Hey all, What are you thoughts on naming your game after a quote or proverb? Does it depend entirely on the quote / proverb on your audience? Does a familiar but vague quote inspire you to look further into the game itself? I think any zombie fan is going to know the quote: "When there's no more room in hell, the dead shall walk the Earth." There's a HL2 zombie mod called "No More Room In Hell", which I think is a pretty delicious title because it instantly connects you to the subject. The quote isn't universal though, so does it work for everyone? Does it really matter? What if you named your game: "Keep your friends close" (implying: "... and your enemies closer")? Does that work better because it's a more universal saying?

It works a lot better as an episode or chapter title. Game titles work best when they are very short. If you wanted to use a quote as the name of a whole game I would suggest picking one that you can shorten to just two or three words.

Unless you want you game named listed as a shortened ancronym that looks ugly on paper, I would advise having a "short name" aswell. For instance, and probably one of the very best examples of clever quote/tagline game titles is in the ol' games by sierra. Take a look at the KingsQuest series and you should figure out what im talking about. They had a short name "Kings Quest 3" for instance, but then they had clever long names based on popular quotes, which were changed just subtly and usualy with humerous undertones. For example (taken from wikipedia)

# King's Quest I: Quest for the Crown
# King's Quest II: Romancing the Throne (1985)
# King's Quest III: To Heir Is Human (1986)
# King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella (1988)
# King's Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder! (1990)
# King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow (1992)
# King's Quest VII: The Princeless Bride (1994)

For a game, having something simple and easy would be better, but including a quote or proverb could work, like a slogan for the game. Or a subtitle as PaulCesar said. If it was like a slogan, it would make more sense. Think of it as a summary of a book that is on the back, except extrememly short. Using Halo as an example:



Box cover (real big in the center):

HALO: COMBAT EVOLVED



At the bottom of the front cover
(Quote added by me)"It could be the end of the world as we know it."