Hi All,

My name is Shay Yizhak and I'm CEO and Lead Programmer for a new indie game studio New Retro Studio. Currently, we're working on our first game, and despite having all of its design finished months ago, we have yet to find it a proper name. So, I'm looking for suggestions.

About the game: it's a space combat sim, resembling Freespace 2, and games like TIE-fighter and X-Wing alliance.

The problem with naming the game is that the setting is not constant. Everything in the game can change: the ships, the story, the characters, the settings and so on. So, we're looking for a general name. One that fits the game, and will fit any type of setting and campaign we use (at the moment, there are 3 planned campaigns, with a linking storyline. More will come later).

Any assistance you guys can give will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
-Shay

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I was going to try and come up with something, but I think Lailokken did a bang up job coming up with a title that seems to fit the description given.

If you're at a point where everything can still change, it might be a good idea to just use a code-name for the time being, and come up with a more permanent name that suits the game perfectly once you know exactly what the game is, and what it's about.

Metal G.R.O.V.E.

Geographical Revolution of Virtual Enemies

What about:

Genesis: Rise of Man?

VoidShot? PoliticoSpace?

What about:

Genesis: Rise of Man?

Heya Shay,

Personally, I think you should use any name that feels right to you.

Based on your original criteria though, I'm not sure the name works for what you're wanting to communicate to your audience. 'Genesis' seems more suited to 'origin' than 'change'. It sounded like the game world was not static.. that it was ever changing, but not like it was 'rebooting'.

As for the 'Rise of Man' part, I'm not sure how to comment on that. Nothing in the original post suggested that man had been defeated and/or was struggling to regain or take their place in the world.

Truly though, I don't believe the name of the game 'has' to reflect what the gameplay will be. People fall in love with the game, and not necessarily the name of the game. If it's a name that all of the developers like and can get behind, there are plenty of ways to bridge whatever continuity gap you feel there may be between name and game.

Good luck with the game.. hope it's a huge success.

-Lailokken

unless you have a strong reason to begin formal marketing early, there is no reason not to stay with a code name until you have a press pack ready, which for new games with low/no advertising budgets is usually about a month before release (even if the release is a good demo, and not the full sellable product)

Typically, you need the formal name for marketing purposes. anyone tracking it will be fine tracking via the code name. But once you start hitting large audiences, then you need a name to be stabilized so people can refer to it easily and find it.

Typically you don't want to start bothering press/magazines/game review sites until you have a demo ready for them to try anyway. Text emails, even video's alone don't tend to excite the reporters. That is just what you are telling them. Especially for new groups, it doesn't matter what you say it is like, its your baby, its the best thing in the world. They want to see and play the game. If its not ready for audiences, at least in demo form, no game review source is going to want to post anything about it. And also, they receive tens to hundred of leads on fresh games a day easy. Even if they like your product, if it's not ready for some form of distribution, they won't post it, and when you talk to them again a month later when your demo is ready, it will be almost as if you never spoke in the first place. I.e. so many games have passed in front of them since, that it will be difficult to recall.

Naturally, all the rules change if you are a game giant like Blizzard. Game reviewers want to leak information on that as soon as possible. even years before release, because enough people want to hear about it.

So, key concept, is that you don't need to switch from code name to formal name until you are ready for marketing.

By the way, most reviewers, if the email catches their interest, will want press information available on your site, logo ideas, pictures, videos, something. They also WANT your contact info. Once you contact them, don't be afraid to post a phone number or email online for them to reach you. I've heard of a situation where a popular game reviewer had come across a site about an indie game in development. He liked what he saw, but on their site, they had NO contact info, no email, no phone number. After about 5 minutes of trying to figure out how to reach them, he gave up, their loss.

When I said Demo Ready, I meant that you have something playable, that really helps show the fun, or the graphics, or something really catchy about your game. It doesn't need to be publicly available, but offer to send them a partial demo. If they like what they see, they are often willing to go through a few hoops to install something, I.e. install this SDK, then run the exe for your game after copying it to this folder. It doesn't need to be a complete installer. But try to keep the hoops low. They want good stories don't make it hard for them.