Alternate video and click-throughs to keep demos easy, focused, and hard to quit.
We've been fans of mixing video into interactive demos since Edition #1. But most demos are still playing it safe. Either the whole thing is video with nothing to interact with, or there's one intro video and then it's a standard click-through tour the rest of the way. Playable figured out the balance and it's kind of hard to explain until you see it. They open with short videos of someone using the product. Then a few static interactive steps so your brain can catch up. Then a longer video of someone playing an actual game on their platform. Then back to interactive click-throughs. It just keeps going like that. And it works because those two modes ask completely different things of you. Video is fun, it's easy, your brain goes on a little vacation Static steps slow things down and make you pay attention Alternate between them and you never check out, but you never feel lectured at either. Remember Elation from Edition #60, who used motion at just the right moments to pull you back in mid-demo? Playable took that idea and built a whole tour around it. At some point you genuinely forget you're watching a demo. And that's the real goal, isn’t it?
