Help me name my game

[Phil Steinmeyer]

[Update, I've decided on Bonnie's Bookstore (http://www.newcrayon.com). It doesn't address everything listed below, but I'm pretty happy with it :)]

OK, now that I've got the company logo taken care of, I need to settle on a game name (game logo isn't really an issue - just the name).

My game is a casual word puzzle game, sort of like Bookworm. But the game has a solid story to it - kind of like Diner Dash. There's a female lead character, running a children's bookstore (looks a bit like Meg Ryan's bookstore in "You've Got Mail" - sort of a smallish, classic English-looking bookstore). The lead female character finds an old trove of children's illustrations painted by her grandfather in the attic, and decides to write children's books. The puzzles then represent the 'books' that she's writing. The background illustrations (and book themes) are classic fairy tales, plus a couple of child-oriented novels and nursery rhymes (i.e. The Frog Prince, Thumbelina, The Prince and the Pauper, Hey Diddle Diddle, etc.)

So, for names, my original favorites were Traveller's Tales (which would be the name of the bookstore and of the game itself), and Writer's Block (the latter not explicitly tied into anything within the game, but a nice name).

Unfortunately, I discovered that there's a console development shop named Traveller's Tales. And just last month another game called Writer's Block came out. So now I'm back at square one.

The name could just be a game name, it could also be used in-game as the name of the bookstore, and/or it could tie into the lead female character's name (which could be renamed to anything), ala Betty's Beer Bar, etc.

Some candidate names:

Bonnie's Books
Bonnie's Bookstore
Tina's Tales
Stacy's Storybook
Twopenny Tales
Author, Author
A Writer's Tale
Tiptoe Tales
ABC Tales
ABC Bookstore
Bedtime Books

Thoughts?

[ggambett]

Do you have any screenshots?

[Phil Steinmeyer]

I'd rather not post screenshots at the moment. Imagine something with a look kind of like Diner Dash (at least for the story part of the game) - the puzzle backgrounds have a classic children's storybook feel to them - very rich and colorful.

[Hiro_Antagonist]

I posted these at Q23, but figured I'd repost here because this is where the more serious folk hang out. =)

Cover to Cover
The Story Store
The Write Stuff
A Tale of Two Cindys
Take a Book

-Hiro_Antagonist

[Sirrus]

I'd stick with incorporating the female character's name into the title - I think it will draw more attention from your potential audience.

Bonnie's Bookstore isn't bad...

[papillon]

Don't forget the power of the search engine. There's already hundreds of thousands of hits for "Writer's Block" and domain names registered using the phrase. The page rank boost of a download.com listing will help you out a bit, but that title is always going to be a little harder to find... but on the plus side, it means people who are bored and frustrated and actually HAVE writer's block might stumble into your game by accident. :) Quite possibly a good thing!

(Wait, you said there is a game with that name? Well, proves my first point, then - doesn't show up at all in the first page of results.)

Story Store has far fewer hits, but it's a bit stumbly on the tongue.

(Yes, I know, I'm critiquing rather than suggesting... I haven't yet thought of anything appropriate. I'm still sitting at Bonnie's Books thinking yes, Bonnie is a nice, cheerful, sunny name... there are bookstores named that but none seem to have too big a web presence so they wouldn't overshadow you... maybe you could even convince one of them to sell the game in hardcopy? :) )

[Ricardo C]

I like "Tiptoe Tales". It conjures up the image of a little child on tippy toes trying to reach a book for mom to read to him/her. Hey, it could be the lead character as a child, wanting her granfather to read to her :D

[Bmc]

Bonnie's Magic Tales

or if you change the female character name to something like

Mable's Fables

[illume]

Here are the favourites of the ones I came up with.

- 123 ABC Annas Book Cryptics
- Annas Book Cryptics
- Puzzle Books
- Betties Book Bar ;) (yes some people read in bars!)
- Nurse Worm
- Nurse Worm Jean
- Lucys Lovely Ledgers

[Ska Software]

Dark Book Vengeance X

[Nikster]

Bonnie Wonka and the chocolate book.
Short story (free trial) Neverending story ($20 plimus)

"twopenny Tales" - this could be tupence tales... *snigger* ;)

Story teller Steller..

Might be worth creating a character to create a series on too, so avoid Debbie Dallas etc ;) although I'm sure it would get a good search hit rate :D