Ambiguous game titles for SeedComp

I have tested two games for SeedComp. In both cases, the SeedComp game title is the same as the seed title. If there are multiple entries based on the same seed, then this could end up with multiple games with the same title. That is never a good thing.

What do you think? Should games use a different title to the seed or should we just live with the issues it will cause further down the track?

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I recommend subtitles for this.

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The Seed version 17…

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Definitely material for friendly suggestions, especially for next year’s set-up and FAQ, but at the end of the day we settled on a fairly laissez-faire approach. If folks insist on naming their game the same thing, then I suppose we’ll have to be careful to acknowledge the author each time (i.e. John Carpenter’s The Thing). Noted for the future though; it’s a good idea to suggest a new title or the addition of subtitles if using the same name. Thank you for pointing it out.

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I assumed the test versions had provisional titles (the Seed name) and people would eventually name their game Umpatatoompata; based on/inspired by … in the published version. Especially since it’s an option to use multiple seeds. (I don’t know if anyone has done this though.)

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Umpatatoompata would be unique. I had to Google it (just in case). No hits. It thought I might have meant Oompa Loompa.

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Yoink! Trademarked.

I was just looking for a general stand-in title, but I might have to hold on to this unGoogleable word. (Well it isn’t now anymore, of course…)

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Maybe attribute similar titles officially like an extension?

“Titanic” by James Cameron
“Titanic” by Gaspar Noe

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Or
“The Man Who Knew Too Much” by Alfred Hitchcock
“The Man Who Knew Too Much” by Alfred Hitchcock

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I was originally planning to use a different title for mine but I’ve kind of grown attached to the seed name. If it turns out somebody else has used the same seed and title, I would probably add a subtitle after the fact just for ease of reference.

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Yeah, same here. It started out just as a placeholder but then I fell in love with it.

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I was originally going to use a different title for mine, then I did a poll on Twitter about which title was better and the results were a landslide for the original seed title so ¯_(ツ)_/¯

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Maybe this is something where the organizers could check whether there are duplicate names after the entries are in, then quickly follow up with the affected authors? I forget whether there’s any expected lag time between the submission deadline and when the second phase formally starts…

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So far no submissions… but we’ll keep an eye on it.
We’ve given ourselves a few days between the deadline and the voting phase. If needed we could contact the creators.

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