Tactical Breach Wizards - Gameplay Trailer
I recently had the privilege of making the first hype gameplay trailer for Tactical Breach Wizards! This marks the first time ever that game designer Tom Francis and his team at Suspicious Developments hired someone to make a trailer for one of their games. Tom personally made trailers for Gunpoint and the absolutely brilliant Heat Signature launch trailer narrated by Alex Ashby (who is the narrator of one of my favorite podcast series Something True, written by Duncan Fyfe).
I was simultaneously delighted and aghast when Tom reached out to me to see if I was available and interested. Delighted because I like his games and aghast because the Heat Signature trailer is one of my absolute favorites ever and I didn't think I could do anything as good (I still think I haven't). I first met Tom a handful of years ago at an industry party where we talked a bit about how his first reveal of Tactical Breach Wizards unexpectedly got favored by the YouTube algorithm to the tune of a few hundred thousand views
When asked why he decided to hire out he said he was always interested what it would look like to get a professional trailer editor to work on one of his games and also he had the opportunity for the game to appear in the PC Gaming show during this year's Summer Game Fest. One very lucky thing for me is the composer of the game, Robert Arzola actually works as a TRAILER MUSIC COMPOSER. Haha, how lucky could I possibly get?
This is a brilliant trailer and I love it very much
I'm not usually someone who plays turn-based strategy games; I bounced off of Into the Breach hard, and I usually feel like my brain doesn't work in the way needed to play these games well. But I clicked well with Tactical Breach Wizards, played as much as I could, and then had a discussion with Tom about what the trailer needed to cover.
The core pillars of the trailer we decided upon were:
The title
The story & witchy/wizardy-ness
You do NOT play as the police!
The rewind/foresee mechanics
Defenestration
The Title
Tom told me people respond very positively to the title of the game. It feels like one of those titles like "Tokyo Jungle" which is immediately striking because of the unique combination of words. The words "tactical" and "breach" feel like they go together very naturally, but "wizards" really turns it on its head. When I heard this I knew I had to put that title at the very beginning of the trailer to hook the audience. It might've been a funny punchline to save for the end, but if you know there's something which instantly makes a game stand out then you have to put that as close to the beginning of the trailer as possible!
This served well as the "thumb stopper" of the trailer to hook the audience. The words in the title handily gave me prompts for showing tactical play, a door being breached, and a very wizard-y moment. I ended up being able to show a very basic game loop within the first few seconds of the trailer!
In this game genre it was important to show at least some of the HUD/UI in the trailer.
The Story & Characters
While Gunpoint featured a story, characters, and dialogue, Heat Signature did not, so it was necessary to reestablish this as a game with the story and character. After playing the build of the game I wouldn't have it any other way, because there were myriad opportunities to showcase the fun characters and sense of humor.
The story and characters were also key to clearing up the possible misconception you play as policemen or the military. In earlier versions of the game shown on Tom's YouTube channel, one character was literally called "Witch Cop." But since then Tom had decided he did NOT want the main characters to be policemen or military. This trailer was an opportunity to make that abundantly clear. The game industry already has its share of games with guns and rifles cut to cool trailer music, so it was EXTRA important to counteract this part of the game by putting it firmly in the context of the quirkyworld of wizards and witches.
The trailer needed to convey this was a scrappy band of wizards fighting both police and a private military. This is what I had in mind when selecting the trailer's story scenes.
This shot was put in to show people you can select dialogue in the game (and to also show how it might just be three of the exact same responses, but funny in different ways)
Rewind/Foresee Game Mechanics
There are a handful of other prominent turn-based tactical games like Into the Breach, Fights in Tight Spaces, and Invisible Inc. but Tom said Tactical Breach Wizards is notable in how it allows the player to essentially take back any and all decisions they make. The player can rewind and redo their actions in a way which allows for experimentation and no "mistakes."
This is in sharp contrast to other similar games which might allow one "undo" at most (if any). There's also a "Foresee" mechanic in Tactical Breach Wizards which allows you to see precisely what order the enemy units will take their turns. This set of game mechanics were key differentiators which we absolutely had to include in this trailer.
Rather than use title cards I just showed a giant, zoomed in version of the Rewind button. In the game this distortion effect happens when you rewind, but I added the sound of rewinding to make it extra clear in the trailer.
Defenestration
Tactical Breach Wizards is the third game in the "Defenestration Trilogy." If you're not familiar, the term "defenestrate" means to throw someone out of a window, something prominently featured in Gunpoint, Heat Signature, and Tactical Breach Wizards. Even were these games not named after defenestration, I'm sure people would've picked up on the fact throwing people out of windows is a thing with Tom Francis' games.
Because of this I took it upon myself to show as many characters being thrown out of windows as possible. Firstly because it would be highly entertaining, and secondly to give a little wink to the fans who would expect a lot of people falling out of windows.
Just in case it wasn't already clear you're going to throw lots of people out of windows.
Putting it all together
With these key points in mind I put together an outline for the trailer which broke down to:
Cold open featuring the game's title, a mix of basic gameplay, and ending on a funny scene undercutting the seriousness of the music and presentation.
Pedigree card for Suspicious Developments
A basic gameplay scenario
Scenario where the player gets themselves killed, they rewind, and try again
Another story scene emphasizing the scrappiness of the protagonists
Enemy units and the troubles they'll cause the player
The players throwing lots of enemies out of windows
Short montage of upgrades and content
Pin and thread detective board
Final exciting montage and title
Funny button with cool enemy ability
This came together rather quickly especially because I was able to use temp music which was a mix of in-game music and trailer music from Robert Arzola's own website. The only major change from the initial rough cut was Tom suggested showing the players succeeding after the rewind/foresee moment in order to close the loop on that idea. Other than this addition, it was mostly re-capturing and re-composing shots for better framing, clarity, and trying out different dialogue options which would either be funnier, read faster, or both.
The debug options in the game and the ones added for trailer production made it very easy to skip to different levels, reposition characters, rewind/foresee both with and without the HUD/UI and use any ability I wanted. One quirk I ran into was I wasn't able to execute a command while the HUD was off, but I turned this into a plus. In the opening shot I pressed execute and then immediately pressed the hotkey to turn off the HUD. The effect is the shot starts with the HUD/UI on, but then it goes away, which helps with clarity.
I knew that tactical turn-based game players would want to pick through the HUD in order to look at all the nitty gritty gameplay details and options, so this was my compromise where it's technically there, but they'll mostly have to go back to rewatch it since I don't give them enough time to fully comprehend it. I still kept the HUD off for a lot of shots to make shots read fasters.
There was no way in heck this trailer was getting made without the cat in it.
After the main game mechanics and story points were established in the trailer, there's a very quick montage showing the upgrade screen, alternate costumes the characters can wear, and a map featuring characters and places which the player connects with pins and string. The map I purposefully zoomed out as far as I could to give people a sense of how much bigger the game gets. The upgrade screens themselves didn't say much without reading details, so I just shuffled through them as quickly as possible because I didn't want to belabor the point.
I'm very happy with how this trailer turned out. I was pleased to watch videos where people reacted mostly positively to precisely the things I put in: the game's amusing title, the story scenes, the rewind mechanic, and the notable number of broken windows. I even saw one comment from someone who was disappointed they don't play as the police, which told me I succeeded at making that clear for at least one person.
A bunch of people in the comments of the version on PC Gamer's YoUTube and Tom's said the trailer was a highlight of the show for them, which I found very gratifying. It was especially fun watching YouTube reaction people say out loud: "Tactical... Breach... Wizards!??" which was precisely the reaction I hoped for. This trailer was a lot of fun to make; it came together very quickly, but didn't feel rushed. I'm eager to see more of the game as development continues!
