What a Milestone: we have got a name! I am very pleased to announce that the project is not called "Untitled Game" anymore but rather "Lightstealers". It has been MONTHS since I started searching for a name. Not every day, but it was always in the back of my mind. For one thing, I wanted to have a catchy, short and enticing name. For the other, if I had found a longer name, it should ideally have had a good acronym like "FTL: faster than light".
At first, I did not know where to start exactly. It may be a bit early in the project to start thinking about a name. So many design decisions could still be flipped around… However, since I wish to build this project in public, I wanted to have the bare minimum of a game identity as soon as possible. The most important thing I did was to keep track of every name. Not only did this allow me to keep track of the ideas and names, but it also enabled me to highlight the main themes I was always coming back to. Knowing these themes was useful because it helped me establish which themes were the most important to me and which I should explore more.
To properly understand my name choices, it is necessary to present the context of my game. Now that I think about it, it is the first time I have written about what the game is about. So step in the elevator, and here comes the pitch.
“Fleeing your abomination-ridden land, you and your crew wash ashore on a new pristine continent. The cycle starts again: build your village, provide a safe shelter for your citizens and raise defences because the creatures will soon be back on your track. And above all... cherish the sunlight and safeguard your torches.”
If you have any, I would gladly hear your thoughts and advice regarding this pitch because writing those is not my strong suit 😌.
If I was not clear enough, the game is about a group of villagers fleeing their land. By day, you will have to build your village from the ground up with the resources you can find to prepare your defence. By night, these defences will be met by hordes of monsters looking to destroy all light sources. In the end, I would like the player to be met with the choice of either snuffing their lights to avoid a massive attack or withstanding the attack to keep producing resources or buildings.
The most important thing I did was to write down every name I thought of. Not only did this allow me to keep track of the ideas and names I had already found, but it also enabled me to highlight the main themes I was always coming back to. Knowing these themes was useful because it helped me establish which themes were the most important to me and which I should explore more.
For instance, here are a few groups I isolated from my ideas:
In the end, I tried to tackle the subject from a new perspective. I thought about describing either the player's troops or the enemies and I suddenly came up with Light seekers, Light bearers, and Lightstealers. I liked Light Seekers the most because it perfectly describes my monsters but that was already taken. Light Bearers has that nice epic tone to it which I love. But it would have described the player's troops which are pretty much nameless peasants. In the end, Light stealers describe my monster almost as well as Light seekers but with a simpler approach and I loved it right away. As you might have seen on the previous article's thumbnail, the project now also has a new logo. Stay tuned because I will describe writing about it in the next article.
Thank you for reading to the end! I hope to see you in the next post. 🦦
Sea Otter Games