0101
Idle + a noun: best for mobile games that need to show up in store search
Platform: 219 of 1,618 catalog titles start with Idle
The most common pattern by far: Idle Wizard, Idle Slayer, Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms, Idle Miner Tycoon. Putting the genre word first means the name itself matches what mobile players type, and Apple and Google both limit app names to 30 characters, so a short noun after Idle leaves room.
Fresh ideas in this pattern: Idle Lighthouse, Idle Beekeeper, Idle Cartographer, Idle Glacier.
Watch out for: With over 200 Idle titles in our catalog alone, the pattern makes you findable but not memorable. Pick a noun nobody has used, and make it a picture players can see.
02
A noun + Idle: best for games with a strong proper name of their own
Platform: 72 catalog titles end with Idle
Putting your own word first and the genre last reads more like a brand: Melvor Idle, NGU Idle, Revolution Idle, Exponential Idle, Unnamed Space Idle. The first word carries the identity; Idle just labels the shelf.
Fresh ideas: Moss Idle, Tidepool Idle, Kiln Idle.
Watch out for: The first word has to be distinctive on its own, because that is what players will say and search. A generic first word plus Idle is the hardest name to rank for.
03
A thing + Clicker: best for active games where the click is the core verb
Platform: 97 catalog titles contain Clicker
Cookie Clicker defined the pattern, and Clicker Heroes flipped the word order. Others in our catalog include Constellation Clicker and PokéClicker. Naming the object you click tells players the whole first minute of the game.
Fresh ideas: Pebble Clicker, Comet Clicker, Dumpling Clicker, Fossil Clicker. A food or a small round object tends to work, because clicking it is already a satisfying image.
Watch out for: Clicker promises clicking. If your game is mostly idle after the first hour, the name sets the wrong expectation, and players who hate clicking will skip it.
04
Tycoon or Inc.: best for business and production chain idlers
Platform: 136 catalog titles contain Tycoon, 26 contain Inc
Business words signal an economy game: Egg, Inc. is the best-known Inc., and Tycoon appears in titles like Idle Miner Tycoon and Raccoon Valley Tycoon. The joke in Egg, Inc. is the gap between a humble product and a corporate name, which is the whole premise of the game.
Fresh ideas: Teapot Tycoon, Puddle, Inc., Moth Lamp Inc.
Watch out for: Tycoon is heavily used in mobile, so it can make a deep game look like an ad-driven one. Pair it with something specific and odd.
05
A pun on the genre: best for comedic games with one clear joke
Platform: Rare: 1 catalog title contains Capitalist
AdVenture Capitalist folds adventure and venture capitalist into one word, and the capital V shows the joke. Puns are rare in our catalog because good ones are hard to find, which is exactly why one that lands is memorable.
Fresh ideas: Ad Astra Capitalist, Compound Interest Kingdom, Grind Central.
Watch out for: A pun has to work when spoken and when typed. If people misspell it in search, you lose them; test it by saying it to someone and asking them to type it.
06
A coined compound word: best for Steam games that want a brand, not a description
Platform: 237 catalog titles are a single word
Many breakout games invented a word: Nodebuster, Bitburner, Spaceplan, Increlution, Trimps. Two short words jammed together (node plus buster, space plus plan) give you a unique search term and a name that fits on a small capsule.
Fresh ideas: Kilnwork, Starsifter, Mothforge.
Watch out for: A coined word says nothing about the genre, so the subtitle, capsule and short description must. Steam's search will find you; nobody will guess what you are.
07
The ... Tree: best for Modding Tree games and layer-based prestige designs
Platform: 53 catalog titles contain Tree
The Prestige Tree started a family, and games built on The Modding Tree often keep the word: The Game Dev Tree, The Communitree!, and many more in our Modding Tree games list. In that community the name tells players exactly what kind of game it is.
Fresh ideas: The Lichen Tree, The Ember Tree, The Tide Tree.
Watch out for: Outside the galaxy.click and Reddit crowd, Tree means nothing. If you plan to sell on Steam later, consider a name that stands on its own.
08
A theme + Incremental: best for web games aimed squarely at genre veterans
Platform: 64 catalog titles contain Incremental
Some games name the genre outright, the way Tree games do: Shark Incremental, Distance Incremental, Incremental Mass Rewritten and Advent Incremental. Incremental is the word the core community uses, so it signals depth and math rather than casual tapping.
Fresh ideas: Tide Incremental, Lantern Incremental, Glacier Incremental.
Watch out for: Casual players rarely search for incremental; they search for idle or clicker. Use this pattern when your audience is the community, not the general store.
09
Platform: Uncommon · strong on Steam
The Farmer Was Replaced is a whole premise in four words: automation took the farmer's job, and you are the one automating. Farmer Against Potatoes Idle and Cats are Liquid work the same way. A sentence title makes people curious enough to click.
Fresh ideas: The Moon Needs Mowing, Grandma Owns the Bakery.
Watch out for: Sentence titles are long. Check that the capsule logo is readable at Steam's smallest size, which Valve says the logo should nearly fill.
10
Platform: 32 catalog titles use a possessive
Rusty's Retirement names its robot and its situation, and the alliteration makes it stick. A named character gives players someone to care about and gives you a mascot for the capsule, the icon and every social post.
Fresh ideas: Bert's Bakery, Nana's Orchard.
Watch out for: Possessive names are awkward in URLs and some search boxes (the apostrophe). Decide on the spelling for your domain and social handles early.
11
A scale-up arc: from X to Y: best for games whose progression spans orders of magnitude
Platform: Uncommon · used by big-concept games
Cell to Singularity puts the entire progression in the title: from one cell to the singularity. Antimatter Dimensions and Universal Paperclips also promise scale, one with physics and one with a mundane object pushed to the universe.
Fresh ideas: Quark to Quasar, Seed to Sequoia, Dust to Dynasty.
Watch out for: The title is a promise. If the game ends long before the second word, players will say so in reviews.
12 · Ours
Mushies!: best for cute plural names with an exclamation mark
Platform: Browser, Steam
Mushies! is the site maintainer's own game, included as an honest case study of renaming. Its project files still carry the working title, Mushroom Village, which describes the game but is close to titles already in our catalog such as Mushroom Nook, Village Tale and Magic Mushrooms - Idle Game. The store name became Mushies!: a cute plural, short enough for a small capsule, with an exclamation mark that sets the tone. Our catalog has 43 titles with an exclamation mark.
Fresh ideas in this pattern: Snailies!, Pebbles!, Sproutlings!. The pattern suits cozy games with many small characters, because the name is what players call the characters too.
Watch out for: Google Play's metadata rules discourage repeated special characters, and punctuation can trip up search and file names. Use one exclamation mark at most, and register the version without it for domains and handles.