Question for Christian Developers

Well, I'll start by saying that I'm not on the team, but loudmouths like me are a consequence of public forums.

With that out of the way, it's my opinion that if you make religion a play mechanic, it's going to be trivialized. Take it in the context of a means to an end. Is your faith a means to an end, or is it an end in itself? I think that, and I could be way off, that the point of your rules, customs, and rituals aren't just to reserve your seat in heaven, but exist to make you a better person. Worthy of heaven, if you will.

The path is continuous. You're never "done". You can't do fifty nice things and then have the leeway to strangle orphans.

So, if you don't want to trivialize it, it can't be a means to an end. It has to be the end itself. The point of the game is to continue playing the game.

If you're willing to adopt this perspective (as a game developer) then this lends itself to an open ended game, like SimCity. The point of SimCity was to not screw up. You could lose, but you could never win, really. So say you have SimSaint, or preferably something catchier and less lawyer-bait. The goal is to persevere. You are put in difficult situations, with questionable options. Sometimes, you can't find a perfect solution. Maybe you have to choose the lesser evil once in a while. The point is to become a pure soul, or as pure as you can in the time given. It should never be long enough. :)

Perhaps it's a game of conversion. People are influenced by many things. Some people have hard lives, and others don't worry about consequence. Try to get them to convert with a variety of strategies.

Perhaps an adventure style game, where you have a difficult, but very important task. Do you get there the easy way, or the pious way?

Most importantly, make sure there's free will. The player should have the option of being at least a little rotten, and may be forced into situations where that may be the best option, gameplay-wise. Points awarded for being a decent human being. Kind of like an anti-Postal.

Lastly, on the note of violence: It takes some pretty extenuating circumstances (or an antisocial personality) to take violence as the best option for a given situation. "Turn the other cheek" may keep in line with the teachings, but it would be a boring game. If you can't incorporate violence in a fun way that fits into your ethics, then leave it out altogether.

Then again, you could always center the game around historical conflicts. I suppose it comes down to how by-the-letter you want to do things. There's plenty of Christians firing off M-16s as you're reading this. They think they've found a situation that overrides that particular principle. I'm sure you can find one too.

Well, I'm not Christian, but to borrow off erissian's post,

Why not just go an alternative genre route? Not every game has to be a first person shooter bloodbath. The Nintendo DS is doing just fine with many popular, violence free games, as well as PopCap games. There are ways to spread the message you want to portray, without having to force it down by means of violence.

but Christianity, as with most major religions, has been founded on a culture of violence. Not representing this would be anti-dogmatic and misleading as to what makes this religion so wide spread. Not that this wouldn't be in line with many modern theologians wishes, it just wouldn't be very honest (didn't Jesus profess honesty?)

sorry for the undertones of sarcasm, I'm just jaded with religion right now.

If you are targeting your game at a specific segment of the population, then you have to ask yourself what do they expect and what will they like. I have a Christian background, but I don't go looking for Christian specific games and haven't seen any.
Last night I saw Joan of Arc (if I wrote that correctly) in french, which is a movie. Maybe it will make a good FPS. Whether you like it or not, bloodbaths have been part of Christianity and often Christians against Christians.
Or attack modern day issues like Christianity declining and churches closing.

Whatever you choose, the possibility of something very different than anything else out there exists.

I think that everything is in the eye of the beholder. You can interpret Doom as a Christian game. The incarnation of an Angel that must kill evil demons. But you could also consider Sims an evil game where people can have sex just for fun and betray their partners.

I don't think religions have any problem with violence. If we read their histories
most of them are close related to it[1].

Imagine a game of the Inquisition without violence.

Another option would be to consider sport games racing, football ...
lssilva

First off, I'd better point out I'm not really that Christian anymore, although I did go to church regularly when I was younger.

I have no problem with using the history of Christianity for a game, and basing a game around historical events such as Joan of Arc or the Crusades needs to have some sort of religious flavour to it. I also think the Judeo-Christian mythos can makes a interesting pretext for a game - if you wanted to make an action game about an athletic Catholic priest that slays demons then I think that would be fine.

However I don't like seeing developers taking inappropriate game ideas and then bolting on some Christian-lite ethics into it, because in my opinion it both weakens the game and cheapens the Christian message. Forgive me if I'm not clear on this, but I'm referring to the standard Christian games I see where (to take a common example) the developer takes a standard action game but instead of killing enemies the player "converts" them. In my view it just trivialises the religious aspects plus makes the game rather tacky.

I would like to see a game that intelligently approaches the issue of how to live like a proper Christian (or any other religion for that matter), as it would be a real challenge as a game developer to do well without it being overly preachy. I'd probably either make the game more about general ethics or Christian philosophy rather than specifically Christian items. Or if you really wanted to make it specifcally evangelical, you could make a story-based game (possibly an adventure game?) similar to Ben-Hur and not have the main character start off as a Christian but someone won over to Christianity.

I think if Christians really care about influencing other people, they should quit dicking around with abstract media and straighten out their lives first.

Put a fifty in the guy's coffee cup that sits outside your office. Grab that old lady that always sits around in the subway station and buy her lunch - yes, I know she smells funny. Meet people and do something for them personally.


When Christians get around to actually affecting the world positively for a change (isn't that what we're supposed to be doing?) then maybe someone will care about what we have to say in a game. Until then, I'm not interested in hypocrisy and mixed messages. What people with their time do says far more about their values and beliefs than what they cram into a video game.

What if, instead of it teaching Christianity, it teaches christian morals? Frown on murder, theft, torture, etc... Encourage peace, love, friendship, trust, forgiveness, and that sort of thing. These are ideas taught in the bible, and all people of all races and religions can embrace them.
Although this is a rather general sweep of the hand, and doesn't help much.

You mentioned Narnia; you could follow that and place people in worlds where, although there is violence, the player doesn't kill. Also in narnia, it doesn't mention Jesus or God, but rather uses other people to symbolize them. (Ashlan, and 'My father, the Emperor over the Seas') That might also be an idea.

Quote:

Making a game where your character prays to become more 'spiritual' to fight, just seems silly to me. I guess it has to do with making a mockery out of faith, but it seems more to me like it trivializes it or something.

It kinda makes it seem that praying is all there is to christianity. I don't mind so much when magic casters pray before casting a spell though, although I do wish they'd pray to better gods. [smile]

I agree not to hide the fact that the game was made by christians, but I wouldn't advertise it, either. I think it should be blatantly so, probably by the company logo, but I think stating 'Made by Christians' would be almost akin to using christianity to sell the game. Depends how it's displayed though.

I'm not at the point where I could create an entire game to release anyway, but it's good to think on.

[Edit:]
@ApochPiQ: Good point. But if you want to make a game as a hobby/job, why not make it teach good values while you are at it? I agree that we ought to be more publicly spiritual, and probably less trying to get them to convert. It's better to show the love of Jesus to one person, than to get ten people to go to church half-heartedly.

Note: I'm basically agnostic.

The only game I've played that had any imposing religious connotation whatsoever was Mistmare, and I felt uncomfortable even though it was a completely fictional religion and universe.

My advice is to consider this carefully: If you're bringing religion into a game, is it for the sake of the game or the religion?

If it's for the sake of the game, then try to water it down and focus on other things (like having fun!) so that you don't make people like me uncomfortable.

If it's for the religion, then make sure you explicitly mention that when you release the game, and people like me will know early on that it's not our type of game. Your target audience will be smaller, and perhaps more critical of the game.


Personally I believe that games should just be fun / exciting. Books are the best place for serious philosophy.

the last post was me, banme, tnx.

Well, actually am a muslim... Never the less, I think I have something to say..
A totally different path to take in the game development is to make the judgement only due at the end of the game (or at the ends of life of different people).. So although the player actually finished his goal in a level and then died by an enemy bullet, heart disease, .... He will either go to heaven or will go to hell..

If you will, you can take the idea from here and develop it for different characters and the like...
Good luck

The game the OP mentioned is in the news :)
Left Behind
http://videogames.yahoo.com/newsarticle?eid=498770&page=0

I'm a Christian and take my religion very seriously (though we can all stand to improve!).

So, I think we're missing something crucial here.

First, I think it's absolutely true that making religion a game mechanic trivializes it; I'm not really that excited about Eternal Forces, first for this reason, and more generally because I think the "game for the sake of religion" concept both trivializes Christianity, AND uses the pretense of game play as a mask. I think what we should be focusing on is how to help people FEEL what it is to be a Christian, and the joy and hope and peace that it brings.

How do we do this? Definitely not through clever gameplay mechanics. It is virtually unheard of that gameplay mechanics have ever helped players to FEEL something.

What is critical in that department is Story, Character Development, dialogue and character introspection, etc. I've been thumbing through the book "Creating Emotion in Games" by David Freeman, and while my purpose isn't to advocate a particular text (especially as I haven't spent much time with it yet), I do think those are the kinds of principles we need to apply to games in order to accomplish the objective.

Oh, and what is the objective? We'd better be darn sure we understand that up front! In my case if I'm going to develop a "Christian" game, what I really mean is I have two objectives: To glorify God, and to invite others to Come unto Christ.

There are many good examples in film and literature, but unfortunately I don't know of any in games as of yet.

As far as I can think of right now, there are two different ways to approach this.

1) Use Symbolism -- a technique employed heavily not only by Lewis, but also by the Holy Prophets and Apostles -- and the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. The idea is to use subtle, yet direct, representation to refer to sacred subjects. That way we're not in as much danger of treading on sacred things, and we don't necessarily have to be 100% precise (Lewis' Aslan wasn't necessarily a PERFECT representation of Christ, but we got the point). We can use some creative license to keep even a unique story cohesive. Also, symbolism has the added beauty of being multi-faceted; a single symbol or combination of symbols can refer to many different principles and aspects.

2) Just tell a story. Make it as real and direct as you like. But be serious about it. Don't put your character in a bogus situation; put him/her in a scenario that we can somehow relate to, even if it's hypothetical. Let the character tell his/her own story. Put him/her in a very difficult situation, perhaps one that tests his morals and his faith. Make it hard for the character, yet easy for the player, to follow the right path. Don't force the player to be the Disciple -- let the player help the character through the physical trials, while the character works out the emotio-spiritual aspects for him/herself as the player observes. Thus the player is free to be drawn into the character and empathize with him/her, without feeling forced into the role.

Quote:

Original post by ApochPiQ I think if Christians really care about influencing other people, they should quit dicking around with abstract media and straighten out their lives first. Put a fifty in the guy's coffee cup that sits outside your office. Grab that old lady that always sits around in the subway station and buy her lunch - yes, I know she smells funny. Meet people and do something for them personally. When Christians get around to actually affecting the world positively for a change (isn't that what we're supposed to be doing?) then maybe someone will care about what we have to say in a game. Until then, I'm not interested in hypocrisy and mixed messages. What people with their time do says far more about their values and beliefs than what they cram into a video game.

I think this guy said it best. The problem as I see it, making "Religous" games that focus more on what someone interperts as being the "Correct" way to behave in a religous setting, as opposed to free thinking, and free will. The trouble with making "Religous" focused games is that, SO much of the bible is left to interpertation, that it makes it hard to give the player the ability to make choices freely without making them feel guilty as a religous person, espically since most likely your target audience is a religous person.

I think the best way to go about making games with religon in it is to simply focus more on the historical side of the events that may or may not have occured, and avoid making the player feel or think that they are a bad person because they didn't follow what YOU, as the designer felt was the correct way to behave. I think you should play Fable, if at all possible, because they did an excellent job allowing the player "Free Will". The player was given a background story, and then allowed to choose how to react to that. In turn, they had the choice to get revenge, going off normal human emotions of wanting to get revenge for a loved one. At the same time, the player could also decide not to get revenge and forgive the unfortunate events that had happend to the players parent. One other thing that should be pointed out about this game is that JUST deciding to get revenge or not, did not immeadiately affect how the character was portrayed. How you acted and treated people, also very much affected the characters appearance. So if you went around helping people, and being nice, then the character looked like a very caring and hansom person. However if the player decided to be mean and rotten, steal, lie, cheat, and kill, then they took on the appearnce of someone who was very scary and evil looking.

This allows the player to choose how they as an individual person, with their own set of moral values would react to the given situation.

Follow in the footsteps of Tolkien and Lewis: Just make the game you want. They didn't really sit down and look for ways to translate Christianity into book form; they wrote stories they wanted to tell. Yes, Lewis had to ask himself, "If Aslan is Christ, then what would He do in this situation?", but that's different from asking, "What should I have a Christ-figure do to teach people about Christianity?".

Just keep Christianity as one of your underlying assumptions and you'll make a fine "Christian game".

I don't think Christian games need be (or should be) any different from other games, nor do they need to be based on biblical events or even events similar to biblical events, rather they should focus on Christian values. I don't think Christian games need to "preach" to the player, in fact, doing so may put non-Christian players off playing, but you will probably want a neutral game which Christians would feel comfortable playing.
Also, I disagree to using religion (or a God figure or whatever) as a game mechanic. It seems to me to be like an idol or something and probably anti-Christian and therefore counterproductive. Just a thought.
As far as violence is concerned, I think you would want to downplay it, but you need not eliminate it completely (though the player should probably play a "good" role and you should probably avoid gore and profanity).

Regarding changing mana points to aura and such, I personally don't think thats a good idea really as far as Christianity goes. Spiritual powers sort of seem anti-Christian to me, regardless of what you call them. Kind of like what you said in your third paragraph. If I were making a Christian game, I would avoid things like that, but thats just me.

EDIT: Servant of the Lord pretty much said what I wanted to.

Quote:

Original post by arithma Well, actually am a muslim... Never the less, I think I have something to say.. A totally different path to take in the game development is to make the judgement only due at the end of the game (or at the ends of life of different people).. So although the player actually finished his goal in a level and then died by an enemy bullet, heart disease, .... He will either go to heaven or will go to hell.. If you will, you can take the idea from here and develop it for different characters and the like... Good luck

Actually, I think this is a pretty good idea. The player does the best they can, but you never really know if it's enough until it's too late. I would grade liberally, though.

Secondly, after reading some of the other posts, and taking into account how difficult it would be to make an explicitly Christian game: Consider making the game allegorical. Trying to literally make a game mechanic based on the bible is likely to disenfranchise the people you're making the game for. Christianity is a fairly diverse religion when it comes down to the details, and programs are all about the details. Can you really lay out a path that pleases the Orthodox, Catholic, and Mormons all at once?

Try to create a fictional scenario with characters based on the archetypes of Christianity. Put the player in a position where they are encouraged to act out the basic tenants of the belief.

Lastly, I think that it's too big of a problem to address "Christian games." Try to get a little less abstract. Consider genres individually: What would a Christian FPS be like? Christian RTS? Christian Tetris? (All crosses? :D)

Is there a genre you're specifically interested in, or are you trying to get a feel for which genres would work best, without considering mechanics right away?

OK, one more thing: Have you considered consulting with the leader of your church for ideas? They may not necessarily know what makes for a fun game, but I'm sure they can help you decide what to focus on. Maybe something they say will give you an inspiring idea.

Well as far as christain development goes i would like to see a game that talks about faith in its positive and negative ways. We as christains can say that our faith does good and god is great but... faith does negative things. As a christian our church is prejudice towards different things that the bible speaks out against and does start wars. Take for example the Crusades, those are holy wars and i would say that atleast 50% of wars have something to do with faith.
I think a good christian game would change the way we think through videogames.

Just a note on all those comments about religion being the cause of war: Generally speaking, I don't believe that Christianity (nor most other religions) has caused war, or has been the root cause of a war. War has most often been initiated out of the same root cause: Pride -- selfish men wanting to gain power over others.

Many times throughout history men have used Religion -- Christianity, Islam, whatever -- as an excuse to fight to gain power over another nation or people. The religion itself had little to do with it. There are rare exceptions, some of which we can read of in the Bible, where God commanded His people. But I don't believe the Crusades (the most commonly cited example), nor most other instances, fall under this category.

Now there are many instances in which a religious (or other) group has fought to defend themselves, particularly (for this discussion) to defend their beliefs and their rights to worship as they desire. I don't think I'd consider that to be a cause of war, but rather a natural and justifiable response to oppression -- the oppression itself being the root cause of the war. Again, I don't consider religion to be the primary motivator in such cases.