How do you name your projects?

News & General Discussion
1

I find it hard to figure out a relevant, unique and easy name for a project. how do you do it?

2

If I don’t have a name already I just take the core conceit or gameplay mechanic and name it after that.

3 Likes
3

it is a natural skill for some people to come up with great names. but are there any guidelines for people without this talent?
where to go for inspiration?

4

For concepts and prototyping I go with Project .

For finished projects: Dunno, not there yet :stuck_out_tongue:

3 Likes
5

Manhattan Project 2

lools
#nsaWatchlist

yeah i just name it something quick…
you can always rename it!

6

At least you’ll never have to worry about running out. :stuck_out_tongue:

2 Likes
7

Use your imagination, there is no formula for this. It all depends on your project, and the mission behind it

1 Like
8

for prototyping I use a random word generator.

the renaming part is what I find hard.

9

I tend to get project ideas from a name or word that suggests something to me, so I always jot down various words and names and phrases that give me an idea. I quite like the game title: The Trophic Cascade’. I think this would be good for a sci-fi game and ‘Sing Dirges’ is suggestive of an adventure set around the time of Beowulf. The first came from reading about the possibility of alien life and how it might view Earth in its current state, and what they might do about that. The second came from watching The Originals where one of the characters says there is no time to sing dirges. A hobby game I’ve been designing and working on for some time has the title ‘Stupor Mundi: the marvel of the world and the ending of all things.’ Stupor MUndi was a name give to the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II by his contemporaries. I have no idea whether these are good or interesting to anyone else but me, but I start with a title and make the game fit the title. I was doing some research for my hobby game and was reading a book called ‘All things forgotten.’ That would make an interesting title for a game as well. Some village names are good as well, near where I live there is a village called Leichendorf which translates as Corpse Village. I also root for names through a book called Lore of The Land by Westwood and Simpson and note down various interesting street or building names. In other words you can get inspiration anywhere.

1 Like
10

I just name projects after the core mechanic. That makes them easier to find later. Remember the project name has nothing to do with the final game name.

So the project for Pond Wars is called Buoyancy. The project for Revenge of the Ghosts is called Reverse Pacman. The project for Trend.me is called Grapher. The project for Demon Day is called Global Game Jam 2016. And so on.

Some other project names include

  • Animation Play
  • 5 Minute Flappy
  • Biosphere
  • Clinton (Where I keep a bunch of work I did with my brother)
  • Dresses
  • Factory
  • Genetics
  • Hex Larp
  • Infinite Terrain - Biome project
  • Inventory
  • MMO (Sometimes I get a bit ambitious)
  • Pokemon Go Clone
  • Object Pool
  • Quarternion
  • Presta (Inspired by a character name)
  • Pond Wars 3D
  • Traders
  • Tree of Life
  • Universe (Who am I kidding, sometimes I get really ambitious)

That’s a small selection of the most interesting ones. Others are named for/by the client. Others are named for a particular asset they are using from the store.

1 Like
11

Gar-423
Gar-424
Gar-425

Which may become Atlantic Crisis, Treasures of Ali-Gar and Christmas Command with these names chosen because of the story / focus of the game.

12

The name of the game/software if you know it, but if you don’t then simply what it does, or what it is.

My cellular automata project is called “Cellular Automata.” If I could change the name I would, to the name of the program, but there’s nothing wrong with what it is now. And my game projects all have either their name, or what I had as an idea for the name at the time.

My 2D platformer has a specific name, but in my folder where I keep created programs I called it “2D platformer.” That’s more than adequate.

13

This one sounds interesting. Anything for that other tree? :stuck_out_tongue:

14

I really don’t remember what’s in that one. Let me go look…

…

Okay, back. This one was loosely based off of the Book of Mormon story of the Tree of Life (as opposed to the biblical one). Its one of the more iconic stories from the Book of Mormon. To sum it up there are people trying to get to the tree by following the iron rod. Along the way they encounter obstacles such as a filthy river, a mist of darkness, and a great and spacious building. Each of these obstacles has various religious meaning and symbology behind it. But even if you strip away the religious symbols, there is some fertile ground for game ideas there.

The concept was a RTS/Tower Defense game. However it had some significant twists. The world came pre populated with all of the units. The player then had a selection of prophet and missionary type units that they could use to spread influence. Gain enough influence with a particular unit and it was yours. Loose the influence and the unit might become neutral or switch sides. The design also broke the normal RTS linkage between fog of war and unit presence. The mist of darkness was an entity in its own right that the player would have to deal with, rather then the usual passive fog of war.

I ended up spending most of my time on that one just playing with various different ways to do influence maps and the light/dark mechanics. I don’t believe it ever got to the playable prototype stage. But it was still a fun idea to play with.

I don’t. But I think this deserves its own thread, perhaps in game design. Something along the lines of ‘game designs inspired by religion’. Or something of the sort. Its an interesting topic, and we might just be mature enough to pull it off. Maybe.

3 Likes
15

I’m not bold enough to make the thread, though I will briefly mention one idea I had recently.

The player faces some kind of calamity–maybe simply a big rock which rolls down a hill towards their village over and over, which they have to push back up the hill. This happens periodically (say, once a “year?”). The player has to build up enough “strength” in between to be able to push it back one more year. And every movement of the character adds to the “weight” of the rock, so it gets progressively harder to successfully push it off. And eventually it would be impossible.

However, after some set number of iterations (77, perhaps?), any failure of the player causes a set event where the rock is obliterated and the village is safe. The game would end at that point.

16

I played one game jam game that played on a similar concept.

  • Day one: The player wakes up. The general orders the player to go to sleep.
  • Day two: The player wakes up. The general orders the player to collect wood. The general orders the player to go to sleep.
  • Day three: The player wakes up. The general orders the player to collect wood. The general orders the player to light a fire. The general orders the player to go to sleep.
  • Day four: The player wakes up. The general orders the player to collect wood. The general orders the player to light a fire. The general orders the player to collect a sword. The general orders the player to go to sleep.

This pattern got more and more complex. Each day a new task was added. There were something in the order of 100 days.

The only way to beat the game was to rebel and kill the general. At which point you won, and the game showed you a score board tracking how long players had lasted before finally killing the general. We had some good debates afterwards about whether a low score was a good or a bad thing.

1 Like
17

I am still using the name “Rollaball” for my project (after 2 years) because I used the Rollaball tutorial as the baseline when I started from nothing of my own. Right now I’m up to Rollaball5 (incremented for every new version of Unity downloaded). I know I should probably change this someday, but I still don’t know what the game should be named.

1 Like
18

Currently working on Game106.

2 Likes
19

Just something vaguely relevant to the project. Usually the inspiration or a mechanic/genre.

Some of mine include:

  • Doom-like (FPS game, I have a bunch of these (next two are just the tip of the iceberg) that all share assets. They mostly end up as isolated tests of specific mechanics/artstyles).

  • RetroShooter

  • ArcaneShooter

  • Star Fox (Star Fox clone attempt. Very little here but I plan on coming back to it).

  • ShipController (Project for an assetstore submission)

  • PBR Rendering (A general project where I test assets and models. Not actually a game).

20

Ha ha I was half joking with my post above. I do actually use that approach sometimes. Other times like some other people mentioned I have RetroFPS, Platformer, Shmup, etc. But lately I have been trying to just come up with names for the games at the start and then I use an acronym like my current project is WotB.