Transcript of video: Creature in the Well — Is it my Genre?:
A game’s trailer should show the player if it’s their thing, their unique blend of genres. The only way to know if it captures that unique blend is to play the game deeply.
So after I play through a game I roll back through the trailer. I walk through the individual bits of how they capture the game’s unique genre elements. In the end you might find out if a game is your genre.
Welcome to Is It My Genre? — Episode 5: Creature in the Well
Creature In the Well is this brilliant, amazing game that has a trailer that just knocks everything out of the park. Most importantly it just nails genre. Let’s check it out!
Adam Volker in-trailer: Hello, I’m Adam Volker, a creative director at Flight School Studio. We are making a game called Creature In the Well, a small indie title you may not have heard of.
This particular trailer is really special because Creature In the Well had a lot of trailers — but this is the one that best effectively captures the genre. It does it through what I would call a metamodern kind of illumination into the game-making process.
This unique approach is about connecting with the game’s creators
It’s about the people who are making the game — but it’s about you as the player (and them trying to connect with you).
Adam Volker: In Creature In the Well you pay as Bot C, the last remaining engineer of the robot collective. Your goal is to save the town of Mirage from an unrelenting sandstorm by re-powering an ancient weather machine that has been dormant for centuries thanks to an ominous creature.
So he just explained the goal, the framework, the underlying structure of the game. It helps you to really understand what the game is in a way that you couldn’t in any other way.
Adam Volker: The game plays as a top down adventure hack-and-slash but it’s core mechanics are inspired by pinball, Breakout and other ball-related games. It’s weird, I know. Let me explain.
An overview helps you understand the genre explicitly
This part is really important because he explains first what the overarching framework of the goal is.
Then he explains what the core moment-to-moment kind of interactions with the game are — what the core mechanics of the game are. Then he’s like “…it’s a lot to take in.”
So we are going to explain that and that’s where things are heading next.
Adam Volker: In the game you explore sprawling dungeons room-by-room. Visualize each of them as a small circuit board. The puzzles challenge the player’s ability to catch, charge and shoot the ball quickly and accurately. Each time you hit a bumper with orbs you collect energy which is shown in the top left corner of the screen.
There’s one key UI moment that clarifies the overarching objective
I want to highlight especially this part where he calls attention to the top left corner of the screen and kind of darkens everything so you can see that you are ultimately working towards this goal in the top left corner.
Adam Volker: You will use this energy to unlock doors and upgrade your character to further progress the game.
Adam clarifies the player’s emotional experience
You are not going to emotionally fully connect with all of what he’s saying but you are understanding the emotional feel of what you are working towards in the game. This is establishing the framework and the core overarching ambitions of the player, which is crazy-effective at helping you understand what the experience is going to feel like as you play it.
Adam Volker: Creature In the Well cont
