The Name of the Game

[Quintus]

We aim at going further away from the original Mario games, so renaming "Secret Maryo Chronicles" to something else seems appropriate. Our hero will have to be renamed as well.

Chatlogs on this for 2014-06-21

Valete, Quintus

[giby]

To sound german, what about "M" like in Fritz Lang movie?

[brianvanderburg2]

I wonder if it would be useful to separate out a core game engine, which may provide some basic data files such as graphics, sounds, and music, and then make the "main" game a package itself. Then the core engine can have its own name "Super Engine" or whatever, and the package for the main game would have a separate name for it as well "The Chronicles of M". This would be post 2.0 since packages aren't in 2.0 but in devel.

[datahead8888]

This is something I forgot to bring up in my last post.

There are a number of sites out there that prominently advertise "Super Mario Clone FX", such as this one: http://www.holisticom.net/tag/free-super-mario-clone-fx-game/

Sites like this build a connection in people's minds between SMC and "Super Mario Clone".

Even sites calling it "Secret Maryo Chronicles" may still have Mario plastered on their web pages: http://secret-maryo-chronicles.en.softonic.com/

It may be hard to separate the old SMC abbreviation and the word Mario. We certainly cannot shut these sites down.

[Quintus]

I did not know Redhat had a problem.

Note Fedora is basically community RHEL with shorter lifecycle. It’s the playfield for RedHat to test things before they go into RHEL.

If we used Secret M. Chronicles, we could name the villain Maximus.

I’ve not yet met a person named "Maximus", which is more of a Latin name than a German one. German version of this is probably "Maximilian", shortened to "Max" when addressed informally. Though a Latin name would fit fine with the story elements we are currently discussing, hence I would agree to naming the villain "Maximus". Though I want to point out that it is rather uncommon to address someone with his academic title and his first name. The first name is usually used when you address someone informally, and then you will probably not prepend the academic title.

Here's another one - "The Secret Chronicles of Dr. M."

I like that one. Abbreviation could be "TSC" for "The Secret Chronicles".

It gets the point across (Chronicles that are secret and that ultimately turn out to involve a hidden library).

I would be fine with "The Secret Chronicles" also, but I want the article. Just "Secret Chronicles" is doesn’t sound as good.

I wonder if it would be useful to separate out a core game engine

I don’t think we should make SMC/TSC a game engine. There are enough game engines out there, and I would like to develop a game with certain characteristcs that is recognized as being Secretchronicles.

Valete, Quintus

[datahead8888]

Though I want to point out that it is rather uncommon to address someone with his academic title and his first name. The first name is usually used when you address someone informally, and then you will probably not prepend the academic title.

I think we could get away with setting his last name to Maximus. This game will probably still take place in a fantasy world with somewhat different rules. Thus it would still be Dr. Maximus.

[Bugsbane]

"it is rather uncommon to address someone with his academic title and his first name."

I agree with datahead888 _ I'd say having Maximus be his last name, would work well, ie Dr Maximus.

I also like "The Secret Chronicles of Dr M" and agree with Quintus on keeping SMC / TSC as a game rather than an engine.

[Quintus]

Dr. Maximus is OK. I like it.

Looks like we all agree that "The Secret Chronicles of Dr. M" is a good name. If anyone has objections, please speak up now, or be heard nevermore...

Valete, Quintus

[datahead8888]

I actually was having a little trouble choosing between "The Secret Chronicles" and "The Secret Chronicles of Dr. M", but I'm thinking the second choice may help us be distinct - not that many games name themselves after a villain.

default0 gave his thoughts in IRC. He said he doesn't think Dr. Maximus will work as a name because it sounds like Max, which is a positive sounding name. He suggested Dr. Malus instead.

I also don't like the idea of calling him Max but said we could call him Dr. M, Dr. Maximus, or just Maximus. default0 said he thinks the association with Max will still stick.

He said Malus is actually Latin in origin. If so, it's worth considering. This would not change the Dr. M derived title, though, either way.

[Bugsbane]

Well, Maximus sounds like "maximum" and Malus sounds like "malice", so if we called him Dr Maxmius Malus it comes across as being like "maximum malice" or "most evil". :)

[Quintus]

He suggested Dr. Malus instead.

"malus" is Latin for "bad", "evil". I think that would flatten him down too much if we want to actually give Dr. M a little more traits than just being some evil guy without his own history. I would like to see Dr. M to have reasons for his doing, probably he does not even think he causes damage. That is, a real person rather than just the incarnation of the evil.

"maximus" as a Latin word translates as "the greatest". If you really think that people will shorten him to Max, you might want to dig through the long list of roman emperors, which may provide you with a more feasable name.

As for the "Dr.", I would really like to see that one in-game. The academic title gives him something interesting somehow.

Vale, Quintus

[Quintus]

I hereby suggest

The Secret Chronicles of Dr. M.

as our name. Last chance to object, otherwise this will be our new game title. If I receive any objections until 2014-10-01 00:00 UTC we will hold a vote on the subject, otherwise the decision is final.

Valete, Quintus

[Quintus]

I have received no objections against the suggested title within the timeframe I set. This means...

:candy: We have a new title! :fireworks:

Yeah! :sparkles:

Valete, Quintus

[datahead8888]

Is it fine if I open a new ticket in github on the villain name / origin / artwork discussion? I don't think the mailing list will be enough for that (it involves non programmers). We could also make a parallel post on the secretmaryo.org site. We also need a discussion thread for the name of the hero, his origins, and anything else we want to change for him.

[Quintus]

Yes.

[Bugsbane]

[datahead8888]

Wow...that looks professional. I'm not sure if we'd want to include the left part on the title screen itself, but I'm open to other ideas.

I'd also consider using something a little less jagged for the "Dr. M" part, but I like how it makes his name look evil... :O I'd also be curious to try some different things for the dot in his name to see how they look.

...good stuff!

[Bugsbane]

I'm not sure if we'd want to include the left part on the title screen itself

Yeah, originally, I had a white background with a scroll behind the text, and it made the text and the image feel much more integrated. Trouble is the scroll looked pretty mediocre, so I used this background, which looks nice, but it does make the image feel separated from the title. I should probably try extending the land behind the title to go behind the image, too.

I'd also consider using something a little less jagged for the "Dr. M" part

Yeah, I don't completely love the font there, for the same reason, but it was the closest legal, open-licensed font I could find that mostly did what I was after. Personally I'd like something like this, but with less of the spikes on top. If you know of a good legal font, let me know. :)

Yes, I'd be open to playing with that, as long as it's roughly round-ish. What about one of the little bomb guys, or some small, roundish enemy not on the right?

[ghost]

Wow that looks nice! Could there possibly be a gradient added onto the word Secret somewhat like the one used on Dr. M? Without one, it kinda makes it look a little flat.It doesn't have to be two completely different colors, just something subtle.

My other suggestion would be about the "bubbly" looking letters (sorry for lack of a better term), They look to me as if TSC would have two different visual styles (a flat one and a more bubbly one), but that's just me.

Otherwise, I think this looks amazing! Great job!

On Thu, Oct 2, 2014 at 2:03 PM, Bugsbane notifications@github.com wrote:

[image: banner] https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/401733/4496565/92fdefe8-4a66-11e4-8fe2-a56d621fdd48.png

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/Secretchronicles/TSC/issues/92#issuecomment-57688585.

Never give up~

[datahead8888]

We probably should post logos under #203. Otherwise it will be hard to find them if we're looking through github later.

[Bugsbane]

We probably should post logos under #203

Agreed. I'll post all updates over there

[datahead8888]

As follow up to this task, we need to update the INSTALL.md file to use TSC.git instead of SMC.git. If I'm able to, I may try to knock it off with some other changes, but I'm not certain if I'll make it to a git push step in the next week or not.

[datahead8888]

I addressed the obvious problems in 59f8f28d2d0d2271ff6d7eee0eb2d6cd61a210ed and 09f267d0368eb8a98f590024b09178c2630c852b We will probably be playing whack-a-mole with this for a while...

[Bugsbane]

Line 194 of install.md:

cd SMC-*/smc ??

I'm guessing that should be: cd TSC-*/tsc

[datahead8888]

Yes, I left the tar.gz ones alone since I wasn't able to test them and couldn't ask Quintus at the time. I was just knocking off the obvious ones. Some things are changed to TSC; some things are not. We need to check first.

[datahead8888]

Also, you can directly comment on a commit in the commit log.