I think the graphics adventure game genre would be good for any sort of religious or philosophical teaching. It's a genre you could make more based on everyday life, rather than shoe-horning in irrelevant logic puzzles or action sequences.

I think quest based RPG elements would factor in really well. Ala World of warcraft or diablo. Take for instance building the ark would require different quests to be completed and teaching a tale over the course of the event? Just like any other genera it can be done. The right person just needs to stop by.

According to the source material, Jesus had a lot of special powers. It'd be interesting to see a Jesus RPG with a whole tech-tree of them, presuming that the game's plot didn't inch too close to getting you beheaded by fundamentalists.

1. That might happen with Muslims (see European comic writer), not with Christians. As a Christian myself, I assure you we don't behead people for insulting our religion. (Or for anything short of mass murder, really - and that only in courts of law)

2. The very idea of Christ having to "level up" is ridiculous from my vantage point... He's God. There is no stone He cannot lift.


Angels, on the other hand... we know there are ranks of angels. We know they suffer human emotions to some extent (See: Pride, Lucifer). And we know they are capable warriors.

There's a Frank Peretti book called This Present Darkness which might make a reasonable game framework...

I've struggled with this a couple of times myself. In general, I've ended up with: "the Christian set of ideals does not translate well into video games". However, this probably just means that I haven't put in enough thought or I wasn't creative enough in my thinking.

Sure, if I just wanted to make a game that would capitalize on Christian themes in order to make a quick buck from the bible-belt, it would probably be pretty easy to do so. However, if I wanted to make a game that would provide some sort of deeper exploration of Christian themes, I'd be hard-pressed. Certainly I don't think the usual main-stream genres would translate well into Christian games. Christian FPSs (that I have seen) have just been a regular FPS with some Christian plotline tacked on. No killing of people, generally it's "demons" or something.

Anyway, my point was, if you want to make a Christian game purely to make money, I'm sure it wouldn't be that hard and there isn't much competition. However, if you want to make a game that confronts issues/explores moral choices/asks questions of the player, it's pretty hard to do so within most mainstream genres. As I think was mentioned, perhaps a graphical adventure game would be a good approach. I dunno.

Anyway, I just looked at what I wrote and it rambled quite incoherently! I'm not going to re-write it, so try and sort it out yourself! Hopefully you can wring some sense from it.

Quote:Original post by omicron1
1. That might happen with Muslims (see European comic writer), not with Christians. As a Christian myself, I assure you we don't behead people for insulting our religion. (Or for anything short of mass murder, really - and that only in courts of law)

While the violent tendencies aren't there, Christianity in America is renowned for its intolerance; even compared to run of the mill Muslims.


Back on topic: Every time I've seen this come up, the consensus has tended towards "yes, sort of". The key idea was that the game would be best if it centered around Christian ideals without explicitly invoking religion. Those of the faith would get the word out, and those of other faiths wouldn't feel excluded.

And I've met who think saying "This is wrong. You shouldn't do it." is intolerant... but enough on that.


I've had a sort of fragmented idea for a "Christian" genre for a while now... sort of a territory control genre. You capture territory (with evangelists), support it (with churches), and try to sap your opponents' support (by drawing their followers away). However, in practice it comes out either extremely slow-paced with not much to do, or so frenetic it's difficult to handle - and either way not particularly varied in application. It's sort of like a board game, really... but I've probably not played with the parameters enough.