Naming your game.

[luggage]

Is there a Random Game Name Generator kicking about that I'm not aware of? Looking through some of the latest releases you get...

Aqua Pearls
Treasure Pyramid
Flower Quest
Cosmo Lines
Jewel Match

I know it's hard to pick a decent name for a game but please make a bit of an effort eh!

[sgm]

Flower Quest & Jewel Match aren't bad names :)

They tell people what the game is about (assuming that's what they are, never looked at those). That can be a pretty good thing when you're just in a list of names people will pick from.

[Ricardo C]

Flower Quest and Jewel Match are awful names. They're generic and unimaginative.

Sure, they tell people what the games are about. They also say "we have no creativity, so we'll not only piggyback on other games' names, we'll do it as generically as possible".

*takes "Headache Pill", turns on TV to watch "Tense Thriller", while taking time off from working on the RPG sensation "Dungeon Crawl"*

[Fry Crayola]

What on earth is a flower quest?

Mind you, I'm one to talk with the fantastic working title of "The Complete Football Game".

[papillon]

Flower Quest could be an okay name if it was about a quest for a flower, or a quest BY a flower, or something... I tend to get grumpy about 'quest' being stuck on casual games that are not at all quest-related.

<- Old time King's Quest fan :)

[Indiepath]

I'm looking forward to "The mystery expedition to Atlantis - Case Closed" and "Jeweltopia Supreme Deluxe 2 - The bundle pack"
:rolleyes:

[stiill]

The first time I saw the name "Adventure Quest (http://www.battleon.com/)", I thought it was a joke.

[Ricardo C]

The first time I saw the name "Adventure Quest (http://www.battleon.com/)", I thought it was a joke.

And just like that, I have inspiration for my next game: Fighting Brawl.

[soniCron]

I'm looking forward to "The mystery expedition to Atlantis - Case Closed" and "Jeweltopia Supreme Deluxe 2 - The bundle pack"
:rolleyes: Why pick on me? I'm not even on the portals, yet! :p

In all seriousness, I hear the OP. All of my prototypes and WIPs have really great names (not like "Jeweltopia!") because a name is an extremely valuable marketing angle. On the other hand, some names give not the slightest clue what they're about. Did I hear someone say "Chuzzle?" (Just kidding, John! ;))

[barrygamer]

'Flower Quest' and 'Jewel Match' do sound like poor/generic names, but probably if one did a survey of the target audience they would be accepted as good names? They see the name, see the graphics, and click to download. But yes, I know where you're coming from :o

[EDIT: ok, 'Zuma' and 'Chuzzle' are pretty cool names, I think...]

[TimS]

Well we've got Quest in our subtitle for Blobyrinth: Maze Island Quest (heheheh). But there really IS a quest! In the old sense! I swear!

It does almost seem like people out there are naming their games in the hope that someone will mistake it for a game that they liked... kindof sad really.

And I don't thing Jeweltopia is a bad name, either... though I have on occasion read it as Jew el Topia... not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

-T

[oldschool]

I registered bubblematch.com(nothing there yet) in a fit of stupidity, uncommon for me:rolleyes: . Generic yes! Desciptive yes. Easily lost in the crowd of match 3's which it is not.

Now I'm using a simple spanish name for my game.

happy naming.

[woo]

I am concerned about being a bit too far out there. I've seriously thought about "extending" My Bogle to be "My Bogle: Tactics" which is a fairly standard way of denoting the gameplay for tactics games... but I think that would turn some people off of it who would click on the link/thumbnail/whatever just to see what My Bogle was :)

-Andrew Douglas
http://theoreticalgames.com

[Ricardo C]

I like "My Bogle". It's unique, and makes me curious to find out just what a "bogle" is, and why it's "mine" :D "Tactics" might be overkill.

[woo]

Thanks! I agree, and we've certainly gotten a lot of positive feedback from it. But as far as expressing exactly what your product is to, say, wargamers... though... they sometimes call themselves grognards (http://www.grognard.org/) so I guess My Bogle ain't so strange after all. Nevermind :)

Speaking of choosing unique names - do be sure to check places like urbandictionary.com before deciding on a name, cuz you never know what it might mean. I don't want to post the link (as I don't want to direct google traffic over there), but if you want a good laugh, you should do a search for "bogle" on their site. Definitely a case of "Do as I say, not as I do" :)
-Andrew

Edit: A bogle is a mischievous spirit/mythological creature. Think of it as a boogie man of sorts.

[Ricardo C]

Oh, I didn't know it's a war/strategy game. In that case I guess they might welcome the "Tactics" tag.

[Tr00jg]

Aahh... the art of names. For my games, I generally choose something that really is sweet on the eye and the tongue, ie Roach Toaster (turn based strat) and Emola Mine (new management game). Although it usually doesnt relate to the genre, it remains in your mind for quite some time. :D

[woo]

Note: not to hijack the thread even further - but My Bogle is more of a "final fantasy tactics" game than a war game... my point was more with how do you name your game to have the highest/best possible impact (not necessarily the broadest appeal). For example do you try to appeal to wargamers who are very likely to enjoy the game by throwing in "tactics" to a title (where if tactics is missing you may completely alienate them) even though you run the risk of turning off someone who may not even know that they like "light" tactical games. The later, I'm sure, represents a much larger percentage of the population. It's a tough nut to crack. I think the plan right now is to stick with what we've got, and see how it works.. and if we need to make adjustments to further our reach then we may look at extending it.

Anyway, on topic: it's not a cut and dry choice. It's not so much that some people don't "try", it's that it would appear that they've chosen to have less of an impact by having a fairly bland name but I'm sure that they are hoping to make up for it with a more broadly appealing name that doesn't turn folks off.
-Andrew

-Andrew

[Rainer Deyke]

I have to say that I would be far more likely to download "My Bogle: Tactics" than plain "My Bogle". The former tells me that it is a tactics game, which I may enjoy. The latter doens't tell me anything, which 99% of the time means that it's a crappy generic casual game. The name isn't intriguing enough for me to investigate further.

[KNau]

Tough call which is worse - braindead descriptive names or ridiculous pun / combo names? Or an abstract nonsense name?

It's Jewel Match Quest vs. Jeweltastic! vs. Spurknizzle

And lord save us that dreaded prententious punctuation - the colon! Used to denote that you think your game is better than it actually is...

Star Galaxy Omega: Bane of The Glihmakian Overlords

I'm convinced that there's some sort of random game-name generator out there that people are using, like the band / song name generator:

http://www.bandnamemaker.com/

Although it gave me "Battery-powered Fault", which I hereby copyright for use as an R-Type clone. Ummm...and maybe "Foolish Hate" for a really lame emo band. Damn! The name generator actually works pretty well, lol!

[woo]

@Rainer - Thanks! Very useful feedback and very much appreciated.
-Andrew

[moco]

This is a fun video name game generator:
http://tpp.atspace.com/

But this is even better for generating Castlevania titles:
http://www.djork.net/castlevania/
"Fury of anal warts", "Symphony of car payments" ... brilliant :)