Possession 2: What’s in a name? 2


A while back, someone cautioned me about naming the game Possession 2, since the first game was just a quick project I made for the 7-day roguelike challenge that I never really spread around after the challenge, and almost nobody has played it or heard of it.

As we get closer to a point where releasing this game actually looks like a thing that might happen, I’ve been thinking about it, and I kind of agree. This game’s going to have enough against it with the programmer art graphics and my total inexperience with marketing, I don’t want anyone who might be interested passing it up because they’d never heard of the first one, or because it seems like a shovelware sequel to some crappy shovelware game.

The name of the original game was Possession: Escape from the Nether Regions, which I could potentially use for this one since the premise is the same, but they’re different enough I’d like the original to stand as its own thing. I’m considering Possessor: Escape from the Nether Regions, but that might be too close as well.

I’d like to keep something along the lines of “Escape/Return from the Nether Regions” in there, because

1) Escaping from the Nether Regions is literally what you’re doing

2) I think a tagline is more interesting than just a single-word name

3) It’s weird, so hopefully it’ll grab attention for at least a second or two

4) It shows that the game’s tone is not 100% serious

But I could be misguided on that, too, because maybe that would turn people away, maybe they’d think it’s nothing but sex jokes or something.

Anyway, I’m probably overthinking this, but I’d be interested to hear others’ thoughts. Hell, if you have some other name suggestion unrelated to anything, I’m open to hear that too. Any and all thoughts welcome!


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2 thoughts on “Possession 2: What’s in a name?

  • Darren Grey

    Just call it Possession. Lots of former 7drls have kept the same name (eg Cogmind). Or call it Possessor, since that is what you’re playing as, sort of.

    Get rid of the tagline. People will assume it’s a complete joke of a game otherwise.

    • weirdfellows Post author

      Thanks for the input. Although I’ve grown to like the tagline, I think you might be right. I’m a little worried about having a single-noun name for the game, but other games do that. And arguably one of the most successful games ever, Doom, did it, so I think that would be the least of my worries.