Blam!
Blam! is a term often prevalent throughout Bungie-related releases, particularly prevalent around the release of the original Halo: Combat Evolved. The term was popularised during the early development of the game, during which time the game had a string of temporary codenames - first Armor and later Monkey Nuts - the latter replacing the former due to ensuring the game could not ship with a title as boring as Armor. As production continued, Jason Jones was unable to bring himself to tell his mother he was working on a game called Monkey Nuts - prompting a name change to Blam!.[1]
The Blam! phrase originated in Bungie's Chicago offices - the office was located near a busy street and would often experience numerous near-collisions between cars. After hearing screeching tires outside with no audible crash, Robert McLees would yell "Blam!" so there was "a sense of completion."[1] The phrase was also used in local multiplayer games, often exclaimed after killing another player. Overall, references to the Blam! phrase date back as far as Bungie's 1992 game Minotaur: The Labyrinths of Crete, showing up in Myth, Oni and Marathon.[2]
The phrase was applied as the new name for the in-development game, which would later go on to be called Halo. The trademarks for Blam.net and Blam.org were filed in March 1998.[3] The first public mentions of the Blam project were shown in 1999, with the Bungie webcam displaying the name.[4] Blam! would become the name of the game engine developed by Bungie for Halo, and their later games such as Destiny.[5]
During their Halo tenure, the term "Blam!" was used to censor curse words on the Bungie.net forum, the Weekly Updates,[6] and to censor inappropriate content names in Halo 3 and Halo: Reach. An occasional glitch occurs in Halo 3 in which a player can name a map or game variant anything, regardless if it is inappropriate or not, and a notice of censorship will pop up telling you that its name must be "Blam!".
Due to its status as an element of the "Bungie mythos", the Blam! terminology has not been frequently employed by 343 Industries. However, it did appear in Halo 4 to censor inappropriate content names. In its early years, the studio used the term Yoink! - based on the Yoink medal in Halo: Reach - for censoring words in forums and developer updates - though this has also fallen out of practice.
SourcesEdit
- ^ a b The Art of Halo, page 9
- ^ marathon.bungie.org, Marathon's Story... The History of Blam! (Retrieved on Jul 11, 2022) [archive]
- ^ marathon.bungie.org, Bungie's Domain Name Registration Info (Retrieved on Jul 11, 2022) [archive]
- ^ halo.bungie.org, E3 Shenanigans (Retrieved on Jul 11, 2022) [archive]
- ^ GDC Vault, Lessons from the Core Engine Architecture of Destiny (Retrieved on Sep 22, 2021) [archive]
- ^ Bungie.net, Legendary Map: Avalanche (Retrieved on Jun 20, 2019) [archive]
External linksEdit
- Marathon's Story... The History of Blam! - a long-form history of the Blam! terminology in Bungie's pre-Halo titles.