Pirates of New Horizons

    Haha, I kinda have to agree, the name sounds awkward in English. (and I've spoken English my entire life / studied English literature for 4 years at one of the top English lit schools in the US...) but unlike Rick I'll try to explain why I think so:

    a good example: "Sins of a Solar Empire" is fantastic because you get the "S" of Sins and Solar together, the "aa" in "a" and "sol-A-r", and the "RR" in "Sola-R" and "Empi-R-e" -- in literature we call this effect "sibilance" (sss), "assonance" (vowels), and "consonance" (consonants). It rolls off the tongue nicely, at least to fluent American English speakers, and it's also suggests undertones of the 4X genre taken as an dark imperialist / religious allegory so it's kind of smart-sounding too.

    Rhythmically, Sins of a Solar Empire has a lot of strong syllables, specifically positioned at the beginning of the 3 most important words in the title. In literature we call this "meter," commonly used when studying poetry, and we'd render that like this:

    Code
    \      x     x     \  x    \  \    x


SINS   of    a    SOL ar   EM PI  re

    Meanwhile..."Pirates of New Horizons" doesn't have the same sounds or the smartness, it just sounds really bland / awkward to my ears to be honest. "New horizons" sounds like a rehab center or an adult school or something, or a header in a promotional pamphlet, or the name of a chapter in some heavily biased nationalistic history textbook. It doesn't fit with my idea of a pirate, a rebel / enemy / parasite of society.Rhythmically:

    Code
    \    x       x     x      x   \   x


PI rates    of    new    hor  I  zons

    You have a lot of weak syllables (the "x" syllables) which makes it sound like I'm mumbling or something when I say the name of your game out loud

    There's also no article in your title and both nouns are plural. e.g. "Sins of Solar Empires" doesn't sound nearly as good. "Pirates of a New Horizon" sounds better but still awkward for the reasons detailed above.

    So, in conclusion: your game title sound awkward in terms of sound, rhythm, syntax, diction and cultural connotations. Hope the explanation helped. You still have time to change your game name!

    Heh, the first name was Annhas Adventure, and then we came up with Annhas Awesome Adventure; A triple A title. But only game devs would get the joke

    As to what tools were used;

    I used Visual Studio and Unity. Also had maya installed to make it work with the assets. Warby used Maya and photoshop for the most part.

    Quote from Defrag

    How about, "Holy shit, flying pirates!" ?

    anything with holy shit in the title receives my stamp of approval

    but seriously, i have to agree with campaignjunkie and rick: it sounds bland. while i think campaignjunkie got the syntax problem right, i'd also like to point to the moral you're about to tell. if we take the example of sins of a solar empire, you already have a good base to start your story: you have a solar empire, committing sins (arguably). this is good, because not only do you have a moral here, but you force the reader/player to question, "what is sin?"

    okay maybe not everyone will ask themselves that question while playing the game, but then again you'd probably not see xbox 360 frat boys playing it relentlessly.

    a more simple example is a title such as "left 4 dead". you quickly connote associations to this. apparently there are some people isolated with no immediate signs of rescue, and there are four of them.

    by contrast, pirates of new horizons tells almost nothing involving about the story, or the situation that is going on. since there's apparently flying involved, why not make that a part of the title? i'm sure you could make a pun on leviathan and levitation somewhere, or something equally catchy.

    if not, you could always just use this: http://noemata.net/pa/titlegen/

    oh and congrats on getting this far!

    Or we call it "Piraten neuer Horizonte"! Thanks for the detailed explanation cj, we should have consulted with a native speaker. We can still discuss the name, but whatever it is going to be called we better make it fun!

    That's looking really good guys, I'm a big fan of Indie Games that remember the second part. It'll be interesting to watch your progress, do you plan on running a devblog anywhere?

    I do agree it needs a spunkier name, though.

    Awesome stuff guys! Seriously amazing work for an indie game of this size.

    My only critique is with the navigation arrow being dead center of the screen. Could it be moved to the bottom or something? feels like its right in the way... could be just me tho

    I agree about the naming. Not a fan of Exit Strategy as your studio name, everytime I hear it I get associations of companies in trouble or that are closing down. And I think CJ nailed it about the title name. If anything, then Pirates of New Horizons should be the subtitle, like "Annha and the Pirates of New Horizons".

    I guess I shouldn't talk, since I've always been awful at naming things. I do however know when I see a title that's less than fresh.

    Quote from Rick_D

    is there a reason you guys are terrible at coming up with names for things?

    Yes there is a reason for that and its disgustingly simple/obvious:

    everything better/shorter that we came up with was already taken !

    @cj that must be the single best criticism i have ever read on the internet i tip my head to you ! i wished i had known that little formula before brain storming for a name (actually i am still not sure if fully understand it) thing is even being better informed now i still cant come up with any shorter name where the domains arnt taken.

    Sentura i massively disagree about the information conveyed in the title the title clearly tells me tis about pirates and new horizons instantly evokes = exploration adventure freedom and many other emotional states i i am striving for in the game ! i find that just as much if not more so informative than sins of the solar empire and left 4 dead ... the moral thing i plain simply dont understand ^^

    Quote from Taylor

    That's looking really good guys, I'm a big fan of Indie Games that remember the second part. It'll be interesting to watch your progress, do you plan on running a devblog anywhere?

    Definitely. We'll create a website with a dev blog, message board etc. very soon. At the moment our indiedb page is the best way to keep up with our progress!

    Some suggestions:

    Sky Pirates

    Adventures Beyond The Waves

    Adventures Above The Waves

    Journey Above The Waves

    Pirate Pilots / Pilot Pirates

    'UP' Marks The Spot (as opposed to 'X' Marks the Spot)

    Salt of The Skies

    Scurvy sky dogs

    Skydogs

    Thar she blows!

    Three sheets to the wind

    Yo Ho Ho, Up we Go

    Etc

    Looks cool, guys. Congrats!

    Possible names:

    Pirates in the Sky with Diamonds

    Pirates of the Storm

    Wait 'Till We Get Our Shanks On You

    Chicken of the Sky

    Scurvy In the Sky

    Sky Ninja Fodder

    That one, use it.

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