Trade Names

For me, “Ikosa” was always the name of my underlying game-modeling framework. Almost always…in the early stages it was “Icosa”. However, I never intended it to be the name of any game product. Ikosa just doesn’t roll off the tongue. Nor does it imply much about the nature of any game product built on it.

Since I have multiple ideas on how to use the framework, I had multiple ideas of trade names. And these have been through some churn also.

My main motivation (fully automating turn-based pen-and-paper game mechanics for multiple players) is the one I have cared most about. I call that “Guildsmanship”. Of all the non-conflicting names I could think up (with the help of a thesaurus) it is the one that has seemed to resonate the best.

My motivation for Battlescape has been varied. I have gone back and forth several times on whether to push a turn-based team-battle (TB2) system (which doesn’t showcase all the framework features such as searching, disabling, opening doors and chests; versus being able to push out a playable demonstration (with things like various vision modes, lighting, and flight).

Anyway, I settled on Battlescape to get a playable demonstration; versus video captures of the tools. But then I went back and checked the name.

The name “Battlescape” is too loaded with prior products. Hence back to the thesaurus. And the internet. Nothing I found seems to come close to the simplicity of the term (except the very generic TB2: Turn-Based Team-Battles). So I decided to stick with it, and add the unique monicker “Guildsmanship” in front of it to get “Guildsmanship: Battle-Scapes”.

OK. So now I get “Guildsmanship” as a brand-name rather than a product name. What to do about Castle Hackenslash? Punt…worry about it later.