Now I'll carve off another chunk of the space of possible game names. Game names can be constructed with techniques used to come up
with other trademarkable words and phrases. Misspelling doesn't happen
as much in game titles as in, say, cleaning supplies, but it's pretty
common, especially the fake abbreviation. (Petz, Cruis'n, Mortal
Kombat, Rush'n Attack, Toobin'). Alliteration and assonance happen pretty
often. (Excitebike, Final Fight, Bubble Bobble). I'd like to give
special notice to "Elevator Action", which really seems like there's
alliteration there but it's actually just very easy to say.
Nonsense Metonymy, you say? Yes! Even games not based on a real-world
activity usually have some connection to reality, and the
title can use metonymy on those parts. Just as an example, consider
(the game) Bubble Bobble. It's a pretty nonsensical game but there
are two points of contact with reality: dinosaurs and bubbles. The
main game mechanics are blowing bubbles, popping them, and jumping.
Metonymy on "dinosaur" yields lizard, reptile, dino-,
-saurus. Metonymy on "bubble" yields blow, pop, and float. Bubble
Bobble could be called "Float Fight", "Dino Pop", "Pop 'n Drop", or
(with less cutesy graphics) "Reptile Rage". That's just names that
are the same kind of name as "Bubble Bobble." They're not as good as
"Bubble Bobble," though "Reptile Rage" has an interesting baby-Godzilla thing going on, but I bet similar names were considered during
development. And this is a common pattern. "Dig Dug" is the same
name as "Bubble Bobble", just for a different game.
[0]"Populous" happens to be a real word, but I think whoever named
the game liked the Greek-myth-sounding "ous" suffix better than the
dictionary meaning of the word.
(3) Sun Feb 01 2009 10:20 How Game Titles Work, Part 2: Trademarkability:
I'm not gonna keep posting these huge entries one after another, but here's another big entry. First, a summary of the previous entry.
compound portmanteau words happen very often, possibly because
this construction is common in Japanese (Excitebike again,
Gradius, Gyruss, Pengo). But it happens even in non-Japanese games
(Tetris, Myst, Skulljagger (see future entry), BioShock, Starcraft, Carmageddon,
Populous[0], Gravitar, Q*Bert). Combine with metonymy and you can come
up with many plausible-sounding game titles for a given game.
- Comments:
Posted by Evan at Sun Feb 01 2009 10:58
There should be a category for Names With Naughty Associations, ie elevator action, pop n' drop, etc
Posted by Tim May at Sun Feb 01 2009 12:36
Most of those "nonsense compound words" are blends, or portmanteau words, rather than compounds.
Posted by Jeremy Penner at Sun Feb 01 2009 19:58
It's interesting how close you actually just got to generating the name of Bubble Bobble's predecessor, Chack'n Pop.