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.
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