How to name a mechanic

The name of a mechanic is the word a stranger says for it out loud. The loop already has one verb. Shoot, place, dodge, answer. If people already say that word for the action, that word is the name. A second word is something they have to memorize before they can play.

Use the word they already have

Daniel, writing on daniel.games, skips jargon when an ordinary English word exists. A deck is a deck. Archive, spell book, and army do not make it a new object. Invent a term when you invent an entity, such as a second deck, and keep that term small. The job of the word is that the greatest number of people understand the thing. Describe the concept, ask what they would call it, and use their answer.

A neutral word helps when several types of the same thing exist. Location, person, and board do not make a player sort allies from mercenaries from heroes. Joker, wild, and run, borrowed from classic games, remind people they are moving pieces. In Egizia, the one worker who can add his strength to another is called the joker. Daniel teaches him as the helper. His publisher renamed Radlands locations to camps and citizens to punks: theme, and the objects stayed distinct.

Words from Magic or Dungeons & Dragons are unknown to many people. He would leave out target, resolve, control, the dice shorthand 3d6, active player, and orthogonal when a plain phrase exists. Many places need no name. In play, on the table, and set aside already say where a card is. Magic’s library and graveyard fit a game with that depth. A smaller game can keep the ordinary words.

What are you trying to name

What are you trying to name?

An ordinary wordA new thingThe same sentence, again

Use that word. A deck stays a deck. A second name is a term people have to learn.

When the same sentence earns a word

Nicholas Kinstler, on Game Developer, July 2, 2018, calls a keyword a word that stands in for rules text. Flying stands in for the sentence that a creature cannot be blocked except by creatures with flying or reach. Other cards can then point at the word. In The Elder Scrolls: Legends, Last Gasp is the death trigger, so a second card can name Last Gasp.

Magic once printed four cards with four wordings of one idea. Players could not talk about it as one thing, and the small differences changed the rules. Deathtouch replaced them. He calls that the Basilisk problem.

Mitchell Loewen, at Cloudfall Studios on June 30, 2021, sees the same tool in role-playing games and strategy games. In Hearthstone, Taunt means enemies must attack that minion first. Without Taunt, Goldshire Footman is a mystery. He lists four jobs. Shrink text that will not fit, as with Zilliax written out in full. Name an action players do constantly, even if the word is on few cards. Advance, in his Heart of the Mountain prototype, means “Activate the next artifact slot in your Machine,” and players do it at least once a turn. Two Slay the Spire cards that both say Lightning and Channel read as a pair. And let the word carry the theme.

Mark Rosewater, in Nuts & Bolts #17 on April 7, 2025, says a mechanic usually shows up on more than one card, and a name is how players notice those cards match. Most mechanics can stay unnamed. A keyword stands for one specific line. A cost or a number that changes is written beside the word: kicker and flashback carry a cost, scry carries a number. When the keyword is a verb, as scry is, it sits inside a sentence the way dodge sits inside “I dodged.”

An ability word is lighter. Landfall and raid sit on text that is already written. Remove the label and the card still works. Raid cards share one check, whether you attacked with a creature this turn, and they differ in the result. Name the shared check. Leave the changing result written out. The verb of a video game can be one word. An outcome that changes with the situation stays a sentence.

The word has to survive a sentence

Talen Lee, on press.exe, May 20, 2020, wants the name long enough to carry the action and short enough to say twice in one sentence. It has to change tense. A mechanic named sheep stalls on whether this sheep sheeps your sheeps. Dodge survives: I dodge, I dodged, dodge him. Exalted, in his account, also renames the player group for each type of character: bands, circles, leagues, coracles. One ordinary word, used everywhere that thing appears, is the name.

An obscure word fails from the other side. Rosewater, on January 24, 2005, writes that R&D’s nickname for haste was celerity. They considered printing it, then dropped it because nobody knew the word. It means speed. A word you have to translate is a second rule. Daniel’s Radlands card Looter goes the other way: “if this hits a camp, draw a card.” Hit is undefined, and it is obvious. A technically exact replacement would lose people. If an on-screen word needs a glossary before the button makes sense, the word is not ready.

Flavor still has to mean the effect

Kinstler uses flavor as a reason to name and a reason to refuse. Devour means you sacrifice other creatures so one creature grows, and the word says the new creature is eating them. His refusal is a keyword he calls Nuke, for damage to all creatures. The effect is too rare to earn a term, and a heal-all would not be a nuke, so the word has already shut out a neighbor. “Damage: 1 to creature” saves almost no space and is harder than the sentence. If the name does none of the jobs, print the sentence.

Loewen reads Deathtouch the same way. Damage to a creature destroys it, and the word suggests poison and petrification, which fits cards such as Ogre Slumlord and Gorgon’s Head. Rename it Omnipotent and the pictures become gods and relics. The rules might still be forced into place. The theme no longer matches. His complexity case is Aggressive. “Must attack every turn” is small enough to remember. A paragraph of odd turns, a die roll, and triple damage is not a word. Write the paragraph, or split it.

Neither offers a count you can copy. Kinstler says there is no standard. If he had to pick a range for a card game, he would start around 8 to 12 and keep an expansion to 7 or fewer. That range is his. Loewen says the tipping point is hard to see, and past it players lose new words and old ones. Add a name only when it earns one of his four jobs, and take it off when it stops.

Say it, then attach it to an input

Describe the action to someone who has not built the game. If they answer with a word you know, take it. If the thing is new, take the shortest word they offer that still changes tense and still fits twice in one sentence. If one sentence has come back with the same wording, it can collapse into a word that other rules can point at. If the result changes from one use to the next, name the shared check and leave the result written out.

The scheme is where that word meets a button. A name that works only after a speech is not ready for that column. The stranger should be able to say what they did without asking what the word means.

Related: Game development, How to write a control scheme, What is game feel, How to scope a first game, Tingbase, Mini Games Arena.

Common questions

Should I invent a new name for a game mechanic?

Usually not. If players already have a word for it, like dash or parry, use that. A made-up name can stay in your design notes.

Can two game mechanics have the same name?

Only if they work exactly the same way. If the rule is even slightly different, give it its own name so players don't get confused.

How do I know if a mechanic name is good?

If you have to explain the word before you can explain the rule, the name isn't working. Use a word players already know, or ask playtesters what they'd call it.

When should I name a mechanic in game design?

Use plain words from the start, and only give it a special name once it shows up consistently across your design. That way the name sticks to a rule that's already settled.