Today, I received the flyers for our new game in development and it inspired me this article to share my love for creative flyers.
I am completely allergic to simple/classic ones and love when you try to tell a story with these pieces of paper instead of just giving information about your game. I feel like when people are taking your flyers on a stand, these flyers should be able to already convey a part of the game experience. Even better, they should feel like a piece of a collector’s edition.
Our very first game, called Epistory, was the story of a girl riding a giant fox and fighting an insectile corruption in an origami world. There was a voice over reading you a story written on the ground.
The story is written on the ground
Another aspect of Epistory was the world unfolding under your feet. The game looked like a giant pop up book.
The game unfolding like a pop up book
So, when it came to communicate with flyers, I thought a bit about the message and what I'd like the player to understand, almost subconsciously: Epistory is telling you a story while you are playing. That message gave me the idea to create bookmarks as flyers.
A bookmark as a flyer
For our second game, Shift Quantum, the exercice was more tricky. Shift Quantum is a puzzle platformer in black and white where you twist your environment and invert space around you to solve puzzle and reach the exit of each level.
You "Shift" from black to white
I used exactly the same process and asked myself what I wanted people to remember about my game: the SHIFT mechanic. Oh well! How to convey that with a print now? I thought a bit more and came up with a lenticular flyer.
A lenticular flyer to show the mechanic of Shift Quantum
With a new game in development and PAX East approaching, I asked myself once again: What do I want people to think about when it comes to Nanotale? The game shares the same core mechanic as Epistory: it's a typing game. But it's not an Epistory 2. It has a brand new story, new art style, new characters. It's more RPG than Epistory, with NPCs, a real lore to explore.
Nanotale is a typing adventure RPG
Now, how to convey the RPG part? What else do we have? What's the story about? It's the story of Rosalind a young archivist venturing out into a dying world cataloging its mysteries and its wonders to unearth the truth. An archivist huh? How does she catalog things? Rosalind carries with her a handbook where she writes notes about the lore.
Rosalind catalogs elements from the lore in a field notes handbook
The handbook kind of journal inspired me to create a flyer that looks like a small book that you can carry in your pocket. The cover is meant to give you facts about the game: name, description, socials, website, screenshot. The inside is more like a journal where Rosalind herself wrote the first pages of her journey starting with "Here my ADVENTURE begins!".
The flyer is Rosalind's handbook
All the images and texts inside the flyer are meant to make you think RPG; showing you Magic flower, cute critters, people that she met giving her quests and creatures she has to fight. Leaving you with the last sentence: "I hope I won't put myself in DANGER!"
Thank you for reading. I hope that I manage to convey the idea that flyers are really important and can be as creative as our games.
If you know about other creative flyers, don't hesitate to share them here.
Cheers,
VirginRedemption
