Today the writers and I discussed naming various locations seen throughout our game – therefore giving the artists a head start on customising buildings/logos to suit the need. However, upon discussion, we thought that it was unfair that we would choose all of the names so raised it to a class meeting, so that everyone could have their input.
The locations have been named, as seen above, with their various logo ideas and designs. I feel that this activity was much needed within the class as not only did it further the project and the classes understanding of it, but it also provided a bit of an uplifting break to quite a serious time of production – allowing people to be creative and feel like they are contributing to the game/demo.
The City Of Lucent: Lucent for short, we decided to name our main dome lucent due to the word’s meaning of “to glow” therefore referencing the neon glow produced by the dome and it’s inhabitants. Lucent is also a short and abstract name that hasn’t been used in many popular games so far – making it unique and memorable
Foodles: A clever portmanteau of the words; fox, food and noodles – the key aspects of the fast food chain, due to its fox inspired logo and the act of serving noodles. We discussed that this would be a good name because it is also intuitive – the player will know that it is a restaurant from the name.
Pandamonium: Again, a clever use of wording to describe Polo’s store/Thrift shop. The name is apt to fit the cluttered layout of the store as well as suit its logo idea – A red panda. Despite not being as intuitive, once the player learns of the shop and its residents, they should draw some humour from the name.
Offal Alley: Having a lot of reasoning, we decided to name our market Offal Alley. Not only does it sound like awful/awfully – an apt representation of the degraded market place – but offal means “waste material” and therefore is another apt name, with the market resembling the more unpleasant side of the game/demo.
Glass House: Due to the recent discovery within PEGI ratings, we decided to change the bar to a café with a dancefloor – to keep our game to the required rating. Despite this, we decided to use the name Glass House because of its “cool” sounding name and lack of attention it draws to being either a bar or café.
Overall, I feel that today was successful as it proved to be quite therapeutic compared to the seriousness of the production stages – acting as a stress relief for the class. It was also beneficial as now we have official names to put into documentation and to also bring the game to life – making the game world more immersive for the player.
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