Christian Video Games Without the Boring Morality

Is it possible to make a truly fun game that is also explicitly Christian? Many have tried and failed.

This is a brief chat about the approach I'm taking in my Old Testament adventure game, Ebenezer, to employ "tangential learning" to teach the message of the Bible without compromising the gameplay experience. More details at http://www.geero.net/bible-games.html

Find me on twitter at http://twitter.com/andygeers/

Category:

Gaming

Tags:

• christian
• video games
• christian video games
• tangential learning
• old testament adventure games
• point & click games
• adventure games
• lucasarts
• day of the tentacle

[Minority119]

well what do you know

a dude making a heavily religious game, and being smart at it

you have my respect, bro

I personally think a religious game would work fantastically as a Day of the Tentacle styled Point and Click

mostly about the fact that while that game was heavily based off the story of the USA, it made you play the events and teaching you about it without shoving them down your throat or expecting you to know it already

so yeah, good luck on your projects man

[andygeers]

@Minority119 Thanks for the encouragement. Totally agree with you about Day of the Tentacle

[andygeers]

@cr1tterp0wer And Mario failed because plumbing is boring?

[andygeers]

@ArmourCody Sounds cool. I think by "morality" I mean that kind of goody goody attitude that doesn't recognise the reality of our hearts and how corrupt they are - so I don't think we're as far apart in our thinking as you think.

[LkGibbs20]

Just put the link up, just replace where it says (dot) with an actual dot. Copy and past the link and put the dot where it says dot.

[andygeers]

@LkGibbs20 Thanks for the link. Do you have any specific thoughts on how a Christian game would work? I think it's all too easy to simply use the Bible as a *setting* for a game that ultimately has very little to do with Christianity, rather than genuinely making a *Christian* game.

[Poodleinacan]

@ImpliedBodyMan Hehe, I'm happy I know that game, so that I can use arguments to persons like the guy made a response to. Though, it's sad the makers of the game went bankrupt... And the asian companie that bought the online mode of the game made it crap (mostly like, pay to have good things), like replacing the zombies by stupid egyptian mummies...

[ImpliedBodyMan]

@Poodleinacan That's gotta be one of the funniest arguments that I've heard in a while "since you say violence is the devil, you would hate this game, and thus be on the Devil's side by not killing him virtually." Rrrright. So "To Kill is a Sin" has a caveat - dont kill (except in cases of virtual representation of the devil. Then Kill.)

Do ya think that God would have had ifs or buts? If you wanna be my friend, then you gotta get out and kill! kill! kill! some virtual devils

[FadedHum]

This was really quite brilliant, you've got fantastic points here. I hope you're considering entering game development.  I definitely believe its possible to create a great story expressing a Christian worldview, either explicitly such as in an epic Old Testament game, or subtly like C.S. Lewis and the Narnia books. The game just needs to be fun. I don't think morality is an inherently boring concept though, it just needs to be handled well.

[Poodleinacan]

@benjkeys ... You're kiding, right? You're telling me that you would hate killing demons and Satan in a video game?, because that's what Hellgate:London is about, and it's a freaking nice 3rd/1st person RPG made by former Diablo devs)... But since you say violence is the devil, you would hate this game, and thus be on the Devil's side by not killing him virtually.

[Jshmelo]

They should make a Christian video game that the whole idea of it is to wake the fuck up and stop believing in bull shit.

[Spiritualmindedify]

@cr1tterp0wer

that is the lamest comment EVER! you need to learn a little more in life, like writing the reason whyyyy!!

[OmegaF77]

Here's a suggestion: why not make an allegorical Christian video game? An "Allegory" means that it's a story that symbolizes something else. That's the type of game I want to create, not an explicit one...