Names and Renames (Feb 13 2026)

The current game has progressed from 27 customers a week ago, to 31. And it has progressed from 12 countdown cards to 19 (although 3 of them still need names). The main thing slowing down the development right now is actually names and art. I spent basically every day this week trying to come up with names and then giving them art. But I also made the mistake of deciding to rename some things in the game, and that meant I had to go back and change a bunch of names and art too. 

The first thing is about the tokens. I decided that weapons/swords are too specific when it comes to creating names, and broadened it to just tools (and now it’s a hammer icon). But now tools and technology were way too similar to each other, and now I had to change one of them. I decided to switch technology to books, or just any form of written text. Funnily enough, books(/text) were one of the types in Antiquitus, which means this is the only type that survived. I also considered magic instead of books, but I didn’t have a good icon for it, and I like books better anyway. 

Then the card types. I changed buyer to customer to be more flavorful. The customers weren’t too difficult to name, although the hardest ones were the customers that technically don’t care what tokens you’re getting rid of. Why are they giving you money for doing something like that? Like for example, the card that wants you to have 0 tokens left after selling, what customer is that? For that one I went with, a crowd of people, with the idea that they’re swarming your store and buying everything. The harder card type though are the countdown cards. I considered a bunch of things for what they could possibly represent, since they happen based on what the players do. I considered Events (they happen periodically during the game and you plan for them), and Strategies (they dictate how you play) and Locales (their presence affects the game), but I kept struggling with actually naming the cards that fit with the types.

It was the first time I struggled with giving a card type a name. Then I looked at some other games (mostly by Donald X.). While some card types tend to be very specific (like the Dominion Landmarks are always locations / buildings), other card types can really be whatever is necessary. The action cards in Dominion cover everything from verbs, locations, people, objects, animals, abstract concepts, anything. And now that I’ve struggled with the card names, I totally see why certain card types are allowed to have whatever name necessary, even if it’s less flavorful, because it’s so much easier to work with. Besides, my game is a mechanics-first game, not a flavor-first game (even though it does try to have more flavor with the types of tokens), so I can give up on a flavorful name for the countdown cards. Even the hourglass zones in Temporum don’t have a super flavorful card type. Now the countdown cards in my game are called Twists, and the names are just as flexible as necessary. 

All of this is also another reminder why I should take a break from card games. Figuring out names and art is really annoying. Very basic art (like in Relentless Waves and All Shapes and Sizes) is way easier to work with.