What would make a Christian video game good?

[Lanolin]

Heres one thing you can decide in video games.
You can decide to bin worthless video games and stop playing them when they take up too much space.

at least with this God video game, every seventh day, it will say STOP and have a rest. Thats so you dont play it compulsively and starve yourself to death holed up in front of a screen.

 

[Lanolin]

your subjects can have their prayers answered by you. You can choose which ones to answer.

 

[Lynx]

Heres one thing you can decide in video games.
You can decide to bin worthless video games and stop playing them when they take up too much space.

at least with this God video game, every seventh day, it will say STOP and have a rest. Thats so you dont play it compulsively and starve yourself to death holed up in front of a screen.

Wow... You really do paint with a broad brush!

Only MMO players play like that. And only a few of them, just enough to give the rest a bad name.

 

[BlueTheComposer]

your subjects can have their prayers answered by you. You can choose which ones to answer.

This "game" is sounding more blasphemous now. I could see a lot of Christians not wanting to play it and a lot of non-Christians wanting to play it for all the wrong reasons.

 

[Subhumanoidal]

There's only two options when making a Christian game.
A ) Making it cheesy and preachy and hyperspiritualized. Basic graphics. The type many here have suggested. Best suited for 50-somethings and 5 year olds. And no Non-Christians would want to get near.

B ) Don't make it Christian, but based off of some Christian concepts, that are stretched to not be accurate.

That's the problem with Christian movies and video games. There's really no room in the middle. But I think it's even more true for games.
Either way you can't really represent evil without someone getting offended. So if you do a good vs evil game, how do you create an immersive bad guy?
It's like this old Christian movie from the 90s, about boxing. Kind of a Rocky ripoff actually. But they wanted to paint the bad character clearly and the only way to do that was show him being bad. So insert the scenes of the rich, famous bad guy on his private jet, drinking alcohol with a woman in a tight dress on each arm. And other such portrayals, which then offended many Christians, especially those that took their children to see the movie.
So you can't do that, thus you have to just talk about him and what a bad guy he is, which looses something in the storytelling.
Hence the only option left are things which would be best suited as a game for phones that's "relaxing".

 

[Lynx]

The more I think of this, the more appealing a David-running-from-Saul RTS sounds. You could have villages David takes care of, members of the army who joined him, money and supplies to manage, and a detection meter... when you do something it increases the detection meter, when you don't do anything the detection meter slowly subsides, and when you do enough to make the meter fill up Saul knows where you are and you have to relocate and start all over again.

You could also have a track-and-field style game where your character is in training for the Israelite army. Or a stealth mission where your character is tasked with assassinating a key figure the Bible says got killed. (Bonus if you get through the whole game without ever being spotted or killing anybody except the target.)

 

[Blain]

Since I like making games and we have a few gamers here, I thought I'd ask what would a Christian video game be like? All the so-called "Christian" games out there already are pretty bad, but why? Is it the genre? Story? Gameplay? If I were to make a "Christian" video game, what do you think it should be like? I know there's a lot of historical stories in the bible that make great movies, but I couldn't not see them translating very well into video games. Well, not unless they had a Lego rendition of them or something like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings since they would be pretty linear. What are your thoughts?

I actually had a very detailed plan on one I tried to make. I love rpg games and love the idea of using turn based moves and attacks on them and wanted to have a Christian based one

My idea was you start as either a male or female and you are sleeping in your bed when an angel comes to visit you and this angel tells you that God has chosen you to rid the world of the demonic spirits roaming rampent in the world a portal from hell had been released and so they are all running wild.

Depending on what you prefer you can be a holy kngight specalizing in swords hammers and axes and shields using heavy armor or a priest using the holy spirit and scripture as a spell caster. You gain a currency called virtue and can earn a set amount of it from defeating random wild demonic spirits or by completeing tasks and you can always switch which style of fighting you like by simply buying and equipping different armor.

However there also seven main bosses the demon princes and also other mini bosses as well you gain extra exp and virtue for beating them. and also rare and powerful armor and weapons. like swords and staffs ect. But you also have to use your knowledge of scripture to advance as well there will be times when you will have to answer with the correct scripture or complete a verse like say The lord is my shepherd I shall not Blank and as you advance in the game the verses get more and more difficult.

You can also as a priest find scrolls of scriptures in chests or by say completeing a quest these will add to the casting you can use and vary you also can have allies you can recruit such as angels or another priest or knight the priests if you are a knight player will be inva;luable for healing and curing curses or plagues in battle I actually tried to make it using a free rpg maker but wow is that way out of my range of talents

I have a lot more to the game idea but I figured since I can't make it there is no point

 

[Lanolin]

all video games are blasphemous....
you think you can control stuff by pushing buttons. But you cant. Its preprogrammed. Unless you are conversant in scripture (the code) you are at its mercy.

what is the attraction of video games again? Is it just for those people that cant be satisfied reading a book?

 

[Lynx]

Wow... then why are you posting so much in such a blasphemous thread?

 

[Moses_Young]

I actually had a very detailed plan on one I tried to make. I love rpg games and love the idea of using turn based moves and attacks on them and wanted to have a Christian based one

My idea was you start as either a male or female and you are sleeping in your bed when an angel comes to visit you and this angel tells you that God has chosen you to rid the world of the demonic spirits roaming rampent in the world a portal from hell had been released and so they are all running wild.

Depending on what you prefer you can be a holy kngight specalizing in swords hammers and axes and shields using heavy armor or a priest using the holy spirit and scripture as a spell caster. You gain a currency called virtue and can earn a set amount of it from defeating random wild demonic spirits or by completeing tasks and you can always switch which style of fighting you like by simply buying and equipping different armor.

However there also seven main bosses the demon princes and also other mini bosses as well you gain extra exp and virtue for beating them. and also rare and powerful armor and weapons. like swords and staffs ect. But you also have to use your knowledge of scripture to advance as well there will be times when you will have to answer with the correct scripture or complete a verse like say The lord is my shepherd I shall not Blank and as you advance in the game the verses get more and more difficult.

You can also as a priest find scrolls of scriptures in chests or by say completeing a quest these will add to the casting you can use and vary you also can have allies you can recruit such as angels or another priest or knight the priests if you are a knight player will be inva;luable for healing and curing curses or plagues in battle I actually tried to make it using a free rpg maker but wow is that way out of my range of talents

I have a lot more to the game idea but I figured since I can't make it there is no point

I like this idea. I think in the game, the player's name should be Heahmund, and he should be some sort of church figure - say a bishop of some town in south west England - perhaps Sherborne.

The demonic spirits should be in the form of ugly, heathen barbarians, and be recognised by the devil horns they wear on their helmets. These should also travel from their hellish home in boats that are long and thin, to accentuate their ruthless natures.

 

[Blain]

I like this idea. I think in the game, the player's name should be Heahmund, and he should be some sort of church figure - say a bishop of some town in south west England - perhaps Sherborne.

The demonic spirits should be in the form of ugly, heathen barbarians, and be recognised by the devil horns they wear on their helmets. These should also travel from their hellish home in boats that are long and thin, to accentuate their ruthless natures.

Your ideas are pretty good, My plan for some other things was that it would be a leveling system based game including stats and the armor and weapons and sometimes rare gems give you certain stat boosts as well as unique blessings from God that each give you a different ability such as increased strength and and other things such as resistance to curses or other certain aflictions demons can give you they are basically debuffs

The gems however are not easy to find and to get them you have to do certain things and complete certain hidden quests that are unlocked only by giving the correct reply to a quest giver.It is a multy moral choice game you can choose from four different answers each one differing in the moral choice you have two other stats holiness and corruption depending on which action you take or don't take or what replies you give you obtain either a certain amount of holiness or corruption two answers give holiness but out of those two one has more than the other and vise versa with corruption only certain wepons and armor can can be obtained these are legendary holy armor and are blessed by God himself and infused with the annointing of the holy
spirit that not only increase your stats and but also empower you in other ways as well however not having enough holiness will not let you get them and you also cannot have to much corruption either.

The demons that randomly spawn are based on the seven deadly sins but the further you get in the story the stronger they get and can even change in forms.
But I am not able to make games I have ideas but not the skill to make them

 

[BlueTheComposer]

all video games are blasphemous....
you think you can control stuff by pushing buttons. But you cant. Its preprogrammed. Unless you are conversant in scripture (the code) you are at its mercy.

what is the attraction of video games again? Is it just for those people that cant be satisfied reading a book?

What, and books aren't preprogrammed? Video games are way more interactive than any book, including those "choose your own adventure" books!

 

[Mii]

So @BlueTheComposer what type of technical skills do you have as far as game creation?


For quite a long while I've "entertained" the idea of taking gaming to the "next level" and lack only two things really. Technical skills and the direction being the Lord's will.

Regarding the second though I think if I were able to get it off the ground that would be confirmation enough for me as there is clearly a need.

I think there exists a narrow window of productive gaming in a believer's life. I think it would be more attractive to believers than non-believers but that it would also appeal to a wide audience.

Is basketball a waste of time? Is it sinful? It just depends. I would say typically the answer would be no, though some may set it up as an idol. Sports can teach you a lot of things and it can teach them as a byproduct of enjoying "play".

Gaming isn't physically beneficial and mentally it is usually the path of least resistance but I think there is interest out there for creative solutions to the destructive nature of it.

 

[Mii]

Oh, I'll consider giving a few examples of innovative gaming tomorrow sometime. I don't like advertising for companies I don't really know but I was impressed by one I came across as an ad but seemingly a useful one. It takes consideration because I'm honestly tired of "simulating" what-if scenarios on what "could" be and I'd rather focus on practical implementation.

along a useful line (to me)...in the 6th grade or so I played a typing game (learn2type sort of thing), it was quite fun AND it reinforced good typing skills. That was certainly of utility in my life. Alas, I can't list off even a handful of games that were that productive.

Perhaps that'll be my 1337th post