expository coding: June 2010 Archives

A Nation Under Siege

Around about 3,000 years ago, the people of Israel were a nation under siege. Oppressed by the Philistines in the West, threatened by the Ammonites in the East, Israel had no king and no hope for the future. They were governed by an ageing prophet by the name of Samuel, but it was plain to all that he wouldn't live much longer and his sons, the obvious successors, were corrupt and incompetent. The prospects of this fledgling nation seemed bleak.

Such is the setting of Ebenezer, an Old Testament adventure game I've been developing for the last few years, based around the events of 1 Samuel 8-12. To many, the Old Testament seems utterly incomprehensible; it comes across as far removed from our 21st Century existence and beyond irrelevant. Yet when you dig a little deeper, the hopes and fears of these ancient peoples were not really so very different from our own. What's more, the Old Testament is first and foremost a book about God - a God unlike the gods of the surrounding nations in every way, a God who remains the same yesterday, today and forever and who desires all of us to know him better. As we read the pages of the Old Testament and see this God engaging with his people, discovering who he is and what he cares about, we do not walk away unchanged. There's something electric and vibrant about the Old Testament that means uncovering its riches should never be boring or uninspiring. This is a book to be treasured.

Six Convictions

As explained in The Old Testament Adventure Games Creed, there are six core convictions that lie behind the Ebenezer project:

1. Education isn't the problem - humanity's problem isn't first and foremost that they don't know how to please God, it's that they don't want to please God.
2. Morality is useless - since we have an inbuilt bias against God, simply commanding us to be nice isn't going to achieve anything.
3. People need brand new hearts - we need a complete rebirth with a new nature that loves God instead of hating him.
4. New birth comes through the word of God - God promises to perform radical heart surgery on those who seek it with his living and active sword, the Bible, made possible by the death of Jesus Christ on the cross.
5. There's nothing boring about the Bible - a man dying of thirst in a desert wouldn't consider a cup of water "too boring": it's the very thing that meets his deepest need.
6. Christian video games should teach the Bible - given all this, nothing could be more worthwhile or exciting that sharing the good news of Jesus Christ as presented in the whole Bible, Old and New Testaments.

So how does it work?

The game focusses on one of the anonymous minor characters from the narrative: Saul's manservant. He is present during all of the key turning points in the story and so the player witnesses and engages with the unfolding drama through him. In addition, the story arc that has been written for this character parallels the main teaching point of the passage so that he serves the purpose of a "worked example"; as he himself learns more about God through his experiences he begins to see how they make a difference in his life, and in turn he demonstrates for us the relevance of the passage for today.

Image via Wikipedia

The game is what you would call a Point & Click adventure game: a form of interactive story where the player has to figure out how to move the story on by engaging with the characters and solving puzzles. Take, for example, The Secret of Monkey Island, arguably one of the greatest adventure games of all time. The main character, Guybrush Threepwood, is seeking to become a pirate and to do so he must pass "The Three Trials": he must find some buried treasure, steal something valuable and defeat the Sword Master. To complete the trials, Guybrush must collect various items and figure out how to cheat, steal and bribe his way to success, just like a true pirate. In the process the dreaded Ghost Pirate LeChuck kidnaps Guybrush's new-found love leading to all manner of swash-buckling fun and adventure as he endeavours to get a crew together and sail off to rescue her. The whole thing is pulled off with aplomb and a tremendous sense of humour - it's no wonder that the game holds a place in the heart of many (and it's yours today for only £6.99!)

Whilst the Point & Click adventure genre had its heyday in the early 1990s, it has seen a resurgence in the last year or two with the release of many new games in the same format, as well as the re-release of many classic games for new platforms such as the iPhone and iPad. These touchscreen devices are perfectly suited to the genre, introducing some real gems from the past to a whole new generation of players. Ebenezer is currently being developed for the iPhone using the Unity game engine.

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Why Old Testament Adventure Games?

A note of explanation: For the last five years I've been working on an Old Testament Adventure game, named Ebenezer: a point & click adventure game in the style of Monkey Island. This post is an attempt to explain some of the convictions and thinking that lies behind the project.

1. Education isn't the problem

You don't have to look very hard to notice that we live in a desperately broken world. You also don't have to look very hard to discover that we're the cause of it: despite our tremendous potential for good, human beings time and time again demonstrate a remarkable capacity for evil, constantly inflicting hurt on our environment, our fellow man and even those closest to us. It's not because we don't know how we should behave, either: even when we want to do what's right, so often we find ourselves unable to live up even to our own standards, let alone God's. Education isn't the problem. The human heart is marred by sin, the product of a creature in rebellion against its Creator. It's not just that we commit 'sins', rather it's that we are sinful, and so our sin is our world's greatest problem. Simply telling people how they should behave and expecting them to change will accomplish nothing.

2. Morality is useless

By implication, if education isn't the problem then morality is useless. 'Morality' tells you how you're supposed to behave and berates you when you fail, beating you with a stick and expecting you to try harder next time. It provides no power to change, and frankly it's just plain boring.

3. People need brand new hearts

When he met a bunch of people who thought they were 'good' and moral, people obsessed with living righteous lives, Jesus told them that they were like people who spent ages washing the outside of their mugs and never noticed that inside they were full of sewage and filth. Cleaning up our outward actions is pointless and hypocritical when inwardly our hearts are like poo pumps constantly gushing forth a stench-ridden stream of foul and unclean thoughts. If you disagree that you're like this, try going just one week without thinking a single unkind thought about someone, without a single lustful look, without the faintest hint of envy or pride. Try going just one day, even!

The problem isn't external to us - forcing women to cover their figures with a burqa or removing all of the violence and immorality from our video games won't stop those thoughts welling up inside us. The problem lies within: our hearts are desperately wicked, and people need brand new hearts if they're ever going to change.

4. New birth comes through the word of God

The wonderful hope held out by Jesus in the gospel is that he promises to give new hearts to all those who trust in him - it's as though we were born a second time as whole new people, starting again from scratch. "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!", says Paul. How does the Holy Spirit work to bring about that new birth? Again and again in the Bible comes the same answer: new birth comes through the word of God. Of all the ways he could do it, God has chosen to work first and foremost through the Bible, faithfully taught, explained and applied. As people recognise the Bible as the word of God and respond to its message, putting their faith in Jesus for salvation, God works a miracle as great as the miracle of creation to remove their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh, beating to his drum and not their own.

5. There's nothing boring about the Bible

If the word of God brings about new birth for sinful people, then there's nothing boring about that! Anybody who has ever found themselves dozing off in a boring sermon or Sunday school class only has their boring teacher to blame - it's an impressive feat to take something as electric as the word of God and turn it into something dull!

The message of the Bible deserves to be presented in a way that does justice to how incredibly exciting it is - this is the hope of eternal life for sinful human beings! It's the solution to our broken and decaying world! It doesn't need anything added to it to make it interesting and engaging and relevant, it simply needs to be explained clearly and faithfully. What could be more relevant than something that meets our deepest needs?

6. Christian video games should teach the Bible

A Christian understanding of the world governed by these principles has led me to pour countless hours over the last five years into making an Old Testament adventure game that first and foremost seeks to teach the Bible. Education isn't the problem, so the world doesn't need more games that teach us how to live. Morality is useless, so the world doesn't need more games encouraging us to pull our socks up. People need brand new hearts, so the world won't be helped by games without the violence and immorality. New birth comes through the word of God, so Christian video games should teach the Bible. And there's nothing boring about the Bible, so Christian video games shouldn't be boring either - they should be the most exciting games on the market, since they have the potential to change your life! As I've written previously, I'm convinced that point & click adventure games can do this extremely well, so that's what I've been concentrating on.

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