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I'm seeing lots of potentially cool looking mods (some include loot drops) appearing in the Steam Workshop for Shadowrun Returns.  I would hold off on downloading for now though and give them a month or so at least, as many are alphas or proof of concepts at this point.

Well if you do find some cool shit, please do post about.

It clearly affects players' potential interest (with regard to their taste though). And it also affects the artistic value. A well-chosen title makes a good game feel an even more complete and beautiful work.

My question is: Do you think the name matters when people buy/play games, and if so, what constitutes a good name?

You're implying people in general are good at recognizing good things. They're not. Calls of Duty and Battlefields and Warfaces are all top selling stuff, remember?

Would nobody play Resonance if it bore the name "Mortal science - The quest for danger"?

I wouldn't be surprised if more people would.

What's the best/worst names you know of?

Some titles I think are nice: Sanitarium, Anachronox, Driftmoon, Bloodnet: A Cyberpunk Gothic, Dungeoneer: A Beautiful Escape, AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! - A Reckless Disregard for Gravity, Beneath a Steel Sky, Inferno: The tale of a rotten bastard, Mind's Eye, NEO Scavenger, Technobabylon, The Unfolding Spider, How They Found Silence, Kentucky Route Zero ... and of course PISS 

If it's a game released by a big currently functioning developer or publisher they will try to force you to change your title. See Bethesda/Mojang "scrolls" conflict. Conversely if it's a title released by a now defunct developer/publisher or otherwise abandonware, or just a small title, there will be little or no consequences. See how Molyneux simply hijacked "Fable" to himself. However, regardless of all this, why would you want to share a name with another game, or even worse, detract players from another game to yours? It's in the very least confusing and inconvenient to deal with. Just make your own name, however similar you wish, but still different and distinct.

Very interesting advice, Lewis. I really should get around to playing R&A. 

Primordia also made me realize that you're totally right about episodic games.

And Cognition and Kentucky Route Zero make me doubt the absoluteness of it. I know it's problematic and there are people who lack faith in that, but I don't think it should be labelled as a path of doom.

I dig it!

You said it's all from your own experience. What about number 5? Have you attempted making an episodic series which then failed?

I love achievements. As long as they're fun and don't just serve as milestones for game progression. And I think games by Daedalic show nicely how you can use achievements in adventure games, even if for completely silly stuff. It's still fun.
It's a huge bonus of course if they're also sensible and challenging in interesting ways.

I'm pretty happy about getting all achievements in Primordia and I'm about to do the same with Deponia, despite the bizarre requirement one of achievements there has...

Yes.

Eye of the Beholder 2. One of the most gorgeous intros ever.

[imgzoom]http://i.imgur.com/BGmFd5p.png[/imgzoom]

Happy Birthday, Gribbler! May you guess all the games in Name The Game thread on the first try!

I just want to say I love playing as women in games. If a game provides a choice in 99% cases I pick to play as a lady. The majority of the protagonists I write and design are women. This is my dark secret. Don't tell anyone please or they will expel me from The Masculine Manly Male Man Club.

Ali, Snarky, that's peculiar, but the thing is, my preferences are actually mostly in favour of American spellings. Or at least it feels that way.
I'm not completely sure what point you wanted to raise with that there are many English-speaking countries, but what I gather from it is that the existing variety already necessitates all english speakers tolerating the differences. And that makes some works not adhering completely to either of the standards a rather minor thing.

Interesting. No, it certainly doesn't hold me back. I'm mostly just curious. I could even do batch processing of all in-game text and automatically replace the exceptions just before release if I wanted.

Thanks for the responses, guys. Very reassuring.

Renodox, your reply is interesting. Although I'm having doubts regarding whether the case you're presenting actually covers my concerns. I have a hard time seeing players writing to me that I'm wrong as something negative or indeed remarkable at all. If I'm going to get anywhere close to having an audience it'd mean receiving all sorts of feedback, and getting nitpicks on spellings is a cute gift compared to the caliber of comments you so often encounter on youtube. So if I only had to go on that alone, I would do nothing. However, what I think you're also hinting at, is that people will be actually distracted by it, which is much more concerning. Is that right?

Then you talk about the area the game is in and that presents another dilemma, as I expect the absolute majority of my works not to take place on Earth at all. Which by that logic cuts me loose from any requirements of authenticity. Should I still be concerned by people getting distracted then?

Also are you saying that consistently sticking to British spelling throughout wouldn't have a similar distracting effect on American players?

In casual communication I employ a consistent mix of American and British English spellings, accordingly to my personal preferences. E.g. I definitely prefer realize, randomize, fantasize to realise, randomise, fantasise, as much as I definitely prefer armour, humour, honour to armor, humor, honor. Naturally, I'd like to carry on writing like that in games I make, but since I take it very seriously as any other aspect of game development, I have to consider if this is an issue or not.

I surely understand it can be viewed as unprofessional, but I wonder if that would matter any beyond that. Would you as the player be bothered by it? Is that a big deal? What would be your advice? Should I just carry on merrily with my mixed spelling style or choose one spelling system per game and stick to it in game writing?

I think claiming that saving somebody, who is in trouble and who you deeply care about, is somehow an inherently objectifying act in itself, is just as utterly stupid as lazily basing a story entirely around such one single plot element to the point where it does become objectifying. So, even though Sarkesian means well and talks well and does say many good things, she also talks absurd bollocks on plenty of occasions to push her point as far as possible. Another example is her posing Mario as some kind of absolute idealogical root of whole gaming from which everything has grown.

As some people in the thread have already hinted, most problems with sexist story and character design are simply shit story and character design. Write good characters of both genders with care, and there is no sexism. Examples are countless. Take any well-written game designed by a clever designer who cares about what they are doing and you'll immediately find good female characters. Anachronox, Planescape: Torment, Legend of Kyrandia 2, Gray Matter, the list goes on. Notably, I think Daedalic have brilliantly made fun of the trope in Deponia, where it's ironically pushed to truly ridiculous lengths.

Lastly, Maddox is an ignorant idiot for suggesting games designed by women are doomed to be boring. I'm thrilled to bits by what Jane Jensen and Emily Short make. Hell, some of my favourite AGS games were made by ladies: Ola's Principles of Evil series and Akril15's Adventure series.

I'm also planning to pre-order Wasteland 2 when they finally get the beta ready in October.

Only the beta? I thought the actual game release was planned for this autumn? :o

Ok, I have beaten the game. It's mostly very pleasant as has been said numerously in this thread, however it's disappointing, to put it lightly, that the story from a rather original and personal quest turns into the most cliched thing imaginable within the genre, specifically

Spoiler

saving the world and doing so by no less than killing monstrosities in a dungeon? really?

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I really don't see why it was necessary to use interesting events and relatively nuanced personal drama merely as a wrapping for this.

AeroNuts 3D?