That reminds me. . . pick a name that suits the game, but don''t make it completely obvious. The best title for a satire is an inside joke that will make the player laugh once he''s invested some time in the game. My friend Dan Snyder and I worked on a story in which the main character could avoid being attacked by zombies by filling in a nametag with "Zombie," so it said "Hello, my name is Zombie."

The original working title was "Sofie''s Adventure," but by the end we called it, "Hello, my name is..." Other good titles would have been "Sofie''s Vacation," "Seven Days," and "Invasion of the Law Secretary." (Say, that last one is pretty good...)

Let''s have a game called Legitimate Excuse where you are a lawyer trying to convince the court to let loose the most notorious criminals in the world! That would be so challenging

I wanted to (still do) make a military RTS that focusses on chains of awareness using radar towers, aerial craft and ground craft.

I could name the game something like Mechanized Assault to focus on the nature of the units themselves.

Or I could name the game Theatre of Operations to focus on the whole battle arena and the strategy paradigm.

So sometimes, the name expresses the primary theme of the game itself. At least, in my case it does.

I programmed a simple space shootemup featuring craft chasing each other around in outer space. There were 8 teams with 3 craft at a time on each team. I named it Star Arena 3000 . A few months later I upgraded the graphics (included textures, lighting, starlets, sun, explosions, glare, lens flare, craft speed, scoreboard and camera angles) and named it Star Arena 3005 . If I upgrade it again, I will use background decorations, anti-aliased stars, hardpoints, engine fire, glare points, guided missiles, formation flying, etc. and of course name it Star Arena 3010 . I'll probably have that done around 2995 or so.


[edited by - Waverider on April 11, 2003 5:19:33 PM]

For things in my games, I usually steal names from real objects.

My failed TBS names involved failed 80s wrestlers. Barry Horowitz, Berta Fay. etc...And it was named after the cause of the horror, Virus or something??

My RPG, the characters didn''t have names, except one boy. and he was named Tomi, after Tome...The name of the game was Slime King.

My Joust chest varient was taken after my name, eddie, and combined with joust, Edoust.

My next two projects are:

Pitfall Patty(the original pitfall, as seen on TI-80s not the atari verson)
Oniawwa, the Duck Hunter. Same deal.

Think about two things. The title you come up with will be a compilation of the the previously rendered advice and other things. But when you do make a selection, and are happy with it, you will find it wise to use a ''working title'' so you don''t have to end up telling everybody and their brother what the title is, and giving away the steak before you have a chance to sell the sizzle.

I''m serious, you''re title is serious intellectual property that you''ve thought about for some time devising (it encapsulates a lot of what you are devving if it is a good one), and even though that is the most first and logical question, the plain fact is you''d be selling yourself and your project short by mentioning it prematurely. A title used to be the one thing you could not protect by copyright, even if an informal claim, such as marking it with a circle c or copr. or circle c date.

Formal of course being registration with the Registrar of Copyrights, a cheap and excellent professional move, btw.

It''s also a marketing thing. A little mystery is good for anticipation, and what if development iterations change the game, and the title is not a good fit for it anymore?

Most people put up a web site on their project far too early, imo, also. Don''t start marketing the game until you are ready to sell it. Premarketing can be done while in dev, but for market research purposes, which generally don''t give away the cookie before the customer feels like they need a glass of milk. I don''t think it''s wise to lose the advantage (the only one of it''s kind that your get) of springing into the mind of the consumer with something they''ve heard of before over a long time, it doesn''t click for them that way in terms of purchase psycgology. If you are going to all the trouble to learn about player psychology, purchasing and perception psychology is also adviseable.

You''ve already created on perception with the public, now you are going to change it? Bad marketing move, period.

Don''t give the title away, make a working title, like many professionals do for the very same and more reasons, and use it.

Addy