The playtesting for my tile placement / worker movement game Alchemy Bazaar is coming along really well. I spent this past weekend at Genghis Con, a local convention here in Colorado, and all day Friday and Saturday were devoted to the board game room. I ran a bunch of tables of Chaos & Alchemy, leading to at least three people ordering the game from Noble Knight (the only place that currently has any copies of the original print run in stock).

I also ran seven games of Alchemy Bazaar, all of which went really well. I’ve made some new friends thanks to the game, and I have people offering to take prototypes to groups in other cities already. Excellent! I plan to test a little more myself, and then start making prototypes to send to playtesters in various locations (rather than making people go the print and play route to test my game).

In the mean time, I’ve been working with the art director at Game Salute to get ready for their publication of Chaos & Alchemy. He’s been a fantastic partner who really understands the feel of the game, and he has great ideas for more evocative card names. This has led me to realize something:

I’m good at designing games with fun mechanics. I’m not that great at coming up with flavorful names.

The Name Game Part 1

This is where you come in! I know that there are lots of creative folks out there, many of whom might have fun suggesting names that will be better than whatever I come up with.

I’m partly inspired here by my wife, who has a business making fiber for people who do spinning and felting and such. She’ll dye batches of fiber in all sorts of interesting colors and then put pictures up on Facebook to ask her friends and fans for name suggestions. They have lots of fun with it, so I’m trying the same thing!

Here’s the goal: Help me come up with evocative names for some of the tiles and cards in Alchemy Bazaar. I’ll put up a few examples, and you can leave your suggestions in the comments. Anyone who submits a name that I actually end up using in the finished product will get a “thank you” in the rulebook.

Background

The idea of Alchemy Bazaar is that the players are rival alchemists who share an ownership stake in a bazaar of shops that sell and trade alchemical ingredients and related goodies (formulas, etc.). The players choose which shops will get to set up in the bazaar and then send their apprentices around to gather the things they need to do their experiments.

Right now the names are all very drab, placeholder names. I want some creative names that get the inspiration flowing!

Shop Number 1: Spirits Central

This is a shop that gives a player two of the “spirits” ingredient whenever an apprentice uses it. Nice and simple. What would be a more interesting name? “So and So’s Spirit Shop?”

Shop Number 2: Formula Exchange

When an apprentice visits this shop, the alchemist discards one formula card and draws two new ones. New name?

Shop Number 3: Metal Trader

At this shop, the apprentice gets to trade one “metal” ingredient for two ingredients of their choice (metal, gem or spirit) and one coin.

Thank you for your help!

I hope that some of you will find this to be fun. Feel free to leave your name suggestions here in the comments, or tweet them to me at OnlineDM1. Thanks!

-Michael the OnlineDM