Gaming and video production are both our passion, and they perfectly complement each other! A trailer video is the best way to show the components of your game and present the story behind it.
Since 2015, we’ve created 50+ trailers for successful board game crowdfunding campaigns, by big established publishers as well as independent first-time creators. Hexy Studio team are experts in bringing game components into motion to tell a compelling story and persuade potential backes to support the Kickstarter campaign for your game. But what do you need to know and do before you become our client? Here’s a checklist of things that will make the quoting process fast and our cooperation smooth 🙂
Of course, before you commit to the project, you must know the price. We are only able to quote a trailer basing on: game components, script (written down and recorded as a video, see below) and voiceover (we prefer getting VO files from the client, but we can record it for you too, if needed). Any references you can and wish to share, links to other similar videos you like to inspire us, both in terms of a purely visual style and the general feeling, pace, narration, etc. are also very much welcome at this point.
What we need to make a quote and start working:
1. Access to all the game components that should appear in the video.
- Components should be uploaded to separate folders (e.g. cards, tokens, box, miniatures, etc.) on Google Drive, Dropbox or WeTransfer and shared wih us.
- If they are not in a rectangular shape, they should be sent as PNG files with transparency (alpha).
- The box may be shared in two ways: as one flat image ready for print (die cut lines removed), or every side in a separate file.
- If the game has custom-made dice, each side should be sent as a separate file.
- Miniatures should be uploaded as FBX, OBJ, STL or C4D files.
- Cards, tokens and other images should be the same size pixel-wise within the same component type.
- Please provide information when cards, tiles, sheets, etc. should have rounded corners.
- If you already know in advance that some files are not in their final version and may change in the future, please inform us about this fact.
- New (corrected) files must have the same format and file name as the previous ones.
2. Voiceover. You can either commission us with that or provide your own. In the latter case, the VO should be sent as a separate .wav or .mp3 file, so should the soundtrack that must also be the right length.
- If in the course of works changes to the voiceover or script happen, they might affect the production time and price.
- If changes to the VO happen, even if only one word is changed, the whole file should be re-recorded, unless the fragment changed is a separate section and may be easily cut and replaced.
3. We can animate a flat 2D image to create an impression of 3D. In order to do that, we need a .psd file cut into separate layers. Layers in the background should be fully painted under the foreground.
4. The script should be sent alongside a storyboard, but what is even better, and we strongly encourage this solution, is recording a short video of a physical prototype of the game, showing specifically what and when should be moved, explaining what accompanying effects can be used, etc. This doesn’t have to be of perfect quality, you can just use your phone or tablet. Or, instead of recording a physical prototype, send a screen capture sequence from a platform for online gaming, like Tabletop Simulator or Tabletopia. It really makes our job easier, as we don’t have to know all the exact rules of the game to work on the project. Don’t worry, we’ll learn them when we receive a final copy from you after a successful campaign – we always ask for a copy of your final product when it’s released 🙂
Here’s a sample of how a well-prepared script looks like (posted with the publisher’s approval). It contains the VO, the description of what is seen on screen under each VO line, and sequences of images showing the movement of the components. However, don’t worry if your own script isn’t as perfect as the one linked above, or if you have troubles creating one at all. We’re here to help, and general consulting on script-writing is included in the price of your trailer video. If needed, we can also write a script from scratch for you as a separate service.
Depending on the current pipeline of projects, we usually book about a month for a single trailer production slot. The effective work takes about 2-3 weeks after we have received the script and all requested graphic assets in their final versions. Another week is added to the deadline just to account for potential communication delays, corrections, last-minute changes, etc.