Trailer Review - Knights of San Francisco
How do you make a game which is virtually all text look and sound exciting in a trailer? It's incredibly difficult, but this trailer is a fantastic example of just that. It plays to the game's strengths, doesn't pretend it's anything but itself, and its very entertaining.
Making a trailer for a game which is mostly text is super hard especially when there isn't much art and/or animation. Device 6 from Simogo at least had a lot of non-text visuals and a lot of other well designed art, audio and music. Also, its design and layouts are incredibly striking and full of style.
80 Days from Inkle Studios also has the basic visual of traveling the globe along with some other visual elements from the game like its suitcase system. But its trailers largely avoided showing much text even though it's pretty much the whole game.
What makes the trailer for Knights of San Francisco so impressive is the simplicity and straightforward, well executed presentation. Here's how the developer described making the trailer:
Hey there! It’s hard to make a trailer for a game full of text. In the end, I decided to use an audio recording of myself retelling a combat encounter in the game. It might be a bit too much, but hey: at least it’s authentic.
I took the audio file and wrote the "script" around it (what shows up when, the layout, the song, etc.). I had a professional editor do most of the editing, though. Money well spent! (I have some editing training from school but it would take me days to put a much worse version of this together.)
The script of the trailer is super well done because it pulls you in with its unique premise almost right away. It starts:
I'm exploring this ancient building in the fantasy future of San Francisco.
This is a great example of a story which hooks its audience in mere seconds. Had the trailer chose to skip over the studio logos at the start, it would've hooked the audience even faster. This is a great intro because even the first several words feel like they could belong to any number of stories, but as soon as he says "San Francisco" it immediately makes it about this game and this game alone. After all, how many games or stories can you think of which are set in a fantasy future San Francisco?
Btw, if you ever use voiceover narration in your game trailer, take a good look at how long it takes for the script to sound like it's describing ONLY your game. The longer the script is before it gets to specifics, the less interesting it's going to be for the audience. For example:
"This is the story of a man on a journey to find himself, in a land destroyed by an unknown force which he must confront. He's going to meet up with some companions who will help him fight this villain, but they're going to have to defeat their minions first. Their abilities will be challenged, and their resolve tested as they use every last bit of their strength to prevail."
I literally just wrote this up out of the top of my head, it's 70 words long and describes probably thousands of stories across all media. A lot of game trailers can get bogged down in narrating their lore and backstory which sound incredibly generic and not at all specific in either setting, premise or character situation, but this trailer gets it right in only 12 words.
The trailers for 80 Days rely on the top level look at what the player does in the game, and only sort of alludes to how much text there is within.
The rest of the trailer talks about encountering a lizard man who kills the player's friend. The friend raises the friend from the dead and also cuts the lizard man's arm off. The undead friend then proceeds to beat up the lizard man with their own arm.
It's not entirely clear how much of this encounter could've changed based on player's decisions, but at the very least this says: "In this game, things this like this can happen." Then in response to this question of: "How much is this literally scripted and how much is based off of player decision?" the trailer lists bullet points:
Dynamic combat
Dynamic world
Rendered in text
It's still up in the air how much the player's decision affects the story, but the implication is this combat encounter could've gone very differently and that really sets off my imagination!
The execution of this trailer is also pretty simple but done in a very stylish and entertaining way. The developer's voiceover is represented by big bold text which doesn't have much animation, but draws attention to itself by being the biggest text element on screen. We can clearly see the text of the game represented in the iPhone frame, but our eye is always drawn to the narration text. At best, the text within the phone is the "second read" of the trailer.
I had little to no clue what to expect from the gameplay of Device 6, but I was already in due to Simogo's stellar track record and the trailer's amazing look.
Often in game trailers there's a lot of text on screen, but no clear hierarchy indicating which text we should focus all of our attention on. Here it's very clear we're expected to read the narration text first and the iPhone text only if there's time. Also, because I know the narration text is giving us a summary of what is displayed in the iPhone, I'm not inclined to worry I'm missing something by not reading every word.
The music of the trailer also has just the right amount of energy to keep up some momentum and only really asserts itself in the final moments right before the title card. The title card reads: "Knights of San Francisco. A short adventure of sword & sorcery in the ancient ruins of San Francisco." This is a super great subtitle which is hooky and unique. Again, once we're finished reading, it's difficult not to be intrigued.
The emphasis of certain words by making them bigger helps a lot. Also, changing the background colors helped mix things up.
Would all text based games work in this sort of format of game trailer? Maybe, maybe not. I just know this one is incredibly well done and got me interested in the game. This is a great example of a trailer which managed to make the most of the game's strengths (dynamic story and interesting situations), and compensate for its weaknesses (lack of art, animation and visuals).
