[saghm]

Being familiar with the concept isn't the same as being familiar with the term. The point that was being made by the parent comment that originally mentioned the term was that the game does not do a good job describing what it actually is to people who aren't already familiar with it. People who have never played a game in their life will know what the words "real", "time", and "strategy" mean, so I don't know how you can claim that it's anywhere close to the same thing.

[thaumasiotes]

Knowing what the word "strategy" means doesn't tell you anything about what a "real-time strategy game" is.

Even knowing what a "strategy game" is won't help, since the meaning of that term has shifted since "RTS" was derived from it.

Similarly, knowing that Sokoban means "warehouse guard" doesn't help you to know what to expect in a Sokoban game. But the fact that this is a common term familiar to ~everyone does.

When everyone around you is using a word with no problems, don't complain that you wish they'd all forget what it meant. Learn how to talk.

[saghm]

> When everyone around you is using a word with no problems, don't complain that you wish they'd all forget what it meant. Learn how to talk.

Literally this whole discussion started because someone else didn't know what it meant. No one said you should forget what it means, just that it's helpful to explain to other people so that they also will understand it in the future. Most people learn by asking questions and getting answers that explain things to them. The best way to get people not to learn is to incentivize them not to ask questions, which is exactly what you're doing by saying things like this.

[thaumasiotes]

> Literally this whole discussion started because someone else didn't know what it meant. No one said you should forget what it means

If you scroll up, you'll see that the discussion started when someone suggested that either the publisher, or the reviewer, should avoid "niche words like sokoban".

If we think they were talking about the review, that's pure nonsense; this is a review on "thinkygames.com".

If we think they were talking about the publisher, they're correct in spirit, but the advice to avoid not-actually-niche words like "Sokoban" is dead wrong. The publisher's page is intentionally uninformative. The description contains no information and the gameplay video contains no gameplay. I'd have to agree that that's an artistic choice that won't help to sell the game.

On the other hand, the user-defined tags on Steam aren't subject to that artistic choice, and they tell you right up front that this is a Sokoban game. That's how the game's player base describes the game. It's the only way they describe the game - the other popular tags are "puzzle", "indie", "difficult", singleplayer", and "cooking".

The advice "try not to let the people who'd be interested in your game know what it's about" is terrible advice.

(Tangent: I checked the user-defined tags for some other big games on Steam. Mostly they're extremely accurate. In one case, Vampire Survivors, the tags aren't very informative. But in that case, the video prominently displays a review quote that says "like popping bubble wrap to sick beats", which is an excellent description of the game.)