Promo Videos - Are these any good? Please rate them

colander

I have redone my promo videos for my games and I need to know if they are any good. I like them but that doesn't mean jack if no one else does. The first one is 1.10 and the second one is 1.30 long.

Can you have a look and rate them out of 10 and don't pull any punches if you don't like them. Also tell my why, I really need the feed back so I can try and make something people might enjoy. I would really appreciate any comments you have good or bad, thanks guys and gals.

colander

Really I can't get one opinion from anyone? Come on tell what you think, is the music any good or it sucks, does the music fit the game style, are they to long or short, do they show case the game or are they just confusing, etc.

wpaten

Ok I watched both of them. In my opinion they are too long. The first one felt about 25 seconds too long, and also it was very repetitive. I wasn't sure if you were doing the same levels or what. Maybe you should intersperse with titles that brag about the features in your game.

The second video was a bit more interesting because of the music choice and the gunfire sfx however it was also too long, by about 25-30 seconds.

I personally would use cutscenes to show titles about different aspects of your game:

"Massive Gunfire Sound Effects!!!"
"Destroy ALL the Fruit…If You Can!!!"

Etc.

Make it fun for me to watch, instead of what you have here which is more of "I just watched you play your game for a minute."

Just my 2 cents of course.

colander

@wpaten thanks for that, your comments are what I am after. I am way to close to see it from potential players perspective. I mean I spent months creating and writing them and know them so well it all makes perfect sense to me and have a hard time seeing it from a first time viewers perspective. Hopefully I will get some more comments and I will remake them with your suggestions in mind.

Anyone else? Come on tell me what you think.

Armelline

I agree completely with @wpaten. In addition, I'd say that we don't really want to see you using menus - tell us about the options in the titles wpaten mentioned.

"5 difficulty settings!" etc.

The gameplay we see should be in shorter bursts, as he mentioned. That seems the key thing to me.

colander

@Armelline great info and thanks to you and @wpaten for taking the time to watch and give me the feed back. I am going to remake them today and would really like your opinions the new ones. Again thanks.

Anymore? Please don't hold back.

JagonApps

@colander I agree with what the others have said. Both these videos are great at being gameplay videos, so if I was you don't scratch em, but up up too but rename them as gameplay videos. Then do another video for each which is a lot shorter, which excites the user, mentioning key features, as well as the all important 'Available on the App Store now' icon at the end with a clickable link...and if it isn't ready yet, give a date of when it is coming by, if you can!

Also, I'm not convinced by the bar of text on the side of the screen in the first video, it is just encouraging the user to not focus on the all important eye-catching gameplay. Put yourself in control of when the user reads the different pieces of information so that they have the greatest impact.

And personally, I would just spend a few more hours perfecting your games before you do the promo video visually. For example custom fonts on the score etc. make a BIG difference to how professional a user rates your game. I do really like the graphic effects of the fruit splattering though, especially on the watermelons!

Cheers
Max

colander

@wpaten @Armelline @JagonApps hey guys I have redone the Kicka promo I think it is an improvement and would greatly appreciate you comments. Also I don't know how to do a clickable link andy help there would be great, thanks.

tatiang

I think it's much better.

Check out the video posted here for an idea of what a game trailer can be.

The_Gamesalad_Guru

Here is one of our trailers to get an idea of how stuff should flow.

JagonApps

@colander That is much better, well done!

Max

Armelline

@wpaten @Armelline @JagonApps hey guys I have redone the Kicka promo I think it is an improvement and would greatly appreciate you comments. Also I don't know how to do a clickable link andy help there would be great, thanks.

Definitely a lot better! Not entirely sure about the choice of font, but better length, MUCH clearer about how the game plays, and more informative!

colander

@wpaten @Armelline @JagonApps @tatiang @FryingBaconStudios

I have redone the Shooting Food promo. I am using Camtasia for editing, it has a low fps rate of 30 so I recorded in Quicktime and used a usb mic for decent sound effect recording. If someone knows of a better screen recorder and editor than Camtasia let me know.

I added some effects to the text so I am keen to know what you all think. FBS and tatiang thanks for the examples it made me try harder to implement some effects. Still learning what Camtasia can do. There call out boxes are pretty sucky so I didn't use them might try and make my own next time. Thanks again all.

Fal01

I think your text needs to be bigger, brighter and more pizazzy! >-)

colander

@Fal01 agreed it is kinda the best of a second level solution, images being top level. I looked at all the text and what I could do with it in Camtasia but couldn't do much better. I increased the size and and made some other changes. I think the next step would be to create some images and use them instead of text.

Socks

Far too much text !

Also I'm not sure you need to point out to people that the guns have gun fire sound effects or any of that kind of stuff.

colander

@Socks thanks for taking the time to watch and I think it also needs to be shorter but that is hard to do and showcase the three game types. I had another look and chopped out four lots of text.

From what everyone is saying text in general should be avoided. So I guess I should use banner images like tatiang's example. One thing I like about text is you can still see what is happening behind it.

colander

These are the two final versions and that's a wrap for now. I will be deleting the previous versions in a day or so, I don't want them viewed by potential customers. Thanks everyone who helped.

tatiang

Something to consider is that your gameplay capture doesn't have to take up the entire video frame. So the text could be above, below, or to the side of the capture area that you are displaying.

colander

@tatiang I thought about that. Because it is landscape I didn't think I could make it look right and easy to see. If it was portrait no problem and I could have done something like your example earlier. The iPad view cuts of the sides of the screen which doesn't look as good. If I used screenshots I could probably make it work, something for me to think about.