Not quite games but back when I was doing Flash cartoons in the 90s we had an elaborate scheme for naming art assets. It was something like: 3-4-dd-rhand-07 -

Not quite games but back when I was doing Flash cartoons in the 90s we had an elaborate scheme for naming art assets. It was something like: 3-4-dd-rhand-07 - episode 3, scene 4, dirty dog, right hand, from keyframe #7 (there were naming conventions for background elements too but they were somewhat looser IIRC) We had a cheat sheet for this with standard abbreviations for all the recurring characters, and a list of body part names. Everyone had a copy stuck to the wall or floating around their desk. I think that was an important part of what made it work. Don't expect new hires to pick it up by looking at the results of the naming scheme; codify it into a document you hand to them as part of orientation. (We also accessed a lot of this stuff visually; the file handed to an animator would have all of the keyframe drawings in each scene laid out in sequence, with the raw art separated out into individual parts and turned into named symbols right there on the working canvas.) All of this was something we hashed out over time; early stuff had a horrible mishmash of naming schemes. I'd advocate having a discussion about Organization as soon as possible, agreeing on a standard and sticking with it for new assets. Get the old stuff reorganized when you have a chance, maybe throw that task to an intern if you have one.