What's in a Name?

[Arjuna]

I am copying some stuff I raised on our internal dev forum. We need to come up with a new title for our first east front game.

IIRC we had earlier come up with Red Star Rising but in the meantime that name has been used by several other products, including a strategic board game and a tactical first person shooter.

Ideally the name should be catchy, emotive, pithy and hopefully indicative of what the game is about. And we don't want a title that would be more at home on a doctoral thesis.

I'll get the ball rolling here with a suggestion that I'm not all that happy with but does in part fulfill the requirements - Eastern Onslaught.

Suggestions, comments, thoughts please.

Some of the better suggestions include Beyond Stalingrad and Blood Red Snow.

What would you recommend?

[GoodGuy]

How about a little reward for the user who comes up with the title that's gonna decorate the game box?
Like .... a free copy of the game? [:)]

Oh and I don't recommend to opt for "Beyond Stalingrad". I'd just hate to see abbreviation-loving people type "BS", whenever they're referring to the Eastern Front Game. [:D]

[dunbarrover]

As you say, some of the better titles are already used in boardgames: A Victory Lost; Fury in the East etc.

Suppose book titles by David Glantz would be a good starting point, e.g. From the Don to the Dnepr (most are actually not that stirring once you take a closer look!).

Is Red Storm too partisan?

Anyway, the subtext should definitely read: "Beyond Stalingrad"

[marcpennington]

Red Winter: Beyond Stalingrad might work... Honestly, hard to go wrong with the word Red in the title, just sounds like a wargame.

[junk2drive]

There is

Red Tide : Beyond Stalingrad, but then real time bs...

Chir River and Prokhorovka, crap not that either...

Battle for the Babushka, yeah thats it, BftB.

[decaro]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

I am copying some stuff I raised on our internal dev forum. We need to come up with a new title for our first east front game ...

Hitler called the Eastern campaign a "war of annihilation"; how about something along those lines, i.e., "Command Ops: War of Annihilation"?

[decaro]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

Ideally the name should be catchy, emotive, pithy and hopefully indicative of what the game is about. And we don't want a title that would be more at home on a doctoral thesis ...

As an afterthought, since the Germans never regained the initiative after Stalingrad, the title could be something along those lines as well.

[Plodder]

ORIGINAL: junk2drive

There is

Red Tide : Beyond Stalingrad, but then real time bs...

Chir River and Prokhorovka, crap not that either...

Battle for the Babushka, yeah thats it, BftB.

My pick was Battles After Stalingrad: The Army of Reds Drives Southwest.

[SeinfeldRules]

Battles in the East: Fire on the Chir 

[Arjuna]

Red Storm from Stalingrad.

[sparre]

what about "Beyond Paulus" or translation to german..

[Deathtreader]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

Red Storm from Stalingrad.

Hi,

How about returning to your roots and re-using "Fire Brigade"?? or maybe "Fire Brigade: Beyond Stalingrad" etc.

Rob.[:)]

[JeffroK]

"Blood on the Steppes"

Doesnt favour any side.
Doesnt tie to a specific battle/area. But if you do want to tie to a battle.........

[JWW]

I like Battles in the East, as mentioned above.  It obviously meshes with another East Front game at an entirely different level that is sold by Matrix, so I don't know if that is a plus or minus.

But then you could call it Battles in the East:  Meeting Engagements, and we could call it BITE ME.

[GoodGuy]

Command Ops: Steppenwolf

well, the Steppe -> (west/south of Stalingrad), Germany or Russia -> Wolf, depending on POV [:D]

[fleischer]

'Command Ops: Turning Point East'

[GoodGuy]

Command Ops: High Tide

or hmm.. Blood Tide

Ok, let's do some brainstorming:

Command Ops : Blood Ice
.......................... Blood Storm
.......................... RED STORM
.......................... Panzers in the Steppe (PITS [;)])
.......................... Across the Steppe
.......................... Beyond the Steppe
.......................... One River too far (well, with the Mishvoka river, if there'd be a Stalingrad relief scenario, hehe)
.......................... Tide turning
.......................... Red Tide Turning
.......................... RED SPEAR
.......................... Spearheads
.......................... Bloody Bridgeheads
.......................... Red ALARM (Alarm = is also being used in the German language and can translate to "alert" or "disquiet", while the english word "alarm" often translates to the German words for "scare", "terror", "disturbance" or "bother")
.......................... Beyond the Red Tide
.......................... Panzers in the East
.......................... RED CONCERT
.......................... Blood Rain
.......................... Red Flood
.......................... Red Guns
.......................... Down the Sights
.......................... Red Horde
.......................... Adverse Tide
.......................... Storm Tide
.......................... Tide Change
.......................... Red Storm Tide

well, Red Tide and Red Orchestra are already "taken" (I really like orchestra tho, since with the Stalingrad Op the Russians had learned how to concert an attack that trapped an entire German Army)

Re Turning point: good title for a Stalingrad game [:D]

[GoodGuy]

Command Ops : Iced Blood
.......................... Red Blood Storm
.......................... RED BLOOD
.......................... Red Blood Rain
.......................... Red Shells, or Red Bullets
.......................... Red Hailstorm
.......................... Red Hail
.......................... Red Snow
.......................... Panzers to the Rescue
.......................... Holding back the Tide
.......................... Red Front
.......................... Red Storm
.......................... Red Thunder
.......................... Thunder in the East
.......................... Red Storm (in the) East
.......................... Red Thunderstorm
.......................... Red Hurricane
.......................... Red Band
.......................... Beyond the Volga
.......................... Red Chir
.......................... Red Chir River
.......................... Redshift ("In physics (especially astrophysics), redshift happens when light seen coming from an object is proportionally increased in wavelength, or shifted to the red end of the spectrum.")
.......................... Blood Redshift
.......................... Panzers in the Redshift
.......................... Chir Redshift
.......................... RED ICE
.......................... Red Steppe
.......................... Red Iced Blood
.......................... RED RIVER
.......................... Red River Banks
.......................... Red Assault
.......................... Red River Operations
.......................... Red Blood Ops
.......................... Riverfront
.......................... Red Stormfront
.......................... Red River Storm
.......................... River Malstroem
.......................... Red Maelstrom

.......................... Red River Swirl
.......................... Blood Snow Offensive
.......................... RED VORTEX
.......................... Red Blood Vortex
.......................... Chir River maelstrom
.......................... Chir River Vortex
.......................... RED ASSAULT
.......................... RED River Assault
.......................... It came from the Steppe (just kidding)

[Blond_Knight]

And quiet flows the Don
Turning point: Chir
Zhukov's Revenge: The Chir river battles
Little Star: Chir river
Hoth's Heroes: Chir river
Winter Storm washout
Rising Tide: loosing the Sixth Armee

[Prince of Eckmühl]

Here's an idea...

How about putting a working beta-version together, and then fretting over the title?[;)]