1n23g4r

Why That Name? by Allison James

For this blog entry I'm going to be going through why I gave the names to games I've made. It's here instead of NALGames Blog as it's more a point of interest. It also means I have a way of remembering these things in the future.

Fight of the Height (2005)

Oldest game on the list, Fight of the Height was a game I conceptualised when I was six (I always wanted to be a game developer!). It was named so because the original idea was to have the game take place on a series of skyscrapers that you jumped over the roofs of, shooting at your opponent. It changed a little for the games themselves though I did keep that idea for one or two levels.

Gamanstake (2006)

Stuck for an original name for a generic maze game, and with the promise of gammon steaks for tea, I took "Gammon Stake" and played with the spelling.

Blokkeid (2006)

The precursor to Elemence got its name as the gimmick of the game involves using BLOCKS as AID to complete levels.

Elemence (2006-7)

I wanted to keep the Blokkeid name for the game that was Elemence, but since there were multiple game modes it was irrelevant. So instead I came up with "Elements", then tampered with it for originality. After the unreleased sequels named after their difficulties (Elemence Easy, Elemence Refined), Gold got its name as it became a portmanteau of all the previous, making it a kind of compilation game. Then AuX is because Au is the chemical symbol for Gold, with the traditional X for "woo, awzum!".r!!!dicule (2007)The third in the r!dicule series, it was named after I was trying to think of a name for a premise and came to the conclusion that trying to name it was ridiculous.

FKR (2007)

Stands for "Fantastic Kinetic Reflexes", however that is technically a backronym. When trying to work out a name, I just went "...F**ker!", and decided to alter it to familyfriendlydom. Nowadays though I only ever read it as "Eff Kay Arrrrrgh!"

Fustercluck (2007)

Fustercluck was named after the song playing in the background - simples. Only later did I find out what Fustercluck means, though!

Rockit (2008)

A rocket simulator, but with a reference to the Herbie Hancock track I was thoroughly into at the time.

Mingitilla (2008)

No idea.

Zyousbox (2008)

An altered spelling of "Juicebox" with the J sound softened.

Signal Failure (2008)

At the time I was addicted to GTAIV (for the first of three times, the third still currently ongoing) and one of my favourite tracks on it was Padded Cell - Signal Failure.

Ne Touchez Pas! (2008)

"Do Not Touch" just didn't have the same ring to it.

Innoquous (2008)

Another song-based one, though the game was based around it. I liked LCD Soundsystem's "Get Innocuous!" at the time. The game was also initially innocuous in that there were no direct obstacles. Changed the C to a Q because to be honest I thought it looked better - it's still pronounced "in-ock-you-us" though, not "in-ock-wuss".

EverScrollingHue (2008)

Initially "Enzyme", ESH made more sense named as such because the in-game hues were indeed ever-scrolling.

Node (2009)

My first release of 2009, and not a very good one at that, was named so simply because the graphics were inspired by "nodes and links".

Dreaming on E (2009)

Made partly through 2008, Dreaming on E was inspired by the phenomena of odd dreams while on drugs. Yes, the E indicates "ecstasy". No, I've never done E. Yes, I read about drug-fueled dreams while making DoE to base stuff off it.

MINDRAPE (2009)

I initially heard the term in an episode of "American Dad!" and loved it. Therefore I kept using it, and based a game on the idea.

Infidels (2009)

From the song "Infidels of the World Unite", an amazing track by one of my all-time favourite artists, Fischerspooner. Initially called Infidel as you played the infidel, it changed when I reversed the story and so there was more than one.

Head Candy (2009)

Another term similar to MINDRAPE, I liked the idea of "Head Candy" and had seen it elsewhere.

The Hilarity of Murder (2009)

Initially Lite Town Wars - made in GM7 Lite, set in a town, depicting a war. Changed when I added a gimmick to make it fit a Game Jolt competition - it just made sense and rolls off the tongue nicely.

It Only Takes a Second (2009)

Another one that rolls off the tongue, and a fairly smart-arse title given the game's premise (you have to finish each level with one second left on the timer).

RKF (2009)

FKR backwards. Once again, I came up with a backronym to make it mean something else.

madnessMADNESSmadness (2009)

Made up in Game Jolt's chatroom, I described this as "how somebody suffering from madness may describe what they were suffering from". The idea is that they might say "madness" three times in quick succession, shouting the second one. The game is depicting a guy that is suffering from madness - hence the odd circular world, the unexplained walls and things, and the confusing poetry.

This is a Game with a Stupid Graphical Gimmick (2009)

I just felt like being blunt!

La Rolloux (2009)

Originally "Wolley", the name of the guy in-game and "Yellow" backwards, changed to La Rolloux as a portmanteau of "Roll", and the artist I loved at the time, "La Roux". Coincidentally, the guy's quiff was in the game beforehand - it took someone else for me to realise how close it looked to the hairstyle of La Roux's Ellie Jackson.

1n23g4r (2010)

First release of 2010 was another smartass one - pronounced "integer", the game sees you counting moves up from 1 to 2 to 3 to 4 steps a go. They're all integers too.

SohoPogoHo (2010)

A pogoing ho from Soho. Sorted.

Acid R[ai/eig]n (2010)

Two meanings of the same-sounding phrase. It contains acid rain, and the acid reigns.

Remaddening (2010)

The sequel to mMm, unlike previous sequels, took an entirely different name. Why? Well, mMm had a convoluted name anyway, I wanted to shorten it. So I went in the style of many film sequels, which are like "Generic Action Film: The Redestroying". Stupid stuff like that. It very nearly took a The at the start but I just preferred Remaddening on its own.

Confusion Readily Achieved... (2010)

Yeah, another kind of backronym. However, it was just steered towards it this time. It was initially something like "Confusion Achieved Through Perspective and Dimensions".

Infinite Sporadic (2010)

I always liked the phrase "Endless, sporadic" so I went for something similar.They're the most interesting ones I can recall, anyway. Hopefully this has been an interesting little insight into my mind. Will be sure to blog again ASAP.See y'all! (and that's from Dog's Life on PS2)

Integers, Nostalgia & Gitaroo by Allison James

Quite possibly the oddest blog entry name I've ever extrapolated from the murky depths of my brain.So, anyway, part one. Integers. Yesterday I participated in NT in a friendly "make a game within a set hour" competition. Amazingly, he actually bloody finished. His game was a jet pod-esque game by the name of Poorple (a portmanteau of his opinion of the game and the colour of the majority of objects in it). Mine was a game originally to be called 1234. I decided against that, it was boring. So I made it rhyme: "1234 LMV in Ecuador!". It's a kinda outright lie, I lost it in some empty village, but eeh.

Anyway, I liked the concept of the game but wanted to make it just a little bit bigger. So I made it longer, added a tutorial/title and a finish, and a speedrun mode. Accompanying this, I renamed it to 1n23g4r - 1234 embedded near-legibly into the word "INTEGER". You pronounce the game name "Integer", not "Onentwothreegfourr", by the way.

Part two - nostalgia. This is a short bit. I just find it odd how certain songs trigger an overwhelming feeling of nostalgia, even if they're not really tied to an event. Tracks that do this to me include Kasabian - LSF, Deepest Blue - Give It Away, Jamelia - Thank You (you heard), Dodgy - Good Enough, and the song that triggered it today, one of my all time favourites - Portishead - Sour Times. If Dr Horrible's freeze ray was a real object, then he must've shot me in the back as I listened to it. Odd.

Part three - Gitaroo. About a week ago I got hold of a copy of Gitaroo Man on PS2. I have spend six goddamn years trying to get hold of a copy of this game, and it finally happened. As a direct result, I did the impossible. I broke my sleeping pattern even more. I was up until one in the afternoon playing the bloody game. (Subsequently I was down until seven in the evening eating pillow as my poor, decrepit body desperately tried to refuel my energy.) Now I'm stuck on it. God, Japanese studios really don't hold back on the difficulty of their games. Katamari Forever before it was one massive difficult pain in the arse.

NALGames.com V4 is finished. Sean Buller finished it off and fixed a few of the bugs, and I've filled in everything I could find. Unfortunately I've lost all trace of the two fonts I made, but they weren't very good so I guess it was just my computer doing me a favour. If you've any bug reports or want to see an editable up that isn't yet, comment with it. I'll forward bug reports to Sean, and I'll be 99% okay with adding pretty much any editable you want to the site.Also in website-related news, me and Sean are creating a website for the somehow-unpublished Rebecca Smith. Her site's been a Synthasite jobbie for a while, and we decided that we'd make her a lovely big custom one to her design. I've also bought a .com domain for it and customised her a Blogspot skin based quite heavily on my own. She's highly appreciative of the work we've done so far which is a great motivation in making it. If you want to see her work, check out her current site at http://rebeccaclaresmith.com/ or her journal at http://rebeccaclaresmith.blogspot.com/.

One more subject to converse about is how Clank needs to go and die. If you're a Twitter follower of mine you may know what that means. Basically, having played all the main Ratchet & Clank games and been in deep love with the series, A Crack In Time is like an OmniWrench to the gut. The platformingy-Ratchety sections were trimmed down in this one. The rest of the game is occupied by space sections (better than previous spaceship levels but there's too much of it), and Clank levels. Oh god, Clank Levels. I've always hated him. His tininess makes levels slow enough as it is, but the fact that all of his levels have the same tedious puzzles, boring location, and mind-blowing repetition just made me go "Oh f***, not again" every time I was thrown into the little isn't-funny-any-more piece of metal's shoes.

But yeah, that's all. I shall be entering the Game Jolt Jam tomorrow/in two days (depending on how you look at it), so while it's going on you should be able to find up-to-date information through:

Livestream (NALGames)
Twitter (NALGames)
Game Jolt's chatroom (NAL)
Skype (NAL-Games)

And that is all. G'bye folks!

NAL