How to Make Videos Like OverSimplified (with AI)

Learning how to make videos like OverSimplified starts with the writing, not the software. The drawings are simple on purpose; the comedy, the research and the long, multi-part stories do the heavy lifting. Below is what makes the format work, what the channel itself says about its tools, the manual route, and a faster AI route that starts from your own voiceover.

What makes OverSimplified videos work?

Jokes carry the history. Simple characters act out a well-researched story on detailed maps and backgrounds, and big subjects get room across two or three long parts. Take away any one of those and the format falls flat. Here is what you actually see in the channel's episodes.

The episodes have grown, too. The two-part Hitler story from April 2017 ran under 9 minutes a part. WW2 Part 1 in 2018 ran under 14 minutes. The three parts of The Second Punic War run about 28, 38 and 49 minutes: the first two came out on the same day in January 2024, and the third a year later. That is long-form history, and it only works because the writing holds attention for that long.

How does OverSimplified make its videos?

By its own account, in Adobe After Effects and Photoshop, with help from collaborators it recruits through its website. Here is what is on the record, from the channel's own pages:

• Tools: After Effects for animation, Photoshop for characters, props and backgrounds. Episode descriptions from 2017, 2018 and 2021 say so in the creator's own words, and the Create page tells would-be collaborators the same.
• People: the Create page invites writers, animators and graphic designers to show what they can do, with test asset files to download. It lists research and writing as a job of its own, next to animation and asset creation. Guest voices get a credit, like the voice actor behind the pig in The Pig War.
• Sound and images: descriptions credit Creative Commons music, much of it by Kevin MacLeod, and later tracks from Artlist. Sound effects, photos and paintings are credited too.
• Pace: slow. In January 2024 the creator opened a new series by apologizing for a year away, and the channel lists a little over 30 videos in total.

Anything else you read online, such as the team's size, budgets or a secret plugin list, is guesswork. The channel's own pages don't cover it.

How do you write history narration that's actually funny?

Get the facts right first, then find the gap between what happened and how a person today would describe it. Most of the comedy in this format lives in that gap.

Here is the gap at work. Flat: "In 218 BC, Hannibal marched his army over the Alps into Italy." With the gap: "In 218 BC, Hannibal decided the best way into Italy was over the Alps. With elephants." Same fact, one beat of deadpan, and a picture of an elephant on a mountain path does the rest. Moves that work:

• Play the narrator straight. Let the narration explain, and let a character undercut it with one flat, modern line.
• Give historical figures modern voices. A king who complains like a coworker beats any pun.
• Use anachronism on purpose. A modern object in an ancient scene is a punchline the picture delivers for you.
• Plant callbacks. Introduce a habit, a grudge or a catchphrase in part one and pay it off in part two.
• Say the visual joke out loud. If a gag depends on the picture, give the narration enough detail for the scene to show it.
• Know when to stop. Wars involve real deaths. A change of tone at the right moment earns the jokes everywhere else.

Read the draft aloud before you record. If a line only works on paper, cut it. This is the part no tool does for you: AI can draw a scene from your words, but it can't tell which line is funny.

How do you make an OverSimplified-style video by hand?

Write and record first, build a small kit of characters, maps and backgrounds, then animate to the voice. It is the route with the most control and the slowest one. Plan on weeks per episode while you learn.

1. Pick a story with a shape

A war, a revolution, a rise and fall. You want causes, a turning point and consequences. Big stories go in parts.

2. Research, then outline

Read a solid general history, then the sources it cites. Keep a list of every date, name and number you will say, with where it came from.

3. Write and record the script

Write for the ear, in chapters. Record in a quiet room with a decent USB microphone, and voice the characters yourself or with friends.

4. Build the kit in Photoshop

Design one base character and vary the hats, hair and uniforms. Make a map template for your region and a background for each place the story returns to.

5. Animate and edit in After Effects

Animate to the voice track: gestures, map arrows, camera moves. Add licensed music and sound effects, and credit them in the description.

6. Publish in parts

Release part one when it is ready, and link the parts to each other in the descriptions, as OverSimplified does.

Can you make history videos like this with AI?

Yes, for the production half. AI can draw every scene, keep the cast consistent, cut the pictures to your narration and add subtitles. It can't research the period or write your jokes, and what it makes are illustrated scenes cut to the voice, not frame-by-frame character animation.

The workflow is voice-first. You write and record the episode, and the tool plans and draws the scenes around the recording. That order matters, because the timing of every joke lives in your delivery.

Make it in Viducer

Viducer is a long-form AI video generator for YouTube. It makes fully edited, subtitled videos, usually in about an hour: animated videos up to 60 minutes long in 11 looks, or documentaries built from real footage. An OverSimplified-style episode uses the animated side, Animatica, and starts from your own narration.

1. Write the script in chapters

One chapter per phase of the story: the background, the spark, the war, the fallout. Viducer reads your narration, splits it into chapters and plans every scene, so clean breaks make a cleaner plan.

2. Record the voiceover

Use your own voice, a hired narrator or an AI voice from any text-to-speech tool, and upload it as MP3, WAV, M4A, FLAC, OGG, MP4 or WebM, up to 50 MB. Transcription is free. Viducer doesn't write scripts or make voices today; see voiceover to video.

3. Pick a simple cartoon look

Two of the 11 ready-made looks suit comic history:

• Deadpan Vector: minimal characters with plain white oval heads and deadpan eyes, set in rich, detailed worlds. It is the closest match to the simple-cast, detailed-world formula.
• Chunky Cartoon: bouncy characters with big round heads, thick outlines and expressive brows, made for history series and biographies, with deliberately spare backgrounds.

You can also paste a YouTube link to copy a video's visual style, or upload up to four reference pictures of your own art. Copy a style, never another channel's characters, logo or title cards. More setups are on the AI history video maker and AI cartoon video generator pages.

4. Approve the characters and places

Before any scene is drawn, Viducer draws a reference picture of each main character and place and uses them in every scene, so your Roman general looks the same in minute one and minute forty. Check uniforms, hairstyles and buildings for the period, and ask for changes. You see the plan and the exact cost before anything is drawn.

5. Choose the pace

Fast, Medium or Slow sets how often the picture changes. Fast suits rapid-fire comedy; Slow gives maps and big moments room to land.

6. Edit and publish

The finished video opens in a timeline editor, where you retime scenes, style the captions and add music and sound effects. To fix a scene, describe the change, such as "put the general on a camel," and only that scene is redrawn. Exports are free. Everything runs on Viducer's servers, so you can close the tab, and a failed render refunds automatically. Plans start at $49 a month.

What can't you copy from OverSimplified?

The characters, the name, the logo, the title cards and the videos themselves. The channel's descriptions say it gives no one permission to translate or reupload its videos or designs, and its cast is sold as pins, plush toys and vinyl figures. Copy the method instead: comedy on top of research, a simple recurring cast, maps, and stories told in parts.

YouTube's rules point the same way. Its reused-content policy covers other people's material repurposed without significant original commentary or changes, while original work made with AI tools can still earn.

For the full picture, read can AI videos be monetized on YouTube.

How do you start an animated history channel?

Pick a lane, build one recurring cast and one look, and plan in series rather than one-off videos. Then publish on a schedule you can keep.

• Choose a lane. Wars and revolutions, ancient empires, or the strange footnotes of history. Mythology sits next door; see the AI mythology video generator.
• Start short. OverSimplified's Mini-Wars episodes ran about 5 to 13 minutes. Short stories teach you pacing before you attempt a three-part epic.
• Keep the look fixed. One look, one cast style and one thumbnail style make the channel recognizable at a glance.
• Plan in parts. End part one on a hook, link the parts, and post a short recap when a sequel arrives.
• Go long when the story earns it. Long episodes need tight chapters; see how to make long AI videos.
• Use footage for the modern era. For twentieth-century topics, the AI documentary generator cuts your narration to real footage, archive photos and maps instead.

The science-explainer version of this playbook is in how to make videos like Kurzgesagt.