CAA: Christian Anime Alliance

Thought I might share an interesting kickstarter about the bible



https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/16 ... nav_search

Wow this looks incredibly stupid.

the post name is suppose to be funny

I actually have some reservations about this. The initial goal seems... remarkably low for a game meant to exist on at least four platforms, even for the first three episodes. I hate to be suspicious, but there's a trend on kickstarter to ensure backing by setting a really low goal to make sure that the money goes out to the project creator, but since there's no guarantees once the money is collected of project completion, low goals with remarkably high stretch goals are a good way for people to quickly collect money without responsibility to backers. This IS shifting as various lawsuits processing through the courts are resolved, but as it stands now I'd be cautious.

Also it sort of looks like a game I'd expect on a mobile device, not the 4 major platforms they're suggesting.

I doing a kickstarter to get my book published, I'm calling it: The Bible. It'll be pretty epic, it's taken 6000 years to write.

I don't know, Xeno, what are the reward tiers?

I am literally going to record my thoughts, semi-stream of conscious as I look at this kickstarter.

-That picture of David vs Goliath looks...silly.
-Its great that Rick Warren is throwing his support behind this. But I'm not sure I'd give him top billing in this since...well...Rick Warren doesn't scream "Video Games"
-Then again, none of the actual game designers who they got to give quotes to make me want to support this game being developed are particularly impressive.
-The only thing less impressive are the quotes they give.
-So if this is about David...are we going to get the stories of Bathsheba and how David convinced Saul to let him marry his daughter? This is actually a serious question since they are claiming its going to be loyal to the Bible and well, those stories are a part of David's story.
-Why are they called the twins.
-But boy do these Developers have glorious hair!
-And could probably win a Napoleon Dynamite look a like contest.
-I would actually like to know who they have trained...
-And while you're at it...what games have you made?
-I'm glad they have given thousands of high fives to various youths. Truly this will assist in the development of this video game.
-so we want to make a game that is true to the Bible, but we can't have any of the messy violence and gore that is actually in the Bible? So does this mean we are going to ignore the more grotesque stories that I mentioned earlier on.
-Nice skit that's probably somewhat accurate though...
-The Passion of the Christ was popular because it actually got somewhat close to the brutality of Roman execution and torture. You've already said that you are avoiding the more graphic scenes from the Bible so why are you bringing this up?
-also you said no cheese but this video has had plenty of cheese and....that makes me nervous.
-and while we're at it, why is instant pausing being advertised as one of your 5 big things you are going to try and have in this game?
-It took a bit too long to get to what kind of game this actually was
-Also that running and jumping animation was pretty terrible...hopefully it will be changed.
-1100%...we are never going to get episode 10 are we...
-Also they like to use "thousands" as numbers for everything and I literally mean everything.
-A legitimate question a Fish asked is simply why a video game? What does the Bible gain from being turned into a video game? And I don't think you can say "It can work as a conversation starter" since this is really more pandering to people who are already believers and will likely be ridiculed by everyone who isn't.
-Heck, it might be ridiculed by believers as well if it doesn't reach its rather lofty standards and goals.
-And yet despite everything I've said, I'm morally obligated to buy this game and stream it...sigh...

Edit: Additional thought, why a platformer. I mean I'm ok with it being a platformer but in some ways I think the story of David would lend itself to other styles of video games instead. Like, say, simulating running the kingdom of Israel? Of course then it would just be a rip of Civilization and why would you want to play that instead of civilization?

Ante Bellum wrote:I don't know, Xeno, what are the reward tiers?

$1 - Thanks
$10 - You'll be a minor character
$25 - You're personal situation mentioned vauglely in a proverb
$50 - You'll be a major character
$1,000,000 - A 10 fold return on investment, though not necessarily monetarily

Peanut wrote:I am literally going to record my thoughts, semi-stream of conscious as I look at this kickstarter.

-And yet despite everything I've said, I'm morally obligated to buy this game and stream it...sigh...

A Google search turned up unity engine as a big part of these guys portfolio, or at least mods to the unity engine, so I suppose that's how they're planning on getting the multiplatform gaming to work. Presuming they don't just take the money and run it will be interesting to see what it looks like because I can't find anything really outstanding not the list of games published with the engine, and can't find a single recent game on the list that stands out, aside form a remake of Abes Oddysee, which is a game from ages ago.

It'll be interesting to see what their idea of gameplay for this is, if they actually produce a game. There isn't much in their site to indicate what sort of game this will turn out to be.

Peanut wrote:Edit: Additional thought, why a platformer. I mean I'm ok with it being a platformer but in some ways I think the story of David would lend itself to other styles of video games instead. Like, say, simulating running the kingdom of Israel? Of course then it would just be a rip of Civilization and why would you want to play that instead of civilization?

Papers, Please but with heaven instead of Arstotzka.

Xeno wrote:

Ante Bellum wrote:I don't know, Xeno, what are the reward tiers?

$1 - Thanks
$10 - You'll be a minor character
$25 - You're personal situation mentioned vauglely in a proverb
$50 - You'll be a major character
$1,000,000 - A 10 fold return on investment, though not necessarily monetarily

Consider your game backed.

Ante Bellum wrote:Papers, Please but with heaven instead of Arstotzka.

Hilariously, this could probably be made into a decent game if it was done right...or it would be the cheesiest thing on the face of the planet.

The controversy that would explode around such a game would be entertainment enough for me.

Peanut wrote:

Ante Bellum wrote:Papers, Please but with heaven instead of Arstotzka.

Hilariously, this could probably be made into a decent game if it was done right...or it would be the cheesiest thing on the face of the planet.

There's a game a little like that from years ago called Afterlife, which was sort of a tycoon/management game where you built Heaven and Hell according to the needs of the souls passing through them, things like their different vices/virtues and their reincarnation schedules. I haven't played it, but from what it looks like, they took a lighter, darkly humorous tone with it, something along the lines of Good Omens or The Screwtape Letters. It might not be the most original way to do it, but it's worked pretty well in the past.

This could only be bad... Just two guys making a BIBLE GAME, with poor graphics while sharing a single Mac desktop computer.

(no I didnt finish watching the video ).

Btw why do they need 35,000$ when they can afford a Mac computer?

edit: nvm I see they are hiring ppl.

Contrary to popular belief, not everyone who owns a Macintosh is just rolling around in a pool of money, a la Scrooge McDuck. Many of us saved up for them, and even then you can get a Mac for $500 brand new.

All right this very funny, you know as well as I know there not much christian games like this yet you say it cheesy or it wont be any good. Did you ever think we don't get christian games is we can be to CRITICAL ABOUT EVERYTHING. I not saying it a bad game but for those who thinks it cheesy or something then I like to see you do better job.
The reality is we really want something like this and the concept is great plus I want that epic soundtrack but I just don't get it with you, here a christian game somewhat higher quality than others out there and your already bashing it. Give the game a chance and don't be so harsh to judge something, yes I know I opened a can of worms here but I'm not trying to be mad or troll but trying to point out something.

Have you ever considered that being critical can help weed out the schlock? This proposed game has exceptionally little going for it. Don't settle just because it's about the Bible.

Ante Bellum wrote:Have you ever considered that being critical can help weed out the schlock? (...) Don't settle just because it's about the Bible.

Yep. The attitude Ante's describing is why being an explicitly "Christian" work has its stigma - the most that the majority aspire to be is to be good for being a Christian-focused work, good in comparison to its ideological peers, rather than being good, period, judged against its genre as a whole. As a Christian, I would love nothing better than to have a game successfully take on the stories and/or themes that make up the foundations of my belief and make something truly great from them, but from what I've seen of this Kickstarter, they're probably not going to be the ones to do it. But I'd love to be proven wrong! (If nothing else, it looks a little better than Catechumen, so far, maybe...?)

Right now, it's not looking like they're making much progress towards their goal, but they've got a lot of assets made, so I suspect the first chapter or so might still show up sometime, regardless of whether they make their goals. What state it'll be in when it comes out, we'll have to see...

I like the argument that if something is bad, the person calling it bad has to provide better work, instead of just being able to tell something is bad.

Even as a non-believer, I think a well done game about certain Bible stories would be pretty cool. As Ante and David said though, this won't be that game. After all, wouldn't you want the game to be a good representation of the thing you put your faith in?

I am critical however I am also fair. The game doesn't have to be good for me to enjoy myself. Catechumen has been mentioned in this thread which is another Christian game that is rather lackluster. However, I actually really enjoyed it and found it to be pretty fun. Was it good? Absolutely not. But there are plenty of good games out there that I have enjoyed playing way less and besides, Catechumen has the greatest Easter egg ever. On top of this I did support this game on Kickstarter because of my moral obligation to play every Christian game I can justify buying on my stream...though I never did get around to getting a copy of the Left Behind games.

There are a lot of problems with Christian media as a whole that extends far beyond the video game industry but one of the bigger ones seems to be to set the bar too low, both by the creators and the consumers. This leads to either incredibly cheesy, poorly executed forms of media (like Fireproof) or what essentially amounts to exploitation films targeted at Christians (like Son of God which was literally just the episodes involving Jesus from The Bible miniseries edited together). The problem I've found from working around churches isn't that people are too critical but that people aren't critical enough. It starts with the designers. Designing a good anything does not actually come from the creation process but from the editing and refining process. You have to be emotionally detached from your work and rip it to shreds, removing things and changing things and possibly even throwing it all out if its bad. This requires you to be critical and its what makes great movies/music/video games/books and so on. Now granted, sometimes you don't have the time to be this critical however that problem comes from the company that is producing this and the only way to fix that is to be critical as consumers. I can tell you from working around churches that the problem isn't being too critical. Most churches won't show movies rated above PG-13 (unless its the Passion of the Christ), and a lot avoid secular movies because of the controversy they can raise with certain groups of people in their congregation. As a result, they buy any Christian alternative that either looks like a popular hollywood film or seems to have a good message. Because these companies are making sales, they will continue to produce movies of said quality because they are cheap to make and will turn a profit. If we are critical as consumers and don't show things that are poorly done, then these companies will be forced to stop producing forms of media of this quality and will likely make them go away. Will this result in less Christian media? Yes, but it won't stop it completely. The Mission was not made by a Christian company. Nor was Ben Hurr, The Ten Commandments or The Passion of the Christ. Hollywood has and will poor money into Christian stories occasionally (there is another movie based off of Exodus staring Christian Bale coming out sometime later this year). On top of this, you have filmmakers who are Christians who will make films/games/other things because that's what they love to do. They will look at the desires of the consumer and rise to the occasion (though it will be difficult at first) but its going to happen.
TL;DR. We should try to get more things like The Mission made which will stick around in culture and display the Christian message to a larger variety of people instead of wasting our money on things like Fireproof. And being critical is how we can do it.

Zeke365 wrote:All right this very funny, you know as well as I know there not much christian games like this yet you say it cheesy or it wont be any good. Did you ever think we don't get christian games is we can be to CRITICAL ABOUT EVERYTHING. I not saying it a bad game but for those who thinks it cheesy or something then I like to see you do better job.
The reality is we really want something like this and the concept is great plus I want that epic soundtrack but I just don't get it with you, here a christian game somewhat higher quality than others out there and your already bashing it. Give the game a chance and don't be so harsh to judge something, yes I know I opened a can of worms here but I'm not trying to be mad or troll but trying to point out something.

The game might be decent if they add multiplayer, brawl fights and a level up system....

Fallout: Babylon

Gonna throw my rather uneducated two cents in here and say I actually have to agree with Peanut and Xeno. One of my biggest pet peeves is the fact that people can make Christian media that is absolutely ridiculous but it's okay because Bible. That to me is incredibly lazy and un-Christian and I'm rather surprised that people buy into it. I guess they're desperate for something that represents their beliefs, but it's rather shallow. The Bible talks about doing whatever you do to the best of your capacity, but Christian movies/books/games/etc. seem to get away with being subpar the majority of the time, and I think that's a horrible representation of what it means to be a Christian. I feel like there's this mindset that if you focus too much on making something actually excel in quality rather than just content, then you're somehow being worldly and not focusing enough on the biblical aspects of it. That's absolute hogwash. If you really want to put the energy into making a Christian game that's supposed to help people and glorify God, then take the energy to give it your all in every area. The quality of the game is as much a representation of your faith as anything. Used to be Christians were known for exceeding the standards the world set in terms of creativity and skill. Now we ignore them in favor of being "set apart".

It's like...donating your old broken down junky car to a needy family. It's a pile of junk and about to fall to pieces, but it's okay because it's charity! That would be horrible and ridiculous. So much more with media that's supposed to represent our faith in our Lord and Saviour.

Peanut wrote:

Ante Bellum wrote:Papers, Please but with heaven instead of Arstotzka.

Hilariously, this could probably be made into a decent game if it was done right...or it would be the cheesiest thing on the face of the planet.

Incredibly cheesy I'd assume.
You'd have to look through their entire history, just looking for some variation of "I prayed for God to come into my life"
Then again, I'm sure they'd mix it up a bit...

Xeno wrote:Fallout: Babylon

I'd play it, though, Fallout: Jericho would be much more satisfying, because even the walls come down.

Also... I liked Fireproof, but I just like movies with happy endings, and cheesy movies.

I'm a little surprised at how active this thread is for some reason.

Maybe I just have a poor imagination, but I think there's an inherent problem with making a genuinely good game about Biblical content. The vast majority of the content in the Bible just doesn't lend itself into being made into a game, especially a fun and reverent game that could appeal to a wider audience. I can only think of a few exceptions, and even those are a bit iffy and seem unnecessary because not every good piece of writing needs to be made into a game. Most of the stuff in the Bible wouldn't make a good interactive experience.

Imagine a video game adaptation of certain books-- wonder what a game about Song of Songs would be like? I can't imagine anything from the New Testament being made into a game. Certainly, we are the ones who whipped and crucified Jesus, but I wouldn't ever want to see it in a game. There's a lot of stuff in the Bible that, if not depicted very, very carefully and in context, wouldn't make for a family-friendly experience. Is this particular game about David going to gloss over his adultery and other sins? I wouldn't want that left out of any complete story about David. It was pretty important.

A few exceptions to the rule might be a "Collect a male and female of every animal in a big, fully explorable 3D world to put them in the ark" or a rhythm game about the Psalter and other hymns.

Furen wrote:Incredibly cheesy I'd assume.
You'd have to look through their entire history, just looking for some variation of "I prayed for God to come into my life"
Then again, I'm sure they'd mix it up a bit...

Probably but you wouldn't necessarily have to go that route. You could make a game that genuinely asks the question"What constitutes a Christian" and actually wrestles with that question in a way that recognizes grey ares and fringe cases. I would actually really like a game where I'm sitting around, banning people from heaven based on my own beliefs and am then confronted with Albert Schweitzer who proceeds to make a very compelling case that my view maybe wrong and I should probably let him into heaven since he has acted more Christ like then many other people I would have let in.

Mullet Death wrote:I'm a little surprised at how active this thread is for some reason.

Maybe I just have a poor imagination, but I think there's an inherent problem with making a genuinely good game about Biblical content. The vast majority of the content in the Bible just doesn't lend itself into being made into a game, especially a fun and reverent game that could appeal to a wider audience. I can only think of a few exceptions, and even those are a bit iffy and seem unnecessary because not every good piece of writing needs to be made into a game. Most of the stuff in the Bible wouldn't make a good interactive experience.

Imagine a video game adaptation of certain books-- wonder what a game about Song of Songs would be like? I can't imagine anything from the New Testament being made into a game. Certainly, we are the ones who whipped and crucified Jesus, but I wouldn't ever want to see it in a game. There's a lot of stuff in the Bible that, if not depicted very, very carefully and in context, wouldn't make for a family-friendly experience. Is this particular game about David going to gloss over his adultery and other sins? I wouldn't want that left out of any complete story about David. It was pretty important.

A few exceptions to the rule might be a "Collect a male and female of every animal in a big, fully explorable 3D world to put them in the ark" or a rhythm game about the Psalter and other hymns.

I think we all somewhat agree with you to a point. I think Xeno directly said what seems to be the main opinion in this thread which is that we would like to see games made off of some of the stories in the Bible. I think though we could make games based around more books then you may think. Run Jesus Run is a very simple game that covers the four gospels in about 10 seconds. Its actually pretty good. Ben Hurr is a movie about a Jew who lives around the time of Jesus and is influenced in a handful of scenes by him. You could probably do a point and click adventure game along similar lines revolving around the stories in the New Testament. There are options you just need to be really creative.

I would think it would be rather easy to come up with a good Bible-based game. I understand what you're saying, Mullet, but there are a fair number of stories in the Bible that could easily be made into a good game. I mean...David's mighty men. Somebody make me a video game about David's mighty men. I will play it. Those guys were epic.
Also, has anyone played the game Joshua for the Game Boy? I thought that was rather fun as a kid. Didn't really have a lot of morals that I can remember, granted.
But yeah, I would think it would be fairly easy to make a good hack and slash or strategy game about like...any of the major Old Testament battles. Or a game going through the period of the judges. I dunno, I guess I can think of a lot of things that would be really neat and/or interesting, so the idea that a person can't come up with a good Bible game isn't that good of an argument to me. It just requires effort, something people don't want to give.

Samson: Judger of Men.
Make it happen guys.

I still want a Dynasty Warriors game where you play as Samson and beat the crap out of hundreds of dudes using a donkey's jawbone to buttrock. And Samson's Musou move would be to grab two giant pillars out of the ground and create an earthquake with them.

Also you'd play as Joshua and his weapon would obviously be a trumpet that's also a sword or something. And Gideon's weapon would definitely be a loaf of barley.

For what our pals on Kickstarter are trying to do, a better option might be to do a point-and-click adventure, rather than a platformer. Being based on the Bible, and with the target audience being somewhat resistant to deviations from that, it would be a bit linear, but that's par for the genre. If they were feeling frisky, they could do Bioware-style morality choices in dialogue leading to alternate scenarios that won't be as satisfying long-term as what happens in the Bible, like starting a coup against Saul, leading to another one against you soon after. Maybe it's just my view, but I think that if you base a game in the Bible, being able to use the Bible as a walkthrough for everything in it just doesn't seem that satisfying to play.

Mullet Death wrote:wonder what a game about Song of Songs would be like?

Dating sim.

"Oh, Solomon-kun~~ Y-you're making me blush...but you're so poetic. Tell me about my thighs next!"

Also, a Total War-style strategy game set in Israel would be great, starting from Joshua, and then taking on the leadership of one of the tribes, building up into a kingdom, walking the Egypt-Assyria tightrope...