PixelJunk Shooter *

[deepbrown]

it's a silly name. it makes you think of something else almost immediately. They're trying to make out that it can mean lots of things...but the reality is - a shooter video game comes with a pre-embedded vision.

Blaster yes, shooter no. The community hates it - they should have made a list of finalists and got the community to vote.

 

[Crossbar]

Blaster yes, shooter no. The community hates it - they should have made a list of finalists and got the community to vote.

If there was a safe way to make it work. Setting up voting via PSN would probably have been a way to avoid people tempering with the online voting system.

 

[deepbrown]

If there was a safe way to make it work. Setting up voting via PSN would probably have been a way to avoid people tempering with the online voting system.

You can just block by PC IP can't you? But yeah, signing in with your PSN ID would have worked.

 

[tha_con]

Just wanna ask but...did PixelJunk Monsters immediately make you think of tower defence?

Did PixelJunk Eden immediately make you think of platforming?

I think the name works fine. It follows the tradition of a simple descriptive name for the series. Some of the others were certainly great, but they obviously need to chose a name for several reasons, not just because it's artsy. PixelJunk Shooter will undoubtedly drum up more interest when it's seen on the PS Store than something like "PixelJunk Tera". People will see "Shooter" and see the picture of a ship shooting enemies. Much easier to sell, IMO.

 

[deepbrown]

Just wanna ask but...did PixelJunk Monsters immediately make you think of tower defence?

Did PixelJunk Eden immediately make you think of platforming?

I think the name works fine. It follows the tradition of a simple descriptive name for the series. Some of the others were certainly great, but they obviously need to chose a name for several reasons, not just because it's artsy. PixelJunk Shooter will undoubtedly drum up more interest when it's seen on the PS Store than something like "PixelJunk Tera". People will see "Shooter" and see the picture of a ship shooting enemies. Much easier to sell, IMO.

Well the logo features NO shooting. It features water and a submersible.

 

[tha_con]

Well the logo features NO shooting. It features water and a submersible.

Well, the PJM logo featured no towers, and the Eden logo featured no Grimps

The name / logo works on mutliple levels.

We know that the game will involve shooting, and the use of water, which are technically the biggest area's of this title.

Mind you, I'm speaking from a "marketing" POV. There will be a video preview, and a a giant screen-shot on the PS Store, and they will almost certainly show the ship shooting something.

I just disagree that it's a "bad" name. May seem "generic" but so did other previous entries into the series (specifically Racers and Monsters).

Honestly, were there never a contest for this, no one would be complaining about the name. The fact that people had submitted their choice, and did not have it selected is really the driving force behind the uproar.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Well, the PJM logo featured no towers, and the Eden logo featured no Grimps

This contradicts your other point...

People will see "Shooter" and see the picture of a ship shooting enemies. Much easier to sell, IMO.

People didn't need to infer from the title what the content was like for 'Monsters' or 'Eden'. And indeed, couldn't infer from the titles what the content was like.

Honestly, were there never a contest for this, no one would be complaining about the name. The fact that people had submitted their choice, and did not have it selected is really the driving force behind the uproar.

That's probably true, but IMO the introduction of a naming competition meant Q-Games were looking for something different. 'Racers' was named for 'exactly what's in the tin'. 'Monsters' was a little deviation from the obvious. 'Eden' was more disassociated from the actual game content. Seems to me Q-Games wanted to move away from generic titles into more artsy ones - otherwise why call 'Eden' Eden? And a competition would get in the widest possible array of options, only to pick the most generic. Does not compute...

 

[inefficient]

Game has been named : Shooter

Not entirely sure why they needed a competition for that one...

Seriously... they harvested thousands of submissions so they could settle on shooter!?

Oh well, as long as the game is good I am there anyway.

 

[deepbrown]

Dylan Cuthbert:

Don’t worry though, once you get your hands on the game and play it you’ll realise how well the name and logo fits. A lot of people kind of got the wrong idea from the video – thinking it is almost purely a puzzle game with fluids, but it’s a shooter at its heart.

We chose it after months of play-testing and creating the game because it simply was the best fit for what we know about the game, and what we know about what else is going to go into the game.

It can’t be helped, the entire team loves the name – we all chose it together after looking through all the submissions. The thing is, we know the game inside and out, and the name simply fits!

We have no idea why some people don’t like it (some people love it) as it truly captures what the PixelJunk brand does – it takes a simple notion and makes it into a game that then we add PixelJunk spice to, like we did with Racers and Monsters (Eden was an esoteric game so we chose a more esoteric name). We had no idea that Shooter would be our choice, and initially I personally rejected it, but as we kept trawling through the names and trying each one out, we kept coming back to it.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Fair enough. I guess the idea was obvious, but they rejected it out of hand for being obvious not realising it was the best fit (given their knowledge of the game).

 

[tha_con]

I'd even wager that the "naming contest" really held little merit. In fact, I wouldn't have been surprised if they have been calling it "PixelJunk Shooter" internally for months.

Afterall, this "naming contest" and the whole face book fiasco drummed up a TON of interest for this game, so mission accomplished I suppose.

 

[patsu]

What Facebook fiasco ?

 

[tha_con]

What Facebook fiasco ?

Q-Games (rather, Dylan) was promoting the game through facebook. Basically, for every milestone of fans that the PJ Fanpage got (i.e. 200 fans, 400 fans, 1000 fans, etc) he would release a tiny new bit of media for "PixelJunk 1-4".

I think that, as well as the Naming Contest, served a better purpose as promotional tools to get the public interested in the game while spending the least amount of money.

 

[patsu]

Hah, did something go wrong ?

 

[tha_con]

No, nothing went wrong at all. The only reason I describe it as a 'fiasco' is because everyone who was interested on GAF was spamming their friends list to join. I was a fan the minute I found out they had a page, and I still got at least a dozen invites, lol.

 

[deepbrown]

I'd even wager that the "naming contest" really held little merit. In fact, I wouldn't have been surprised if they have been calling it "PixelJunk Shooter" internally for months.

Afterall, this "naming contest" and the whole face book fiasco drummed up a TON of interest for this game, so mission accomplished I suppose.

They havent.

 

[Mr. Domino]

Gametrailers has uploaded a walktrough from TGS: http://www.gametrailers.com/video/tgs-09-pixeljunk-shooter/56944
That's some pretty neat fluid physics.

 

[patsu]

In anticipation of Shooter, my wife and I stayed up until 3:00am for 2 consecutive days trying to finish off Encore Monsters. Really glad I bought the game. Can't wait for Shooter to drop.

 

[ShadowRunner]

PJ: Shooter is comming next week

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3177154

 

[PARANOiA]

Nice. The Eurogamer review is up btw.