TODAY’S GOAL:
Decide Your Game’s Name
It’s More Than Just A Name.
While it seems small, not only is picking a name one of the more fun parts of building a game, but it’s also super important.
Your game name is going to be your brand and regardless what type of game you create, you want your name to be unique, easy to remember and something that invokes excitement about your game.
The first step? Knowing what your game is going to be about. This is something you should have completed in week 1, if you haven’t then you might want to start there. Focus on gameplay, theme and style and when you’re ready to pick your final name, do the steps below.
Today’s Steps:
STEP 1
STEP 2
STEP 3
Learn The Game Name Essentials
Where are people going to play your game? Most likely you’ll submit first to mobile (and we’ll talk more about that later). For mobile a short punchy title like Temple Run, Doodle Jump or Candy Crush works well because it invites users to quickly and easily pick up and play a game.
Have you ever thought about how similar these game names are? It’s pretty interesting. Let’s check out a list of popular games:
- Temple Run
- Doodle Jump
- Candy Crush
- Subway Surfers
- Diner Dash
They all start with a descriptive keyword and then a verb that closely describes the core element of the game. This is a proven game naming technique and one to pay attention to.
Of course that’s just one naming convention you could follow. Another popular technique with mobile is to go with a single word that describes your game. Trey did this with Phases and the Phases publisher, Ketchapp, is known to do this often with their games like 2048.
And yet another idea is to create your own name. Minecraft is a big example of this, but we actually don’t recommend you do that in the beginning. As you’ll learn in the final week, your game’s name is also your biggest keyword. If you can choose a name that people are searching for, then that’s even better and could result in free downloads.
Know Your Core Game’s Experience
Let’s focus on the most popular game naming technique: the adjective then verb.
Are you crushing candy in your game? Maybe jumping with a doodle character? Running in a temple? What is your core experience and how does it relate to a theme in your game?
These are all great questions you want to be asking yourself. Even if you are making a simple endless game (which we recommend you do), it’s always good to have a universe and story written in your mind. To come up with a great name, you need to think about specifically what your character is doing in your game… and why.
Think of it this way:
Your game is going to provide an experience to possibly MILLIONS of people. What do you want that core experience to be? Typically this will be related to the description (theme) of your game and then the gameplay type (action).
To come up with a great name, do the following:
- Get out a piece of paper (real paper is preferred over a computer in this case)
- Draw a line down the middle so now you have two columns
- At the top of the first column write THEME
- At the top of the second column write ACTION
- Now come up with as many theme words and action words as possible
- Proceed to the next step
Pick Your Name
Now picking a name is easy. We’re going to approach it just like a word game.
Mix and match your Theme and Action words to see what flows the best. When you have something that rolls off the tongue nicely, accurately describes you core experience and evokes some feeling that you like, then put it on a short list.
Take this final short list and choose the one you think is best. Most likely by the time you’ve reached this point you’ll have a good idea of what you want, but if it doesn’t come easily then don’t worry. It happens.
One of Trey’s first games was called Jump Pack. Jump Pack has over 1.5 million downloads and hit the top 50 of the App Store on multiple occasions. Similar to what’s outlined here, Jump Pack focuses on having a verb and descriptive word in it’s title (the main character has a jetpack).
Trey and his team went through about 20 different names until a friend of the company picked out Jump Pack at random. Sometimes it’s easy, other times it’s hard. Just keep plugging and when you find something that clicks, you’ll know it.
30 Day Game Challenge Lessons:
Week 1 – Game Ideas & Basic Training
Week 2 – Creating Your Game
- Day 8 – Your Game Name
- Coming Soon
Week 3 – Monetization & Setup
- Coming Soon
Week 4 – The Launch
- Coming Soon
Know someone who might like to do the challenge with you?
Send them over to the challenge page so they can download Buildbox too:
www.buildbox.com/challenge/
