After releasing the Gundam EXVS MBON guide into the online wild, I started to get feedback almost immediately. Often times, it was praise. Reactions from Twitter, Reddit, Discord, and Facebook trended toward “this is exactly what I needed” levels of response. However, there were still valid criticisms, specifically centering around its container: a 94-page Google Doc.

Nobody wants to wade through a novel to find information. Ever.

So, I began the process of rebuilding the guide into a web app, and enlisted the help of a programmer to assist me in bringing it to fruition. While working on it, I started to wonder how it was that I would announce its existence to the world, and have it ring out in a larger way than simply ringing the dinner bell for an audience that was already familiar with its prior incarnation.

My idea was to create this video, not only as a means of heralding the evolution of the guide, but to open an audience’s eyes to the existence of something they might’ve missed, overlooked, or written off…and then get them to read the guide, since it’s now easier to do than ever.

Creating this video wasn’t easy. That’s 25 minutes of:
– scripting it
– revising the script
– revising the script again
– recording it in Audition
– mastering it in Audition
– recording gameplay footage for specific concepts using OBS
– creating specific animated transitions and visual gags in After Effects
– finding images, music, and royalty-free stock footage for so many things
– creating or purchasing visually engaging transitions for use in Premiere
then layering it all, timing it all, and crafting a video that was not only hopefully informative and educational, but genuinely funny and irreverent, without sounding mean-spirited or awful. I’d like to think I succeeded.

My ethos in this was “if the viewer has looked at the timestamp at any point before the credits section, I have failed miserably.” From the reaction the video has received, most people don’t ever realize that twenty minutes has passed them by, they’ve just been glued to the screen and enjoying the show.

Then, I get messages on Discord, Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, etc. that people that have seen the video and visited guide’s new site have either used these materials to get friends into the game, or that it has convinced people that were holding off on jumping in to finally take that definitive plunge.

That, to me, is the real win.