Bible the Video game Thread

Zion Tech is trying to build a video game based on the new and old testament like a Quest Game.

the game will be ready:TBA

Real Name:TBA

Um... I like the idea, naturally. But I'm worried about your enthusiasm for announcing what amounts to a nameless concept.

Um... I like the idea, naturally. But I'm worried about your enthusiasm for announcing what amounts to a nameless concept.

Also. The Bible is a big, long book. Kinda hard to squeeze into a single videogame without stretching your team or resources too thin. You need to think about how the books of the Bible can be translated into gameplay, and how to settle petty or major theological disagreements likely to arise among your team. (How deep was the Red Sea in Exodus? Some people are convinced it was knee deep. They're wrong, but you get my point.)

Um... I like the idea, naturally. But I'm worried about your enthusiasm for announcing what amounts to a nameless concept.

Also. The Bible is a big, long book. Kinda hard to squeeze into a single videogame without stretching your team or resources too thin. You need to think about how the books of the Bible can be translated into gameplay, and how to settle petty or major theological disagreements likely to arise among your team. (How deep was the Red Sea in Exodus? Some people are convinced it was knee deep. They're wrong, but you get my point.)

Terribly sorry about that messed up post above. Opera Mini is having a meltdown.

I can't imagine the New Testament being much of a quest game. What the hell would you do? The Old Testament I can see though. Still the events in the Bible take place over like 4000 years - you'd really need to narrow the scope down. And how would you deal with God's appearances - how would he look? I can't imagine it being a game really, except maybe all the battles that take place in the first half. Not to mention conflicting accounts of events. I think it'd be rather tedious and repetitive - much like the book itself.

If you included books that didn't make it into the final cut though that could be interesting.

JigsawPieces, I'd like to point out that the team doing this probably believes the Bible is the infallible Word of God. In which case they have done their research, and know the solutions to 'contradictions' people get so caught up on.

And the non-canonal books were rejected for very good reasons. One of those is that they contradicted the others. That might sound a tad circular, but it's not. The five books of Moses form a core against which to compare everything else.

The Bible is the greatest work of literature in human history. As such, there should be events in it worthy of setting a videogame AGAINST. See, making a game directly off the events of the Bible is an act of frustration. People have devoted their lives to mapping out the events and passages, and still failed to capture every nuance. That's why films based on the Bible are often either boring or laughable. Stick to the exact words, and you've got all the thrill of drying paint. Deviate, and you wind up inserting heresy and 'extra-Biblical fluff'.

Examine at the possibilities presented by an RPG set during the various stages of Biblical history, that's my advice.

*Sits back and waits to see if this thread erupts into a flame war*

Ambient_Malice wrote: The Bible is the greatest work of literature in human history.

It really isn't (and claiming it is is somewhat short sighted, considering the sutras, Vedas, Bhagavad Ghita, or the Qu'ran as examples of other religious texts); however it does make exceptional material for a videogame, so long as you don't gloss it over and cut out the distasteful material. You do also really need to focus on specific books at a time rather than present it as a whole, and there are probably an awful lot of gaps that need filling in, in order to render it a continuous playable piece.

I must agree with ambershee, and if you will try to fill in the gaps (which is needed for a fluid gameplay) there would be a bunch of people claiming that you filled in wrong and that a representation of bible is wrong in general..
Other than that good luck with your project..

Sounds gay

Ambient_Malice wrote: JigsawPieces, I'd like to point out that the team doing this probably believes the Bible is the infallible Word of God. In which case they have done their research, and know the solutions to 'contradictions' people get so caught up on.

Unfortunately that just isn't always the case. Simply dismissing these 'contradictions' doesn't resolve them. The fact that there's no record of any empire-wide census when the Bible says there was in Luke, for example, is a big deal. It's not some trivial detail - it affects key events in the Bible and fulfils the prophecy in... uh... Jeremiah (I think that's the book) by having Jesus born in Bethlehem. Further, having to return to your ancestral town for a census is absurd for obvious reasons.

The Bible is a big work of literature that has significant cultural and historical value. I downright despise the Bible, but I would never want it to disappear from the world any more than the Odyssey or Mein Kampf. The Bible is not, however, a great work of literature. The cultural and historical impact of a piece of literature says nothing of the quality of the literature itself and doesn't save it from being a poorly constructed amalgamation of texts which in some places are internally and externally inconsistent, written by men who genuinely believed their own demonstrably wrong creation myth. Certainly the Bible deserves some credit, but there's no real criteria I can think of by which it's the greatest work of literature ever written. And why would the greatest work of literature include now redundant guides for dealing with slaves? Also, what ambershee said about other religious texts. Seems to me they'd be prerequisite reading before claiming the Bible is the greatest.

JigsawPieces wrote: If you included books that didn't make it into the final cut though that could be interesting.

I don't particularly care whether they're true or not. I don't believe the Templars are shaping world events today, but still enjoyed Assassin's Creed. In regards to the game, I agree with what Ambient_Malice and ambershee are getting at with needing to make sure you're not spread out too thin and that you're focusing on something specific rather than trying to capture everything.

Hmm, thought about making a CryENGINE 3 pseudo adventure game about the New Testament.

Much less canonical interpretation, for example, Yeshua not "crucified", but rather "hanged" on an upright stake without the horizontal beam (Greek stauros, pole, not the later interpretation of "cross" that was pagan symbol from the beginning). Purely a Hebrew/Jewish/Israeli viewpoint.

In the end dropped the whole idea altogether. The game would be too linear.

What could player do? Get to the selected place within a specific time limit to experience an event? There would be no interactivity whatsoever except for different camera angles, walking closer to the event at hand, etc. The whole game would be from the position of neutral observer. Some scenes such as walking on water would have to be cutscene-only.

Edited by: feillyne

ambershee wrote:

Ambient_Malice wrote: The Bible is the greatest work of literature in human history.

It really isn't (and claiming it is is somewhat short sighted, considering the sutras, Vedas, Bhagavad Ghita, or the Qu'ran as examples of other religious texts); however it does make exceptional material for a videogame, so long as you don't gloss it over and cut out the distasteful material. You do also really need to focus on specific books at a time rather than present it as a whole, and there are probably an awful lot of gaps that need filling in, in order to render it a continuous playable piece.

It really is. Shakespeare was influenced by The Bible and The Psalms make Shakespeare's work seem like child's poems. It was also the King James Bible which MADE the English language and the way we write has been GREATLY influenced by how The Bible was wrote. So yes, it is the GREATEST literature in human history whether you believe in it or not.

@JigsawPieces

Just because there's no record of a census doesn't mean it never happened. Rome was destroyed remember? Lots of documents and records were destroyed in the process just as other records and documents about Jesus were destroyed by the early Church. The Bible was written by men inspired by the word of God and despite what you say, the creation "myth" holds more water than the evolution lie. The Bible said thousands and thousands of years back that all of humanity can trace their ancestry back to one man and one woman and science has proven this. Have you heard of Y-Chromosomal Adam and Mitochondrial Eve? Science states that didn't need to exist simultaneously but it still claims that everyone can trace their ancestry back to them. Years before this discovery, skeptics scoffed at the idea that humanity could be descended from one man and one woman and now science has only gone to prove that this is fact. No, I don't believe that Adam and Eve were the only humans created because after Cain kills Abel, he finds a wife and even complains to God stating that people may try to kill him when they see him which suggests that there were more humans elsewhere.

However, after the flood (which all cultures and religions have records of), all humans thereafter could trace their ancestry back to Adam and Eve through Noah's children and Noah himself as Noah was directly descended from Adam and Eve and though Noah's daughters and sons may have married other families, everyone can still trace ancestry back to Adam and Eve through Noah.

Atheismandevolutiondisproven.blogspot.com

Just because 60% of the world accept evolution doesn't make it the truth. A great majority of the world smoke and believe that we are the only life in the entire universe. This doesn't make them right. A great majority of people also copy each other and wear similar clothing, listen to similar music and play similar games (doesn't CoD prove that for you)? The 7 day story is flawed but I believe in the first verse of Genesis which claims that God created the universe and the earth in the beginning. The 6 day story explains how God designed the already created earth. Originally, the original translation could have been "Firstly, secondly, thirdly..." as no other sources mention days but at the end of the day, Genesis makes more sense than evolution and unguided creation. How can unconscious dumb energies produce the complexity that we see? I don't care what scientists say about genes, they also say that mice and dogs share 99% genes with humans but just because genes is SIMILAR doesn't mean it's the same genes otherwise we would look like dogs or mices.

@Minuit

I guess the alternative of three men getting raped is your thing then? Seriously, when the people of Sodom swarmed around Lot's house, the angels weren't going to let them take Lot's daughters or even Lot himself. I don't know why you atheists scoff at Lot's suggestion. What would you do? I certainly wouldn't do what Lot did, I would fight but simultaneously, you must not forget that Lot wasn't a fighting man and it sounds as though he was quite old too.

The New Testament shouldn't be made into a game but the Old Testament could. Just set it during the rule of King David. Problem solved. You've got war, RPG elements, RTS elements, action, romance, choices, consequences and an open world to explore. Not only is the story of David amazing but it is so inspirational that medieval knights used to strive to be what David was. David wasn't perfect though and he's the perfect example of a human who is capable of great things yet flawed.

And most already agree that David was badass:

Badassoftheweek.com (Contains swearing)

So yeah.

Oh dear, a religion discussion. I wonder if anything good will come from this?

Metalspy wrote: Oh dear, a religion discussion. I wonder if anything good will come from this?

most likely not.. V_V

Can we please avoid the Christian conversionism posts and try to keep it constructive? This is about the feasibility of constructing a game based around a specific book, nothing more, nothing less. If you want to argue whose creation story is 'the correct one', you can bugger off to some other message board.

KnightofEcclesia wrote:

ambershee wrote:

Ambient_Malice wrote: The Bible is the greatest work of literature in human history.

It really isn't (and claiming it is is somewhat short sighted, considering the sutras, Vedas, Bhagavad Ghita, or the Qu'ran as examples of other religious texts); however it does make exceptional material for a videogame, so long as you don't gloss it over and cut out the distasteful material. You do also really need to focus on specific books at a time rather than present it as a whole, and there are probably an awful lot of gaps that need filling in, in order to render it a continuous playable piece.

It really is. Shakespeare was influenced by The Bible and The Psalms make Shakespeare's work seem like child's poems. It was also the King James Bible which MADE the English language and the way we write has been GREATLY influenced by how The Bible was wrote. So yes, it is the GREATEST literature in human history whether you believe in it or not.

Just because we speak English and the way the language is written is somewhat influenced by the printing of the Bible does not make it the "GREATEST literature in human history". It might make it the most significant in your immediate history, but I'm pretty sure around four billion people of various descent in Asia as an example might not exactly agree with you, considering their cultures and languages were shaped by entirely different texts, some of which predate the Bible by thousands of years.

Edited by: ambershee

ambershee wrote:

KnightofEcclesia wrote:

ambershee wrote:

Ambient_Malice wrote: The Bible is the greatest work of literature in human history.

It really isn't (and claiming it is is somewhat short sighted, considering the sutras, Vedas, Bhagavad Ghita, or the Qu'ran as examples of other religious texts); however it does make exceptional material for a videogame, so long as you don't gloss it over and cut out the distasteful material. You do also really need to focus on specific books at a time rather than present it as a whole, and there are probably an awful lot of gaps that need filling in, in order to render it a continuous playable piece.

It really is. Shakespeare was influenced by The Bible and The Psalms make Shakespeare's work seem like child's poems. It was also the King James Bible which MADE the English language and the way we write has been GREATLY influenced by how The Bible was wrote. So yes, it is the GREATEST literature in human history whether you believe in it or not.

Just because we speak English and the way the language is written is somewhat influenced by the printing of the Bible does not make it the "GREATEST literature in human history". It might make it the most significant in your immediate history, but I'm pretty sure around four billion people of various descent in Asia as an example might not exactly agree with you, considering their cultures and languages were shaped by entirely different texts, some of which predate the Bible by thousands of years.

Not to forget, the Black Plague/Black Death/Bubonic Plague changed languages a bit as well, atleast the Scandinavian languages.

The Bible as a game? The Old Testament is probably the better piece. Could be interesting.

I don't think accuracy was a big deal back when they made games like Bible Adventures...

Great, the closest I've gotten to playing a game about anything religious is The Binding of Isaac, and for good reasons...

Faith is something personal, everyone interprets it (both spirituality in general and the holy texts) differently thus making such a game a very hard undertaking indeed, not to mention everything mentioned above.

But if they can pull it off, good for them.

I think you'd need to do episodic content to make this work. You can break the bible into distinct eras or even books and do a game for each one. That should be a more manageable project.

You know... Let me put this to y'all. Name another collective work of literature written over a period of 4000 years by sixty-odd writers working in isolation which also has no provable contradictions. Then I'll admit the Bible has been bested as a work of literature. Then we'll start counting the number of contradictions in each season of Star Trek: Next Generation.

Ambient_Malice wrote: You know... Let me put this to y'all. Name another collective work of literature written over a period of 4000 years by sixty-odd writers working in isolation which also has no provable contradictions. Then I'll admit the Bible has been bested as a work of literature. Then we'll start counting the number of contradictions in each season of Star Trek: Next Generation.

Old testament: A collection of moooostly if not only fictional stories. Just as any collection of classical fairy tales.

New tertament: A collection of letters and smaller books by people with the same belief.

If contradiction is a measurment on "great literature" then math books are master pieces.

KnightofEcclesia wrote: the creation "myth" holds more water than the evolution lie.

Yeah. I don't even know what to say to that. I'm not interested in being proselytized either, by the way. I talked about what I did because it was an example of things that'd need to be resolved and / or avoided to make a game that made sense. Returning to your ancestral home for a census makes absolutely no sense. If I'm given objectives in games that are senseless it annoys me.

Ambient_Malice wrote: You know... Let me put this to y'all. Name another collective work of literature written over a period of 4000 years by sixty-odd writers working in isolation which also has no provable contradictions. Then I'll admit the Bible has been bested as a work of literature. Then we'll start counting the number of contradictions in each season of Star Trek: Next Generation.

No contradictions alone doesn't justify something being the greatest. Being written over a long period of time by multiple authors hardly qualifies it either. By that standard something created today by multiple authors would be a masterpiece in 4000 years provided it didn't blatantly contradict itself. Obviously a lack of patent contradiction is typically requisite of good literature but clearly other things come into play when we're determining the quality of a work. The same goes for influence. If Shakespeare or Donne never alluded to the Bible in their works at all would the Bible be diminished? I would say no.

Edited by: JigsawPieces

The point is no no other 'compiled' religious text manages to avoid internal contradiction. But anyway... Making a game based on Biblical events is different to 'normal' history based games because the developers of any such game are either irreverent, and make a mess, or over-reverent, and make something which is dry and boring to play. The Bible wasn't intended to entertain. It was intended to convey a message.

Eh... I'm not too enthusiastic about this idea... like everyone has already said, just what the hell will the player do? I'm trying to dig through this religious debate and I haven't come across an answer yet :/

ambershee wrote: Can we please avoid the Christian conversionism posts and try to keep it constructive? This is about the feasibility of constructing a game based around a specific book, nothing more, nothing less. If you want to argue whose creation story is 'the correct one', you can bugger off to some other message board.

KnightofEcclesia wrote:

ambershee wrote:

Ambient_Malice wrote: The Bible is the greatest work of literature in human history.

It really isn't (and claiming it is is somewhat short sighted, considering the sutras, Vedas, Bhagavad Ghita, or the Qu'ran as examples of other religious texts); however it does make exceptional material for a videogame, so long as you don't gloss it over and cut out the distasteful material. You do also really need to focus on specific books at a time rather than present it as a whole, and there are probably an awful lot of gaps that need filling in, in order to render it a continuous playable piece.

It really is. Shakespeare was influenced by The Bible and The Psalms make Shakespeare's work seem like child's poems. It was also the King James Bible which MADE the English language and the way we write has been GREATLY influenced by how The Bible was wrote. So yes, it is the GREATEST literature in human history whether you believe in it or not.

Just because we speak English and the way the language is written is somewhat influenced by the printing of the Bible does not make it the "GREATEST literature in human history". It might make it the most significant in your immediate history, but I'm pretty sure around four billion people of various descent in Asia as an example might not exactly agree with you, considering their cultures and languages were shaped by entirely different texts, some of which predate the Bible by thousands of years.

Ummm. Yes it does. If literature inspires an entire language which nearly everyone in the world speaks, that says it all. Asian, African and other European languages aren't as popular. I'd imagine that in a few centuries, everyone will be speaking English. Shakespeare is considered to be the greatest play writer ever by all who study literature and he was greatly influenced by the way that The Bible was written. Having read all of The Bible and some of Shakespeare's works, I have noted similarities in how they are written.

Please list another piece of literature which has inspired millions of books, art, movies and games. Not even The Odysseus has had the same influence. The Qur'an hasn't had the same influence and most of The Qur'an contains the same stories as the Torah for Adam, Eve, Abel, Cain, Noah, Moses, Elijah, Elisha, Job, King David, King Solomon, Jonah and all the other prophets and their stories are mentioned in the Qur'an and apart from a few verses being different, they contain the same story overall. Even when it comes to Jesus, The Qur'an agrees on the Virgin Birth and that Jesus was created by God thus making him the Son of God despite what later verses in the Qur'an say.

The Hindu and Buddhist religious books may have similar beauty to verses written in The Bible but their sayings haven't traveled very far. Many sayings and parables we have all come from The Bible specifically from Jesus.

Phrases.org.uk

Seriously, I don't care if you're an atheist, atheist evolutionist, gnostic believer or agnostic, saying that The Bible is not the greatest literature in human history is an erroneous statement.

It's ironic too because some atheists often use Bible verses to support atheists who argue against religion. "Fight the good fight" "actions are more important than beliefs" "the truth will set you free" are just some verses which come from The Bible and these atheists don't use them to anger Christians, they honestly believe that they've invented them themselves.

So please list another piece of literature whose sayings are quoted in every day life.

I don't always read books but when I do, I read The Bible. Stay holy my friends!

@Flppedoutkyrii

It would probably be like all the other Bible games: An interactive story where you explore and solve puzzles.

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King David RTS, RPG please.

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I myself am thinking about using the Aurora toolset of Neverwinter Nights to make a module set during the days of Genesis wherein you play a minor angel who must assist Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel and Michael clear the earth of the fallen angels. Raguel, Remiel, Saraqael also make appearances as the three other archangels. Your journey will lead you across the world where you will fight demons and eventually assist Enoch in his quest as you raise through the heavenly ranks and become Enoch's personal guardian angel. Being built on an RPG elements, there would be RPG elements and being an angel, you should have the ability to take on various appearances.

It probably won't come about. I still have The Mystic Journey: The Sagas to finish which contain religious elements:

Moddb.com

And here's the story of the Mystic Journey for anyone interested:
Moddb.com

The Mystic Journey isn't as popular as the other series I'm working on with a team (Tales of a Forgotten Realm series which you may have seen several times. One of our releases was mentioned on Rock, Paper, Shotgun) but I think the story behind it is probably more epic.

I like where Ambershee's going with all this. Truthfully Religion in all forms (not just the main stream ones) is worth looking into for a basis for story. We saw this starting to happen with Assasins Creed, though Ubisoft lacked the balls to actually take it further, and thus has turned it into a year after year mess of a story that started off really good and now has turned into "Aliens did it", SPOILERS though why would you care.

The industry shouldn't be affraid of religion, rather should embrace it. Religion for the greater good of history was a major driving force for culture and most of the stories we know and tell today are the result of some kind of epic struggle on a religious front.. be it Greek, Jewish, Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Roman ect ect.

Its interesting stuff. The player ultimately should be given the choice in the matter though, do I participate in the religion, or do I choose not to. I feel that it is video games that are really the best medium for doing this because we have the ability to interact and choose ultimately what we want to beleive.. something that the Bible for some reason discourages (but which Christ openly promoted in is criticism of the Hebrew religion of his time). But yeah, Religion really at least in the modern era shouldn't be a passive form of self discovery, it should be an active one, something which a video game can really greatly aid and participate in better than what a film or book can.

I think probably the biggest challenge for a game would be the depiction of the prophet Muhammad in a video game because of the whole "you can't draw Muhammad" thing, but there's ways around it (even to the extent of just not showing him).

Someone wrote: Old testament: A collection of moooostly if not only fictional stories. Just as any collection of classical fairy tales.

I think you'll find that most of Exodus is based on historic events, but they're really exagerated.

Edited by: formerlyknownasMrCP

Wow, its pretty funny seeing people debate the bible being written in English. Of course it wasn't written in English you fools It was translated to english from latin which was translated from hebrew.

Edited by: masternerdguy