I wanted to create a new blog category for this post; a category for my new game project. The problem is that I can’t do that just yet since I have no name for the game. This affects more than just my blogging – I’d say that the name of a game affects most aspects of the development: PR, design, art style, music, etc etc. For example, Sheeplings was a haphazard collection of ideas until I registered the domain sheeplings.com and decided that the game would focus on a few aspects: cute, silly and easily accessible. The name had a lot to do with defining those aspects of the game.

Now I have a framework for a humorous superhero game with an insane mix of action/RPG/puzzle gameplay, and the project is constantly shifting gears between puzzle gameplay and a story-driven adventure. If I had a name I could decide which areas I really want to focus on; for example, a name with the word “quest” in the title would instantly be placed in the puzzle department and I would know that I have to focus on those bits.

“You silly sod,” someone exclaims now. “You don’t have to match the name with the gameplay.” Well, yes, I do. If you see a game called Inca Quest these days, you know that it will feature a match-3 (or somesuch) placed in an Inca surrounding; and it’s very very likely that the people who decide to try the game are expecting a game of that kind. Your game’s name will attract a certain audience, and if the game doesn’t fit their expectations it’s more likely to annoy/disappoint/be mistargeted than otherwise.

(Note: all above is pure speculation, but try to prove me otherwise. And I don’t accept evidence along the lines of “game XXX performed well despite having a misleading name;” that’s irrelevant since it might have performed much better if the name had been appropriate. The only way it could become valid is if there are two identical games with different names released at the same time. Preferably in two different markets that feature an identical demographic and economy. And identical psychology and social structure. Okay, you get the point.)

Some other important aspects of naming a game:

• People will search for your name, so naming a game “Superhero City” would result in millions of hits when searching…and try to guess how many of those will point at your game’s webpage.
• The flip side is that if your game name is too obscure, no one will ever be able to remember it. “Hmm.. One or two ks in Grakkthor the Miffomaker?”
• The name has to be interesting. People always mention graphics when they talk about first impressions…but if the name is too generic, chances are that people won’t even get that far.

One error I made late one night when I tried to come up with potential game names was to narrow down my search too much. I listed superhero-related adjectives and tried to construct a name from that; I ended up with bland and uninteresting suggestions along the lines of Cavalier City, Vigilance Valley and so on. Thankfully the people at the Indiegamer forums rebuked me out of that notion. I have to think outside the little shoebox. Incidentally, just a couple of days after my post, another blogger raised the issue of the importance of names. See, this really is important stuff!

Anyway, to finish this off, here’s a picture of the game in all its non-existing glory (click for a bigger pic):

Unnamed game with hideous placeholder art and moronic dialogue. But I assure you that it will look better as soon as I find an artist! Oh, and this is just the city screen – not a screen of the puzzle gameplay. There’s not much puzzling going on here, except puzzling out what that gigantic phallic building obscured by the speech bubble is supposed to be.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 10th, 2007 at 5:00 pm and is filed under Indie Games, Spandex Force. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.