Do you ever play the "Band Names" game, the one where you try to think of a cool-sounding and unique band name? For me, it usually results in some pretty goofy-sounding phrases (witness above), though I do occasionally come up with something kind of almost halfway clost to being mediocre.
“There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things”.
I’ve been playing the same kind of game for the last few years with trying to find a cool-sounding name for a samurai-themed video game, with no real fantastic results. I was talking via IM with Esprite today, and he joked about making it the subject of a blog post…
So here’s the question: If you were designing a samurai/ninja/monk/japanese video game from scratch, what in the world would *you* name it?
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I would call it “Batman: Feudal Japan”
You can’t just throw names out. There has to be a reason for the name. So I’ll think of a back story/ reason people are fight and get back to ya. I’m already getting ideas! >:D
Sure ya can
More back story is cool, but not everyone’s good at that ((whistles and looks around innocently))
Iga vs. Koga or… Folded Steel
Id call it .. . . .the legend of dante: legendary super nub. And bak story would include alj the peeps i know from c:si, yes including strait and shindo 4 the 1st time
Takuan The Legend
I think this is why he put this picture up:
“Takuan (沢庵?), also known as Takuwan, is a popular traditional Japanese pickle.”
AND
“Daikon (from Japanese daikon (ダイコン?), literally “large root”), Raphanus sativus var. longipinnatus, is a mild-flavored, very large, white East Asian radish.”
lol
Takuan is pickled daikon, and I like it very much.
I also like kimchi made out of daikon
I don’t really have much…
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Samurai Shards
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There is a legend (One I made up! lol) of a poor blacksmith. He made very fine weapons. One day he was asked to make weapons for a great daimyo’s family. They demanded that the weapons be the most beautiful and most powerful of all the land or they would kill his family. The black smith went on trying to figure out how he could make his weapons better than they were. Failure after failure made the blacksmith become very fearful for his family. That night he prayed for a miracle. Just as he was done, a star fell from the heavens. The blacksmith ran to the spot that the star had fallen. In a crater was were the star was. However, it had broken into shards. The blacksmith gathered the shards and took them home. He thought if he added these shards to the weapons that they would be just what the Daimyo wanted. The blacksmith hammered away. When he was done he knew that he had made what the Daimyo had wanted. In fact they were better than that. The weapons were very powerful. Perhaps too powerful for any person to handle. So, he fled with the weapons and his family. He hid the weapons in various places through out the land, hoping that they would never be found. Till one day…
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Meh… lol Anyways, the story is vague enough to be changed to fit whatever. That’s just ONE idea! But, I have to go to work soon. :p
Interesting idea, Shindo
Good fodder for quests, lol.
On a side note: One of the books on Zen that I have, when discussing the famous monk Takuan Soho, mentioned that Takuan (pickled radish) was sometimes called “Samurai Pickle” (loosely translated), and was a favorite snack of the monk.
I really like the name Takuan Daikon more than RobbyRacoon Olmstead
You can change the story a bit. You can call it…
Shards of the Fallen Star
But instead of the shards being put into weapons, the star could have been put into one special weapon. All sot the weapon. Knowing the dangers the weapon posed, the black smith smashes the star into fragments. Then hides those. >:3
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So another one I was thinking was
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Inro – Hidden Destiny
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There was a samurai who’s abilities were unmatched. Some say that he’s strength was in an item that was contained in his Inro. Many people looked for the samurai in hopes of somehow obtaining the contents of the inro. blah blah blah XD
Hmmmm… on my phone so just names. Remeber that you didn’t give to much info on the game so, the names reflect different types of fighting games. :p lol
)
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Fallen Legends
Fighters Destiney
Daikon Fighters ( lol perfect chibi fighter name
Code Name: Edge
Katana Nights
…..ummmmm…. That’s it for now. :3 BBL of course
I am making a new game, that’s true, but I don’t have one particular game in mind as far as this post is concerned; I just think it’s fun (and often quite frustrating) coming up with ideas for names and backstories.
Are you making it for BlueMars? Or for SL? Do one for SL. One that’s simple. And then punch out like ten simple weapons! AND AND AND!
I just want more weapons! lol
Hehe, I appreciate the enthusiasm for an SL game
Having said that, it will not be for Second Life.
What I want to do is most definitely not simple, and as far as I’m concerned, Second Life simply doesn’t have much to offer in the way of serious game development. I simply cannot imagine wanting to devote a year or two of hard-core game development effort on a platform that is as fragile, as inconsistent, and as infuriating as Second Life.
I’m tired of Linden Lab breaking content every week. I’m tired of everything in-world being stolen. I’m tired of lag, a building system that works and looks like Legos, shoddy physics, and poor customer support.
I just don’t think Second Life is a viable development platform for the kinds of things I want to accomplish.
I still have several weapons “in development”, and will eventually get around to finishing them, but it does not seem likely to me that this will happen any time soon. I am still far too bitter over Linden Lab’s very poor treatment of me and banning me for (apparently) no reason, and I really want to get a good start on a new project that I hope will be much more rewarding on a personal level.
It may well be that in a few months, I will have gotten that old familiar itch to finish another weapon, but for now I have no plans to do any further Second Life development. As I said before, I’ll support my existing products with bug fixes and updates, and continue to work on the website and other out-of-world projects, but that’s pretty much it for the foreseeable future.
I haven’t posted any game names myself, because even though I intended for this blog post to highlight the goofy failed attempts I often come up with, I find that I’m too embarrassed to actually publish them
XBOX Arcade then? That would be SWEEEEET! Well can you at least just make a few different looking blades with the same everything? I don’t really care about different animations and specials too much. I just like to have different looking weapons. But, I do understand about still being pissed at LL though…
Here’s my suggestion. I’m going to consult a thesaurus for better adjectives and see what else i come up with:
Super Galactic Bushido Showdown – the Final Ultimatum
Right now I’m calling it “Tamahagane” in the dev sources and docs, because I think Japanese words just sound very cool, and because it’s distinctive and unlikely to be used for any legitimate purpose, so it will be very easy to Search/Replace when I find a *real* name.
ok ok…i’mm compromise Robby:
Super Galactic Bushido Showdown – the Final Ultimatum, aka Tamahagane, Vol I.
that way, everyone will expect a sequel
I can only hope that there will eventually be a sequel. Realistically speaking, such things are very rare and unlikely, but it’s nice to hope
Eternal Vigilance: A samurai is always ready for battle
Ok now that’s funny. Underoos for samurai! XD