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BoothsBeard
May 26, 2014
Welcome to the place where Gaming meets Godliness


What is this?

There is a very specific genre of game that is commonly sold not in electronics stores but in Christian Bookstores. These are games created specifically to cater to the religiously devout. Oftentimes they are unlicensed copies or hacks of other, more established game.

Why do these exist if they're often hacks?

Besides possibly fearing being struck by lightning many publishers do not wish to get the negative publicity that would be gained by going after a small religious publisher. Additionally the markets in which these games are sold do not carry competing products most of the time.

Are these any fun to play?

Probably not but they are much better for your soul than Call of Duty.

Why should I care? I'm not a Christian.

The process by which some of these games defeated early lockout chip technology is an interesting glimpse into the days when hardware manufacturers held a complete stranglehold over games (such as Nintendo). Additionally sometimes there are funny stories behind the games themselves and they can be amusing even to the heathen in a "Mystery Science Theater" fashion.

Come, let us discuss the games new and old that celebrate God's word. In addition to older cartridge games I invite discussion on newer RPG Maker, Game Maker and other creation engine games.

Thank you and God Bless.

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gay skull
Oct 24, 2004


Spiritual Warfare is unironically a really good Zelda clone, gently caress you all

Silento
Feb 16, 2012

Catechumen is something special. :catdrugs:

RealBlue
Oct 29, 2013

"Sestren now faces Winged Death."
Good ol' Wisdom Tree. Bible Buffet has some pretty sick box art imo.

The Taint Reaper
Sep 4, 2012

by Shine
I have the Majority of the NES Wisdom tree games. I had no idea Spiritual Warfare was a Zelda clone, I just remember constantly getting stuck and wandering around for hours converting heathens. Nobody dies in the game, when you hit them the sprite turns into a praying position. Also apparently giving money to the Priest guy grants you a game over because he turns into a demon.

I still can't find a Universal game case sized retail cover for most of these games. They all had some really cool cover art.

The Taint Reaper fucked around with this message at 19:21 on Sep 1, 2014

K8.0
Feb 26, 2004

Her Majesty's 56th Regiment of Foot

gay skull posted:

Spiritual Warfare is unironically a really good Zelda clone, gently caress you all

Good to see that the first reply preaches the good word. Spiritual Warfare is legitimately fun.

Bieeanshee
Aug 21, 2000

Not keen on keening.


Grimey Drawer
I once read that Sunday Funday was a modification of an earlier skateboarding game. Same graphics (for the most part, at least) but the text was changed to present bizarre references to attending Sunday school. It made me wonder if Wisdom Tree started out trying to make mainstream games and found God, or if they just realized a niche.

Sneaksie Taffer
Sep 21, 2009

K8.0 posted:

Good to see that the first reply preaches the good word. Spiritual Warfare is legitimately fun.

Is that the one that had the Fruits of the Spirit as your weapons? Nothing quite like throwing super-slow moving apples at gang members, greasers, and gamblers, only to be attacked by the demons possessing them.

The Taint Reaper
Sep 4, 2012

by Shine
I really have to wonder if they were ported to newer formats. IIRC the Wisdom tree games made it to the GBA, but I have no idea if they went past that generation.

There's The Bible Game for the PS2, but that wasn't Wisdom Tree.

*edit*
Looks like they're still around but none of their games work on Windows 7 or 8.

They made a game called Jesus in Space
http://www.wisdomtreegames.com/games/jesusinspace/

The Taint Reaper fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Sep 1, 2014

Bieeanshee
Aug 21, 2000

Not keen on keening.


Grimey Drawer
Super 3D Noah's Ark is on Steam Greenlight.

K8.0
Feb 26, 2004

Her Majesty's 56th Regiment of Foot

Bieeardo posted:

I once read that Sunday Funday was a modification of an earlier skateboarding game. Same graphics (for the most part, at least) but the text was changed to present bizarre references to attending Sunday school. It made me wonder if Wisdom Tree started out trying to make mainstream games and found God, or if they just realized a niche.

It was definitely realizing a niche. Hilariously, before the were Wisdom Tree they made games like Robodemons, which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. Their games all sucked, in fact some of them sucked so bad they made up a second name to publish the worst ones under. Then they decided to try making some Jesus games and releasing them under the name Wisdom Tree and well that worked a lot better. Sunday Funday, a game where you try to skate to church, was originally Menace Beach, a game where you have to go rescue your girlfriend before she gets raped, and she is shown to you tied up with her clothes progressively more torn off as the intro to each stage. That's Jesus as gently caress.

gay skull
Oct 24, 2004


Sneaksie Taffer posted:

Is that the one that had the Fruits of the Spirit as your weapons? Nothing quite like throwing super-slow moving apples at gang members, greasers, and gamblers, only to be attacked by the demons possessing them.

Get the bananas or an extra pear, apples are for scrubs. Also don't go in the bar or casino, the angel in there will jack your belt and you'll have to go find the pawn shop in the slums to buy it back at a high price. Fruit doesn't even matter in the late game anyway because once you get the Sword of the Spirit, you can just throw it and it explodes on impact. You also have infinite of these too, and you need to throw your exploding sword to kill Satan at the end. Soon you will be a pro at Spiritual Warfare and you will go to Heaven when you die :angel:

Also to get to Satan you have to go through the Demon Stronghold which is a lair full of lava and demons all over the place, so it's basically Hell. Don't go there without getting every key in the game or else you will have to backtrack like crazy. To get to Hell you have to bomb a particular place in the Prison, I can't remember where but it's not too hard to find.

Also turn off the music and blast your own jams because there are literally two songs in the game - one that plays everywhere and one that plays when you pause. The ending song sounds different at first but it's just one of those two but sped up.

I love talking about this game, I'm not making up a single part of this post and I'm absolutely standing behind saying this is a truly great and well made game that nobody knows about. There was even a Gameboy version which was the same thing as the console versions which made for an enormous game by GB standards.

Game rocks, check it out, you can blow through it in like 3-4 hours if you know what you're doing.

gay skull fucked around with this message at 18:50 on Sep 14, 2014

Endorph
Jul 22, 2009

Sagabal
Apr 24, 2010

Endorph
Jul 22, 2009
i dont know what this is

ToxicSlurpee
Nov 5, 2003

-=SEND HELP=-


Pillbug

Endorph posted:

i dont know what this is

Who cares? Any game where you can Madslap somebody for Jesus can't be bad.

Eye of Widesauron
Mar 29, 2014

Wanton Spoon
Aug 19, 2007

Senior Burgeoner


Endorph posted:

i dont know what this is
It's from a game called The Desolate Hope, which was made by Scott Cawthon. Cawthon's video games are more notable for their detailed, otherworldly, slightly off-putting pre-rendered 3D graphics than they are for their gameplay, but even the gameplay for most of his games is alien enough that it makes them stand out for me. I'd hesitate to call his games... good, exactly, but they're unique and memorable, and I tend to prefer that kind of thing over actual quality sometimes.

I never got the impression that his games were specifically Christian until that screenshot was posted in here, which prompted me to find this. In retrospect, though, it makes a weird kind of sense. Christian-focused children's entertainment has a certain bizarre style associated with it that's hard for me to put my finger on, the kind of thing that leads to TV specials revolving around the use of puppets, and I can see how that kind of thing would have had an influence on the designs that Cawthon likes to make.

It's been a while since I've been to his site, so the other discovery that screenshot prompted me to make was that Cawthon was apparently also responsible for Five Nights at Freddy's. This discovery also blows my mind while simultaneously making a lot of sense in retrospect. I now consider FNAF to be Christian entertainment and request that it be added to the OP.

Endorph
Jul 22, 2009

Wanton Spoon posted:

It's from a game called The Desolate Hope, which was made by Scott Cawthon. Cawthon's video games are more notable for their detailed, otherworldly, slightly off-putting pre-rendered 3D graphics than they are for their gameplay, but even the gameplay for most of his games is alien enough that it makes them stand out for me. I'd hesitate to call his games... good, exactly, but they're unique and memorable, and I tend to prefer that kind of thing over actual quality sometimes.

I never got the impression that his games were specifically Christian until that screenshot was posted in here, which prompted me to find this. In retrospect, though, it makes a weird kind of sense. Christian-focused children's entertainment has a certain bizarre style associated with it that's hard for me to put my finger on, the kind of thing that leads to TV specials revolving around the use of puppets, and I can see how that kind of thing would have had an influence on the designs that Cawthon likes to make.

It's been a while since I've been to his site, so the other discovery that screenshot prompted me to make was that Cawthon was apparently also responsible for Five Nights at Freddy's. This discovery also blows my mind while simultaneously making a lot of sense in retrospect. I now consider FNAF to be Christian entertainment and request that it be added to the OP.
so basically he's a dude who made weird games that everyone was like 'wtf this is weird' and then he was like 'hey i could use that' and made a horror game?

fair play to him then that's more thought than most indie devs show

Eye of Widesauron
Mar 29, 2014

So there were a lot of unlicensed copies of hardware/software used by these companies to make these, does that still go on at all?

gay skull
Oct 24, 2004


Widestancer posted:

So there were a lot of unlicensed copies of hardware/software used by these companies to make these, does that still go on at all?

Yeah but to a way lesser degree, NES on a chip systems are super common in those plug-and-play TV games that came in the shape of N64 controllers, dance pads, etc. Then you've got stuff for retro nerds like the RetroZone carts for homebrew games and the Retron series.

Stuff like this:


Also how the gently caress do you do 50 posts a day, hol-ee poo poo

gay skull fucked around with this message at 21:25 on Sep 14, 2014

Discount Viscount
Jul 9, 2010

FIND THE FISH!

El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron

This is the only religious game I have played and enjoyed.

Based on the apocryphal Book of Enoch, the game is a beat-em-up with some platforming. Basically, angels assigned to watch over humans ended up falling in love with them and making horrible abomination babies called the Nephilim, and now Enoch has been told by God to go and clean up the whole mess before He has to flood the world.

You get to punch angels and ride a motorcycle and it's all stylized as hell and yet oddly faithful to the source material.

MinionOfCthulhu
Oct 28, 2005

I got this title for free due to my proximity to an idiot who wanted to save $5 on an avatar by having someone else spend $9.95 instead.

lonter
Oct 12, 2012
Theres games on this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EViG0Q4lTeA

grate deceiver
Jul 10, 2009

Just a funny av. Not a redtext or an own ok.

I think I need to lie down for a bit.

Yeah.

evilmiera
Dec 14, 2009

Status: Ravenously Rambunctious

That is about 40 steps beyond awesome territory and way into crazy.

If only Crusader Kings 2 applied under the definitions in this thread, we'd have a real indie success to talk about.

Hip Gelatinous Cube
May 30, 2001

what up
Chu-Chu, our Lord and savior

blackguy32
Oct 1, 2005

Say, do you know how to do the walk?
No love for the You Testament?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4bmmFlIUPU

Nckdictator
Sep 8, 2006
Just..someone
http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelpeck/2013/03/13/al-qaedas-goofy-new-video-game-provokes-laughter-instead-of-terror/

quote:

Recently, an online video game simulating aerial combat against French fighter jets appeared on the Ansar Al-Mujahideen Arabic Forum (AMAF). The game is a part of online jihadis’ ongoing response to the French military campaign in Mali.

The relatively primitive game features a welcome page displaying the words “Muslim Mali,” along with a jihadi poem inciting jihad against the unbelievers. Once a player clicks “Play,” a message appears saying: “Muslim Brother, go ahead and repel the French invasion against Muslim Mali.” The player’s own aircraft is painted with Al-Qaeda’s black flag logo, while the French aircraft are painted with a French flag. The goal of the game is to shoot down as many French aircraft as possible, however, if the player sustains enough direct hits to be shot down, a message appears saying: “Congratulations, you have been martyred.”

It is noteworthy that the game was designed by two AMAF members, Ta’ir Al-Nawras 07, and Ghareeb Fi Al-Hayat. The former has also offered to teach other AMAF members how to design their own games, and recommends using Construct 2 game editor software.

It is noteworthy that the game requires an Internet browser capable of supporting HTML5, and that it can be played either directly or on tablet devices, and that it also supports access through the anonymizing TOR bundle.

Also, don't forget the goon-made.

homeless snail
Mar 14, 2007

Every game is a spiritual experience, every game console is a church.

Captain Walker
Apr 7, 2009

Mother knows best
Listen to your mother
It's a scary world out there
Megami Tensei II, first game where the literal God of Abraham is the final boss. Then you smack Him down again in three subsequent games.

HaroldofTheRock
Jun 3, 2003

Pillbug
Someone cover the Left Behind games, I heard they were bad.

Sumac
Sep 5, 2006

It doesn't matter now, come on get happy

Captain Walker posted:

Megami Tensei II, first game where the literal God of Abraham is the final boss. Then you smack Him down again in three subsequent games.

Megami Tensei and its spinoffs are pretty great for that.



Goatse James Bond
Mar 28, 2010


I've made a huge mistake.

I was expecting to see God of War on the list.

blackguy32
Oct 1, 2005

Say, do you know how to do the walk?
Japanese games seems to love Christian imagery. I know DMC4 has that aesthetic between Angels and Demons.

Accordion Man
Nov 7, 2012


Buglord

blackguy32 posted:

Japanese games seems to love Christian imagery. I know DMC4 has that aesthetic between Angels and Demons.
Bayonetta's enemies are all angels and there's one for pretty much each hierarchy of angel. They also go for the original biblical interpretation of angels where they're abstract and otherworldly instead of just people with bird wings.

Chafey
Jun 14, 2005

Vermain
Sep 5, 2006



blackguy32 posted:

Japanese games seems to love Christian imagery. I know DMC4 has that aesthetic between Angels and Demons.

Christianity is still very much a minority religion in Japan (around 3 million adherents in a country of 126 million), so it maintains an element of mysticism that makes it perfect for inclusion in video games, art, etc. It's the functional equivalent of something like voodoo in Western art.

Ignatius M. Meen
May 26, 2011

Hello yes I heard there was a lovely trainwreck here and...


I love how there's support for multiple cores but no support for anything less ancient than 640x480 pixels of 16-bit VGA graphics. Also how you can apparently talk to God through a Ouija board.

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BMS
Mar 11, 2009

by FactsAreUseless


I don't think I want to go on this ride. Seriously, what the gently caress.

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