This article was originally posted on Kongregate's Developer Blog.
I'm pretty sure I've designed more achievements in games than anyone else on the planet.
I don't make this claim lightly. I've been making badges at Kongregate for 10 years now, with nearly 3,000 achievements total. I wrote a popular Gamasutra article about how to design them, and later spoke at GDC about achievement design.
I've gotten this down to a science. Play a game (until you know it inside and out), identify potential tasks, filter out the bad ones (see above Gamasutra article), expand on the best ones, carefully set the thresholds (not too easy, not too long/frustrating), decide what difficulty it should be, ensure it highlights the best the game has to offer, make sure all the technical API submissions are working properly, find a relevant image, crop/resize it, BOOM, done!
...except, wait, no, it needs a name. Dammit. That's always the hardest part.
Whenever I speak with developers during the achievement-making process, I always give them a chance to suggest names if they want, and about 90% of the time their response is, "I'm not good at coming up with achievement names." Well, no, no one is. It's hard. They don't exactly teach this in school. I've been doing this for a decade and it's still really hard. In fact, maybe it's even harder for me now because I've already strip-mined the depths of my subconscious for anything usable as an achievement name (they're all unique on Kongregate).
So this article is an attempt at explaining a process (yes, there is a process -- I'm not just staring at the ceiling for no reason) that most game developers will need to go through at some point (achievements are everywhere now), while at the same time admitting that it's really hard and I'm still not super great at it.
From there we'll explore, more broadly, what the value is in adding these sorts of little details to your game.
Tier 1 Achievement Names: Cultural References
The first step to coming up with an achievement name is brainstorming mental associations. ANY mental associations. The best achievement names usually take some reference to something and change that reference slightly in such a way that is relevant to the achievement task. This is super important. Unless there is some special context (elaboration to follow), you can't just reference something letter-by-letter and have that count as a joke.
Welcome to Medical Mechanica Children's Hospital!
And you shouldn't just tweak that reference in such a way that is irrelevant to the subject matter of the game/achievement, either. Ideally, players should understand the reference being made, what the connection is between that reference and the game/achievement task, and how that relates to the small change you've made. It is ultimately the strength of the connection between the material being referenced and the idea that you're presenting in the achievement design that will determine how good of a name it is. Additionally, the name should stand on its own and make sense to someone even if they don't get the reference. You shouldn't have to explain that it's a reference for the name to make sense; that should be an added layer.
Chippin' Dale
The developer actually came up with the name for this Slayaway Camp badge, which requires the player to push a character named Dale into a wood chipper. This name would be 100% perfect if there were a stronger relationship between male strippers/Rescue Rangers and Slayaway Camp, but it's basically perfect otherwise.
Words with Fiends
Words Warriors is a word-themed game with a badge that references another word-themed game, with tiny a word-themed tweak that reflects a key difference (you're fighting enemies with words in this one).
The Band Before Time
This badge in Super Crazy Guitar Maniac Deluxe 4 requires the player to get a high score on a song called "Dinosaur Dance Floor" -- the Land Before Time reference here wouldn't really work without that detail.
Raiders of the Lost Bark
This Indiana Jones reference in Raiders Took My Dog is somewhat obvious, if only because it fits so perfectly -- it could practically be the title of the game itself. The "Golden Achiever" badge name in this game is also pretty good, and both of these names actually came from the forums, so I can't claim any credit. (Thanks for all your name suggestions, Precarious!)
One caveat, which is going to directly contradict everything else in this section: References don't have to be changed if they're common/generic enough phrases or if they relate strongly enough to the game/achievement subject material to stand on their own even aside from being references to something. Here are some examples:
Where the Sidewalk Ends
Dead End St. is a game that's themed around streets and sidewalks, and the badge is themed around reaching the end. Also, the Shel Silverstein book/poem by the same name was referencing an already common concept.
The Way the Cookie Crumbles
You need to defeat a giant cookie in Burrito Bison Revenge to earn this badge. The phrase is generic enough to use as-is, and the added bonus here is that the phase is usually intended as a metaphor, but in this case it's more literal (taking metaphorical colloquialisms and applying them literally to achievement tasks is another great little formula when it makes sense).
"And It Was All Yellow"
Quoting relevant song lyrics appears in Kongregate badges somewhat regularly, but none apply as perfectly as the badge name in Yellow. In fact, the game itself seems structured around the Coldplay song by the same name -- the whole point of the game is literally turning the screen "all yellow." This name probably took about 5 seconds to come up with, which is something I wish were more normal...
Operation Market Garden
I'm breaking my own rules again with this name in Bunny Flags -- I didn't change the reference, and it's not a generic phrase (in fact, it's so obscure that no one would understand it as a reference if I changed anything). But rules can be broken if there's a good enough reason -- in this case, Bunny Flags is already very military-themed, and the badge requires the player to complete all of the garden levels. It makes perfect sense just on its own (arguably more sense than the actual military operation by the same name).
Tier 2 Achievement Names: Wordplay
This can overlap a bit with the former group, if the achievement name is both a cultural reference AND a play on words:
Peddle to the Medal
Swords & Potions is a game about running a shop and selling equipment to adventurers. There's a common phrase being referenced here, but only the spelling (not phonetics) of that phrase is altered. Bonus for two words being changed this way!
Raze the Roof
Another common phrase with only the spelling and not phonetics changed appears in this Villainous badge. You're literally destroying villages to earn this badge, so it fits perfectly.
Land Blown Under
I don't know how perfectly this badge name in Sydney Shark fits this category, but I still like it a lot. The game is themed around Australia, and you earn the badge by nuking Sydney. This badge name would be perfect if the phonetics were somehow the same between "down" and "blown," but whatever, the words look similar enough at least, right?
Causal Gamer
This badge name in Chronotron, suggested by the developer, is one of my favorites on the whole site. The game is all about manipulating time and causality, and the nature of the reference is relevant to the game itself (or a related industry, at least). I also love that the "reference tweak" here is so subtle that some players thought it was an unintentional misspelling.
Felis Navidad
This perfect (purrrfect? sorry) badge name in Christmas Cat is another one that came from the forums, so again I claim no credit (you guys wanna write the next article?). Here we have the song Feli-- ah, you know what, you can figure this one out.
But even if you're not referencing anything specifically, there's a lot you can do with just playing around with words themselves:
