Hello everyone. Just as the title says, I have decided to re-name my newest upcoming game to "Samer Hills" (originally "Hamar Hills") . I have decided to rename the game for a few reasons actually and all of them are perfectly valid. So today I want to take a moment and talk about the new name and explain why it has changed.
First of all, the game was originally called "Hamar Hills" so right from the start it sounds confusing to many people. What the heck is a "Hamar" or what does it even mean? Why was this even considered to be the name of the game originally anyway? These are all good points and I agree that it was a very silly and stupid name for a game actually but the reason why I did want to originally name it this is because "Hamar" is an arabic word which means "Donkey". So essentially the game "Hamar Hills" translates to "Donkey Hills". You are probably thinking now: "wow, this is still a really dumb name even after hearing the translation. Why would you call the game "Donkey Hills"?
I originally came up with the name "Hamar Hills" or "Donkey Hills" because the main enemies of the game were going to be this group of donkeys that you encounter throughout the game. The game was originally planned to be a game about a character who wonders off into the town of "Hamar Hills" only to later find out that the town is abandoned and is being run by this evil donkey gang - hence the original name of the game "Hamar Hills". This all still must sound very silly as a game idea and writing it down makes me realize that it is. But you really need to be in my head to see how I was originally imagining it to play out and I don't think I could really describe it. But anyway that is not the point right now.
The game is taking a different direction, its not just about donkeys. The more and more I develop the game, the more ideas I get and want to add in. So its really not just focused on one thing anymore. It is going to still be a pretty weird and silly game though. So, because the change of focus, I have renamed the game to "Samer Hills". This name makes more sense. A lot more sense actually. The game is about many strange and random ideas that I just picture in my head. My real name is Samer, so essentially in "Samer Hills" you are just entering this world of ideas that spawned from my head instead of just a silly game about evil donkeys. It is kind of hard to explain, but I think it will make a lot more sense once the game is finished and people can play it. Also, the game is somewhat inspired by "Silent Hills". It won't really be anything like "Silent Hill" or a parody of it or anything, but renaming the game to use the same initials feels nicer than what was used before.
Another major reason I changed the name (and this one is seriously important) is because after doing some research I found out that the word "Hamar" isn't just an arabic word. Okay so it means donkey in arabic but it might translate to something else in different languages and I don't want this headache. I don't want to possibly bring up any problems because of naming a game a certain name. Also I found out that "Hamar" is the name of some kind of cultural tribe or whatever in some parts of the world and I don't want to confuse people with the name and make them think that it is a game about this real life tribe or anything. The game has nothing to do with this tribe, it has nothing to do with anything in real life. Whenever I make a game, I always just make up my own fictional worlds, characters, story lines, etc that are not connected to or related to anything in our real world. The original name for my game "Hamar Hills" was implying the translation from arabic to mean "Donkey" as I stated above. It was a coincidence that I found out that the word "Hamar" is used differently in other cultures and languages and was not intentionally trying to be anything other than being translated as "Donkey" from arabic. It is a very good thing that I did my research and caught that before continuing to go with the original name. Moral of the story, be careful when trying to pick a name for your game. Do some research on that name. See if it is used differently other than the ways you originally thought.
Anyway, I am really glad I changed the name. I am very happy with the new name I decided to go with and it does make more sense overall for what the game will be about. So bottom line, yes. I did just name my next game after myself...
More updates soon!
