Hello All,
I am thinking what to name our game. I want an idea of a name for a game we are planning to make. The game will be a first person shooter set in the distant post apocalyptic future where the player fights giant mutant creatures and aliens with very long levels, similar to Turok 2 or fallout 3.
It is a bit difficult to find a name with this description. Not impossible, but the question is if a name fitting that description would be justified. Which leads to the question if your game is actually more in-depth in terms of mechanics or lore - or not.
Because if you have a deeper story to tell, or an emphasis on the character, their behaviour or twists in gameplay - or the gameplay itself has an interesting mechanic or engagement with the world - it becomes interesting to think about how to integrate this into the name to reflect that.
If none of the above is the case and you want to make a simple FPS, than a simpler name is of course fitting enough. You could still call it like the character, or the enemy species, or the world, or take the route of 'The game is grim and has a harsh environment - so we can give it a dark or hopeless name'. Or just something bombastic that says 'action!'.
Going from all that, whatever the name is: Make a google search and see if the name is already used somewhere. If yes, maybe you have an alternative that gives the point across the same way - or something else that would fit?
Alien apocalypse is too plain and generic, I prefer something dark and sinister, probably the name of the protagonist, or a word that describes the state of the world. To give more context, the storyline is fairly straightforward, in a post apocalyptic world, a hostile alien race lands on earth and wants to take it over from the humans, the humans fight back, but in the process our human protagonist has to traverse dangerous terrain full of giant mutant insects and other mutant animals to reach the landed aliens, but the levels will be very long and full of puzzles so you may say the game will be more gameplay driven than story driven.
Doom.
Checks all your requirements. Oh, wait. You want a new name, don't ya. Hmm. Let's see, you do not want a plain and generic name, yet you want a simple name, like one, maybe two word. Does your bland and generic cookie cutter plot give any hints? How about Space Invaders? Or simply Aliens. That would be a clever word play, since the mutant insects are just as alien as the extra terrestials. The hero or his grandparents before the apocalypse could have lived in Cloverfield Boulevard, so name the game Cloverfield.
But to be more serious and less joking, unless you call it the equivalent of Snakes on a Plane and get very, very lucky, the name of the game will not make the game any good. You can't just call your game Destiny or Borderlands and boom, AAA game. None of the good or bad titles are inherently any good. It is tons and tons and tons of marketing that gave the hitherto bland and generic name a meaning. Or being very first and genre defining, in other words having success. Quake. Pah. That's just a bit of shaky ground. Far Cry. That is a long distance. Yet you know it as a ego shooter series. Same with GTA. That's a mere legal name for car stealing.
Name the game Tattorn. Whatever that means. The internet only spews out your sport games for that. So make the hero be named Tattorn and mildly plot twist the hero to be a women, but you can't see it at first, because of the garb worn because of the postapocalyptic. It could even be hinted, that the protagonist is a mutant or alien or robot. After all, what good would it do for the hero to reach the aliens? If we can't even house keep our postapo world from insects, how could the hero even dream of fighting against space faring invaders. Lure the bug queen to the mother ship? Or by being super powered mutant robot? How are the aliens even supposed to take away the world, apparantly it is controlled by the mutant insects and not the humans. So the aliens are actually here to fight the rulers, the insects.
