The archive includes the program as .jar and .sb. It is recomned to use the .sb, because it is faster and the list can be exported. You need Scratch to open the .sb. Rightclick the list to export the names as txt (Scratch only).
There are also a couple of .txt with outputted names.
You can create:
inn names: the program will try to start both parts with the same letter, e.g. Curious Captain
general names: the program will throw just some random letters together, e.g. Ozeev
and village names: the program will create a random British village name by combining 2 words typical for village names, e.g. Westhaven
It sucks, that you cannot upload .txt files here, but I uploaded a zip only with rendered names.
There are 11000 general names, 500 inn names and 500 village names included.
Here is a online version: http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/kddekadenz/2769055
Comments
If you're looking for name generators for games check out Seventh Sanctum, I've been using it for years.
Just checked it out.
It has more features, but you need to credit the author and it isn't open source.
From the "About" Page:
Yes, you're right, but I meant that the generators itself are not open source.
Seventh Sanctum offers a variety of good generators and I don't aim to compete directly with them. I just created the generators for fun and as a tool for me as game developer.
If you're looking for good British-like village names, I suggest to use my generator.
By the way, I just started a program, (which will take me about 1/2 year to finish) which creates procedural fairy tailes. They may be used as inspiration or as ingame books, etc. I'm planning on releasing it under an opensource license, too, but it will be German only (since it is my native language).
Oh, true! I totally missed your point the first time.
What language are you programming it in? That sounds quite interesting.
I'm programming it in Delphi, but I will use FreePascal to port it to other platforms then Windows, once I've finished it.
My idea how to handle it is pretty basic and requires a lot of work, but it will throw out some nice results. Basically the program chooses out of a list of premade plots and then narrates the chosen one. So it is less generating whole stories, but varying premade ones.
Oh and if I feel like, I will create an easy to use UI to create plots.
Crazy, :D I have never used Delphi.
Well, most great stories are similar in formula so this would work out pretty wonderfully if done right. I would love to see this be able to pull in 'world details' from the user, to help integrate it into their game / story / whatever they're using it for.
I guess I edited my post, while you were writing. The last line may fulfill your request.
I wonder: do you speak German?
Ah yes you did edit it while I was replying.
I do not speak it very well at all- I'm elementary at best. I primarily speak / write in English, Norwegian and Dutch. Why do you ask?
That's why I asked. Dutch is similar to German, though.
Will you be programming it so that there could be translations created?
Theoretically you could create translations, but it would be a lot of work if you do it by hand. I could use a translator, though, since they will be mostly single words or wordgroups.
About the UI stuff: a graphical drag&drop interface may be hard to create using Delphi. I think I will go with creating sort of a really simple programing language, stating to choose out of which words/wordgroups.
Here is an example, how it could look like:
This code would output you something like this:
Once upon a time, there lived a beautiful queen. One day she went inside a dark forest...
I don't think this is how it will look like - but it may be something similar.
I was thinking perhaps you could build it so that the language was in a language file (plain text) and that people could just add their own in a language folder / change the configuration to use their language file? That way it could be easily translated (Indo-European languages at least).
lang/de.txt
lang/en.txt
lang/no.txt
etc.
Having a programming script to create them would be neat and could possibly allow for people to create a 3rd party GUI?
Yes, good idea! It will shorten the source code a lot. But I need to check out, if it is performance-wise good.
About the programming script: Yes, I think that would save me a lot of work.
You could create a UI using any other programming language and then load the output of it into my program.
I still need to think about how the language exactly should look like.
Thank you, that was very helpful :)
I probably will send you a Beta version for testing next year. Could you please sent me a mail over my old site, so I have your mail adress then: http://kddekadenz.jimdo.com/support/ ?
It shouldn't affect the performance much at all. Pretty much all international programs and websites use a similar format for localizing into the user's language. It's pretty awesome because it means that you only have to code it once, haha.
I like the idea of having 3rd party GUIs, because I personally would love to build a web front-end for it (or even an Android one).
Sent you a message. You can always find me here too. :)
Where has this been all my life? Python is also useful fo writing quick word generators, I've don so for myself a few times.