Why 'winkeltje' and not 'little store'?

[Jackhammer (Wholf)]

I think making it to 'little store' will reach more people as they don't know (most people) what winkeltje stands for..

[Tino]

When coming up with a name we wanted something that was not as generic as Shopkeeper or Little Store and stay in line with the western European inspiration and influences that drive the development of the game. While it is a word that people globally are not immediately familiar with, we do think that it visually stands out and that it does well in search engines enough to justify going for this name.

[sp3lfanaaT]

Originally posted by Tino:

When coming up with a name we wanted something that was not as generic as Shopkeeper or Little Store and stay in line with the western European inspiration and influences that drive the development of the game. While it is a word that people globally are not immediately familiar with, we do think that it visually stands out and that it does well in search engines enough to justify going for this name.

Nice of you to use a different name then the default word shop.

Winkel is a store : Dutch call a store winkeltje, shopping would be winkelen but many times they use the word shoppen , not shopping, only when people speaking English they say shopping to make it clear they mean a store where you can buy things.


Google translates winkel as einkaufen which is not 100% correct, einkaufen is simply shoppen or inkopen ( Dutch for einkaufen and shopping).

Anyway Dutch seems easy to learn, and it might be easy, but to master it , it takes more then recognizing some words because they sound familiar to words used in other languages like German and English.

The Netherlands have one other official language : Frisian (Fries) which is spoken in the Northern province of Friesland.
So every county has its dialects the best part is many Dutch will always try to speak English , while in many other countries local people might not want to, or aren't able to at least try and speak English seems they prefer visitors to use the local language.

Simple example: kick , kick(ing) would be called schop(pen), but schoppen also means spades like ace of spades on a card, and there are more words that might confuse .... so good luck speaking fluent Dutch if you are not a translator who knows dozens of languages and speaks all of them fluently.

[Jackhammer (Wholf)]

Originally posted by sp3lfanaaT:

Originally posted by Tino:

When coming up with a name we wanted something that was not as generic as Shopkeeper or Little Store and stay in line with the western European inspiration and influences that drive the development of the game. While it is a word that people globally are not immediately familiar with, we do think that it visually stands out and that it does well in search engines enough to justify going for this name.

Nice of you to use a different name then the default word shop.

Winkel is a store : Dutch call a store winkeltje, shopping would be winkelen but many times they use the word shoppen , not shopping, only when people speaking English they say shopping to make it clear they mean a store where you can buy things.


Google translates winkel as einkaufen which is not 100% correct, einkaufen is simply shoppen or inkopen ( Dutch for einkaufen and shopping).

Anyway Dutch seems easy to learn, and it might be easy, but to master it , it takes more then recognizing some words because they sound familiar to words used in other languages like German and English.

The Netherlands have one other official language : Frisian (Fries) which is spoken in the Northern province of Friesland.
So every county has its dialects the best part is many Dutch will always try to speak English , while in many other countries local people might not want to, or aren't able to at least try and speak English seems they prefer visitors to use the local language.

Simple example: kick , kick(ing) would be called schop(pen), but schoppen also means spades like ace of spades on a card, and there are more words that might confuse .... so good luck speaking fluent Dutch if you are not a translator who knows dozens of languages and speaks all of them fluently.

I live in Friesland yeet

[Baku]

I agree that the name has a special charm that compensates for the foreign language, although it may look very weird indeed to some people :D

Apart from that though, it's definitely doing well in search engines! I just googled the word 'Winkeltje,' and right at the bottom of page one is a link to the steam store page :) Not sure if it's the same for most people since Google does personalize its search results, but I still thought that was very cool!

[sp3lfanaaT]

Originally posted by Zen:

I agree that the name has a special charm that compensates for the foreign language, although it may look very weird indeed to some people :D

Apart from that though, it's definitely doing well in search engines! I just googled the word 'Winkeltje,' and right at the bottom of page one is a link to the steam store page :) Not sure if it's the same for most people since Google does personalize its search results, but I still thought that was very cool!

yes the name of a game does matter.... i seen many games that imo were evry good but because of the game name being to common it was hard to find walk through videos, if your game has a name that is or almost sounds like the name of a movie band, or movie, or famous blog then videos about that game are hard to find, in case of winkeltje its a good choice.

[sp3lfanaaT]

Originally posted by Shadix96:

Originally posted by sp3lfanaaT:

Nice of you to use a different name then the default word shop.

Winkel is a store : Dutch call a store winkeltje, shopping would be winkelen but many times they use the word shoppen , not shopping, only when people speaking English they say shopping to make it clear they mean a store where you can buy things.


Google translates winkel as einkaufen which is not 100% correct, einkaufen is simply shoppen or inkopen ( Dutch for einkaufen and shopping).

Anyway Dutch seems easy to learn, and it might be easy, but to master it , it takes more then recognizing some words because they sound familiar to words used in other languages like German and English.

The Netherlands have one other official language : Frisian (Fries) which is spoken in the Northern province of Friesland.
So every county has its dialects the best part is many Dutch will always try to speak English , while in many other countries local people might not want to, or aren't able to at least try and speak English seems they prefer visitors to use the local language.

Simple example: kick , kick(ing) would be called schop(pen), but schoppen also means spades like ace of spades on a card, and there are more words that might confuse .... so good luck speaking fluent Dutch if you are not a translator who knows dozens of languages and speaks all of them fluently.

I live in Friesland yeet

Friesland was in the news because of Sinterklaas

[Arestris]

Originally posted by Tino:

When coming up with a name we wanted something that was not as generic as Shopkeeper or Little Store and stay in line with the western European inspiration and influences that drive the development of the game. While it is a word that people globally are not immediately familiar with, we do think that it visually stands out and that it does well in search engines enough to justify going for this name.

As German, who lives near the dutch border, I like the choice of the name. I saw this and assumed directly, it must be a dutch developer. ;)

[kiwicalifornia]

Im looking at this from a purely english speakers perspective and I'll say in advance I mean no offence to people here that dont speak english as a first language. As stated, the name of a game is very important and the naming probably needs to be driven by whatever language the majority of the devs clients speak. If the majority are Dutch then Dutch it is. If the majority of the customers speak english then consideration needs to be given to that because they will be the people spending money.

I am a fan of these "tycoon/sim" type games and I found this purely by chance but when I googled it to see if it was available on xbox outside of Nederland, it was difficult because I wasnt spelling the name correctly. Perhaps the name could have both dutch and english and be called "Winkeltje - The little shop" that way it would appear in search engines better for both languages.

I love the concept so far and personally dont have an issue with the name (now that I know how to spell it). Just my 2 cents worth :)

[CoLS Firestar]

TBH, I can't even pronounce this. There's no way I can recommend or talk about this game to other people. My friends (who see my game pop up) have told me they can't pronounce it either.
It makes me sad that I can't tell others about this game because the answer is "I have no idea. Something with a W in it"

I do agree that a generic name is a bad choice, especially when you can't google it.

[Jackhammer (Wholf)]

Originally posted by CoLS Firestar:

TBH, I can't even pronounce this. There's no way I can recommend or talk about this game to other people. My friends (who see my game pop up) have told me they can't pronounce it either.
It makes me sad that I can't tell others about this game because the answer is "I have no idea. Something with a W in it"

I do agree that a generic name is a bad choice, especially when you can't google it.

Its like "wink ol tjeu" (use google translator or something for the voice)

[Aceria]

In a way we totally agree with you all. It's definitely not the easiest to pronounce. I do have to add that I completely disagree with renaming to something generic. I personally really dislike the trend of games being named something insanely generic and bland.

Either way, back to the issue at hand. We've added the subtitle "The Little Shop" as a test (just on Steam for now). First of all I'm curious to see how the steam algorithm picks that up, but it should also make it easier to actually talk about the game (assuming that searching for "little shop" in steam will actually bring it up). Let us know what you all think, we hope this'll make it easier for everyone to talk about the game!

EDIT: this will probably take a bit to get through Steam's caching

[Andromus]

Personally, I think the main character is 100% absent from the game, she might as well be a robot with no name atm, I still can't pronounce this games name, I call it winkeldew cuz my house still plays stardew..I think the character herself should be in the sub title instead of "the" little shop...whatever her name is, did you guys giver her one?

[Cozy Fawn]

Just to laugh at the YouTube let's players try to say the name I'd bet LUL

[Jackhammer (Wholf)]

Originally posted by Ambi:

Just to laugh at the YouTube let's players try to say the name I'd bet LUL

Batking made a video and i laughed

[Andromus]

I feel like her names Lola....lol