Finding a title for the game was difficult. After referring to it simply as ‘the game’ for several weeks, the working title became ‘The Golden Parsnip’ after one of the high-scoring treasure cards in the game at the time. I wanted any name to communicate something about the theme. Getting fantasy, magic, combat, treasure, adventure, peril, excitement and humour into a snappy title was obviously going to be a challenge but I wanted to hit as many of those notes as possible.
Treasure is the most important aspect of Astrogarth’s Moggin so that’s where I concentrated my efforts. Golden this and that. Glittering whatnot. Legendary thingy. Nothing I could come up with was much more interesting than ‘The Golden Parsnip’. Descriptive, but dull. The problem persisted for several months.
Then one day I was chatting on the phone to my brother Ben. He’d recently played the game and asked how things were going. I told him I was struggling to come up with a title. Conversation moved on and, for reasons I no longer remember, he began to tell me about dream he had which featured a progressive rock album called ‘Astrogarth’s Moggin’. At this stage in the tale I should point out that Ben is a musician and one of his bandmates, of Scottish heritage, had brought the word ‘moggin’ to our attention several years previously as slang referring to a sock or similar receptacle where someone of a miserly nature might secrete their money. Anyway, at the mention of the fictitious album from my brother’s dream, everything dropped into place. I knew immediately that was the title for the game.
First logo ideas
It had everything. ‘Moggin’ referred to the collection of valuables. ‘Astrogarth’ inspired a fearsome boss monster to hide inside the dungeon. Together, they provided an abstract title which wasn’t exactly descriptive, but had a definite ring of fantasy to my ears. I’m not one to look for cosmic synergies but knowing the name had come to Ben in a dream, just like the idea for the game had come to me, also made the title hard to resist. If those reasons weren’t enough, it was also gloriously silly. AND the .COM domain was (unsurprisingly) free! Perfect!
First logo ideas
Generous credit to Ben for the inspiration, also to Colin, and the rest of clan Murdoch, for carrying the magnificent moggin south of the border.
At last, my game had a name. Now the name needed a logo.