Board Game Titles: A completely unscientific overview

It seems that every board game designer is on a quest for the perfect board game title. Design forums are filled with daily polls and requests for what title sounds best. Some days it feels like a good title is the holy grail of game design. In this post, I want to take a look at some common title formations and some tips for better title writing. NB: I'm largely ignoring anything subtitle related. 

Coming in at the top of the list is the well-beloved Adjective Noun. Seen in examples like Space Base, Star Realms, and Spirit Island, Adjective Noun titles are pithy and work well in conjunction with alliteration and/or rhyme.  This is my go-to title formation. Sometimes you can get away with adding an adjective or adverb, like Great Western Trail or Too Many Bones, but don't get carried away. Simple is better. 

A close second is Noun Preposition Object. This formation is for when Adjective Noun sounds too clunky. Examples include Sheriff of Nottingham, Mansions of Madness, and A Feast for Odin. The most common subtype here is "Character of/from Place." Garphill Games regularly combines this category with the first category to get "Noun Preposition Adjective Noun," such as in Paladins of the West Kingdom (or Chaos in the Old World by Eric Lang).  A reverse of the Garphill subtype would be A Few Acres of Snow or This War of Mine. Either can be a catchy formation, but I'd keep it pithy unless you're Shem Phillips. 

A similar formation is Verb Preposition Object. Examples include Roll For It!, Race for the Galaxy, Roll to the Top! There aren't a ton of these outside of "Roll..." titles, so there's room for innovation here. But I'd be careful to keep it pithy and tied to gameplay. 

Then there is the Noun and Noun formation. Popularized by Dungeons and Dragons, examples also include Tigris & Euphrates, Axis & Allies, and Wits & Wagers. Another great place for alliteration or rhyme. However, if you use this formation there is an expectation that the nouns will be closely tied to the gameplay. 

Now we enter into more dangerous territory. The first couple of categories fell under "hard to go wrong." The rest are "try at your own risk." And yes, the first half dozen that follow are single word titles, because getting the one perfect word to describe a game is hard and should not be attempted lightly. 

A common but tricky formation is the Idea-Noun. Examples include Photosynthesis, Wingspan, and Pandemic. These titles are processes or concepts that are difficult to illustrate (i.e. not a person, place, or thing). In some cases (Wingspan) the title may only be tangentially related to the core gameplay. Done well, these titles leap off the box cover and into your memory. Done poorly, you will likely have to add a lengthy subtitle just so players know what the game is about. (I'm looking at you, Legacy: The Testament of Duke de Crecy.) 

While we're on nouns, let's blitz through (Real) Place, Person, and Thing. Anyone reading this could probably list off a dozen Place titles of board games (but also, Village and Citadels are examples of generic place names). If you go this route, make sure your game does the location justice and that the title isn't going to be confused for another game. Same thing goes with Person titles. Examples of Person titles are Trajan, Shakespeare, and Lorenzo il Magnifico.  I'd avoid naming your game after an object unless it's super evocative, like Scythe. Trains is a terrible title. 

For a truly risky title formation, use a Verb. Examples include Unlock!, Unearth, and Roam. While there is room for more Verb titles in the hobby, there is a reason most titles with verbs in them are parts of phrases. "Race" would be an extremely confusing title in this hobby. This is another formation to be avoided unless the verb is evocative and descriptive of gameplay. 

Honestly, the Adjective/Adverb formation is risky because of how tempting it is. Look at the examples: Azul, Imperial, Ingenious, Quantum, The Grizzled—don't they sound so pithy and fun? Well, not Ingenious, because that's setting expectations too high. And Imperial causes confusion with other games... Yeah, this is a hard sell. 

For the highest highs and lowest lows look to the Sentence Fragment formation. On the one hand, you have the common Prepositional Phrase, which usually works out. Examples include Through the Desert, For Sale, At the Gates of Loyang. On the other hand, Exclamations will make a game sound mass market. Examples include Just One, No Thanks!, and That's Pretty Clever! Sometimes, Exclamations don't always make sense, like with Camel Up or Sushi Go! Tread carefully here. Other subtypes can get trickier to pull off well, such as Conjunction Clause formations like ...and then, we held hands. Or the full sentence It's a Wonderful World.  Sentence fragments that start with a conjunction make poor titles in my opinion because they soften their approach (titles should grab customers) in addition to typically being too long. Longer definitely isn't better when it comes to board game titles. It's a Wonderful World only gets a pass because using a cliche allows us to store the title as a smaller chunk in our memory.  At the Gates of Loyang should be at least one word shorter. 

The following formations should be avoided because they make board gaming more opaque to anyone entering the hobby: Latin titles, like Ex Libris or Mare Nostrum; Fantasy Names like Valeria (this only works for established IPs); Compound Words like Zombicide, KeyForge, or RoboRally. These are very easy ways to make a bad game title even if you are an experienced titler. These types are in turn too obscure, too vague, and too weird. 

Of course the worst titles are the Nth Edition of a game like One Night Ultimate Werewolf Daybreak, a title so bad it is only rivaled by Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective in terms of being just a string of unnecessary, repetitive words. 

If you're very clever, you can twist a category into something new like how Above and Below and Near and Far turn Noun and Noun into Adverb and Adverb. Ryan Laukat deserves more credit for his consistently good titles. 

Collaboration in the Arts

In this mini-series on art, I've looked at where designers fit in as artists, the misconception that artists never finish their art, how craft relates to art, and the misconception that art primarily occurs as inspiration rather than skilled work. Finally, in this post I am looking at how collaboration works in the arts. 

Let's start with the misconception. When most people think "artist," they think of a person working alone on a project from start to finish. While many artists (especially visual artists) work this way, it is an extremely narrow vision of how artists make art. 

There are several types of artistic collaboration: collaboration between members of a group or collaboration between groups, but also immediate, back-and-forth, and pass-off styles of collaboration. (I'm just making up these terms to describe types of collaboration I have seen in the arts.) Collaboration between members of a group that is an immediate style can look like dancers practicing and refining a piece or like an improvised live performance; the feedback from collaborators occurs in real time. Collaboration between groups is the basis of most theatre productions. Lighting designers, scenic designers, directors, choreographers, etc. collaborate, usually in a back-and-forth style that involves a series of production meetings and emails, to create several designs (e.g. costume design) that all mesh together as a whole. Immediate style means the collaborators are in the same room while they work; back-and-forth means that collaborators meet to share progress. 

Pass-off collaboration is more linear. It looks like an artistic director selecting a play script and hiring a group of artists. Then the director (different role from artistic director) creates a concept for the show and sends it to the team. Then the set designer designs a set based on the script and the concept. Then the lighting designer takes the script, concept, and set design and designs the lighting. Many theaters use a more back-and-forth style, but I have seen linear style used as often if not more. In the case of linear style, usually someone on the back-end has collaborate using another style. In this case, the scenic artist and the assistant lighting designer might go back-and-forth about the exact colors to make sure that the realized production looks as good as possible. [Sometimes, these back-end collaborators aren't considered artists, like electricians or carpenters. This is where the arts vs. crafts debate results in the technical workers of theatre being devalued and underpaid even though they make artistic decisions all the time (usually small ones that promote cohesiveness of the production). I left this out of the last post, but wanted to clarify that artistic misconceptions do have real financial consequences.]

Why bring up collaboration? Two reasons. One, I want to point out the misconception of the solo artist. Even in the visual arts, many large works are produced by groups even if they are designed by one person. Often the collaborators are uncredited, as is the case in Renaissance art where a master painter had a number of apprentices working on a piece. We need to get over the solo genius myth. It applies to like two people in history. Everyone else had help. 

The second reason is that artistic collaboration looks a whole lot like how board games get made, even in the case of a solo designer. The designer passes the game off to the publisher, who sends it to the graphic artist and illustrator. This results in either linear or back-and-forth collaboration. 

The reason I wrote this mini-series on art is to argue that board game design is art. The only reason I can think of that would make designers believe otherwise is that they have a number of misconceptions about what art-making looks like, especially in a professional context. I believe that in order for the industry to continue to develop, we need to examine our place as entertainment (i.e. art) makers. We could learn a lot from our fellow artists, but we need to recognize them as peers first. 

Art Versus Craft

This is shaping up to be a mini-series on what art is. Last post, I addressed if a game designer is an artist. This post, I will look at the concept of 'craft' as it relates to art. Next post, I will discuss artistic collaboration. The purpose of these posts is to shed light on what counts as art and who artists really are. 

The barriers between art and craft involve a lot of misconceptions and prejudice. In the last post, I discussed the misconception around artists who never let go of their creations. There are several more misconceptions around the lines that get drawn between art and craft.

There is a duality to the concept of craft. One aspect is the Western image of skilled workers (usually male) making high quality products by hand. The other aspect is the relegation of crafts made by women to chintzy decor that is neither art nor quality handiwork. I won't be delving into this duality, but as I continue to discuss craft it will mostly be in reference to the first image, emphasizing skill and reproducibility. However, I think it is important to point out that the idea of craft/crafts has been used to denigrate women and non-western cultures. 

When discussing the perceived dividing line between art and craft, it becomes apparent that the line exists to divide skill and inspiration. Craft is seen as skill, something you can learn and perfect and repeat. Largely, I agree with this definition; crafts do require specialized knowledge with a number of levels of ability thresholds, whether it's knitting or wood-working. However, I would list crafts as a sub-genre of art. 

So, let's talk about art. Art is viewed as inspiration striking the artist and then flowing from them through their brush or pen or chisel and resulting in an effortlessly created masterpiece. (Unless they are finicky artists who adjust details of that work for decades rather than selling it.) But in my experience, most people see art as existing within the inspiration, the ideas, or "creativity" of the artist. Thus we get the image of the dreamy artist who always has their head in the clouds. Here's the truth, a really great idea may be what makes a work famous, but ideas are less than 10% of the effort required to make art. The rest is skill and tedium. 

If I want to paint a painting, I may first have an idea. But then I will research similar images to help me get proportions correct, sketch several possible poses, prepare my canvas, put down some reference lines, mix the colors I want to use, and eventually "start" painting. Later, I will have to clean up so that my equipment (in this cases brushes) stays in good repair. When does the art start? If your answer is when I start painting, you should know that if I were to skip to that step, the painting would turn out much worse than if I properly prepare. Good art is the result of hard work and detailed, often boring, steps. Also, I may have a knack for painting, but I didn't get decent at it until I took drawing and painting classes. Because art is a skill. 

If you think art is in the ideas only, you should know that good execution is worth a lot more than good ideas. And I do mean worth in the financial sense. Ideas don't feed artists; turning quality work in on time does. In board games, we say that no one will steal your idea because how the game is realized is where the value is. 

Another point to consider: artists cheat professionally. Vanishingly little art is made whole cloth ex nihilo. Artists recycle ideas and methods. They trace, copy, borrow, and steal from other artists. Yes, it is unethical to do so in a way that is noticeable in the final product, but as long as the end result is unique to the artist, any shortcut is time and money saved. Most people don't think of artists this way, partially because if customers knew about all the shortcuts they might not want to pay as much for a piece of art. The downside to maintaining an air of artistic mastery is that the public has come to view art as an intangible process that occurs largely due to inspiration (also intangible). Art is a skill. Art is a craft. Crafts are a form of art. 

There is a small point to be made that the perception of art is that art-works are one-offs and reproducibility reduces the impact of art. However, Edvard Munch's The Scream exists as four paintings and is easily one of the most recognizable pieces of Western art. 

I think one of the reasons board game designers are resistant to being labeled artists is because they understand the skill and tedium involved in their craft. What they don't realize is that skill and tedium is present in every other form of art. Don't take my word for it. Ask any professional painter, musician, actor, photographer, dancer, or poet if their job requires skill or contains boring elements.