Manifold Garden - Release Trailer
I got this gig via Ashley Ringrose at SMG Studio who contacted me on behalf of William Chyr all the way back in January 2019! I first saw Manifold Garden at either PAX East or West about 5+ years prior when it was still called Relativity O_O
Manifold Garden is a first person puzzle game with beautiful impossible architecture where the world infinitely repeats. For example, if you fall off a platform, you eventually land back where you were; some areas look sort of like a room with mirrors in six directions. You really need to see it in order to fully understand it, but functionally it's like in Pac-Man where you exit the right of the screen, and emerge on the left, but in multiple 3D angles.
Since I had followed the game for a while I was incredibly excited to work on the trailer! The previous trailer for the game came out all the way back in September 2015. The announcement teaser is super good; the epic music and beautiful tracking shots do a great job of making the game stand out.
As beautiful as the announcement trailer is, there's no gameplay, so that was the goal for this release trailer. When I received a build of the game I played it from beginning to end to take an inventory of the puzzle varieties and environments. My top priority was to show how the player interacts with the game, but I also wanted to retain a sense of awe from the infinite architecture.
The opening shot was very important because I wanted it to answer the question: "What do you DO in Manifold Garden???" I started off by picking up a blue cube, and then diving off a platform. It was important to pick up the cube and hear the corresponding sound effect because otherwise it might not be clear the cubes are objects you find and manipulate. This seems like an insignificant and obvious thing, but it was essential to show player agency. The camera then immediately tilts upward in order to show how the world infinitely repeats above you, and then the camera tilts back down to show the same down below before the cube SLAMS into a receptacle.
I did A LOT of takes to get this precise timing and to position the cube nicely centered in frame; the sound effects emphasize the cube's insertion. The next two cuts are a closeup of the door opening, and another door opening to the infinite staircase environment (which is actually in a completely different level). This quick cut is here simply because the staircase environment is more immediately striking than what you actually see when you open the door which connects to that particular receptacle. Hopefully after seeing this shot, the audience understands the gameplay basics enough to enjoy watching the rest of the trailer without confusion.
Even though the trailer opened with a cube opening a door, I included this one because the green line indicates multiple cubes are sometimes necessary.
My initial edit simply cut back and forth between pretty shots and gameplay with ever increasing complexity. For example, showing a cube being inserted into a receptacle to open a door, then two cubes required to open another door, then planting a cube to grow a tree to grow more cubes, and so on. I felt this showed the basic gameplay loop enough to help the audience understand the purpose behind what they do in the game. The giant tree in the middle of the trailer from which entire buildings emerge is there for a big climax to show how your actions affect the world. Puzzle games can feel like they have no purpose, especially if there’s no narrative through text or dialogue, so this shot was very important to me.
Early on in production I was very focused on what you do with the cubes in the game, but we later realized one key thing missing was that a big part of the game is about understanding the space and where things are. It was too late to significantly change the structure of the trailer, but to address that concern I added the shot which comes after the studio logo in which I look up at a building, then turned to the left to reveal another building which stands perpendicular and then fell off a platform to in effect get a wider angle of the entire structure. I chose this environment because it's an area where you can quickly see how buildings go in multiple directions. Hopefully the audience would be able to extrapolate the potential of the game from this one shot.
I took a lot of inspiration from this trailer for The Witness which shows how pretty the game is, and slowly builds upon its gameplay ideas, while not really offering precise answers to what and why you're doing anything. I didn't think showing full puzzle solutions was important, and the execution of solving puzzles in the game isn't very trailer-friendly both because of how long they can take to solve, and because through a lot of it your camera is looking very closely at walls.
If something you do causes lasers to activate, it's a video game. The second read of this shot is there's a red laser in the background, implying more complexity!
I'm a really big fan of first person puzzle games, and I knew I'd understand the core gameplay after seeing the cubes being placed or inserted into things then seeing doors open and lasers activate. For me at least, the beautiful architecture of the game is what hooked me, and seeing the gameplay was enough to make me want to play it. So I focused the gameplay shots on a simple structure of "If this, then this" and then escalated the scope of each thing until by the end there are giant shape blocks falling and connecting lasers. The idea locations to capture in both illustrated a game mechanic, and had a lot of pretty architecture in the background.
After I had the basic trailer structure I wanted to find a way to stylistically take it to another level. Because the game world infinitely loops I thought it would be interesting if the trailer did the same thing by using seamless transitions. My inspiration was this amazing video Watchtower of Turkey. That video uses a lot of cutting on motion, visual match cuts, and cutting or dissolving when the camera is on similarly colored materials. Another inspiration is Isaiah Howard whose videos you can now see on TikTok (though he started when it was Music.ly) I did my best to find ways to use these techniques to move from one scene to another.
Though I liked the seamless concept, in execution it didn't really make sense for every single cut to be seamless in this way; at one point I had a lot of shots where I was looking at walls in order to make the transitions, and it was prioritizing style over function. The final version still has quite a few cuts and transitions made to be seamless, but hopefully not at the expense of the trailer. I also faded the trailer in at the beginning and out to the same color at the end so it can seamlessly be played on loop!
This is intended to make the audience think: "Whoa wait, what's going on here!?"
Beyond showing the basics of the gameplay and how they increase in complexity I also wanted to end on some standout visuals which contrasted to everything seen previously because I think that helps to imply scope in the game. Examples of these are the "dark cube" at the end of the trailer, the wide shot of the purple tree manifesting, and the mandala shape which looks absolutely nothing like anything else in the trailer. I also did some basic lettering animation on the logo because I thought it was simply begging for to be animated.
Music for the trailer was custom made by the game's composer Laryssa Okada. The music is really what creates the amazing epic ebb and flow of the trailer. Between the music and game's sound effects I think the trailer is great simply to listen to (obviously I'm biased). I don't know how to describe the music adequately, but it does a great job of making it sound like big things are happening, but also lets you slow down and bask in the world; it's a perfect encapsulation of the experience of playing the game.
I'm very pleased with how this trailer came out! I got to apply some of my basic principles of game trailer structure, and stretch myself a bit stylistically to help illustrate the vibe of the game. If you enjoy this sort of game it's well worth playing. Right now it's available on the Epic Game Store, Apple Arcade and will be on Steam in about a year. Congrats to William and the whole team for this landmark achievement 7 years in the making :o
