When the name of the game is really important

[EagerMind]

I like the name "Half-life", but it is like, kinda weird as it's not a word, is all!

I don't know if I'm so keen on the title Half-Life because it really has nothing to do with the game. I guess it's catchy and unusual enough, but since I knew what the word meant, I didn't really associate it with a horror game. I don't know, maybe I'm just too big of a geek.

Turns out, after being so damn careful with my own game name, someone else is making a game by the same name. So "limbo" is probably a good name, then! A big name developer is making it, some platformer. I'm keeping my name dammit! I carefully combed the net (via google) when I used the name in the first place! Don't you dare copyright it argh!!

If you run into legal troubles, maybe you could call yours Pandemonium?

Choose your title carefully. A good title could decide the outcome between people playing your game or not.

What Steel Drummer said. The name is the first impression everyone will get from your game, so make sure you make it a good one!

"Future" is kind of bland. "Past and Tomorrow" might work if you change it to "Yesterday and Tomorrow". Perhaps you could summarize the plot for us so people can help give you advice?

[m0ds]

Adventures Of Fatman (how many times have we heard a title like that before)

I think the parody of it works, since that's a strong feature within the game I think Mike is lucky to have it because it is such a cheesy name. The only other variation, Fatman Adventures - a completely different kind of game & a completely different kind of name, but with the same fat-cliche. SO in the gaming world I'm pretty sure we've only heard of two :p But I know what you mean, it's like you've heard it six hundred times already. It works strongly, and a strong title to me is one well picked to the atmosphere in the game. For example "Future". Yes, it's broad. But it means he can enter us into a story from almost any point, under any setting that might related to the "future". So long as we are captivated easily into the game-world it would probably suit the product. But then I'm sure the other sugested titles would too, providing they suit the environment. I guess we'd need to read the pdf to know exactly what the story is! But it's in Spanish :o

[ManicMatt]

Yay my game Secrets was mentioned!  Thanks!

Ah so Half-life is a word. How embarrased am I?

I knew what Deus Ex means.  8)

How many people knew what Anachronox was before Steve googled it?  (I'm pulling your leg!)

"Pandemonium"? I think that's a PSone game!

I also remember a "fatman" platform game on the Amiga!

http://www.lemonamiga.com/?mainurl=http%3A//www.lemonamiga.com/games/list.php%3Flist_date%3D2005-02-20

[zabnat]

But then "The Ancient Quest for the Night of Black Shadow in the Epic Battle for the Dark Evil Kingdom of the Legendary Lost Land of Prophecy" would be an awesome name for a game. And see, it comes ready with a story!

That WOULD be an awesome name for a game. And it can be conveniently shortened to "TAQftNoBSitEBftDEKotLLLoP" so it is easy to remember.
Great, now I got an itch to actually make a game named like that

[jonqueztor]

I don't know if I'm so keen on the title Half-Life because it really has nothing to do with the game. I guess it's catchy and unusual enough, but since I knew what the word meant, I didn't really associate it with a horror game. I don't know, maybe I'm just too big of a geek.

Your main objective in the Half-Life game was to get to the Lambda Sector of the Black Mesa facility. In the game, there are several Lambda symbols visible throughout the facility, including on your character's hazard suit. Your character, Gordon Freeman, was a physicist. In physics, the greek letter Lambda is used to denote the radioactive decay constant, which in turn is related to the half-life of a radioactive substance.

And Half-Life really isn't a horror game. The game's main focus is on exploring the Black Mesa facility and solving the occasional progression puzzle, and not trying to scare you out of your pants. Thus, it's more of an adventure-shooter. Shooters like Doom and F.E.A.R. would be considered horror games, since they actually do try to scare you (and they do a damn good job, I might add).

[EagerMind]

Uh .... ok.

So, I seem to remember that the objective of the game was to stop a monster/alien invasion caused by a scientific experiment gone bad. Among the many creatures you come across is one called a "headcrab." In fact, it's the first creature you encounter in the game, and near the end (in one of the bigger and more difficult fights in the game), you lock horns with the Big Momma Headcrab. To quote Wikipedia, "they are the most numerous and arguably iconic aliens in the series." One of the behaviors exhibited by headcrabs is that they like to munch on the heads of scientists and turn them into zombies, who then tend to come after you. Since your character happens to be a scientist, this ends up presenting a double threat to you. Maybe they should have called the game "Headcrabs"?

[ManicMatt]

You're joking right? "Headcrabs" would be a stupid name for the game! It suggests it's a game world that purely revolves around what sounds like some kind of head disease. It's like calling a racing game "Handbrake!".

Did I mention it just sounds dumb? 

Man: "I got headcrabs this morning!"

[Erenan]

Some Good AGS Titles (culled from recent releases, or more precisely threads in the completed games forum):
The Death of Luke Simpson

8)

Snarky is smart.

[EagerMind]

I just remembered that in various places throughout the game (at least at the beginning) you can find some vending machines which will give you a point or two of life when you use them (well, until they're out). Now the military, which always has to come up with their own name for everything, call these "gee-dunk machines," or just simply "gee-dunk" - presumably because of the sound they make when the item you've purchased falls to the bottom of the machine. What with all the marines you end up bumping into, they should've called the game "Gee-Dunk".

You're joking right?

What makes you think that? Plus, how many games can you think of where you run around with pediculicide shampoo as one of your weapons? Now that would just be wicked cool.

It's like calling a racing game "Handbrake!".

Hey, I like it! I picture some sort of weird combination drag-racing/demolition-derby type game where your vehicle is a high-speed, out-of-control deathtrap that you've assembled out of discarded junkyard parts. Sounds like fun to me!

OK, sorry. I'll stop now.

[EldKatt]

I'd like to second, first of all, that "Deus Ex" is a stupid name, and in fact one of the worst names I've seen. It's not just a matter of it "feeling odd" to me; logic alone can explain it.

1. The people who might think it's cool are those who don't know what it means, but they are likely to have difficulties pronouncing it.
2. Those who do actually know how to pronounce it are likely to know what it means, in which case they'll realize it's utter nonsense.
3. Ergo: Problems for everyone!

I really don't understand what they were thinking.

Half-Life, I think, is a great title. Phonologically it's neat and catchy. Just a trochee, and rather simple syllables that both end with [f] (although I'm not sure that's significant). Although the term is not really relevant to the plot, honestly I think that the "science term - scientists" connection satisfies the vast majority. Not the geek market, but they aren't as affected by catchy titles anyway.

The previously mentioned "The Trials of Odysseus Kent", or "The Death of Luke Simpson" bring to my mind a particular genre of titles that I adore and recommend considering if we're talking about a "serious" game. Further examples are some Lovecraft titles, such as "The Statement of Randolph Carter" and "Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family". Such explanatory and dryly formal titles suggest to me the kind of authenticity that is part of the charm of Lovecraft or Tolkien. The idea that what you're reading isn't mere fiction, but an actual account of past events as found in some guy's journal, or the Red Book of Westmarch, or whatever. I can't speculate about the commercial potentials of a name like that, though--maybe it's just me they appeal to.

[MBrown85]

I'd like to second, first of all, that "Deus Ex" is a stupid name, and in fact one of the worst names I've seen. It's not just a matter of it "feeling odd" to me; logic alone can explain it.

I always thought Deus Ex was a great name, and it really does fit the game if you think about it.  As someone said earlier, it's from the latin saying "Deus Ex Machina," literally god from the machine.  Considering the game deals with an artificial intelligence attempting to dominate the world, not to mention the idea of people becoming something more than human through the use of technology, it makes perfect sense.

[EldKatt]

Deus ex machina -- a god from the machine -- makes sense, sure. Deus ex -- a god from -- makes no sense whatsoever, regardless of what the game is about, since it's really an incomplete and meaningless phrase.

[blueskirt]

Here's a bit of an interview with Warren Spector about Deus Ex's title.

Haskins: Tell us about the name Deus Ex. What is its origin and why is it an appropriate name for your game?

Warren: Okay, at risk of opening myself up to major ridicule from grammarians everywhere, I'll tell you where Deus Ex comes from. I wanted to play off the literary term "Deus Ex Machina," which is Latin for "God From a Machine." And, yes, I know that means the name of my game translates to "God From," and, yes, I know I'm ending the game name with a preposition, and yes, I know that's not grammatical so sue me!

Anyway, Deus Ex Machina goes back to ancient Greek and Roman Theatre where an actor portraying one of the gods would be lowered to the stage by means of machinery pulleys and ropes and such to provide resolution to the plot and to solve the problems of mere mortals. In literary criticism, it's come to mean a person or event in a work of fiction that comes out of nowhere other than the writer's fevered imagination to solve seemingly unsolvable plot problems. It's a device typically used by bad writers who've written themselves into corners.

If fits Deus Ex for a couple of reasons. First of all, there are several forces in the game who aspire to God-like powers or actually end up having them. But it also refers to the fact that so many computer game plots are so hopelessly lame. We're all still trying to figure out how to tell stories in this relatively new medium we're no more sophisticated in the use of the tools of our medium than the Greeks and Romans were in theirs.

We always seem to resort to brute force, Deus Ex Machina storytelling and I liked the kind of self-referential, we're-doing-the-best-we-can-even-when-we-suck aspect of the title.

Finally, isn't the computer you're playing the game on just a God-in-the-Machine, in a sense? Deus Ex just worked for me on every level except pronouncability. And, by the way, it's pronounced "Day-us-Ex," not "Do Sex!"

Plus the game had a bunch of references with the Ancient Greek mythology, and one of the ending was a Deus Ex Machina, litteraly.

Personally I thought it fitted perfectly to the game. My only complain is the tricky pronounciation. As for the "Machina", it wouldn't have made it any easier to pronounce for one, and "Deus Ex" sound better for a game's name than "Deus Ex Machina". Deus Ex Machina has simply too many syllables for an action game.

[Sparky]

I tend to like titles that have a few possible interpretations or encourage speculation. Like "The Thirteen Clocks", "The Midwich Cuckoos", or "Freefall". And though I think pretentious titles should generally be avoided, they can be a good fit for a serious fantasy or science fiction work. Some examples of this are "That Hideous Strength", 'The Iron Giant" or "The Day the Earth Stood Still."

[Andail]

I'm perfectly aware of the phrase and concept of "Deus ex machina", but I still don't like the title Deus Ex. It's not even much of a grammar issue; latin can be read very liberally when it comes to word order, and Deus Ex may well translate to "from God" with some good will.

But if you wish to avoid "machina" because it'd be too tricky to pronounce for the average american teen, then I don't think just cutting it is a good idea, leaving the phrase halved; the remains are just not esthetically appealing...

I'm theorizing a bit here, but hey, that's what the thread is for