Considering the post about the game Left Behind: Eternal Forces (since closed), I was wondering what Christian developers do now. As a new(er) Christian (raised in Church, but went my own way), from what angle should we as game makers be taking on our craft? Considering the wide range of responses from both secular and religious buffs about EF, how is this a further lesson to what needs to be done? 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. I guess some people may be reached by EF, though it seems unlikely to me. Violence is where Churches have different opinions, such as what types are appropriate, if at all. Should we really be printing "made by Christians" on a violent game, or just leave that label quietly behind the scenes? J.R.R. Tolkein and C.S. Lewis both predicted violent worlds (MiddleEarth and Narnia respectively) metaphoric of spiritual warfare, and yet they seem to be very widely accepted by the church. Honestly, I'm not really sure about what to do about all of this. Right now I'm setting to just hiding behind metaphors, if I were to create a game targeted at attempting to "save" people. In my current project, I changed "mana points" to "aura" , partially for spiritual reasons, though it also makes backstory more interesting and I haven't seen the term used elsewhere (it also has other effects, such as having more stocked aura helps resist opponents abilities). Is there anyone who has guidance on what to do, or has any related tales of what they've come up with about this?

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.