A report on Garage Games website (thanks PlanetTribes) has news from Jeff "Lincoln" Tunnell that that V12 name they chose for their licensable version of the TRIBES 2 engine, while a very clever engine name (with its connection to the V-12, mother of all car engines, Garage Games, and all that), turns out to have been already taken. They will therefore be forced to make a rapid name change, the cost of failing to learn from the fate suffered by Hipnotic Interactive and Dream Design, who were forced to change names to Ritual and ION Storm, respectively, when it turned out both of those names had already been snagged. Here's the update:

Who would'a thought? We took three random characters, V and 1 and 2, and added them together to make up the name of our game engine. It kind of made sense because a V12 is actually a real life engine. Get it? GarageGames, engine. :)

Oh well, somebody beat us to it, and their lawyers are not amused. So, we need to change the name of the engine. As explained above the leading candidates are:

gV1 - Boring, but works because it is expandable. We will eventually have the gV2 or the gM3.

SpankDog Engine - Meaningless, but fun! If the owners of the Wild Dick microbrewry allow us to sell massive quantities of their beer, by the same name, we're in. Tim, Rick, and Mark were undergoing intense, secret negotiations with the brewery's owners last Friday night, making sure to sample as much of the brew as possible in order to make sure it is appropriate for use as our name.

We figure naming the game engine after their locally famous brew will help them create a national brand:) So, if they just agree to give us each a pint a week, we're in:)

More seriously, we have to change the name of the engine. Our time frame is short, since the owners of the trademark V12 do not like us taking most of the top search spots on Google. If you have any opinions about gV1 or SpankDog, let 'em fly. If you have any other ideas that might make a good game engine name, let us know.

Jeff Tunnell GG