GRIS practically
sells itself.

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

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

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

the way to go.

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

Or, a voice over track.

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

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

Every inscription I decipher is a piece of
the puzzle.

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

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

These few words neatly describe the core of
this game.

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

And the story changes based on your actions.

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

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

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

of the characters in the game.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

them flying across the screen.

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

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

the log book.

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

left confused by what they actually do in
the game.

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

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

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

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

quicker than players abandoned Fallout 76.

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

of rising intensity, which looks like this…

So step one is the cold open.

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

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

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

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

DELILAH: Henry!

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

DELILAH: Damnit!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

So it’s time for step two - introduction.

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

something less intense.

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

game mechanic.

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

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

Here, we can build on things.

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

more explosions, and reduce the time between
cuts.

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

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

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

Make a point to show different things with
every cut.

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

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

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

Step four is the climax.

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

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

viewer’s mind.

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

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

game and see what happens next.

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

HENRY: No, I’m not.

DELILAH: Then who is?”.

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

platforms and the release date.

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

to do just one thing.

And, sometimes, there’s step five.

The button.

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

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

Presentation for trailers is particularly
important.

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

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

The most crucial thing is making the trailer
readable.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Don’t let noise compete for attention.

Clarity between clips is important, too.

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

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

tiring and wastes time.

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

Beyond readability, we want trailers to look attractive.

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

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

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

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

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

to get one that looks perfect.

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

or dying in your gameplay footage.

Sound is super important, too.

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

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

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

And sometimes the trailer gets cut around
a song.

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

Don’t forget sound effects, though.

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

realize it.

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

feels dry and lifeless.”

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

them for the trailer.

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

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

We start with 12 seconds of high intensity
action.

Explosions. Fire. A disintegrating ship.

The music is high tempo and the cuts are fast.

Then we change gears for the introduction.

Things are calmer now.

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

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

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

And it elegantly explains the core loop of
the game:

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

Explore. Study. Catalogue new species.

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

Things get more intense with the escalation.

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

All the things we can build.

All the animals that are trying to murder
us.

Bones in the deep.

Plus: review quotes!

If you’ve got ‘em, flaunt ‘em.

And then the climax, an ominous line...

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

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

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

questions that encourage you to play for yourself.

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

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

in an underwater alien world - is expressed
really clearly.

Top marks for this trailer.

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

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

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

So it’s important to be creative and different.

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

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

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

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

And if in doubt, hire a professional.

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

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

logos, and more.

Hey! Thanks for watching!

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

those wading into the scary world of indie
game development.

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

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

Okay bye.