I have been working on a wizard dueling game for a long time now. Many things have stalled the project but now that I have it well along its way and I am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel there is one sticking point that keeps gnawing at me; The Name.
The game is centered on the use of wands; each player will have one with different abilities as well as a unique wizard and spell repertoire. The wand is used to draw and then focus magic energy allowing the casting of spells. Because of this I want the name to reflect the use of the wand. As far as I have been able to find there is no name for the art of wand use and much of the terminology is not suitable either.
The working title is 'Wands' which is lame. I have also come up with Wand Dual, Wizards & Wands, and Art of the Wand. None of them are striking me as an attention grabber.
Comments
Hocus Focus?
Hocus Focus?
"Wizards & Wands" is not bad
Hmm... I kinda like "Wizards & Wands".
My own suggestions: "Wands of Fury", "Wrath of the Wand" or "Wielder of the Wand"
They aren't great but may give you ideas for other names! I will think more about this...
ALL RIGHT THIS IS KINDA COOL: Caduseus (Wand of Mercury)
It is Herme's wand, messenger of the gods, inventor of (magical) incantations, conductor of the dead and protector of merchants and thieves.
The Caduceus of Mercury (Roman). Where the title "Wand of Mercury" comes from...
The caduceus was the magic wand of Hermes (Mercury). The word Caduseus is Latin for Wand.
I will keep *digging around* to see if I can find better titles...
SO I have been thinking more about the name and from what you have mentioned about the game. And I came up with this title (well sort of): "... Wand". The ... is a placeholder for the name of a Character in your game: either a hero or a villain. I personally like the villain idea. Basically you would need to create a Character's name and fill it in the ... placeholder.
An example (not too bad) is: Salcrymul's Wand. The wand of the epically known Salcrymul, a white wizard part of the Council of Mages. And invent the story as it goes along.
You could do the same for a villain and have his wand have a unique ability (something you mentioned in your initial post). Like *Kazular's Wand*, where Kazular is the name of the most evil of villains.
I'll see if I can come up with some other ideas...
Wand Wonders!
Wand Wonders!
Thanks for the input. Names
Thanks for the input. Names often are the most difficult and decisive part of designing games.
I wasn't planning on focusing on one character. I am planning on each set having 4 mages, 4 wand s and two spell decks.
The mages have their own set of attributes, as do the wands. The two decks will have many of the same base spells with a few unique to it. This will allow for 32 different combinations of Mage, Wand, and Spell deck for players to try. If it happens to do well and expansions are warranted the expansion would include a new mage, wand, and set of spells upping the possible combinations to 75 with just the first expansion. This is not including deck mixing which is a possibility too.
My suggestion
Wandering Wands.
Suggestion
My suggestion is that if you incorporate WAND somewhere in the title sounds to me that the game is leaning toward a younger crowd. Right off the bat when I read your blog yesterday and this morning it gave me the impression of a Harry Potterish type game or the PC game WIZARDS 101. My advice is to come up with a backstory for these wizards and wands and the title from your story will appear.
Abracadead?
Abracadead?
Wandering Wizards All told, I
Wandering Wizards
All told, I think Stormyknight was right. Its hard to work wand into a title without relying on aliteration. I think a back story as to why these wayward wizards are waving wands awound will be a more fertile source of names.
Going the Harry Potter route, if its was a wizarding duel at school a name would be Principled Strike.
That said, Hocus Focus by Orangebeard is a good one - being that a wand is a focus and hocus is to trick or deceive.
I don't want to go Harry
I don't want to go Harry Potter/cute on it even though I think older kids could play it without difficlty.
Back story.. Back story.. back story???
Ideas
Imbued
Spellstick
Spellgun
Wand Slingers
Slingers
The back story would revolve
The back story would revolve around the thematic elements associated with the game - namely, why are the wizards duelling?
Are they duelling in some form of established guild competition for apprentices or are they duelling to find the successor to the past guild leader.
Are they members of opposing factions who whip out their wands and engage upon meeting due to an ancient vendetta.
Are they competing in another way, to acquire a mysterious artifact or simply to off the others of their kind - aka 'Highlander'
Are some of them good and some of them evil - or do they represent different elements in conflict.
Creating a back story will answer these questions and also provide content to name the actual wizards involved - instead of the blue wizard, green wizard and so on. The features of the wizards can also tie into special action abilties unique to each wizard, possibly linked to the main mechanics.
I dont know what mechanics are present in the game, but if its possible it might be an idea to work towards a different take one the 'duel' idea.
Normally its a sort of Rocky Balboa with Spells Duel, where the wizards have at each other until the last wizard is standing. It might be nice to see something a little different.
The wizards have spells, cast with wands.
An event deck throws up situations that the wizards need to overcome.
Situations like the Blacksmiths bellows have broke and he cant heat his forge for a rush order, the weather is calm and the miller cant produce grain because their isnt enough wind to power the windmills sails. In short, situations that could be solved with a little spell casting aid.
The wizards score points for the people they help in and around town with their spells and the most helpful wizard wins the duel.