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The Great Thumbnail Reboot of 2016! (And let's talk Uncharted) (Patreon)

Published:
2016-05-15 18:43:59
Imported:
2021-03

Content

Thumbnails are important. And mine have been a bit crap.

They're okay at 1080p but no one ever seems them at the full size. They get shrunk down to tiny little icons on the YouTube homepage and recommended videos lists and Twitter and elsewhere.


And at that size they're dark, unreadable, and don't stick out. 


So I took some time this weekend to redo the lot of them. Bold colours, big pictures, fewer words. I want them to stick out and yell HEY LISTEN! YOU SHOULD WATCH ME.


They aren't all perfect and I might tweak some. I try to avoid clickbait (though I reckon there's a difference between making a title/thumbnail enticing and just clickbait (which usually involves deception in some fashion)) and some miiight veer a little close to that territory.


I haven't done the thumbnail for the spin-off episode I did. Thinking about how I want to "brand that", especially as I'd like to do more of those going forward. Maybe after I've done a video and then have more things to say on the subject, I could come back with some... DLC. 


I haven't forgotten about the AMA - thanks for all your questions, really good stuff. I'll answer them sometime this week. 


BEFORE I GO! No spoilers, but what did you think of / are you thinking of Uncharted 4, if you've been playing it?


As a big Uncharted nerd I really enjoyed it, and all the shoutouts to Drake's past adventures made me fuzzy in my tummy.


But I have to admit that I found the pace a little off - this game has surprisingly few gunfights and crazy set pieces which I'm definitely not against, but I'm not sure it works perfectly in a game series that has, historically, tried to be a summer blockbuster movie.


For some long stretches the game verges on being a walking simulator, if we're being honest. And the largely automated climbing (the new mechanics, like being able to manually move Nate's hands and the rope, are welcome) and simple puzzles just don't really get your heart pumping like Uncharted 2's tumbling hotel or runaway train, or Uncharted 3's plane or cruise ship.


And also, I just can't quite get on board with Naughty Dog trying to make these characters be "real people". I really like the idea of Nathan Drake struggling with civilian life after his crazy days of being an adventurer. But he killed like 2,000 people and saw supernatural zombies and destroyed 3 lost cities. He's a cartoon character. This stuff rings a bit false. 


But bloody hell. It's a looker, ain't it?

Files

Comments

Anonymous

love the new thumbnails! theyre colorful and really pop. some of the titles are still kind of clickbaiting in my opinion but that might just be because the content is sort of clickbaiting in a way. not that theyre bad just the thesis is framed that way

Anonymous

Looks very nice! More colorful and not so plain of a video page.

Anonymous

Just saw it, and man, they look GORGEOUS! Looking forward for new videos :p

Fabian

I totally get why you did it, but personally I still prefer the old ones. They had a (mostly) consistent visual style and conveyed a sense of seriousness that matches the thought and effort you put into your videos. I also found them stimulating in that you could explore and discover the background. And between all that visual shouting on Youtube I'm not sure if another neon-bright colored thumb really makes a difference. ... Maybe there's some middle ground?

Anonymous

I like the new thumbnails but I think a few of them might be doing the opposite of what you intended. Take the video on "Beyond the Beef", for example. In the old one I was hooked because "Ooh! Fallout New Vegas!" but with the new one I can't even tell what game it is (especially if I didn't know the name of this particular quest in NV). I might not even be able to tell it was about video games if not for the title right below the thumbnail. Also, ones like the "Game Feel and Juice" are less colourful and therefore wouldn't catch my eye if I saw it amongst other videos. The previous one was bright, with the neon pink palm trees and Hotline Miami's crazy chicken mask staring me in the face. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of a lot of them (especially Stories From Systems and DOOM), but some of them may be doing you a disservice. Anywho, can't wait for the next video :)

GameMakersToolkit
>>1809052

Thanks Gavin - I wasn't sure about those two either so I'll probably give them a second pass at some point :)

David Rodríguez Madriñán

Not a fan of the new thumbnails. The old ones had the topic there and they were... I don't know, elegant. The color is nice but they seem a bit random and unhelpful by themselves. But I get that they could work better, and it's not like I will find enjoyment in the thumbnails, you should be doing with them what's best to get to new people! About Uncharted 4, I loved it, but I totally see what you say. The big set pieces are fewer and far between, but I actually enjoyed the "walking simulator", the places were big and exploration was cool and rewarded and everything looked so good. What I didn't like at all are all those forced "find a crate to climb" parts, it gets ridiculous. I like that there are less gunfights, because even if they are a lot better in this game thanks to the maps and the grappling hook (god how cool it is to fight with the grappling hook), they are still not the strength of the game. I always thought it's a shame Uncharted 3 has so many and so awful gunfights because the set pieces in that game were stupidly awesome and huge, and this game did not match those... but I am really into making them real people with real problems, the "killing 2000 people" incongruence didn't stop me from enjoying their company in the other games. All in all I think it's the best Uncharted as a whole, while maybe Uncharted 2 has better pace and Uncharted 3 has better 10 minute set pieces, this one has such beautiful, big, open maps with a nice story and epic shootouts... A real gem. Sorry for the long post and any mistake, cheers from Spain!

Anonymous

I was actually okay with the old design, and seeing them side by side, I really liked the older one. But I also see what you're saying about them being kinda tiny.

Anonymous

The new thumbnails certainly worked on me! Saw an interesting looking thumbnail yesterday and I've now watched all of your videos and become a patron.

Anonymous

Didn't mention it earlier cuz I hadn't finished it until just now... But, UC4 is pretty great. Overall, I'm very much satisfied with the experience, but I've been trying to also look at it objectively. Right now, for sure I feel like the set piece events were very minimal when games like Tomb Raider had tons of them. The tank battle in UC2, despite being a more battle-focused set piece is still one of the better ones, in my mind. The train, as well. But a lot of the escape and run from things sequences in the modern Tomb Raider games are very exciting, too. UC4 had some pretty okay puzzles, but nothing to really write home about. I really liked the Scotland puzzles, but that's about it. For the most part, though, I really dig the facial expressions on the characters. The plot twist, as well, felt very for [Spoilers ahead] the fact that it didn't just tell you, but made you experience it. Definitely brings up that "show, don't tell" idea in the context of gaming.

Anonymous

Uncharted 2 is a tough act to follow and possibly my favourite all time game but I feel U4 did an admirable job. I'm always down for character focused stuff and I almost would have been alright with Drake's civilian life as a full game. U3 suffered in my opinion from trying to do dark and serious but not really being coherent enough to pull it off which is a shame because I feel the chase sequences and the melee was some of the best the series had to offer. I must say this game was a bit slow for my tastes. When you are scaling walls, leaping through collapsing caverns and gunning down mercenaries it feels weird to draw it out so long and having the constant red herrings before the clue that actually lead them to the treasure got a touch silly. Credit to Drake's tailor though, after all those shale slides in Scotland I would think his jeans would be worn through.

Vesselin Jilov

I understand why and where you're going with the "readability" of the thumbnails, I had a similar readability problem to solve as a designer in one of the first iPhone games I ever worked on. But the new ones aren't better. In fact, I'd be much more inclined to click on the old ones, PRECISELY because they're not clear enough. Let's take Toki Tori for example. The new one is a typical clean garish commercial stuff that my brain has been trained to filter and avoid. Same goes for "Adaptive soundtracks": the new one is much more likely to make me think "Oh, of course I know what adaptive soundtracks are, I already know everything just from the thumbnail, why should I click." Same goes for Half-Life and the invisible tutorial - what is more likely to make me click, Gordon Freeman struggling for his life in hardly readable low-res, or the very clear title "TUTORIAL" which I associate with complete boredom? What's more likely to make me click, the Purple Tentacle trying to take over the world, or the clear and bland "Point and Click" title? Some thumbnails turned out better, but for the most part, they didn't. The sad thing about titles is that they don't have to be clear and understandable - if they are, they give no reason to anyone to open the book, so to speak. So, I'd argue that bad readability makes me curious and unsatisfied (for example, "Three lessons? What lessons?" or "Vanquish what? What about Vanquish? I don't care about the game itself, but now I'm intrigued!") and so, lack of clarity is actually good in this case.

Anonymous

I really like how the thumbnails look now (except the ones that are white text on a grey background), but I do think some of them have become maybe a bit too generic. For instance "Morality in the Mechanics" has a hook that "Morality" by itself lacks. Other ones like "Telling Stories with Systems" to "Stories from Systems" work a lot better. Bigger, simpler, but still giving essentially the same information. On the other hand, the video titles are still there, so I don't know if it's that big a deal.