Arcade Berg aka. "Learning Game Design with Arcade Berg"

Hung up on a word

Words are powerful things, they are. Sure, they can be really helpful, but sometimes, they can be a bitch...

You don't like it when people call you mean things, right?

I've been having some trouble with a part of the design for Iskall. Way back when, in the beginning of the project the game was supposed to have a simple system for... Let's call it special attacks. The problem is, because of the lack of a better word at the time, we called it "magic".

Because of that, the word magic got stuck in my head and refuses to leave. Whenever I think of and work on the system, I keep thinking about magic. Magics in other games. Spells. Mana. Elemental attacks, etc. The stuff that you think of when you put games and magic together. But it's not magic!

It is not Magic, but because that's the word we've been using for a while, it keeps restricting me!

Be really, really careful about what words and descriptions you use for stuff, because it sticks!

http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/magical+trevor/