The Challenges of Making a Campaign Video – Lights, Camera, Crowdfunding!

The Campaign Page

A crowdfunding campaign page is one of the most important milestones in the life of a crowdfunded board game. By the time you click the “Back this project” button, months of work have already gone into making that moment possible. Campaign page structure, copywriting, visuals, gameplay presentation, reward structure, review coverage – these are just a few of the major workstreams that form the backbone of a successful campaign.

However, one aspect of a crowdfunding campaign is often underestimated. Although it is technically required to launch a campaign, many people dismiss it as a simple nice-to-have, when in reality it’s one of the most demanding pieces of content to produce.

A campaign video may only be a couple of minutes long, but behind those few minutes are weeks, sometimes months of work. It’s essentially a commercial that not only informs but also captures the viewer’s attention. At Mindclash Games, we’ve settled on a formula that has worked well for us over the years: a thematic, cinematic introduction followed by a more detailed gameplay overview, all condensed into roughly two minutes.

Because a campaign video is the result of many different workflows, we treat it as a project on its own. We’ve been fortunate to collaborate for years with our long-time partner, Hexy Studio, whose consistently high-quality work has helped bring our games to life.

Campaign Video Making Process

Limitations By Assets

The process begins with writing the script. The narrative, thematic opening, which relies on 2D animation, is created almost entirely from the game’s existing illustrations. That means the writer has surprisingly little creative freedom. It doesn’t matter how compelling an idea is if there’s no artwork to support it visually. Commissioning new illustrations solely for the purpose of the campaign video isn’t really cost-effective, so the story has to be built from the assets already available. That becomes especially challenging when the game’s visuals are still far from complete.

We ran into an interesting situation while working on the campaign video for Revenant. During the time of preparation for the campaign, we had very few finished illustrations and finalized visual assets. Although most of the key artwork was completed by the time of the campaign launch, they didn’t exist during the production of the video. Fortunately, Revenant is set in the Voidfall universe, which allowed us to scavenge existing Voidfall artwork to tell a story that still felt authentic to Revenant.

The sequel to this story happened during the production of the Voidfall: Resurgence campaign video. Just like with Revenant, we initially had very little artwork created specifically for Resurgence. This time, however, Revenant had already been completed, offering a large collection of beautiful illustrations set in the Voidfall universe. Ironically, much of that artwork hadn’t existed early enough to be used in the Revenant campaign video, but now they were available to tell the story of Resurgence.

It was a fortunate coincidence, but it also perfectly illustrates one of the biggest constraints of scriptwriting: the story is often dictated not only by creativity, but by the assets available to use.

Gameplay Section

The gameplay section presents a different set of challenges. When a crowdfunding campaign launches, the gameplay itself often isn’t completely finalized yet. The core design, major systems, and fundamental mechanics are already firmly established, but development is still ongoing. Details may continue to evolve, especially in response to community feedback during the campaign. Even so, the video still has to communicate how the game works.

Our solution is to focus on the game’s defining mechanics and build gameplay scenarios that clearly demonstrate them. These situations aren’t always literal representations of the rules, but they accurately communicate the feature being discussed.

For example, in the Resurgence campaign video, all of the new Voidborn ship types emerge from a Rift sector at the same time. That exact situation can never actually happen in the game, but it allows us to showcase every new ship type while still conveying the essence of the new mechanic in a clear and visually engaging way.

Camera Movements

Another important consideration is camera movement. A gameplay video should feel fluid and natural. Constantly jumping across different areas of the play area can quickly become disorienting, so the gameplay sequence has to be written in a way that both the in-game actions and the camera movements naturally flow from one moment to the next. This is where Hexy Studio’s expertise becomes just as important as the script and storyboard themselves.

The gameplay section is built in a fully 3D environment. Every component has to be placed according to the storyboard, essentially setting up an entire game inside a graphics engine. Once everything is in place, each component is animated according to the script. But even that isn’t enough. Visual effects are layered on top to clearly communicate what the narration is referring to at every moment, guiding the viewer’s attention exactly where it needs to be.

Narration and Music

And then there’s the narration itself. Choosing and briefing the voice actor is another important step. A warm, cheerful female narrator creates a completely different atmosphere than a deep, gritty male voice telling the story of Voidfall’s grim dark universe. Finding the right voice is just as much a creative decision as writing the script itself.

Finally, the cherry on the top of the videocake is the music and sound design. This is another area where Hexy Studio consistently delivers outstanding work. We usually begin by exploring several reference soundtracks together, gradually identifying the emotional tone we’re looking for. Those inspirations then serve as the foundation for creating a unique musical identity for the video.

Final Thoughts

In the end, a campaign video is as much a project management challenge as it is a creative one. Marketing, script writing, artists, sound designers, voice actors, video editors, game developers – they all contribute to a single goal of creating a video that, in just a few minutes, captures people’s attention, conveys the atmosphere of the game, and clearly communicates what makes it special.

For more behind-the-scenes content, check out Hexy Studio’s Youtube channel!