Review: Serendipity

In keeping with the last (and my first) post, I'm reviewing another generator site today. Serendipity Generators, at nine.frenchboys.net, is a site you can find through the sidebar or Seventh Sanctum. Serendipity is similar to the Sanctum in that it is a conglomerate of different generators. However, Serendipity, unlike the Sanctum, is nowhere near as exhaustive. In fact, recently (like, as of 9/12/12), the site has been undergoing some changes that have caused the full list of generators to be unavailable.

Serendipity is probably best known for the French name generators, though they also have Japanese, Medieval (which is really more English) and Fantasty name generators as well. (Just a hint, the beginning of the word links to female generators, the end to male.)

Usefulness: 3 out of 5

Serendipity can be incredibly useful, in a limited scope. The naming generators are the best. They provide accurate sounding names that are not going to confuse your reader. The City and Stronghold generators provide a good chunk of text describing your possible locations. However, with some of the generators missing, this site is almost useless compared to the Sanctum. It eeks into a 3 solely because of the varied modern name generators it provides- a counterpoint to the Sanctum's primarily Fantasy ad SciFi namers.

Fun: 2 out of 5

Noooot really anything fun going on with the current selection. Not that that's a problem. All the generators do their job splendidly. It's just, nothing's funny, nothing's particularly interesting about the site. It's a generator site and that's that.

Hipster: 3 out of 5

This is a little hard to judge. Serendipity IS on the Sanctum's linklist. Therefore it cannot be completely obscure. Plus, the site explains that spammers took down the full generator list. This means that its got a following, for sure. However, because I have been unable to 1) google it (it is not present in the first page of a "serendipity" google search, which is partly due to an overused name) or 2) connect it to any big name websites (besides the Sanctum), I must assume that Serendipity is at least a little bit obscure. Writers may pass it around their inner circle, but it has a relatively small presence on the web.