Fun With Procedurally Generated Market Item Names

[x4000]

Original post: http://arcengames.com/fun-with-procedurally-generated-market-item-names/



So our players have been (and continue to be) a huge help with working on a system where we're able to procedurally generate literally hundreds of thousands of names of items in various categories. "Items" include things like sports broadcasts, entertainment broadcasts, different categories of poetry (romantic, crude, epic, angsty, etc), scientific periodicals, military equipment, personal hygiene products, and so on.

There's an aspect of these that are tied to function (in a very broad sense -- personal armor helps ground troops, for instance, but the specific name of the personal armor has no inherent meaning unlike in Borderlands or similar). And there's an aspect of these that is frequently tied to race.

Anyway, not being 100% function-driven with the names gives us latitude to instead make the names, well, fun. Thematic as well, but also varied and interesting and sometimes funny. It's gotten to the point where I love seeing new market items from my own race or other races just to see the names. Some of the best names that the game has generated so far:

Quarantine Zone Cream (hygeine product)
Thermal Buttocks Replacement (soldier bio-augmentation)
Anti-Air Nuclear Bayonet (personnel weapon)
Self-Righteous Electromagnetic Sensors (military component)
Why Do The Fatally Crabby Die? (dark philosophy)
Sweatshop Comedy Hour (entertainment broadcast)

I just love this sort of thing. :)

[Vacuity]

I believe I need to go on a training course on how to effectively use a Anti-Air Nuclear Bayonet.  And maybe longer arms?

Awesome stuff!

[mrhanman]

You need to get a painting done of the Anti-Air Nuclear Bayonet being wielded as the title screen.  I can just see a Peltian flying through the air wearing a kamikaze bandanna and wielding a glowing bayonet, about to stab an aerial troop transport or something.

[ptarth]

I pictured it more as the ultimate solution to any problem.
And by solution, I mean, the Peltians give out short ranged tactical nuclear bombs to each squad.

• About to be over-run by a horde of Burlust Heavy Tanks? - Anti-air Nuclear Bayonet to the rescue!
• Are 10 wings of atmospheric Acutian Bombers Inbound? - Anti-air Nuclear Bayonet to the rescue!
• Is the 11th Thoraxian Death Fleet coming into port? - Anti-air Nuclear Bayonet to the rescue!
• Can't open a jar of pickles? - Anti-air Nuclear Bayonet to the rescue!

And of course, the solution ends with a small, dainty even, mushroom cloud.

Then again, it might just be powered by a small nuclear reactor...

[Aklyon]

You can't stab things with bombs though. They'd have to be pointy.

[Vacuity]

It's like an electric can opener with a battery that'll last several million years!  And it opens planes, rather than cans.

[x4000]

You need to get a painting done of the Anti-Air Nuclear Bayonet being wielded as the title screen.  I can just see a Peltian flying through the air wearing a kamikaze bandanna and wielding a glowing bayonet, about to stab an aerial troop transport or something.

I imagine this also, with a dainty mushroom cloud like ptarth says with each stab of the bayonet.