"I was covered by about twenty gaming websites and a few YouTubers during my Kickstarter campaign. I legitimately have not heard 'I saw your game here!' about any other piece of coverage I got other than Steven's YouTube Short about fifty times so far. He 'gets' it for sure." - Natsu Kaze, developer of Maple Forest
The goal of 5 Indie Games You Should Look Out For was to leverage my storytelling ability and position as a critic or 'taste maker' to elevate awareness for a few indie game projects I believed had enormous potential. The result was hundreds of social media followers gained, significant Kickstarter conversions, and a bunch of very happy game developers.
As a hook, I decided to attack the problem of indie game discoverability from a tangential, yet relatable angle—the pains and gains of daily social media usage. To cultivate trust and authenticity I told a real story about repopulating my social feeds with fanart surrounding some of my favorite video games in order to reduce my exposure to low quality, rage inducing content. One thing led to another where doing so suddenly exposed me to many different types of yet-to-be-released indie games.
Visually I strove to bring viewers into my social feeds, but instead of just recording my screen, I grabbed screenshots whose elements could be scaled to an ultra high resolution to zoom, pan, and animate with a high level of fidelity. I also cropped these images to reduce unnecessary noise and draw the viewer's attention to whatever I felt needed a strong call to action or aided the story telling, simulating actions like following someone's profile or interacting with a friend with some basic but smooth animation—much higher quality than a simple screen recording could provide.
A collection of stage setting animations
This worked out well, because not only did this facilitate the flow of the story, these animation and framing techniques could be adapted to additional marketing material for each of the associated games, driving traffic to each of their Kickstarter pages.
I also established contact with the developers behind three of the five featured games to get a better understanding of their story, or why their projects may have stalled or faltered. This was vital for connecting these disparate projects with a strong fundamental through-line and call to action.
This video thus became an authentic, creator-driven spin on the collective marketing splash that often follows popular video game showcase events like Summer Games Fest, the Wholesome Games Direct, or Triple-i Initiative. As a storyteller I introduced 'characters' with a real motivation to root for. As a 'taste maker' I could also hone in on specific elements from each game I believed made them special and capable of attracting more widespread attention. Leveraging the relatability of the social media experience to seek a more positive, uplifting outcome for both the game creators and viewers inspired the audience to take action into their own hands—possibly even more than if they had encountered them in a traditional showcase.
Present a problem with actionable solutions - Sound on
