\n<\/p>\n
Joe Morgan approached a man in a market in the video game and asked if he knew John the Baptist.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, I punched him in the face last week,\u201d the man said. \u201cIf I get the chance, I\u2019m probably going to kill him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Morgan laughed. That wasn\u2019t what he was expecting someone to say to Jesus. Playing as the Messiah in the new video game I Am Jesus Christ<\/em>, which challenges players to walk in Jesus\u2019 sandals from just before his baptism all the way to Calvary, the grave, and resurrection, was turning out to be kind of odd.<\/p>\n For example: \u201cAfter 40 days fasting in the desert, you basically have a magic fireball fight with Satan,\u201d Morgan said. \u201cYou have to destroy dark crystals and pray before you can perform a miracle. It\u2019s very bizarre.\u201d<\/p>\n Morgan is a founding member of evangelical pop culture group Geeks Under Grace, which among other things reviews new video games. He isn\u2019t opposed to biblical games. But I Am Jesus Christ<\/em>, a demo version of which came out on the gaming platform Steam in December 2022, didn\u2019t seem great.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t want to naysay anyone who\u2019s trying to spread the gospel,\u201d Morgan said, \u201cbut people can tell the difference in quality in a thing that is good and a thing that is bad. And this does not scream quality<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n Maksym Vysochanskiy, the Polish game developer behind I Am Jesus Christ<\/em>, is not surprised by reactions like this. But he\u2019s not dissuaded either.<\/p>\n \u201cMany players thought that this was a joke game at the beginning,\u201d he said. \u201cThat doesn\u2019t stop us, and we continue development.\u201d<\/p>\n The idea for the game first came, Vysochanskiy said, when he was watching computer-animated movies like Toy Story<\/em> and Shrek<\/em>. As a Christian who has read the Bible through multiple times, he started imagining using that technology to tell Jesus\u2019 story.<\/p>\n Then as video games advanced, new technology grabbed his imagination. PlayWay, a Polish game developing company, started putting out popular simulation games, including Car Mechanic Simulator<\/em>, Thief Simulator<\/em>, Contraband Police<\/em>, and Farm Manager<\/em>. He wondered, could the same approach work for a game about Jesus?<\/p>\n Vysochanskiy\u2019s company, SimulaM<\/a>, teamed up with PlayWay<\/a> to try.<\/p>\n I Am Jesus<\/em>Christ <\/em>may be the first game that invites people to play as Jesus himself. But it\u2019s part of a larger tradition of audacious, inventive, and sometimes deeply strange Christian video games.<\/p>\n Major game corporations have not, historically, had much of an appetite for religious content that might divide their audience or stir unnecessary controversy. But independent developers, inspired by their faith and dreams of what a game could be, have been producing original Christian games since the 1980s.<\/p>\n A game company called BibleBytes put out several products for RadioShack\u2019s Tandy Color Computer in 1982. In one, players tried to herd animals into an ark; in another, they collected manna in the desert. The following year, Atari purchased an independently developed game called Red Sea Crossing<\/em>. But the company was going through a crisis and decided not to mass produce the game, only advertising<\/a> it in Christianity Today<\/em> (and only in one<\/a> issue).<\/p>\n Since then, Christian game developers have pushed, adapted, and experimented\u2014with varying degrees of success. One Christian company<\/a> retooled the engine of a Nazi-fighting game so that Noah was feeding, or possibly fighting, animals on the ark (mostly goats). They released it, unlicensed, for Nintendo systems.<\/p>\n The Canadian Bible Society bankrolled YaHero<\/em>, an online multiplayer game where players travel around an island completing quests given to them by a wise turtle, like locating musical instruments to unlock biblical scrolls. A Dutch developer came up with Adam\u2019s Venture<\/em>, a biblical archaeology game available on PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch.<\/p>\n I Am Jesus<\/em>Christ <\/em>didn\u2019t seem like a natural next step. To some Christians, it was a step in the wrong direction for Christian games. Johnathan Floyd, president of Geeks Under Grace, said he had some immediate misgivings. Still, he was willing to give it a chance.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I think about what it might take to make a good Christian game to really tell the story of the Bible, I often come to the conclusion that something really unique has to be done,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n When he started playing I Am Jesus Christ<\/em>, there was a moment when Jesus was leaving home and stopped to say goodbye to Mary. Oh, wait a minute<\/em>, he thought, I think they may be on to something here<\/em>. What would it feel like for Jesus to leave his mom to go start his ministry? What would Jesus\u2019 mornings be like when he was fasting in the desert? Was he lonely before the disciples joined him on his journey? After?<\/p>\n \u201cIt was just some interesting things to explore,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n As he played on, though, Floyd lost interest. Too much of the game, he said, involves keeping your Holy Spirit meter filled and repelling Satan\u2019s attacks.<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe the emphasis should be more on the storytelling and less on the gamification,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Matthew Birdzell, a Christian gamer who has written about faith and gaming for Love Thy Nerd, said he might have liked the game better if you played as someone close to Jesus, instead of Jesus.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re supposed to be like him, not become him,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019d take a lesser-known character that\u2019s still named and form the gameplay around discovering that character so you can understand the internal and external struggles.\u201d<\/p>\n This approach would address a couple of areas of concern. Partly, it\u2019s a matter of narrative expectations. In an open world, another character\u2019s story could branch out in unexpected directions, and that would be more interesting. It\u2019s also partly a matter of theological respect. It\u2019s great to take inspiration from the Bible, Birdzell said, but statements about the Incarnation, who God is, and how Jesus behaved on Earth should be made with caution.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s probably a good intent behind the game,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Josh Towns, an independent Baptist pastor in North Vancouver, British Columbia, who likes to game, said he was caught off guard by the idea of playing as Jesus. He didn\u2019t think it was heretical, but found it kind of off-putting.<\/p>\n Still, the evangelistic opportunities give him pause. He doesn\u2019t want to write it off completely.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are people that might never go to church or listen to a sermon or broach Christianity at all, but they might download the video game and play it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Some exposure to Jesus\u2014even a video game Jesus\u2014is probably better than nothing. But Towns worries that the deviation from Scripture, needed to make the game a game, could end up twisting Jesus into something that he wasn\u2019t. Towns said he read in a review that in one part, Jesus uses a special power to still the sea. In the Bible, Jesus simply speaks to calm the sea. The difference seems important to Towns.<\/p>\n \u201cI am concerned about the story and how accurate they\u2019re going to be,\u201d Towns said. \u201cI don\u2019t like taking liberties with the story and life of Jesus.\u201d<\/p>\n Vysochanskiy, for his part, said accuracy mattered to him. He spent a lot of time researching the world of the Gospels to develop I Am Jesus Christ<\/em>. A common misconception is that Israel is desert-like, for example, but this game captures the true lushness of the region.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we started, I traveled to Israel to visit all those famous places where Jesus Christ walked to be inspired by them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Also, Vysochanskiy created the game to be fun and engaging. Players aren\u2019t going to confuse it for the Bible itself, but it might prompt them to think more about who Jesus is and what he did.<\/p>\n \u201cI will leave that to each player,\u201d Vysochanskiy said, \u201cto decide if there is any spiritual value or not.\u201d<\/p>\n Adam MacInnis is a reporter in Canada.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here<\/a>.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n