Trailer analysis of our indie game Halver from a professional

Derek Lieu has a long history of making trailers for indie games. In one of his streams, he parsed the trailer for our game Halver

You can add the game to Wishlist to follow its news further

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1358440/Halver/

What did Derek highlight in this review?

Overall, he had a positive impression of the trailer. He highlighted the correct start of the trailer ― in the first seconds there are several scenes where we explain the basic mechanics of the game. The hero can split game blocks in half with shots and we show this several times

In addition, in the beginning of the second scene, a large number of red rolling blocks falling, a rather dynamic scene to attract attention. Derek described it ― “how crazy things can get” ― what crazy things can happen [in the game]

We also successfully (according to the reviewer) implemented “eye tracking”. You can notice that the main character of the game, when changing scenes, remains in the same position on the display screen, so the audience will not lose sight of the character

What are the shortcomings?

The main thing that catches your eye is the absence of “call to action”. Nowhere in the video do we encourage the viewer to add the game to the Wishlist or something similar. It is believed that it is important to remind the player and the action necessary for the developer. However, we did this on purpose, since as if there was no suitable place for this inscription and the artistic idea was spoiled

Derek also didn’t understand some of the gameplay details from the video. On the other hand, some viewers (including on his stream) notice that it is rather intriguing. From our side, I agree that some things are not clear, but they are really difficult to explain in the trailer. Just try to know it from the game!

And the last one is the ending of our trailer. It turned out not as attractive as we would like. It is advisable to put something really stunning in this place. But the deadlines for the development of the trailer were delayed and we decided that it could be improved endlessly, and it would be high time to publish the page on Steam :)

More information

You can read about how to make a trailer on Derek’s website

Check out the highlights of our Halver game on the Steam page

Other useful information and game updates in the Twitter

You can ask questions and share your ideas on Discord server