This was a pretty daunting decision that’s been looming over me ever since I settled on an idea for this project, rather than frustrate myself with it I let ideas come to me over time. That is until formative feedback week required us to hand in a one-page GDD… including a working title.
I knew that I wanted a title on the shorter side of names prefering it to be stand alone, I needed it to reflect the process of grief or emotional healing/maturation in some way or suggest aspects of the game, such as the combat side.
User-based Research
The table below houses all of the potential names I’ve come up with. I’m going to create a survey that I will hand out to my peers, anyone within the target audience or any others who know about the premise of my game to see what they think.
| Name | Thoughts |
| Lament | – relates to the idea of mourning and gried (definition: “a passionate expression of grief or sorrow.”) – sounds nice to say, probably because of the french/latin etymology (also like the idea of using latin derived lexicons for names e.g. locations, characters etc.) – personally a big fan of this |
| Tree of Sorrow | – relates to the tree of life in the games hub |
| Grief’s Gauntlet | – VERY roguelikey name – blatantly mentions concept of grief |
| Embers of Hope | – detaches from the negative side of grief, less sad more optimistic |
| The Keeper | – relates to the tree of life in the hub area that grows alongside the player character – short |
Survey Questions:
- Which title immediately grabs your attention the most?
- Which title feels the most intriguing or memorable to you?
- Which title best captures the theme of a journey through grief and healing?
- If you were choosing a title for a game that involved stages, trials, or battles, which one would make most sense?
- If you could only pick one title for this game, which would it be?
Results:
| Title | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 | Q5 |
| Lament | 10 | 5 | 7 | 3 | 8 |
| Tree of Sorrow | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| Grief’s Gauntlet | 1 | 2 | 5 | 7 | 1 |
| Embers of Hope | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| The Keeper | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
“Lament” wins by a landslide in 4/5 questions, confirming the title of this project!
Leave a Reply