SC2Mapster

I have been curious for awhile now about how others people go about naming their games.

For me personally naming things has always been the hardest part of any project I have. As a writer naming characters, as a mapper naming units or abilities, and as a game developer picking franchise or game names.

So question is: How do you decide on a name for your map/project/game?

100% spontaneously, just what comes to mind, when trying to save the map. However, usually the names are just placeholders, until I found a better one (or until people and me are getting used to the old one :D)

I start with a name that makes sense based on the gameplay, then I work that into an acronym I like, then work the acronym into something easy to pronounce. For me it's all about catchy acronym's xD

Quote from Kueken531: Go

100% spontaneously

That

I ask for ideas in the IRC

@Indigoy: Go

I started with the name of my game first, and then designed the entire game around the name.

Generally I combine something epic and manly with something suave, after which I put down the genre and end it in '-craft' or '-wars'.

My projects so far have been "Bacon Smooth TDcraft" and "Sonny's Dinosaur RPG wars".

Edit: On a more serious note, I think about the lore/theme of my map and what it's about. Then I pick a name that fits in with that. I.e. my only single player map is about the moment Tosh turned on Mengsk and went rogue, thus I named it 'The Turning'.

@Mozared: Go

Offtopic: How is craft manly? :o, I do would like to know.

@Doubleclick123: Go

Bacon was the manly part, not craft.

Quote from Kueken531: Go

100% spontaneously

Thats usually what I go with.

RuneCraft... Well, the "craft" part sorta makes sense, and this was more or less just a placeholder name, but we forgot to change it and didnt have any ideas, so yeha...

Quote from TheAlmaity: Go

@Doubleclick123: Go

Bacon was the manly part, not craft.

Off topic again: Bacon isn't manly... it's greater... it's like.. A higher power...

On-Topic: I just remembered, there's this one map I completely abandoned... So Skrow said that you should work around your title, that's what I did there, but you have to find that title right? Well you go to a thesaurus, find a suiting word to what you want it to be, point at one synonym, and stick with it.... Mine was called.. Corner TD.

I name my unit something epic right of the bat, thinking of myself as a higher being of consciousness. Then I realize there's already a unit that's called that in StarCraft. It must have happened up to 10 times now.

Quote from Doubleclick123: Go

@TheAlmaity: Go On-Topic: I just remembered, there's this one map I completely abandoned... So Skrow said that you should work around your title, that's what I did there, but you have to find that title right? Well you go to a thesaurus, find a suiting word to what you want it to be, point at one synonym, and stick with it.... Mine was called.. Corner TD.

SC2 maps are kind of a weird medium. When you look at the custom games list, the very first thing you see is a title and often people use that title to immediately decide whether or not to play your game. Your title has to be killer, and it has to stand out in a sea of terrible names. If your title is good, maybe someone will click it to read the map description, and if your description is good maybe they'll play it.

If the map is similar to an existing game or some such, I use synonyms.

• God of War : Demiurge of Battle, Paragon of Killing Dudes, Deity of Excessively Bloody Combat
• Call of Duty : Gaeas of Obligation, Email of Responsibility, Call On Line 1 From A Mister Duty
• Unreal Tournament : Incredible Competition, Surreal Organized Set Of Combat Events
• Super Mario Brothers : Mario ∈ Brothers, The Brothers Karamariozov, The Übermario
• Storm of the Imperial Sanctum : Inclement Weather of the Dynastic Refuge, Siege of the Royal Lavatory

If not, then I'd name it after the setting-relevant axis of the gameplay.