Title cards can be a great crutch to convey information quickly in a trailer because they literally tell the audience something about the story, the game or the people involved. The problem is, poorly written title cards can beunmemorable,generic, andunconvincing. So how do you write good title cards which support the message of your game?
A lot of what I'm going to say here is knowledge from my PR & Marketing expert friendDana TrebellaofSpoke and Wheel Strategywith whom I collaborated to makethis GDC talk about messaging. To sum up, messaging is how you talk about your game; it's your elevator pitch or the thing you say to people when they ask: "What's your game about?"
This might sound simple enough, but most developers start by listing genre inspirations and game mechanics (e.g. it's like Dark Souls combined with Metroid). The problem is, most games don't have game mechanics which make them significantly stand out, so describing them results in a weak message. There are some exceptions for games with unique mechanics likeSUPERHOTwhere "Time moves when you move." Or something likeThe Witness, where you explore a mysterious island with puzzles solved by tracing lines on grid panels (though even that sounds hard to parse).
Most game pitches where people haven't put work into a message sound like:
"It's a 2D platforming rogue-lite action adventure game with crafting and RPG elements!"
If you're lucky, the person who hears that knows all the terminology. If you're unlucky, the person still knows nothing unique about your game. I think developers feel comfortable falling back on these descriptors because video game audiences are fairly savvy, and if the game's visuals are paired with even a generic description, people can get a feel for the game.
But this assumes visuals will always be present when talking about the game. What about when face to face with someone? What about when someone is composing a tweet? What about while chatting with friends on Twitch, Discord, Slack, over text, Facebook or anywhere else where people don't take it upon themselves to add a screenshot or video (most people won't).
That's why having a good message matters.
How do you find your game's message? You start with what is UNIQUE. One exercise Dana does with her clients is to ask them to describe their game in just THREE words. This is super tough, but it gets to the heart of how little you should lean on familiar ideas where your game overlaps with others. Similarly, title cards for your trailer (if you even need them) should sound like your game and your game only. Or at the very least addspecificityto your game. A single word can make all the difference.
One great example is fromthis trailer forAfterpartybyNight School Studio
This title card is followed by:
FLIRT YOUR WAY OUT OF HELL
CHEAT YOUR WAY OUT OF HELL
DANCE YOUR WAY OUT OF HELL
PARTY YOUR WAY OUT OF HELL
Any one of these would work great forAfterparty, but together they give a great look at the breadth of the game's premise, and in a way which cannot describe any other game.
When a game has good messaging, people will use it to describe the game to their friends because the hard work has already been done. If you've seen "FLIRT YOUR WAY OUT OF HELL" do you think you're going to say to a friend: "Did you see that gameAfterparty? It's an adventure game with dialogue choices where you're trying to get out of hell."? It's not likely you're going to put in the effort only to come up with a worse description. You're probably going to say "Did you see that gameAfterpartywhere you're trying to flirt your way out of hell?"
It doesn't even take that much to add a bit of specificity to title cards to make them better suit your game. Another good example I saw recently wasthis trailerfor the gameIF FOUND...which starts off with "a COMING OF AGE story" which is not very specific, but the following title cards do a good job of fleshing it out more:
The word "finding" in this title card adds just a touch of specificity, because without it we don't know how the character's relationship with friends and family. The vibe would be very different if the verb was: losing, destroying, or surviving." But as it is, we know the character has no friends or family and doesn't understand themselves. The next title card is:
As the END OF THE WORLD draws in
End of the world premises in games are a dime a dozen, but this stands out when you combine the coming of age introspective story and hand drawn art style. The title card is also a bit of a pun, because based on the trailer it looks like you interact with the game by erasing and/or painting over the hand drawn art in the scenes.
There are also ways to twist genre descriptors to make them unique to your game. For example, the gameNeo CabbyChance Agencywas described as "an emotional survival game." There are dozens if not hundreds of "survival games" on the market, but by adding a single word, all of those games are instantly put out of mind, but there's still a lingering understanding that the game will involve some sort of struggle to survive.
Supergiant Games' new gameHadesis a "Rogue-lite" game which uses characters from Greek mythology. "Rogue-likes" and "Rogue-lites" are still a hot genre at the moment, so a lot of people understand what they are, but most others have no idea what the heck they are because the term is derived by saying "This game is like the gameRogue" which was a game where the levels featured randomized elements, where when you died you had to start all over again from the beginning.
Hades could easily be described in a way which is incredibly generic because at the base level it features a lot of similarities with other games. But they twisted the genre descriptor a bit with the very clever: "A God-like Rogue-like" which of course creates a pun both saying how good the game is, and the fact it's about Greek gods.
I've seen acounter-argumentby game developerTom Franciswhich basically says: "Uggghhh, just describe how the game works, already! I don't want any of this flowery language." I understand this sentiment, because there is always going to be a point where the player needs to know how they interact with the game, but I don't think these arguments are mutually exclusive.
I think the unique message with flowery game-non-specific language is the core of the marketing. In marketing speak, it's the "Top of the funnel" where it's important to cast a wide net and get as many people as possible. The game mechanic specific language like: "It's a turn-based, rogue-like adventure" is for people who got caught by the top of the funnel, and need to know more before deciding to invest even more attention. This is especially important when a potential player gets to the store page, as evidencedin this excellent studybyChris Zukowskiabout how people browse Steam. In a nutshell, people who are browsing store pages are looking for genre descriptors and little else, because we all have our favorite game genres which we generally like to stick to.
To recap:
To start, try describing your game in three words
Write title cards which can ONLY describe your game
If it's too difficult to do in one line, try two or more
If you can, add to familiar genre descriptors to make them specific to your game
Use your message to spark interest, then talk genre and mechanics to follow up further questions.
