DOCTORROCKET'S PROFILE

author=Sooz
In terms of title, it doesn't matter what the reason is; an uninteresting title is an uninteresting title, and your potential audience is not likely to stop and check every title to see whether it has a good reason behind it.

I know, I just give some you a bit of insight into the thought process. But you're right, it doesn't really matter to the potential players.

author=LockeZ
I feel like if you wanted to, you could probably come up with a line from 1984 that wasn't already the name of a best-selling strategy game series. Black & White was widely considered the best game of the year in 2001 and won dozens of awards; it's not an obscure title. That's like naming your game "Madden NFL: Renegade" but then saying the title is a reference to how maddening the main character Nancy Florina Leshad's personality is, and that the game is an RPG that has nothing to do with football.

Well you got me there: I had never heard of Black & White. I probably should have done more research. Though, because of the black and white atmosphere of the game, I felt like it was a solid fit. Maybe "Achromia" would have been a better fit, or something along those lines.

I'm curious as to how much you guys think a name can affect the success and popularity of a game.

This stems from my past experiences. The first game I ever put out was called "The Bamford Tenement" and in my opinion it did pretty well (100+ downloads as of now.) However, my most recent game "Black/White: Renegade", despite having a higher production value, is not nearly doing so well (30 or so downloads in the past few weeks.)

There's a number of reasons why any game wouldn't do well, so I won't blame anything in particular. It could just be my bad sense of PR. Talking it over with someone close to me, she mentioned that the name of the game may not be very grasping. Though for me, I can't really figure out what a title like "Bamford Tenement" would be more interesting than "Black/White: Renegade" but it is entirely possible that that's the case. Again, title isn't the only reason my game isn't doing so well. But it may be an important factor.

So that made me wonder: how much does a name affect a game? It is possible for it to be too long or too short? Well, if you consider that games like "Evolve" and "Highly Responsive to Prayers" both had a rather high popularity for their time, it may not be that.

What about intrigue? What games can you guys think of where the title really "grabbed you?" For me, games like "Bioshock" and "Little Inferno" had titles that grabbed my attention. But that's just me.

So, what do you guys think about the importance of how you name your game?

Any feedback is welcome.

-Doctor Rocket

author=suzy_cheesedreams
Yeah, he wasn't a villain in the sense of what you were asking about but he was definitely a character on the very edge of goodness... As for Ulysses, I never managed to play that DLC!

Yeah, Graham was definitely very chaotic. But in the end, you can either push him one way or the other.

As for Ulysses, his story is a bit different. But he's definitely out for revenge. It's interesting because the main antagonist of the series is Benny, who tries to kill the Courier, assuming he's just another wasteland settler so it's a rude awakening when he returns.

But Ulysses is almost like the opposite character of the Courier, and serves as kind of a nemesis. I just wish they wrote it in a way that you knew he wasn't your friend even before you played the DLC. Those are just my thoughts though.

author=Red_Nova
Rocket, how important are these characters to the main plot? If they are all central figures that literally cannot be removed from the story without major plot holes, then... holy crap. That's nuts. And if these characters all interact with each other, you've got a lot of writing to do.

The original Bamford Tenement didn't exactly have a linear story: it was centered around the 16 or so quest arcs and once all them were finished then a final quest would be available where all the characters make an appearance. Characters only briefly mentioned each other when spoken to before the final quest, but then in the final quest they have scripted interactions.

In this future game, the Player is the Landlord of the Tenement which means they get to choose who ends up staying at the tenement. And there are less rooms than the cast of potential tenants.

So yeah, it may be a bit of writing, but after seeing what Toby Fox did with Undertale's character interactions, I think it's possible. At least on a simple scale.

So in the final quest of this game, certain characters fill the rolls that other characters wouldn't. It sounds complicated now, but I can make it happen with a little bit of planning.

author=Liberty
Suikoden series - 108 characters to collect (about 60-80 of which could enter your party). As long as it's all balanced and works story-wise it's fine.

author=Gourd_Clae
Suikoden had a lot of characters and isn't too too long because most of the characters only get a few minutes of time to shine and then they're yours. Depends on how much you want/need to communicate!

The thing with Suikoden games, though, is that whilst most characters were just "Grab and Got", they each and every one of them reacted to stuff going down in the world (had dialogue changes due to those things), could be seen around your base and interacted with (their rooms, who they hung out with, what they did in base showed some character), they had unique in-and-out-of-party dialogue (when you moved them into or out of your party they commented - some would comment something different when someone else was in your party, too), had a detective who would search up their background histories (3 'secrets' about them, some more detailed than others), expansion across games (people (or their heirs) would show up in other games, in person or just mentioned, letting you find out how their lives changed during the time between then and now), unique battle animations/skills/actions (certain people who were close story-wise would beserk if their friends went down or protect a friend who was close to death, and each had their own way of attacking which leant a lot to making them all seem different or show some character).

There's a lot of ways to expand on a larger group of people. I recommend playing some Suikoden games if you haven't already - might give you ideas... and they're pretty awesome to boot. (1, 2, 3 and 5 highly recommended... in that order)

>.<)b

108 characters over a series? I wonder how much that is per game. But that's still a lot. In The Bamford Tenement, I tried to make the characters seem like they were aware of each other. They lived in seperate rooms, but in the same building. Though my limited programming knowledge limited what I could do.

But I'd like to see what I can do in the future with more character interactions.