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Jestermax -- great news! You're thinking right on track with the rest of the people here -- I think you'll fit in here just swell.

There have been serveral attempts over the years to do community projects here on the boards -- with mixed successes and failures. Probably the biggest success that we've seen has happened in the past year, and that's been with the community project Bible Dave. If you're curious, you may be interested in reading the whole line of discussion about it here:
http://www.christiancoders.com/ubb/Forum2/HTML/000663.html

It's a pretty long thread. It makes reference to the one month game project, which is one that had some pretty good success, but ultimately ran out of steam and was never finished.

Bible Dave has come a *long* way since it started 10 months ago, and a *large* number of people on CCN have gotten to be a part of it over its whole development cycle.

So please don't feel bad -- you honestly haven't wasted anyone's time.

Cheers!

In Christ,
clint

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quote:

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Originally posted by jestermax:
I think it would be a nifty idea to get some of the people in the CCN community to create some sort of open-source project.

---

quote:

---

Maybe a game engine or something requiring a little less work. Personal projects rarely make it to the public (a decent amount of people that is). So why build a plan for something and create something that can benefit not only us but others as well (and gain more publicity as well).

---

I don't see why we can't do another project. It doesn't have to be a game, or written in Python. What's everyone's thoughts on this?

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All Your Base Are Belong To Us!!! chown -r us ./base
"After three days without programming, life becomes meaningless.'' -- Tao of Programming Book 2

My Blog

quote:

---

Originally posted by CPUFreak91:
I don't see why we can't do another project. It doesn't have to be a game, or written in Python. What's everyone's thoughts on this?

---

hehe... I agree with "or written in Python"... possibly used a bit too much on CCN...

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"But it is God who judges: He brings one down, he exalts another." - Psalm 75:7

CPUFreak91, considering how little we have left to do with Bible Dave I think it's alright to start thinking the next community project. But I hope that next community project would be much more God centered than Bible Dave is because BD cannot have that much God's word since it's a platform game.

In this world full of fun secular games we should as Christians really but effort on creating something completely new instead of just tagging one new game of type X for the Lord - wich of course can still be a good thing in God's eyes but it's even better to think our main reason for living and that is telling the Gospel to the lost in order to save them from hell and that is way to life through our Lord Jesus into evarlasting life with our Father.

In Christ,
Jari.

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The post:
[quote>]
I think about the 1600s or 1700s, there came a book called Pilgrim's Progress, by John Bunyan. It is a wonderful allegorical adventure story about the life of a Christian, told through the exploits of a man appropriately named Christian. He meets many thematically named characters that help (Hopeful, Interpreter, the Porter's daughters all have names like Charity...) or hinder (the Giant Despair, Mr. Worldly-Wiseman, Apollyon...) his progress from his home in the City of Destruction, along the Narrow Path to the Celestial City.

Just reading through the story smells like a rather straightforward adaptation to a Zelda-like action RPG (possibly FF-like RPG, but that might suit more his wife's tale). While something all riffed out with OpenGL would be neat, I'm thinking 2D would just as well suit the purpose.

The story itself does a great job of conveying the core of the Gospel truth, and if it were told through a video game to help it should be quite memorable. There are online versions of the text (it should be possible just to do a search on "download Pilgrim's Progress", I think that's what I did anyway!) for anyone interested in checking it out, whether for a game idea or for some high-quality reading.

My honest guess is that this suggestion has come up before, so I apologize if I am rehashing something that has been tried and succeeded, tried and failed, or looked at and dismissed as "no one would do it". I know there is occasionally talk of a community project, and for a good while I have been entertaining ideas like this one. [/quote]

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|steveth45|
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[This message has been edited by steveth45 (edited July 03, 2006).]

I agree that platform games generally don't spread much in the way of messages as the gameplay is simply action-driven. For story/message based games i would suggest Zelda-like or FF-like gameplay as Nomad suggested. If you can get some well designed game elements, then they can be fun and they hold the player's attention long enough to deliver our message.

[This message has been edited by jestermax (edited July 03, 2006).]

Thank you for pointing me towards where similar work is happening, I would have been very surprised if that story were never turned into (or is currently being turned into) a game before now. I look forward to watching their (heh heh) progress.

quote:

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Originally posted by jestermax:

Sadly, Torque is too expensive to work with, especially as a group as everyone needs an "official" sdk to do anything.

---

Actually you only need the license if you want to see the engine's source code, so artists wont need it.

For community project ideas sheeplings is my suggestion because we can write a good story for it.

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2Co 7:10 For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.

[VoHW] (Help needed) [Blog] - Truedisciple (mp3)

I looked over all the stuff at the Sheeplings thread; I actually thought something got going with that, to be honest. Sorry to have ignored it. A lot of those ideas are golden. I would especially like the idea if the "tools" were adapted to be associated with Bible verses. For example, for dealing with temptation (like Han Clinto's suggestion) there is a verse in Job about making a "covenant with your eyes not to look at a woman lustfully", so the symbol could be the blinders or sunglasses or anything else catchy that would help people (I'm thinking especially kids, but these mnemonics and images are useful for anyone) remember.

some more general brainstorming:
I hope people are checking out that Sheeplings thread. Another idea (which, with the way I've worked so far, is already "taken" or otherwise dismissed) would be "The Gospel Trail". Everyone loves that game Oregon Trail back from the days of the Apple II, right? I say, make a nostalgic update in the form of a story mimicking (or even pretty accurately re-enacting) the events of the book of Acts and other descriptions of Paul's or other missionary journeys. My vote would be for an original character and party, like in Oregon Trail itself, and base the places and events on those in the Bible (maybe even have brief encounters with the historical people, too).

Again, this might have come up before, but wouldn't it be sw33t?

If we didn't want it to be a missionary journey the game was illustrating, it could also be a pilgrimage to a historical site -- pilgrimage used to be a larger part of Christian culture back in the day, and so the game could inform people about that.

Do you guys think there might be enough interest to work on a bigger project? Say one using the Torque Game Engine? A guy I met online named Darian Hickman has a very interesting game proposal called Village: The Game -- it's basically a "Sim City for developing countries". It's a simulation to show people how technology can be used in certain appropriate situations to really benefit people in other countries, through areas like education, communication, health and economics. He's got some funding available, but if CCN could help him just create a concept demo so that he could pitch it to other people, that might be a big help to him.

Just a thought -- I'm intrigued by his game idea. I'm not sure which project I would want to do -- personally I'm guessing I'll skip out on the next community project as I'm up to my eyeballs in stuff with work and Progress21 and everything else I'm doing. So don't let my opinion sway you all too much -- I'm just throwing out more ideas for discussion.

Cheers!

--clint

[This message has been edited by HanClinto (edited July 06, 2006).]

The only problem I can forsee is that a community project is, admittedly, supposed to involve the community. If this guy needs a concept demo, its going to have to be of high quality. That means only the most skilled among us could do much to help at all.

So I don't think it would be a very good "community project", but definately something members of this community should check out.
But who am I to say? Only been here a few days... :-p

While this isn't the right thread, I do owe archangel, lazarus, and some other homeschooled CCN members an apology. I have some resentment that I obviously lost control of. As an afternote, I did not leave because of that argument, it was just sort of the last straw in a chain of events in my life. (and just so you are aware, I have been homeschooled, public schooled, and in private christian schools.) Regardless of all of that, I was wrong to act the way I did.

<Insert here, the post from above>

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quit posting on CCN? nope. I havn't been driven off yet.

More and more though, Jari, im seeing what you mean when it comes to games and God. However, my question is, outside of what your trying to do with VOHW (which is great) what kind of new and innovative type of game can we as a community work on? The main issue is that so much has already happened in the gaming industry that we dont have a lot of options other than saying a game is type X for God, even if we modify the genre a lot. Perhaps thats a starting place for us to spring off of as far as questions go?

I thought that the most recent article on the main site was interesting and had a good message. We have to preach the gospel with whatever we work on. Perhaps through allegory, perhaps through a head on declaration of faith and use of scripture.

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O Praise Christ, O Praise Christ, He Is Holy, He Is Holy - O Praise Him,

so many christian products are just blatant rip offs and parodies of secular products.
an industry can only go so far if it's copying off another.

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"Patience, my good citizen, patience. It's bad enough to rob a man of his dream"
-Sydney Carton, Tale of Two Cities
Soterion Studios

quote:

---

Originally posted by LegaianLight:

More and more though, Jari, im seeing what you mean when it comes to games and God. However, my question is, outside of what your trying to do with VOHW (which is great) what kind of new and innovative type of game can we as a community work on? The main issue is that so much has already happened in the gaming industry that we dont have a lot of options other than saying a game is type X for God, even if we modify the genre a lot. Perhaps thats a starting place for us to spring off of as far as questions go?

---

Good question and I think it's time to wake up and begin praying more for answers. I believe God has plans for Christian video games and Gospel and we need to attach our hearts in to those plans, in prayer. What it takes from us is not hard thinking but denying our own dreams and desires and looking on the cross and start telling about people what Jesus did for you and that you may have everlasting life in Him if you turn to Him. Then I'm sure the answers will follow, that's how it has gone with me and VoHW.

quote:

---

Originally posted by LegaianLight:

I thought that the most recent article on the main site was interesting and had a good message. We have to preach the gospel with whatever we work on. Perhaps through allegory, perhaps through a head on declaration of faith and use of scripture.

---

Yeah that is a good article, I recommend every one to read it!

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2Co 7:10 For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.

[VoHW] (Help needed) [Blog] - Truedisciple (mp3)

[This message has been edited by jari (edited July 07, 2006).]

quote:

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Originally posted by ArchAngel:
the objection I have with sheeplings is that it's another "christian knockoff."

so many christian products are just blatant rip offs and parodies of secular products.
an industry can only go so far if it's copying off another.

---

I dont know what you mean by "knockoff" but the great thing about pingus is that it has a story mode which we can use for "our story" - the Gospel.

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2Co 7:10 For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.

[VoHW] (Help needed) [Blog] - Truedisciple (mp3)

quote:

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Originally posted by jari:

CPUFreak91, considering how little we have left to do with Bible Dave I think it's alright to start thinking the next community project. But I hope that next community project would be much more God centered than Bible Dave is because BD cannot have that much God's word since it's a platform game.

---

The game's theme is mainly faith, so this game is an example/witness not an evangelizer.

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All Your Base Are Belong To Us!!! chown -r us ./base
"After three days without programming, life becomes meaningless.'' -- Tao of Programming Book 2

My Blog

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[This message has been edited by buddboy (edited July 07, 2006).]

1. Movement in 5-dimensional space.
2. Desert island survival MMORPG. (Think: Survival, The Video Game.)
3. Old Testament based platformer where you dodge lepers and dead bodies. If you touch one, you'd better see the priest, and if you're lucky, you'll only be unclean until evening.

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|steveth45|
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quote:

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Originally posted by steveth45:
2. Desert island survival MMORPG. (Think: Survival, The Video Game.)

---

Interesting. After reading Lord of the Flies a couple of months ago, I had an idea for making a game where it's basically the griefers vs. the people trying to win the game. So you start up a game with 20+ other islanders and the goal of the kids who want to be rescued is to try and survive until a rescue ship can be alerted, and the goal of the kids who don't care (players who are griefers) is to prevent the game from being won.

It was more of an idea for a social experiment of a game that recognized griefers and included them as part of the game element.

Players would be limited, because a weak kid certainly can't kill a strong one, and they have to be careful with killing off people to quickly or else there won't be anyone on the island -- one could find an interesting balancing act with this one.

quote:

---

Originally posted by steveth45:
3. Old Testament based platformer where you dodge lepers and dead bodies. If you touch one, you'd better see the priest, and if you're lucky, you'll only be unclean until evening.

---

hah!

Good seeing you around, Steve.

--clint

and, sheeplings is a parody of lemmings. pingus is just another clone of lemmings.

quote:

---

3. Old Testament based platformer where you dodge lepers and dead bodies. If you touch one, you'd better see the priest, and if you're lucky, you'll only be unclean until evening.

---

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"Patience, my good citizen, patience. It's bad enough to rob a man of his dream"
-Sydney Carton, Tale of Two Cities
Soterion Studios

quote:

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Originally posted by Nomad:
Everyone loves that game Oregon Trail back from the days of the Apple II, right?

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lol! I coded on Oregon Trail 4 and a wee little bit on Amazon Trail II and also a lessor known trail like game called Road Adventures USA awwww...those were the days!

[This message has been edited by coolj (edited July 20, 2006).]

Coded on Oregon Trail, eh? Mad props, is the least I think that can be said.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Tonnyx
Scott Wong gave a great talk on game design. I think my notebook is in my checked luggage, so I can't get to it right now. What I remember is that he advocated designing Christian games "from the inside out".

You start with building and strengthening your personal relationship with Jesus.

Then you lay out what you would like to accomplish with your game.

Then, and only then, after you have determined this clearly, do you go on to the next one: the method for accomplishing your goals (your game's genre, premise, storyline, etc.)
After you have clearly lain that out, *then* you focus on technology, game engine, etc.

---

I wonder if we shouldn't start with batting around *goals* for the game. What do we want to accomplish? The specific questions that come to my mind are:
1) Should it have explicitly Christian content?
2) Who is our target audience? (Kids or teens, Christian or secular, families or hard-core-gamers)
3) What do we hope to accomplish with this game? What's lacking in the game world that we will try to fill with this project?

I know they're tough and large questions, but I'm thinking that if we're all trying to practice with these CCN community projects to prepare ourselves for larger things, we should start off on the right foot.

Just a thought -- interested in hearing what you all think.

Cheers!

--clint

hmm...

1) YES
2) Christian because frankly i doubt a game can be targeted towards secular and keep a christian premise.
3) hmm... that's a hard one.

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In all seriousness, thanks for your answers! This is a good start. And that third answer doesn't have to have an outstanding answer for a project to be worthwhile -- the goals of the Bible Dave project were pretty simple -- mainly to give game development experience to members of the team who hadn't ever been on a game development project that started with a thought-out design document or were followed through to completion. That process is still underway, but I know that I've benefited from the project, and I would guess everyone else who participated has as well. It didn't revolutionize the games industry, but it has a purpose and I think it's fulfilling that well.

The purpose of the next project could be as simple as raising awareness about Christian Coders or the Christian Game Developer's Conference or something -- you know, just a minigame to advertise.

Sorry for sounding so dry in my above post. I'm really not running this show -- I'm just trying to offer some advice that I hope is helpful.

Cheers!

In Christ,
clint

HanClinto:
1) I'm not sure what is "Christian content" but if that means symbols of crosses, characters from the Bible and Bible and verses then I think it depends on the target audiance. If it's for Christians only then it could have explicitly Christian content.
2) Hard-core gamers who want something else for their life and Christians. Because Jesus' sheeps will hear His voice and follow Him.
3) Create a sort of an portal out from the secular gaming world to something much more humble yet better because it's of hope not what is now. There is no need to support the secular gaming world which just grows and grows.

In Christ,
Jari.

[This message has been edited by jari (edited July 15, 2006).]

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quote:

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Originally posted by HanClinto:
I wonder if we shouldn't start with batting around *goals* for the game. What do we want to accomplish?

---

We could outline and agree on some core goals. I have some suggestions:

1. Fun. (self evident)
2. Edifying/Uplifting. (spiritually, morally, ethically, and emotionally)

Then the next ring of goals might be something like this:

3. Use free and cross-platform development tools/engine. (Keep it open for all to help out)
4. Enjoyable for Christians and non-Christians alike. (not "Bible Trivia")
5. Use it to raise awareness of CCN and CGDC. (Our low-ish numbers are not for lack of interest, but lack of exposure.)

If we can agree on something along these lines, then we can move to the next ring which could include what genre of game (action, RPG/adventure, sim/strategy, casual), actual game concept, etc. We could do this with prayerful brainstorming. We come up with a list of decent ideas, discuss and vote.

We could do the design doc wiki-style and then get to work.

Perhaps that is a bit more structured and formal than usual, but if we want this to be practice for bigger and better things, it could be good practice.

Clint, I didn't want to start discussing particulars about using Christian imagery or not because I thing that is more of an outer ring, implementation question than a core goal.

So what do you all think of those goals?

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|steveth45|
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Great response! I really like all of your goals set out for this project.

quote:

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Originally posted by steveth45:
5. Use it to raise awareness of CCN and CGDC. (Our low-ish numbers are not for lack of interest, but lack of exposure.)

---

I *especially* like this goal, and totally agree. Whether or not the project merely advertises CCN/CGDC at the beginning (like Bible Dave does -- I believe we've had at least one person visit CCN from finding it from Bible Dave), or whether it's a more obvious advergame (find your ticket, fly to Portland, dodge hippies on street and make it to the conference), I think it's a very noble goal and one which is definitely within the feasibility of the people here on the boards.

quote:

---

Originally posted by steveth45:
Perhaps that is a bit more structured and formal than usual, but if we want this to be practice for bigger and better things, it could be good practice.

---

The design document formalities that we did with the Bible Dave project took a little bit of time to get up and running at the beginning, but I really think they saved enormous amounts of time/energy at the end by letting us have better focus.

quote:

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Originally posted by steveth45:
Clint, I didn't want to start discussing particulars about using Christian imagery or not because I thing that is more of an outer ring, implementation question than a core goal.

---

Totally -- I think you're right on with this. Great stuff!

In Christ,
clint

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2Co 7:10 For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.

[VoHW] (Help needed) [Blog] - Truedisciple (mp3)

quote:

---

Originally posted by steveth45:
3. Use free and cross-platform development tools/engine. (Keep it open for all to help out)
4. Enjoyable for Christians and non-Christians alike. (not "Bible Trivia")
5. Use it to raise awareness of CCN and CGDC. (Our low-ish numbers are not for lack of interest, but lack of exposure.)

---

Kudos on the basic ideas/plans! I hope you surpass Bible Dave in making it enjoyable for Christians and non-Christians alike.

As for awareness... when you have something, why not consider SourceForge.net (although they require an OSI approved open source license) for exposure (Bible Dave has over 200 downloads which is way more than I ever hoped for).

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All Your Base Are Belong To Us!!! chown -r us ./base
"After three days without programming, life becomes meaningless.'' -- Tao of Programming Book 2

My Blog

quote:

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Originally posted by CPUFreak91:
Kudos on the basic ideas/plans! I hope you surpass Bible Dave in making it enjoyable for Christians and non-Christians alike.

---

Bible Dave is awesome. I'm really impressed that the guys here put it together.

quote:

---

As for awareness... when you have something, why not consider SourceForge.net (although they require an OSI approved open source license) for exposure (Bible Dave has over 200 downloads which is way more than I ever hoped for).

---

Using SF and an open source license isn't a bad idea. A community project would be basically open source anyways. Maybe when the project gets to alpha stage with something that runs, we could put it on sourceforge.

So.. let's here those game ideas!

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|steveth45|
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well, if we were to do Sheeplings or whatever, no problem for me. that's an idea that has already been brought up... we could do it in Python again since it seems a lot of people know that. and it's cross-platform. and free. lol. Or we could do Bible Dave 2! lol. and it could incorporate the CGDC thing. it could be where you have to get from the Kilapowa village to an airstrip and then make it to the CGDC wherever we chose to say it was (Portland sounds good so we don't have to make anything up, or we could just say portland and not release it until they say where the next one is). that's just an idea. what do you guys think?

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Player is a preacher of the Gospel who travels from town to town in around 100AD looking for the lost. The lost are people who will listen and follow Christ when player reaches them by talking/preaching to them.
The challange:
Many people hate the Gospel (mostly the pharisees) and will persecuate player, some throw stones at player and some assault player even with swords in order to kill and player's only option is to run and pray. There are also mockers who will challange the player (special encounters) to answer tough questions which player must be able to answer by citing the correct verses from the Bible or else his faith will decrease.
Other:
The game would be viewed from top down or from isometric perspective.
During the game Brothers and Sisters may join the player.
Player cannot always determine from the outwards look of an NPC is he hostile or not.

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2Co 7:10 For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.

[VoHW] (Help needed) [Blog] - Truedisciple (mp3)

Maybe I'm just not a big fan of street preaching, but most of the evangelism I've been involved with (and certainly anything I've ever seen fruit from) has been the one-on-one friendship type of witnessing. I'm not saying that street preaching is wrong -- I'm just wondering what we're trying to teach kids about how they should share Jesus's love with their friends. However, Exegesis has done a good job with this street evangelism thing I think, so I guess it can be done well.

I do like the strong Christian message and how you're focused more on the game mechanics/purpose rather than the actual implementation, yet you still give possible implementation options. I think that's definitely the right approach.

In thinking about your game idea, I see it being somewhat close to Bible Dave. Should we try and make something more "different" for the next project?

Maybe not as extreme as what Steveth was talking about (5 dimensional space), but one I've been rolling around for a while is a game whose purpose is to teach Biblical greek. So many games have runes/hieroglyphics/latin in them that kids start picking up these other languages. I mean, am I the only one with friends who learned Japanese because their favorite anime was in that language? I also know people who have learned Nordic runes through/because of video games -- I wonder if we could have greek be a similar side-part (or main focus even) of a game.

For reference, one game I've seen do this sort of thing is Slime Forest Adventure -- they use a retro style RPG to teach Japanese writing. It's been around for a while, and seems to be at least moderately successful. I've downloaded it and played it, and it's fun (though I didn't stick with it very long).

Just thinking out loud. Thanks for the idea, Jari! It really helps to have a starting point so we can say what we like and don't like, and then develop from there.

--clint

quote:

---

Originally posted by HanClinto:
Jari:
That sounds a lot like JetSpice's game Exegesis.

Maybe I'm just not a big fan of street preaching, but most of the evangelism I've been involved with (and certainly anything I've ever seen fruit from) has been the one-on-one friendship type of witnessing. I'm not saying that street preaching is wrong -- I'm just wondering what we're trying to teach kids about how they should share Jesus's love with their friends. However, Exegesis has done a good job with this street evangelism thing I think, so I guess it can be done well.

---

Oh, hmm, just note that I did not mean todays street preaching but like it was in the times of apostoles.

The way I see it is that player would be messanger of good news who shares love in Jesus name helping people in any way he can and most importantly bringing them the news of eternal life through salvation in Christ and yet he has to run for his life. Message and action.
But if we dont want that kind of theme (rather hostile) then it's definetely not an option.

In Christ,
Jari.

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2Co 7:10 For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.

[VoHW] (Help needed) [Blog] - Truedisciple (mp3)

quote:

---

Originally posted by jari:
Oh, hmm, just note that I did not mean todays street preaching but like it was in the times of apostoles.

---

Oooh right. Sorry -- I totally forgot about that.

You're right about it combining message and action -- and you haven't had to distort reality to get that to fit. Good job on that.

--clint

what do you guys think about my idea?

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Originally posted by buddboy:

what do you guys think about my idea?

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Well I hope we could finnish BD one and after that I'd prefer to change the game genre because we have already put so much on this type of game. But that's just me of course, maybe some one has new ideas for BD2.

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2Co 7:10 For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.

[VoHW] (Help needed) [Blog] - Truedisciple (mp3)

Jari, despite the historical setting, I think many people, mainly non-Christians, would have a hard time getting into public evangelism as a game. Personally, I'd like something a little more accessible for both Christians and non-Christians. That doesn't mean leaving out the Gospel, but maybe not having the player preaching something they may or may not agree with.

Clint, I like the idea of teaching ancient Greek. We'd have to have at least a couple people working on the game that know ancient Greek well enough to pull it off. Regardless, I like the idea quite a bit. Maybe if we did it, we'd all learn some ancient Greek in the process.

I'd also like to see Bible Dave finished before everybody dives into the next project. Perhaps we could then let Bible Dave rest for awhile until we want to tackle Bible Dave 3D.

We should keep brainstorming ideas. We could combine a game set in historical settings with the learning of Greek that includes the message of the gospel. Entertainment, Education, and Evangelism. Or, would that be Invigoration, Information, and Indoctrination?

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|steveth45|
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quote:

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Originally posted by steveth45:
Perhaps we could then let Bible Dave rest for awhile until we want to tackle Bible Dave 3D.

---

Interesting how this is turning out.
I'd like to see what I might be able to do to help in the planning and get this started.

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All Your Base Are Belong To Us!!! chown -r us ./base
"After three days without programming, life becomes meaningless.'' -- Tao of Programming Book 2

My Blog

all those in favor of the learning greek game say 'I'

I!

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WARNING:

RADIOACTIVE IE AHEAD!
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#include <spazz.h>

int name()
{
char name['B','u','d','d','B','o''y']

Want a first lesson? Have the people on board with the Greek say "ego". Or "iota", if you have a thing for the alphabet.

I'd like to see some ideas kicked around about implementing the Greek game, to be honest; my own vote would be something like a point-and-click adventure, uncovering some kind of mystery that learning Greek texts along the way would help the player piece together (like Myst and similar games in that genre, not suggesting a knock-off but a genre).

The first mystery: "Houtos gar egapesen ho theos ton kosmon, hoste ton huion ton monogene edoken, hina pas ho pisteuon eis auton me appolletai all' ekhe zoen aionion."

(I apologize if the transliteration is a little sloppy) If the people here do want to go Greek, I would be very glad to help in whatever limited capacity I could; I've been learning a little bit of New Testament Greek for about a year and a half (maybe more?) now, and the idea of educational/edutainment video games has intriqued me for a long time (especially spending the summer at an internship programming physics simulations). I'll keep watching where ideas with this one go, and pray for where God would open opportunities to learn some skill in programming and share some knowledge of language and His Word.

http://www.jtauber.com

Instead of trying to explaining why you might want to contact him, read the following:
http://www.jtauber.com/blog/2006/05/05/teaching_new_testament_greek

and this:
MorphGNT (free to use for noncommercial- Is it useful? I don't know...)
http://morphgnt.org/

Besides seeming to be a REALLY smart guy and having spent many years researching greek NT liguistics, he seems to have put together an original concept for approaching New Testiment greek that might maximize the learning process used in the game. Maybe he has advice to share, cant hurt to ask!

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WARNING:

RADIOACTIVE IE AHEAD!
--------------------
#include <spazz.h>

int name()
{
char name['B','u','d','d','B','o''y']

I agree that a Myst style adventure could be a very cool medium to do this in. One hard part about that is that those games aren't very hard to program -- they just take a ton of graphics resources. I think Guategeek has worked on a Myst-like project before -- maybe he could give us a better estimate on the resources needed to make a project like that feasible.

*ten minutes digging on Google...*

Aaah. I couldn't remember how to spell it, and it wasn't linked from the main Bluegill Flame website: Nak'Urij
Really, some very beautiful art, and iirc he had a symbolic code language that you can get a hint of in this picture (though it's scrambled so as to not give the puzzles away). I don't know if it was Greek-based or not, but we could likely do a similar thing with a Myst-style game.

IIRC, he used the Unity Engine, and over the past year or two that I've been acquainted with Jeff, he's never once spoken bad about it and always touted it as a great engine. If I remember correctly, that's what they used to make Open Fire.

If we did wind up going in that direction (of a Myst style game) and we were looking for more artists, one possible site we could partner with would be Creation In Digital -- they look like they have some very talented artists, and they have partner sites at Christ Centered Game Reviews and a few other Christian gaming sites -- so they're video-game minded also.

However, we may have enough artists locally here to pull something like this off -- I really don't know. I'd really want Jeff's opinion on this matter as he's attempted it before.

CoolJ: Nice link! He does seem to have a good and novel approach to teaching Greek -- I wonder if he might be willing to help put together some of the introductory lessons for players to get started with the game. The first five minutes of a game like this stand to make or break a player's impression of it -- I'd think that it's the most important aspect of the game that likely needs the most polish.

Buddboy: I do agree that it could be good to have a game that's not too much learning Greek. If people are interested in doing a Greek game, I really do recommend that people download and play Slime Forest Adventure a little bit to at least see how someone else has done a language-learning game with some success. I remember that I didn't want to keep playing it because there wasn't any break in the game -- you couldn't just relax and fight monsters or do things without answering Japanese flash-cards -- so it wasn't the kind of game I could play for very long without tiring of it. Still, I think a Greek-learning game development team could stand to learn a lot from it -- even if it's just making yourself play for 10-15 minutes and writing down the 5 main things you liked and 5 main things you disliked.

So yeah -- if the community were to do a Greek project, I would vote that the game was pretty Greek-focused, but that it's not absolutely necessary to learn Greek to play the game for half an hour and have some mind-relaxing fun. Even just some casual minigames such as Memory (where you turn over cards and have to match greek letters) or Mahjong (the tile-matching game) could be nice breaks to the larger and harder mysteries that the game could present. So you never really leave Greek, but with some cool down / warm up elements (I don't think Slime Forest Academy has anything like this, but I don't know as I haven't played it all that much).

Steveth: I agree -- it would probably be good to get Bible Dave to the next milestone before we started in too deep on another community project. Joe, do we have it clearly written out what our next goal is? Beyond "more levels", I'm not sure I've seen a clear punchlist of everything we want to get done for the next release. Does this sound feasible to you? I really don't think there should be that much more to do -- Jari and Joe (though I'd guess mostly Jari) have put a lot of work on it in the past couple of months and have really cranked out a lot of the things to bring us a lot closer to 1.0.

Phew. I certainly have a lot to say for not even committing to this project yet -- but it really is interesting me. This is the sort of game I could potentially see a lot of other projects supporting (such as some of the E-Sword type projects) or other Christian game/art sites.

Cheers!

In Christ,
clint

Sorry I didn't reply till now. I tend to only read topics that have titles that prick my intrest, are in some way related to game development and are not already so huge it takes forever to get through them . Douse it sound like I'm lazy? ha ha

So on to the topic of Myst style adventure games. As clint mentioned they rely hevily on artwork. Often containing large amounts of prerendered animations. They also have a huge emphisis on music and sound efects, So usualy the final product is large in the file size area (For example Myst IV Revelation is contained on two, dual layer DVDs).

This presents problems far before the game is compleate, due to the fact that assets must be transfered over the net to other developers. I was part of a Myst Fan game development team called Ilathid (almost vaporware now I would asume). The team consisted of aritsts, musictians, programers, writers, actors, the list goes on and on. The engine was pretty much all in place long ago. Much of the music was also composed. Artwork on the otherhand presented the problem. Primarly the amount of artwork required was stagering. Secondary all artwork had to be saved into comon file formats and uploaded to an FTP server. Then the lead 3D artist would download the artwork and render it. Since the game relys on prerendered art all artwork needed to be rendered with the samy rendering engine. Finaly when I left the project only two small areas had been compleated and the development files were a good 8 Gigs in total.

Now all that is not to say its imposible. I think the major reason that Ilathid failed/is-failing was that they placed to much emphasis on publicity over development. So now all kinds of people might know about the game, but its not likely ever going to get done. The other problem was they asined to much work to each individual developer.

So the question must be asked: can a small team create a myst style game? The answer is "yes". Take for example the game Alida. It was pretty much created by 1 guy over the course of 6 years. He is a great aspiration to me. So the key to getting a project that is acomplishable would be good organization and to shoot small at the begining.

Now let me explain what I mean by shooting small at the begining. I think that in the gaming world we are going to start to see a new style of game development. One that is more based on episode releases. Rather than creating a full fleged, long games, developers are going to start to develop some games in episodes. Each episode will be a compleat game, but will only contain a small amount of gameplay, story telling, and artwork. Episodes will continue to be released at a faster rate than a full fleged game and its sequals would. (think of it as TV shows compared to Moives) This alows for more reachable goals and a safer financing method.

I think that a CCN project could take on this development idea quite well, and it is what I was refering to as shooting small at the beggining. Like getting just one episode done. This would fix a number of the problems I mentioned above. Because each episode would requrie less assets and smaller file sizes, the artwork required would be acomplishable, and each developer would not be overwelmed by huge asinments. I would love to see a Myst style game made by CCN. I'm a big fan of these story telling and artwork oriented games. If you are interested in taking this on there are already some OSS engines that might acomidate your needs, or that you could take and improve upon. Good luck to you all!

Jeff

P.S. I do love the Unity game engine. In the year I've had it I have learned so much, not to mention created a game that got 125,000 downloads in its first 60 days of life. The games medium is a powerful one we are just starting to tap into! Keep it up guys

P.S.S. Some day I will return to Nak'Urij. Though over time it may be molded into something much different than my original idea

P.S.S.S. I'll shut up now, considering its late and I have work tommorow, night guys.

quote:

---

Originally posted by HanClinto:

I agree that a Myst style adventure could be a very cool medium to do this in. One hard part about that is that those games aren't very hard to program -- they just take a ton of graphics resources. I think Guategeek has worked on a Myst-like project before -- maybe he could give us a better estimate on the resources needed to make a project like that feasible.

*ten minutes digging on Google...*

Aaah. I couldn't remember how to spell it, and it wasn't linked from the main Bluegill Flame website: Nak'Urij
Really, some very beautiful art, and iirc he had a symbolic code language that you can get a hint of in this picture (though it's scrambled so as to not give the puzzles away). I don't know if it was Greek-based or not, but we could likely do a similar thing with a Myst-style game.

IIRC, he used the Unity Engine, and over the past year or two that I've been acquainted with Jeff, he's never once spoken bad about it and always touted it as a great engine. If I remember correctly, that's what they used to make Open Fire.

If we did wind up going in that direction (of a Myst style game) and we were looking for more artists, one possible site we could partner with would be Creation In Digital -- they look like they have some very talented artists, and they have partner sites at Christ Centered Game Reviews and a few other Christian gaming sites -- so they're video-game minded also.

However, we may have enough artists locally here to pull something like this off -- I really don't know. I'd really want Jeff's opinion on this matter as he's attempted it before.

Cheers!

In Christ,
clint

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[This message has been edited by guategeek (edited July 30, 2006).]

Take a look at spacetrace (google it), I like the idea of a space civ 'sim' with a 3d map of the univers (ours should be much more interactive) and you conquer planets, eventually wake up some monsterous evil thingy (the flood?) and shortly before they are about to totally wipe you off the face of the galaxy, you discover 'earth' and somehow we work Christianity into it and with the help of Christ you eventually defeat them. I envision this as an example of how most of us try to do everything ourselves and when the going gets tough we ask God for help, but when 'we' succeed its like "God? what God?"

To elaborate on the gameplay, I think that it should be a game of 'stealth' where you must conceal your homeplanets coordinates at all costs as the enemy tries to acquire those coords (through various means). Sortof like the battle of midway, its all about who can hide their homeworld's and colonies' coords from the enemy the longest while they find enemy worlds and destroy/conquer/deathstar =D them. sound interesting?

The graphics wouldn't be anything spectacular, and we could easily make it multiplayer!

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If you can see Chuck Norris, He can see You.
If you Can't see Chuck Norris, you may be seconds away from death.

[This message has been edited by luke (edited August 01, 2006).]

quote:

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Originally posted by HanClinto:

Steveth: I agree -- it would probably be good to get Bible Dave to the next milestone before we started in too deep on another community project.

---

Yes absolutely and we do have a TODO: http://wiki.bibledave.jqsoftware.com/tiki-index.php?page=TODO
Just need to find little time for BD...

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2Co 7:10 For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.

[VoHW] (Help needed) [Blog] - Truedisciple (mp3)

It seems like there are enough ideas, and enough people - would it be appropriate to set up a "friendly competition" of sorts? (not even meaning we'll ever have judges or awards or voting or whatever, just try smaller projects with smaller teams) I know I'm a fan of having one singular focus myself, but it seems difficult coordinating more than about four people in a project anyway.

Or we could always go corporate: elect a "producer", to whom we must submit game proposals and the like. Things are getting chaotic on this thread; it might be a good idea to start threads for each idea just to keep everything organized a little better, give people a chance to see what's going on with each. Then the biggest and best project will eat all the others, becoming an ironic testimony to darwinism.

quote:

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Originally posted by Nomad:
The thing to do seems to be where Bible Dave must go into space and command armies/fleets in an RTS by issuing commands in Greek.

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No offense, but that's not the Bible Dave style (going into space and commanding armies). Bible Dave is more pacifist than warrior/general. Maybe Bible Dave Jr. likes war but his father doesn't

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All Your Base Are Belong To Us!!! chown -r us ./base
"After three days without programming, life becomes meaningless.'' -- Tao of Programming Book 2

My Blog

jari mentioned an isometric game, and ppl talking about a sequel to bible dave....how about: bible dave congo bongo style!!! I love congo bongo! and it seems like a easy and fun next step for BD. of course I would make the levels bigger than congo bongo levels and allow save anywhere (unless you want to keep it arcade style!

quote:

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Originally posted by CPUFreak91:
No offense, but that's not the Bible Dave style (going into space and commanding armies). Bible Dave is more pacifist than warrior/general. Maybe Bible Dave Jr. likes war but his father doesn't

---

That would be unbiblical because it's the sons who make the peace.

Greek learning game sure would be useful...

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2Co 7:10 For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.

[VoHW] (Help needed) [Blog] - Truedisciple (mp3)

That's just a simple idea but a lot could be added to it.

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2Co 7:10 For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.

[VoHW] (Help needed) [Blog] - Truedisciple (mp3)

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WARNING:

RADIOACTIVE IE AHEAD!
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#include <spazz.h>

int name()
{
char name['B','u','d','d','B','o''y']

quote:

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Originally posted by jari:
That would be unbiblical because it's the sons who make the peace.

---

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All Your Base Are Belong To Us!!! chown -r us ./base
"After three days without programming, life becomes meaningless.'' -- Tao of Programming Book 2

My Blog

quote:

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Originally posted by jari:
the only fictional part would be player's role who is supposed to manage the nation like in RTS. Let (try to) me explain, God commands Israels to leave egypt, player's first mission would thefore be to "mobilize" the people. After that you would move them across the ocean, then perhaps prepare them to the first battle but this would not be a bloodshedding game in anyway but player would merely command them in to the fight and then the story would continue.
Basically it would be moving the people and assigning tasks to them, getting goods from egyptians before leaving, accurately choosing the path across the ocean considering the right timing, selecting right people for the battle, making people gather resources, protecting them from dangers such as wild animals and so.
Eventually player would be moving the Israelites to build houses and the solomon's temple.

That's just a simple idea but a lot could be added to it.

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That's not a bad idea! I like that!

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All Your Base Are Belong To Us!!! chown -r us ./base
"After three days without programming, life becomes meaningless.'' -- Tao of Programming Book 2

My Blog

quote:

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Originally posted by jari:
And a game where the Israel are being led to the promised land would be great for using the story straight from the Bible, the only fictional part would be player's role who is supposed to manage the nation like in RTS.
<snip>
That's just a simple idea but a lot could be added to it.

---

Sounds like a neat idea. If we were to do something like that, I would suggest looking at Stratagus to see if that's something that would be helpful. I know that over at Lowpoly Coop some guys have started making a Heaven vs. Hell RTS thing -- they've been using Torque with the RTS Pack, and from everything I'm hearing, they really like it.

The only thing that concerns me about the RTS idea is that I'm leery of writing historical fiction using actual events, especially Biblical ones. People like making Civil War games that let you play it out to see what might have happened if Gettysburg went the other way, and to see how much losing certain battles could have changed history. I know you said that you wouldn't want to play out the battles RTS style, but make it more of an economic/gathering/construction/organization challenge. I guess you're thinking something like Tale in the Desert? I think I would be okay with that -- I'm just leery of giving people the opportunity to rewrite Biblical history, and I'm just as leery of forcing people into a battle in which they can't lose -- there's no challenge or fun in that. But what you've proposed doesn't sound like it would hit those obstacles -- I'm just spelling it out clearly so we can all be on the same page.

I'm still very interested in having a game that teaches Greek -- I'm especially really liking the concept of a bunch of little minigames that teach different things about Greek. Some simple games that teach the alphabet, some that require more grammar knowledge ("Click on the subject of this sentance!"), etc. I think this might be a niche gap in Christian gaming that could be of service to people. How cool would it be if a kid played the game, found out they really enjoyed the Greek language and decided to go to seminary through it? Or even for the associate pastor who uses it to keep brushed up on his Greek? I think it has potential.

quote:

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Originally posted by Buddboy:
i like the producer idea, i nominate HanClinto lol... but seriously, if we were to do that, i would say HanClinto, and can anyone say they would disagree lol?

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Thanks for the vote of confidence, Buddboy. I'm a little busy at the moment working on this missions trip over in Ghana, and I won't be back to the States for at least a month. If people wanted to wait a while, I might be able to head up a project, but I can't accurately project how busy I'll be once I get back to the States.

I for one have been really impressed with Joe (CPUFreak91) on the whole Bible Dave project. He has done an excellent job of managing talent, of putting in hours of work, and especially his work on creating/maintaining the design document and the spec for the game. He really nailed it down to a manageable size and kept the project to some small and achievable goals. I'd love to work under Joe on another project, though I think we should probably pass the job of project leader off to someone else to give them a chance at managing a project. I mention what Joe's done on Bible Dave so that people can see one example of successfully managing a group project.

I'm wondering... who would want to be considered for managaging this community project? Joe wasn't very experienced when he started out managing the Bible Dave project, but he rose to the occassion and I think that BD has been a great experience for him, and that the lessons learned there will serve him for many years to come.

So who would want to give their hand at managing this project? Someone with some experience, but not necessarily leading a project. Someone who wants to do more with game development, and is looking for an opportunity to finish a small project completely, in order to learn what it takes to complete a game. Steveth? I think you'd fill those shoes great. I know you're interested into getting into more development, but between moving up in your work and spending time with your wife, I don't know if you've got room to be some kind of lead-developer/project-leader. Jari? You're an incredibly talented individual and I for one would enjoy working under you. However, you already wear many hats and I fear that leading yet another project would be too taxing. However, I could be wrong. CoolJ? You've got some experience it sounds like, but I don't know much more about you, how much time you have to work on things like this. Jestermax, you're pretty new here but you seem very competant and enthusiastic. Others? Nomad? CPU? ArchAngel? Guategeek? LegaianLight? Crazyish? Dartsman? David Lancaster? I really don't know who of you are interested or would like ot try a task like this -- if each of you wanted to post a quick "Yeah, I'd be up for it" sort of comment, that would at least let us know what we're dealing with.

I'd say that for it to be a community project, the scope should be kept small -- like being completable in 4-8 months, perhaps up to a year. That might sound like a long time, but that's about what Bible Dave has taken, and I'd vote that we don't try to do anything larger than that one.

Okay, I've been writing this post on-and-off for most of the morning, so I'm gonna' wrap it up. This is our first full day in Ghana, so things are moving kindof slowly, but I do want to keep moving on stuff here.

Cheers!

In Christ,
clint

Btw thanks for the engine suggestions Clint but I doubt that they are proper for this kind of RTS.

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2Co 7:10 For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.

[VoHW] (Help needed) [Blog] - Truedisciple (mp3)

quote:

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Originally posted by jari:
HanClinto, the idea with the RTS was actually stay 100% in what happens in the Bible but player's tasks/missions would be to handle the details which are not mentioned in the Bible. So for example player prepares the people for the battle that will be won or he makes them gather the resources for the temple that will be built. You see player working side-by-side with the historical facts and we would just be improvising the things not mentioned in the Bible.
I am planning to create a short presentation of how this would work.

---

Okay, that sounds good. I think I knew what you mean -- I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say that your game idea was going to have any of the problems that I listed -- I was just explaining the issues that usually come up with making a "conquer the Holy Land" kind of RTS so that everyone discussing the issue can be on the same page.

quote:

---

Originally posted by jari:
Btw thanks for the engine suggestions Clint but I doubt that they are proper for this kind of RTS.

---

I would think that Torque would work well, but you may be right about Stratagus. However, you can make a wide variety of games with that engine -- they don't necessarily have to be combat-centric. I thought you might find the combat features useful because you mentioned defending from wild animals. In addition, if we used a high-profile engine like Stratagus (formerly Freecraft), then we might be able to get some advertisement from that.

Cheers!

--clint

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O Praise Christ, O Praise Christ, He Is Holy, He Is Holy - O Praise Him,

And whoever is going to be the project leader should be Christian.

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2Co 7:10 For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.

[VoHW] (Help needed) [Blog] - Truedisciple (mp3)

Goals of the game
Format of the game
Rough requirements for what kind of developers
Tool suggestions
Time estimates (very rough guesses)
Any backstory or cool "hooks" that the game might have

I have some free time in the evenings sometimes, so I might be able to write a vision doc for the Greek game -- but it might be tight. Anyone else want to volunteer to write that one? I know it was my idea though, so I'd probably be the primary one to write it.

Cheers!

--clint

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2Co 7:10 For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.

[VoHW] (Help needed) [Blog] - Truedisciple (mp3)

- let's not use python (seconded... all in favor say "C++" or "Java")
- Missionary Journeys - similar to Oregon Trail
- Desert Island survival game
- Raise awareness of CCN / CGDC
- Learn Greek
- Myst Style game?
- episodic game?
- Don't forget about Bible Dave
- Multiplayer space RTS featuring Bible Dave in a spacesuit
- RTS: Nation of Israel travelling in the desert

I might have missed a few, sorry. I downloaded the Bible Dave source the other day, and I'm going to see if I can't pitch in and help get that to a more complete place. As far as this list of ideas goes, honestly, I'd like to see it get a lot longer before it gets shorter. There have been some good ideas, but I'd like to see some really awesome ideas or variations on existing ideas before we get started.

I'm personally not a huge fan of RTS games. OK, I don't like them. There, I said it. If everyone else wants to make one, that's fine, I'll help, but I heard several calls for something original/innovative and I don't see another RTS, especially one made with an RTS engine as being that innovative of idea. It also seems to have a pretty small target audience. I think teaching Greek is an innovative aspect of a game, although I wouldn't necessarily make it the center of a game. Sometimes you want to have fun, not learn Greek, when you sit down to play a game.

Here's another idea for the list:
Minigames. Many small games within one larger game. Clint may have already mentioned something along these lines for the Greek game. It could even be... multiplayer, possibly even over the net. There are a good handful of programmers around here, so we could even pair off. One coder and one artist could be in charge of a single mini-game. The games could even be written in different programming languages. I'd like to do it with the idea of learning Greek. The games could go from super-easy to medium difficulty regarding Greek knowledge. For example, on the easy side would be a falling blocks style game, where you line up the same greek letter or something like that, when you make a line, it explodes or whatever and the name of the letter would be spoken. If you played a game like that long enough, you'd know the Greek alphabet by sight. And so on.

I've got a fever, and the only cure is more ideas!

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+---------+
|steveth45|
+---------+

quote:

---

Originally posted by HanClinto:
I for one have been really impressed with Joe (CPUFreak91) on the whole Bible Dave project. He has done an excellent job of managing talent, of putting in hours of work, and especially his work on creating/maintaining the design document and the spec for the game. He really nailed it down to a manageable size and kept the project to some small and achievable goals. I'd love to work under Joe on another project, though I think we should probably pass the job of project leader off to someone else to give them a chance at managing a project. I mention what Joe's done on Bible Dave so that people can see one example of successfully managing a group project.

---

Thanks, that's a great encouragement to know that I did more than "OK".

quote:

---

if each of you wanted to post a quick "Yeah, I'd be up for it" sort of comment, that would at least let us know what we're dealing with.

---

Since this probably won't be in Python, I do not want to lead it (for a number of other reasons too) but I'd up to helping out as a code monkey. There's no better way to learn a new language, than to start on a project like this.

quote:

---

I'd say that for it to be a community project, the scope should be kept small -- like being completable in 4-8 months, perhaps up to a year. That might sound like a long time, but that's about what Bible Dave has taken, and I'd vote that we don't try to do anything larger than that one.

---

I agree, something smallish.

I have a few suggestions. Graynod (remember him?) commented that if you wanted this game to be somewhat cross-platform it would be easier in an interpreted language.

Suggestions to the future leader, I think that one of the major things that helped with BD, was that I tried to be a Beneficial Dictator For Life (meaning, although I had a lot of controll, If I did anything to hurt the project my "authority" could be undermined). The other suggestion is that even though you may have a vision, keep in mind what the other people (especially the devs) have in mind too. You can decide what to do with their suggestions or call a vote (like I did once in a while).

Steveth45:
I agree with you somewhat... and RTS would not be perfect (but a lot of the ideas people have are still good). I'm thinking something like a RPGish type game where you can control and handfull of other people.

My web site services are available to you guys (mailing list, wiki, CMS, but not hosting [I don't have enough space for that])

EDIT: I'll say it again, just in case. I'm in as a dev.

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All Your Base Are Belong To Us!!! chown -r us ./base
"After three days without programming, life becomes meaningless.'' -- Tao of Programming Book 2

My Blog

[This message has been edited by CPUFreak91 (edited August 04, 2006).]

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Originally posted by CPUFreak91:

I have a few suggestions. Graynod (remember him?) commented that if you wanted this game to be somewhat cross-platform it would be easier in an interpreted language.

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Perhaps, but Pygame is just a Python binding for SDL, which is written in C. If you stick to standard C or C++, it shouldn't be too hard to keep it cross-platform compatible. If we stuck with SDL, we could do the game in just about any programming language we wanted (C#, Java, Ruby, etc).

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Steveth45:
I agree with you somewhat... and RTS would not be perfect (but a lot of the ideas people have are still good). I'm thinking something like a RPGish type game where you can control and handfull of other people.

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Yeah, totally. I also think most of the ideas have been great. I'm a huge fan of RPG's and I've been wanting to make one for a long time. It would be fun to do something in that kind of format. You know, David had his mighty men that did great and legendary feats. We could have an RPG based on David. He starts out as a skinny kid who has to tend sheep, and ends up with his band of mighty men. Read 2nd Samuel chapter 23, it's all about David and his mighty men. Here is an excerpt:
"Benaiah son of Jehoiada was a valiant fighter from Kabzeel, who performed great exploits. He struck down two of Moab's best men. He also went down into a pit on a snowy day and killed a lion."
You can't pull that stunt until you at least reach level 23 .

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My web site services are available to you guys (mailing list, wiki, CMS, but not hosting [I don't have enough space for that])

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Thanks. I've got room to host files and webpages, so that should be fine. Unfortunately, I don't think my server is set up for SVN or CVS.

It would be nice if somebody who has been around here longer led the project. I may be willing to, but only with a lot of help. Maybe we could have a figure head leader (a venerable member of CCN, 200+ posts), somebody else in charge of the code (me, possibly), and somebody in charge of art (one of our resident artists). The Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches of government, roughly .

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|steveth45|
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All Your Base Are Belong To Us!!! chown -r us ./base
"After three days without programming, life becomes meaningless.'' -- Tao of Programming Book 2

My Blog

CPU: I think we should make the game attractive to non-christians as well as christians. I also lean towards multi-platforming this game (meaning Mac/PC/Linux, not talking console)

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O Praise Christ, O Praise Christ, He Is Holy, He Is Holy - O Praise Him,

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1Jo 2:9-10 He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now. 10 He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.
Joh 17:26 And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.

[VoHW] (Help needed) [Blog] - Truedisciple (mp3)

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Originally posted by CPUFreak91:
oh, another question. Is this going to be a christian game directed at christians, or are we going to make this attractive to non-christians (like BD is somewhat)?

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"One World. One Web. One Program." -Microsoft promotional advertisement
"Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer!" -Adolf Hitler
"I believe in freedom... not freedom like America, freedom like a shopping cart"

Can program in C++.

My strengths

Statistics and game mechanics - pretty good with AI logic too.

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I've been really busy lately with working here in Ghana, so I haven't posted much. I've tried to read most of the threads, and now I've got enough time to post some replies and answer e-mail.

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Originally posted by steveth45:
Here's another idea for the list:
Minigames. Many small games within one larger game. Clint may have already mentioned something along these lines for the Greek game. It could even be... multiplayer, possibly even over the net.

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I was about to post that I thought a multiplayer game might be a good next project, but then reading back through the thread I saw that Steveth already suggested it.

Is anyone else excited that Lego Starwars II just came out? Personally, I'm a big fan of the first game. Not only does it seamlessly combine two of my favoritest genres, but it has something that few other games have.

Polished cooperative play. It's such a rarity in games these days! I've really searched to try and find good games that my wife and I can play together cooperatively, but there just aren't that many (*especially* that will work on her Linux laptop).

The missionary family that we're helping here in Ghana has two young boys, and (like many young boys today) they really like video games. One of the best games for them to play together is Lego Starwars -- because one is older and better at games than the other, they wouldn't be able to play a head-to-head multiplayer game for very long without one of them getting bored or the other getting frustrated. But there is excellent cooperative play in Lego Starwars that lets them have good brotherly time working together on a common task and helping each other out (and occasionally backstabbing each other, but that's all in good fun ).

In a recent Slashdot article about LSWII, there was a particularly interesting comment that struck me and I've been mulling over for much of the weekend:

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Originally posted by 1310nm (687270)
My 6 year old daughter loved the first Lego SW, so we're going to get this one. I like the drop in/drop out co-op especially, because I can play with her for a little while, and not be chained to it the whole time she wants to play.

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I don't exactly know how to make another game quite as cool as Lego Starwars, but I've been thinking about it this weekend. I'm currently toying with the idea of making a simple drop-in/drop-out style multiplayer game similar to Archangel's game for the speed-game competition. Basically just a simple hack-n-slash game where it's you against a slew of baddies and you've got to beat them back. As more people join, the swarms increase and it's just a game focused on simple teamwork and fun. But beyond that, I haven't thought of too many ideas for good, casual, cooperative multiplayer. Diablo and Diablo II had great cooperative multiplayer, but they didn't have quite the same drop-in/drop-out capabilities -- it wasn't as casual as LSW.

To sum up the above ramble, I'm basically just presenting the possibility and some of the vision of creating a game that's focused on having excellent cooperative gameplay. I like the minigame idea that Steveth was suggesting.

Just some thoughts, and I wanted to post them and see what you all thought.

As far as being nominated to be project leader, I think I would be up for being the design manager, but I don't have time to manage the code. I think Steveth suggested something like this -- I'm happy being one of the departments -- to help refine, nail down, and manage the design of the game. Someone else would have to pick up being the lead coder / code-manager though.

Cheers!

In Christ,
clint

P.S. In terms of tools, several people have suggested using SDL, and others have suggested using an interpreted language -- what would everyone think of using C# and SDL.Net for this project? It works well cross-platform, is similar in complexity/learning curve to pyGame, isn't Python.

HanClinto,

I am for SDL.NET and C# all da way! Personally, I will now only use C# for anything. May sound snobby, but for my own personal development and for the job market I am in, I need to focus on C#/.NET. I don't know it nearly as well as I should and it's making me fall behind in the job market. I'm currently studying up on .NET 2.0 in hopes to eventually become a Microsoft Certified Professional.

I am also working towards completing my game (I certainly didn't finish it for the competition). I am using SDL.NET, and that's probably what I will stick with for the future.

It would be cool if the project was cross-platform so we are not stuck with having to use one OS. And with .NET, people can feel free to use VB as well.

Personally, I've been thinking how neat it would be to have either a CCN project (or member's individual projects) at CGDC next year. Something to show there is more than just commercial opportunities.

[This message has been edited by ssquared (edited September 24, 2006).]

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Originally posted by ssquared:
TwoBrothersSoftware, can you recommend some good AI sites? From working on my game, it has gotten me interested in computer AI techniques. I spent around 30 minutes or so at Borders yesterday looking through various books on game development. Most of them were graphics oriented. A few covered AI.
[This message has been edited by ssquared (edited September 24, 2006).]

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I have looked at some AI books and - as I scanned then at Borders - it was like - ok I've done that, and that and that. So sorry I'm self taught. Although game programming in python had a nice overview of several mentalities.

Better yet post your problems here and see what people suggest.

Considering I work at GarageGames I have fairly extensive knowledge of some of the engines and can pick up the rest fairly quickly to either assist in some sort of coding prospect, or management aspect. Really interested in working on a Christian game in Torque, one that doesn't sacrafice gameplay.

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Matthew Langley
TGB Dev Team
GarageGames

PS. SDL.NET and C# works for me even I am more of an C++ coder.

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1Jo 2:9-10 He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now. 10 He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.
Joh 17:26 And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.

[VoHW] (Help needed) [Blog] - Truedisciple (mp3)

[This message has been edited by jari (edited September 25, 2006).]

A rookie missionary support person steps off the plane in Africa. His job is to support the field missionaries with things like driving Jeeps, Planes, Helicopters, delivering messages, etc. He could even learn how to do it along the way, advancing the character and game plot.
He's a little overzealous at times. But is pretty much helping the missionaries on a particular field to accomplish their task of spreading the gospel.
He can grow in his own faith as he learns to trust the Lord more, and study his bible and pray.
All while learning along the way about the challenges and joys of missions work.
You could include language learning, culture shock (he could be a rude american at first), dealing with sin and satanic strongholds. Government coups, bribery, turning the other cheek, going the extra mile, and even God's mercy when we fail.

1. Single or Cooporative Play (maybe net play, but not mmorpg)
2. 2D game play at first, then a 3d version.
3. Action/Exploration game style
4. The game has some violence(unlike BD, you can kill the snakes), but focuses on the sanctity of human life and perhaps even myrterdom.
5. Keep the graphics light.. no gore.
6. Over-expression of emotions (anime style) could paint a picture of the real spiritual battles we face. (depression, anger, selfishness, greed, pride)

What do you think?

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penny --Is. 64

Thanks for the story suggestion! I like certain aspects of it and there are others that I don't like. I'm not trying to be harsh or discouraging -- just giving honest feedback on what I feel are good and bad aspects of your idea:

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Originally posted by penny:
A rookie missionary support person steps off the plane in Africa. His job is to support the field missionaries with things like driving Jeeps, Planes, Helicopters, delivering messages, etc. He could even learn how to do it along the way, advancing the character and game plot.

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I like the idea of all of these little minigames or aspects of the game. For instance, he could be tasked with delivering a message. Maybe he could have a choice of navigating a boat up the river (dodge the rocks, and don't get lost!), riding a jeep (sometimes it looks like there are more potholes than road), flying a plane (flying is easy, it's the landing that's tough), or take the helicopter (this one interests me the most -- I'd love to make this the most rewarding vehicle, but also the most challenging by teaching some about how a real helicopter flies, with adjusting the tail rotor and the collector and things -- it's a very complex system where adjusting one factor needs compensation in other factors, but those have reprocussions as well -- it's just a very fine balancing act that has great potential for a game mechanic).

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He's a little overzealous at times. But is pretty much helping the missionaries on a particular field to accomplish their task of spreading the gospel.

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He can grow in his own faith as he learns to trust the Lord more, and study his bible and pray.
All while learning along the way about the challenges and joys of missions work.
You could include language learning, culture shock (he could be a rude american at first), dealing with sin and satanic strongholds. Government coups, bribery, turning the other cheek, going the extra mile, and even God's mercy when we fail.

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1. Single or Cooporative Play (maybe net play, but not mmorpg)

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The criticism isn't to say that I don't like your idea -- I really like the idea of a multiplayer minigame-structured game about missionaries in a support-role. I'm just trying to be realistic, so that we can talk through some of the issues that will come up if we go down a road like this.

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2. 2D game play at first, then a 3d version.

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All that to say, I'm glad you've said what you have.

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3. Action/Exploration game style
4. The game has some violence(unlike BD, you can kill the snakes), but focuses on the sanctity of human life and perhaps even myrterdom.
5. Keep the graphics light.. no gore.

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6. Over-expression of emotions (anime style) could paint a picture of the real spiritual battles we face. (depression, anger, selfishness, greed, pride)

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What do you think?

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After we decide on two or three ideas, we'll work to cull them down and spec them out a little more seriously, and then we'll pick a final one from there.

Sorry it took me so long to reply, but I wanted to wait until I had enough time to give you a serious answer.

Thanks again!

In Christ,
clint

First off I realize now that this whole thing is probably too much for a ccn project. But as a last ditch effort, I offer these additional thoughts.

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I also like how it doesn't make a game out of preaching or "trying to convert people", yet it doesn't totally cut that out. The player has plenty of exposure to people presenting the gospel and even assisting in that, but it doesn't try to make Christ's gift of mercy to us trite or reduce the work of the Holy Spirit in a person's life to a throw of our game's dice.

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I was thinking that the most of the "conversion" parts of the game would come in story sequences, not a part of game play. However, some of your decisions and attitudes effect who sees Christ in you (the hero) and who is turned off.

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Interesting. I'm curious to know how much of this would be feasible(bible study & prayer) to represent in a meaningful way to the player -- it's a very ambitious goal. I don't see how to easily communicate this stuff through the game mechanic, so if any of this were to work, it seems like it would have to go through some sort of dialog/cutscene mechanic.

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Its ambitious indeed, but I have some ideas. You are correct that this part of it would happen mostly in dialog.

Often in games the hero's attitude is at the mercy of the plot. What I mean by this is, for instance, the hero gets angry at some injustice and plot ensues, or the hero finds out the opponent he just slew was a mutated version of his best friend and he feels grief. I, the real life human, do not feel any grief nor do what ever emotions I am feeling affect the game, its the emotions of the hero in the game that affect the plot.

So, when our hero reads his Bible(optional), key verses will be displayed(perhaps even chosen by the hero) which correspond to pieces of the story. Then a test happens, a bogus police officer pulls him over and demands a bribe. Our character emotionally acts according to his knowledge and attitude (determined my the verses he read), causing different circumstances depending upon his relationship with God.

Or, if our hero takes time to pray with God, the spirit will direct him (a still-small-dialog-box?) to a portion of the game that the player would never see had he not took the time to pray, or the spirit requests an uncommon response to give to a particular NPC that stirs the game to a different level.

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How would cooperative play work with this? Making a game that can be played cooperatively isn't always so heavily story and character focused (especially because so much of what you've written above depends on the player engaging and identifying with the protagonist).

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I'll admit, this is a good point. One ways to solve this could be to have two protagonists for the game with everything done as a pair. This can lead to some fun coop action, especially when on foot. When single player is engaged, the computer controls the second player. I think Secret of Mana plays this way.

From a story/spiritual standpoint, this could even bring in concepts such as brotherly love, and iron sharpening iron. We are the body of Christ not Lone Rangers.

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If we set it up wrong and force people to play minigames that they don't enjoy, then for each minigame we add we increase our chances of annoying our players.

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This is a good point as well. Perhaps a way of solving this is to have a choice of method to accomplish a goal. i.e. The goal is to deliver medicine to a field hospital. Its your choice to take the jeeps or the choppers. Also, a lot of mini-game based games, at some point, allow you to access the mini-games to play just for fun and practice.

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The criticism isn't to say that I don't like your idea -- I really like the idea of a multiplayer minigame-structured game about missionaries in a support-role. I'm just trying to be realistic, so that we can talk through some of the issues that will come up if we go down a road like this.

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Honesty is the best policy

So, whether it ends up as the ccn project or not, I still think its a great idea and I will try and flesh it out more.

Thanks again for the comments!

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penny --Is. 64

[This message has been edited by penny (edited September 27, 2006).]

Making this as a project may be good idea, since everyone could come home with something to use in their own projects at the end.

Just another thought.

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penny --Is. 64

[This message has been edited by penny (edited September 27, 2006).]

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Programmer - Team KAIZEN

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Originally posted by CPUFreak91:
I agree, something smallish.

I have a few suggestions. Graynod (remember him?) commented that if you wanted this game to be somewhat cross-platform it would be easier in an interpreted language.

Suggestions to the future leader, I think that one of the major things that helped with BD, was that I tried to be a Beneficial Dictator For Life (meaning, although I had a lot of controll, If I did anything to hurt the project my "authority" could be undermined). The other suggestion is that even though you may have a vision, keep in mind what the other people (especially the devs) have in mind too. You can decide what to do with their suggestions or call a vote (like I did once in a while).

Steveth45:
I agree with you somewhat... and RTS would not be perfect (but a lot of the ideas people have are still good). I'm thinking something like a RPGish type game where you can control and handfull of other people.

My web site services are available to you guys (mailing list, wiki, CMS, but not hosting [I don't have enough space for that])

EDIT: I'll say it again, just in case. I'm in as a dev.

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We probably have enough space - or at least a gig worths - and the ability to set up tons of e-mail addresses - we could also set up a dedicated subdomain for the project (I do need to run this by my partner but my gut feeling is - we like this site what it stands for and would like to help out will be what he says)

My thoughts on language - python/pygame would be ok - although SDL seems to work well cross platform under c+ or c++ (I use gcc).

I am not the person to lead this - never have done anything like that before - but am interested in helping out.

Just let me know what you need

Basically, it sounds like something that everyone is voting for is to have good cooperative play. I think that's a pretty good requirement to lay out at the beginning, since so much kindof revolves around that capability. So that's the second requirement we're nailing down for this project (the first was for it to not be Python/Pygame).

I'm really stoked about having cooperative gameplay. Being a Christian is so much about relationships -- not just our relationship with Christ, but also our relationships with our friends and neighbors. So to write games that encourage people to play together and build relationships -- well I just think that's a really cool goal for this project. I don't expect this project to really have a huge impact, but just anything that gives people a quality game to enjoy together sounds pretty good to me.

So now that we've got our main "focus" (bringing gamers together in a cooperative way), I think we need to sortof get our target audience. Bible Dave was targeted at churchgoing kids in the 8-12 agegroup, with an appeal to older gamers with the retro feel (though that was a secondary audience). Because we had our audience laid out early-on, that helped guide the rest of our decisions (pacifist Dave, low violence, cheesy/fun graphics, stayed away from creepy demon baddies, don't be afraid of too much "church language" being used, etc). All-told, I think Bible Dave is a success for what it set out to achieve. It's always fun for me when kids I know ask me to load up Bible Dave for them.

So who do we want to write our next community game for? Because we know we want a cooperative game, there are 2 main options as I see it.

A) Cooperative play for peers -- this would be where the game works best when the two players are of compirable skill. This is most likely to be found in players of a similar agegroup. Contra would be an example of this -- it wasn't much fun to play if you were a lot better than your teammate who kept dying and stealing all of your lives, and it wasn't fun if you were a lot worse than your teammate because you had to either sit there and wait until your partner finished the level, or you had to listen to him telling you off for stealing more of his lives.

Peer-focused cooperative play certainly has its good points, though. It's very great gameplay when you get two people of similar skill level, and because there is more risk for failure, the reward of victory tastes that much sweeter.

B) Cooperative play for varying skill levels -- this is where the game tries to compensate for players of various skill levels, and does its best to ensure that one player's lack of skill will not severly hinder the better player from enjoying the game. Lego Starwars does a fair bit to try and keep the game fun for everyone whether you're very good at it or not. As a game designer, this is certainly the tougher goal to accomplish, but it certainly is achievable to some degree. This is the sort of game that could appeal to parents and kids playing together.

This one has another disadvantage in that it's not always easy to find puzzles and gameplay that appeals to both 12 year-olds and 30 year-olds, and lets them help each other out at the same time.

So those are the two options as I see it. Do we want to encourage fellowship among peers? Or do we want to create a game that is focused on parents being able to play along with their kids? Something about Veggie Tales is that it not only tries to be entertaining for the children, but it also puts enough intelligent humor in there to make it fun for the whole family to watch.

Both are pretty cool audience goals in my opinion, but I'm interested in knowing what other people think. What target age would everyone like to see this project be focused for? Where do you see a need or a shortage? Ages 8-14? 12-16? Even 12-30? All ages?

Once we know who our target audience is, it will give us much greater freedom in deciding what kinds of storylines and game genres are worth considering. I like Penny's idea for the RPG, and I also like the idea of a Kingdom-hearts style 2d action fighting game. I also like the Greek-learning game, and some of the other suggestions made. But we can't really evaluate or compare the value of those ideas without having a target audience to focus on.

Regarding the game story-engine/editor idea:

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Originally posted by dartsman:
wasn't joking... just could see some potential in the project, and sounds like a mammoth task...

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It sounds really neat, but precisely because it "sounds like a mammoth task" that I'm going to recommend that we don't do this as a community project right now. Mammoth tasks are incredibly hard to keep going with a loosely-organized volunteer work-team format like we've got here with CCN community projects. I think it's certainly an idea worth pursuing, and I'll post in the other thread with my thoughts, but I'm going to suggest that it's outside the CCN community project scope. I suggest we stick with writing things that can be directly released to the public (as opposed to a game engine or some other piece of middleware), and that it be kept small enough that the project can be completed in under 6 months.

I've started dinking around with some cooperative combat ideas in Torque Game Builder, and I'm pretty excited about making a game that we'd enjoy playing. If we could manage it, it would be great to even have network play and let different CCN members play each other.

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Originally posted by TwoBrothersSoftware:
Just let me know what you need

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Thanks!

In Christ,
clint

[This message has been edited by HanClinto (edited October 01, 2006).]

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Originally posted by HanClinto:
Okay, I did a fair bit of thinking about this whole community project thing whilst I was on the long plane flight back from Africa.

Ba
[QUOTE]Originally posted by TwoBrothersSoftware:
[b]Just let me know what you need

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Thanks!

In Christ,
clint

[This message has been edited by HanClinto (edited October 01, 2006).][/B][/QUOTE]

I have to check but I suspect I can get it set up If I don't have it alreeady.

Officially this is what I get
3000 Meg Base (No additional space available)
Unlimited Email Accounts included
Unlimited FTP Accounts included
Unlimited SQL Databases included
Unlimited Sub-Domains included
Unlimited Add on Domains included
Unlimited Parked Domains included
Unlimited Mailing lists included
100 GB/Month of transfer bandwidth
Shell Access is available upon request (approval required)

I have shell access - and it's on a linux server so I think we can make it work.

Oh yeah, to add in my two cents about which technologies to use... As much as it kills me to suggest it, i think that SDL.NET + C# is a great idea. Visual Studio Express is free to download and its a blast to use

[This message has been edited by jestermax (edited October 01, 2006).]

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1Jo 2:9-10 He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now. 10 He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.
Joh 17:26 And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.

[VoHW] (Help needed) [Blog] - Truedisciple (mp3)

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|steveth45|
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http://www.art.twobrotherssoftware.com/music/spaceyone.mp3
http://www.art.twobrotherssoftware.com/music/sorethrouat.mp3

Some examples of soundtrack music I have created.

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Originally posted by steveth45:
If we, as a Christian community, made a genuinely fun game and released it for free, that would glorify God.

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But we must remember that it may "glorify" God in mans eyes but what we want to do is to glorify God like God wants to be glorified. Now how does that happen? Jesus glorified God in everything He did, and especially when He gave His life. So I think the least we can do is to tell people about Jesus, God's commandments (love), His good will and give this game with this awesome message away for free, in order to glorify Him.

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Originally posted by steveth45:

Also, having a game that isn't full of brutality and sexual innuendo goes a long way towards setting us apart from mainstream games.

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True, from some of the top selling games but not from the secular games in general.

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1Jo 2:9-10 He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now. 10 He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.
Joh 17:26 And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.

[VoHW] (Help needed) [Blog] - Truedisciple (mp3)

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Originally posted by steveth45:
If we, as a Christian community, made a genuinely fun game and released it for free, that would glorify God. Also, having a game that isn't full of brutality and sexual innuendo goes a long way towards setting us apart from mainstream games.

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Steve -- I think this is a great answer, and one that I agree with.

I'll lay out some scripture that backs up some of what Steveth said.

The Corinthian church was one that lived among pagans. It's a book full of things that are applicable to Christians living in the very pagan-filled environment of video games. In chapter 10, Paul is talking about the issue of how much involvement they should have with pagan things (parties, eating meat involved in pagan sacrifice, etc).

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1 Corinthians 10:23-31 (NIV)
"Everything is permissible"—but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible"—but not everything is constructive. Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others.

Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience, for, "The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it."

If some unbeliever invites you to a meal and you want to go, eat whatever is put before you without raising questions of conscience. But if anyone says to you, "This has been offered in sacrifice," then do not eat it, both for the sake of the man who told you and for conscience' sake— the other man's conscience, I mean, not yours. For why should my freedom be judged by another's conscience? If I take part in the meal with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of something I thank God for?

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.

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Eating to the glory of God? Drinking to the glory of God? Living to the glory of God? How does doing simple things like this bring glory to God?

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Originally posted by jari:
But we must remember that it may "glorify" God in mans eyes but what we want to do is to glorify God like God wants to be glorified.

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The Bible tells us many ways that He wants to be glorified. Peter gives a some more information on this in his first letter:

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1 Peter 2:11-12 (NIV)
Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.

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So we see that one of the many ways that God wants to be glorified is simply by us living righeoustly and seeking excellence in whatever we do. If I'm going to be a carpenter for God, then I want to be the best carpenter I can be! I want my joints to be the strongest, my varnish to be the shiniest, and my carvings to be the most beautiful. Because even though we are doing the work of men, we are doing as unto the Lord.

quote:

---

1 Corinthians 3:23
Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men

---

So bringing it home to us as game designers, we should follow this command and seek excellence in our games. Making our games as fun as we can, as rewarding as we can, as balanced as we can, etc. We can do this by studying game theory, running player-tests to get design feedback, writing quality code, obtaining good graphics, using good marketing techniques, etc. The workmen for Solomon's Temple were praised for their excellent craftsmanship -- not just in that they used it to work on a temple for the Lord, but they got that job by doing excellent work in their normal day-to-day jobs.

When people find out that Handel was a Christian, and that that was a motivating factor in him pursuing excellence in his music, that brings glory to God. Similarly with Lewis, Tolkien, and other great artists who have done works that are popular secularly but were created with Christianity behind it.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jari:
So I think the least we can do is to tell people about Jesus, God's commandments (love), His good will and give this game with this awesome message away for free, in order to glorify Him.

---

I can't tell if you're agreeing with Steve here or not. You seem to be agreeing with a lot of what he says, but you're doing it in a correcting tone which gives me the impression that you're saying he's wrong.

Yes, directly telling people about Jesus is certainly one way to glorify God, but it's not the *only* way. There are many ways to bring glory to God, and while an evangelistic game is one of them, I don't think that all games we write need to be overtly evangelistic in presenting the player with an altar-call at the end (I know you're not advocating this, but some people do). Some can be more subtle, and some things we do can just be excellent work (like making an excellent table as a carpenter or an excellent painting of a mountain as a painter or an excellent concerto as a composer).

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jari:

quote:Originally posted by steveth45:

Also, having a game that isn't full of brutality and sexual innuendo goes a long way towards setting us apart from mainstream games.

True, from some of the top selling games but not from the secular games in general.

---

You don't think so? I don't really see why you're disagreeing with Steve on this point. Much of secular gaming -- and not just the top-selling ones -- are brutal shoot-em-ups filled with racy women and gory, glorified violence. Sure, there are plenty of family-friendly titles out there, but I think what Steve is talking about is seeking a higher level of standards for all of our games, and using that to set ourselves apart a little bit. There will always be people who do the right things for the wrong reasons, and as far as how we set ourselves apart from those people -- well, only God looks at the hearts of men, and we will be setting ourselves apart in God's eyes by doing the right things for the right reasons.

I've just spent about an hour of my time and several hundred words explaining why I don't feel it is necessary for every game I write to be overtly evangelistic targeted at non-Christians. That said, I am not against writing such games. I would be happy working on one of those for the next community project. But I'm writing all of this because I don't think we need to feel that it's our only option. I have laid out several (I feel) scriptural arguments for why I think that this is so.

Jari, I'm not sure what kinds of projects you would or wouldn't be happy working on. From talking with you here and on IRC, it sounds like, while you'd be happy working on a project like we've laid out thus far, you're slightly dissapointed by it and that you're hoping we can find some better goals than what we've got right now. I'm very open to considering ideas. You're asking some good questions that we all should think about -- I just want to make sure that other people don't take it as feeling pressuring into making an overtly evangelistic game, but rather understand that you're just hoping to spur us on to doing the best that we can.

And now to give my own answer to your original question in my own words... a few posts above, I wrote:

quote:

---

Originally posted by HanClinto:
I'm really stoked about having cooperative gameplay. Being a Christian is so much about relationships -- not just our relationship with Christ, but also our relationships with our friends and neighbors. So to write games that encourage people to play together and build relationships -- well I just think that's a really cool goal for this project. I don't expect this project to really have a huge impact, but just anything that gives people a quality game to enjoy together sounds pretty good to me.

---

Thanks for the discussion! I look forward to hearing people's thoughts on the whole matter. Is everyone happy with the goals we've laid out? If they're unsatisfactory for any reason (not ambitious enough, missing out on something), I'd love to hear about it.

In Christ,
clint

[This message has been edited by HanClinto (edited October 03, 2006).]

I think you have explained well how we can give glory to God in everything we do in life, even in eating. Jesus glorified God perfectly by living a sinless perfect life and doing always what God wanted Him to do. This was possible because He did not love Him self and His bread was that He did the will of His Father. By living such a great life also doing miracles in God's name every one saw how good God is and the pharisees wanted to kill him because His perfect life and actions condemned them.
I just said that because I think it's a good addition to what you typed Clint and I'm trying to show one point here.

Ok so when I was speaking about glorifying I didn't mean our every day's little actions which we do usually in our home. But what I meant was showing a good example to the world in Jesus name so that every one sees how good God is. So I was basically asking how we show the love of God and share the love through the game and therefore glorify Him.

Like we agreed, giving a game for free in God's name is a one thing but what the content of the game? That's the question here, of course.

I have been thinking and praying for answer to this question often and have received praiseworthy visions. So I want to encourage you all to pray for wisdom to do God's will and glorify Him.

Finally I would like to explain why do I think it is important the we differ from secular games. I'm going to use an sad scenario where some person does not know God and he plays PC games. He does not know God because he has not ever heard of Him or has no further knowledge about god than that he is some one above the clouds. Now we have a change to reach for this person without effecting the fact how fun/enjoyable or traditional the game will be. The most simplest way is to include menu option stating "Are you saved?" where it tells guess what. Now another way is to actually glorify God by telling about His Grace in game like in the thief sample above.
This is where we can make a huge difference between CCN community project and some secular game. Because in secular game when the hero helps some one in the game he is thanked by the NPCs and given money as reward. But we have a change to give thanks to God and tell to the player that God is the light of men, to Him all glory belongs since He is the ultimate source of love and we are merely walking on the path of good works which God has laid before us to walk. While in a secular game the player's character would get all the glory.

I'm going to stop writing now even I have not answered all of your questions directly because frankly I don't consider my answer that important now after writing so much about glorifying God. But I will return to those questions later if you wish, its not a problem, its just getting late in here.

PS. I can post some more answers ideas regarding glorifying God as they come but right now I would like to see what ideas God has given to every one.

In Christ,
Jari.

Edit: Typos and addition.

------------------
1Jo 2:9-10 He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now. 10 He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.
Joh 17:26 And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.

[VoHW] (Help needed) [Blog] - Truedisciple (mp3)

[This message has been edited by jari (edited October 03, 2006).]

quote:

---

Because in secular game when the hero helps some one in the game he is thanked by the NPCs and given money as reward. But we have a change to give thanks to God and tell to the player that God is the light of men, to Him all glory belongs since He is the ultimate source of love and we are merely walking on the path of good works which God has laid before us to walk. While in a secular game the player's character would get all the glory.

---

Not being rewarded(ie, getting money) for your actions... that sounds like a game-killer to me.
The reward is usually one of the main parts of a game, striving toward wealth, better weapons-armor, more points, etc.

Lazarus

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lazarus:
Not being rewarded(ie, getting money) for your actions... that sounds like a game-killer to me.
The reward is usually one of the main parts of a game, striving toward wealth, better weapons-armor, more points, etc.

Lazarus

---

I agree and I wasn't saying that player shouldn't be rewarded. But in secular games his rebutation level increases because in those there is no option to give thanks to God.

------------------
1Jo 2:9-10 He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now. 10 He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.
Joh 17:26 And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.

[VoHW] (Help needed) [Blog] - Truedisciple (mp3)

[This message has been edited by jari (edited October 03, 2006).]

quote:

---

Originally posted by jari:
The most simplest way is to include menu option stating "Are you saved?" where it tells guess what.

---

Well, you could say that in real life you could just approach people randomly and start talking to them about Jesus. Where I live, people would be a little freaked out and leave. Alternatively, you could develop a friendship with them and build a trusting relationship with them to the point where you could share the gospel. Which method is better? Well, I'm going to say the second one, for a few reasons. First of all, spending the time to develop the level of trust in a relationship takes more work, is a better witness to them of God's love, and is more likely to be fruitful.

In a way, making a game or writing a book, is like having a long conversation with someone. In my opinion, if one of the first things a person sees in a game is an "Are you saved?" button, they will be turned off. If, instead, you spend the time and energy to create a really fun game, you will build that level of trust with the player. You may even have a statement in the manual or on the webpage where you give glory to God for your game, it could be a huge witness to the person. We could glorify God by making a really fun game and giving it away. The game doesn't need to contain the gospel. By serving people, you can not just bring glory to God, but you can open their hearts to the gospel, too.

We are sent out, not to blindside people with the gospel, but to make disciples. Discipleship is based on relationship and trust and time, not Bible Blasting .

"Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves." Matthew 10:16

God is telling us to be shrewd as serpents. In other words, we have to outsmart the Devil himself. Now, the Devil is very, very shrewd. I believe there are secular games that are inspired by the Devil. They are so fun, and yet, so full of wickedness.

We need to not just be smart, but as clever as a serpent, as well as innocent.

------------------
+---------+
|steveth45|
+---------+

Regarding rewards; they are a part of playing a game and a key game element.

I don't know about you, but I have never given God the glory for saving a princess or beating a boss. 90%+ of the world is playing games for the gratification of personally overcoming challenges and being "rewarded" for it.

However, I believe you can still bring God glory in the story. True, some players would think its dumb or being forceful, but not as much if you add game value to the act. Like.. somehow give the player an option to take the credit or not. If they don't take it, raise a stat a little or double experience points. If they do, well, they only get the lesser amount. Its even biblical.. see Mat 6:1-4 for an example.

I'm just saying there are ways to include the gospel and christian actions in a game that aren't cheesy. Maybe the key is giving the action game value.

JMHO,

------------------
penny --Is. 64

[This message has been edited by penny (edited October 03, 2006).]

Just my thoughts there and the bottom line is that in my opinion we should not throw away a good change (in myopinion).

Remember that while Jesus had dinner with the sinners He also preached repentance.

Edit:
Forgot to say; thanks for reading and giving this time and thought! Keep on praying every one.

------------------
1Jo 2:9-10 He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now. 10 He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.
Joh 17:26 And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.

[This message has been edited by jari (edited October 04, 2006).]

quote:

---

Originally posted by penny:
Maybe, someone needs to start the "Good Morals Coders Network". Then they can build games based upon good morals. :P

---

Following Christ is about good morals.

quote:

---

Originally posted by penny:

If they don't take it, raise a stat a little or double experience points. If they do, well, they only get the lesser amount. Its even biblical.. see Mat 6:1-4 for an example.

I'm just saying there are ways to include the gospel and christian actions in a game that aren't cheesy. Maybe the key is giving the action game value.

JMHO,

---

Yep and the lesson would be that there is honor other than what comes from a man.
I dont think however that we should go saying that god hears the thanks of the player and blesses him but to show the player that there is wisdom up there and not all is just here on earth. That can be mind opening.

Edit:
Have you all read this?

------------------
1Jo 2:9-10 He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now. 10 He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.
Joh 17:26 And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.

[VoHW] (Help needed) [Blog] - Truedisciple (mp3)
]

[This message has been edited by jari (edited October 03, 2006).]

quote:

---

Originally posted by jari:
Following Christ is about good morals.

---

And so much more. i.e. having good morals is not necessarily following Christ.

------------------
penny --Is. 64

quote:

---

Originally posted by penny:
And so much more. i.e. having good morals is not necessarily following Christ.

---

You are right penny and all the aspects do in fact deserve their own sites!

------------------
1Jo 2:9-10 He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now. 10 He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.
Joh 17:26 And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.

[VoHW] (Help needed) [Blog] - Truedisciple (mp3)

[This message has been edited by jari (edited October 04, 2006).]

quote:

---

Originally posted by jari:

Think about the missionaries who go to preach to thousands of people and what they do before the preach? Surely they cannot build relations ship with every one but they just preach because those people will listen because they suffer.

---

Generally, the most effective foreign missionaries spend time building close relationships with one or a few from the people-group they are trying to reach. When those one or few get saved, then they can best reach their own people. There are examples of successful "big tent" meetings, but generally half the people that come to those have already been saved through one-on-one discipleship and the other half were brought by the first half, and if they accept Jesus, it is, in large part, due to a friendship with a believer.

There may be a place or time for the "gospel" button in a game, but I don't think it's here or now.

You can see this in music. The bands that go for the "Christian Music" label are rarely effective evangelistically. Their CD's are sold at Christian bookstores, and listened to by Christians. They may be able to edify some believers, but rarely get their message into the ears of unbelievers. Conversely, some Christians make music without the Christian labelling. Instead, they are more likely to get their CD's into the right hands. If the music is good, then people might read the lyrics or visit the webpage, or talk to the band after a concert--causing all sorts of evangelistic opportunities.

------------------
+---------+
|steveth45|
+---------+

So I'm trying to look this from all aspects and I'm hoping that we would find direct answers to my orginal question. I am hopeful because as I said before I have had answers to this question with my projects.

But I dont want to lead this thread to just this one way so please dont take it as you would have to have an answer.

------------------
1Jo 2:9-10 He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now. 10 He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.
Joh 17:26 And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.

[VoHW] (Help needed) [Blog] - Truedisciple (mp3)

Any other ideas?

------------------
1Jo 2:9-10 He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now. 10 He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.
Joh 17:26 And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.

[VoHW] (Help needed) [Blog] - Truedisciple (mp3)

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lazarus:
What was this going to be written in again?

---

Well there are many who can code in C++ so its likely to be the language but java is another option.

------------------
1Jo 2:9-10 He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now. 10 He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.
Joh 17:26 And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.

[VoHW] (Help needed) [Blog] - Truedisciple (mp3)

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lazarus:
What was this going to be written in again?

---

A little while back, I suggested using C# with SDL.Net as the graphics library, and most people seemed to think that was a good idea. I'd recommend using SharpDevelop as the IDE for it (since it's free and open-source), and we'll make sure to make it Mono-compatible so that it will be a cross-platform game.

But I'm really open to other options, I just thought that'd be a good framework to do it in. I really don't like trying to make C++ projects be cross-platform, as I've always found that to be a bit of a pain.

Cheers!

--clint

quote:

---

Originally posted by jari:
So what do we have, the game should be cooperative but we need to decide the target audiance.
For the target audience I suggest younger people like with BD because they are perhaps less demanding on the game's quality but if we can then we could focus on creating a challenging game for casual 25+- years aged gamers. I hope that makes sense.

---

I think that makes sense. Basically, you're saying that if you don't think we can get very good quality out of the game, that we settle for a game targeted at younger kids, but if we think we can get up the polish, then a casual challenging game for all ages is something you would like to do.

That sounds pretty good to me -- I'm not one to shy away from making quality games. I like the idea of a casual game, one which is easy to pick up and play, and even hop in and out of quickly like you were saying.

BTW, have you all seen flOw? Pretty fun little casual game -- I think it's very inspiring as far as making a simple game that's easy to pick up and put down. A cooperative version of something like this could be a lot of fun.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jari
For older people a more challenging game could be perhaps team/party based game where player has to deliver X to A getting pass obstacles (or puzzles) and beating enemies.
Well Im thinking of a mix of some sport game like hockey and the lemmings and mario/sonic.

---

Interesting... very interesting.

I wasn't originally leaning towards making another side-scrolling platformer, but if we do, one feature request I'd like to put in right now is to have a dynamic camera that can zoom in and out so that the cooperative players can walk a pretty far distance apart without being clamped to being in the same small space.

I know it's kindof silly to ask for such a thing right up front, but that's just a feature I would really like to have for making a comfortable coop game.

I remember the way we got started with Bible Dave was pretty much everyone throwing around ideas, we all sortof saw something we liked, then Vincent made the tileset and the first version of the code, then I took it and hacked away at it for a whole evening to make Dave run and jump and climb on vines, and it just grew from there. Eventually it's going to take someone just creating a prototype, throwing it up on the web somewhere, and then everyone else picking up slack where they feel able.

One last quick thing -- something that might work better than a wiki for the design document(s) is Google Docs. Basically we can have a collaborative word processor on the website, and it's invite-only to whoever we wish to give read or write access. Whenever/if I get around to writing up a vision document for some of the various ideas, I'll put it up there and invite you all to it.

Cheers!

--clint

------------------
Kiwee Stuff Website:
http://kiwee.gibbering.net

quote:

---

Originally posted by HanClinto:

I wasn't originally leaning towards making another side-scrolling platformer

---

Me neither.

quote:

---

Originally posted by HanClinto:

I remember the way we got started with Bible Dave was pretty much everyone throwing around ideas, we all sortof saw something we liked, then Vincent made the tileset and the first version of the code, then I took it and hacked away at it for a whole evening to make Dave run and jump and climb on vines, and it just grew from there.

---

As I remember, CPUFreak just threw out a thread for it, saying he wanted a Christian Mario game. And everyone came toggether and thought of the story and add graphics and stuff.

quote:

---

Originally posted by HanClinto:

Eventually it's going to take someone just creating a prototype, throwing it up on the web somewhere, and then everyone else picking up slack where they feel able.

---

Agreed, that's what it's going to take. That's why I get tired of throwing ideas around, because we really get nowhere, but when someone actually just starts something people come together.

quote:

---

Originally posted by jari:

For older people a more challenging game could be perhaps team/party based game where player has to deliver X to A getting pass obstacles (or puzzles) and beating enemies.
Well Im thinking of a mix of some sport game like hockey and the lemmings and mario/sonic.

Any other ideas?

---

What about real time strategy game? Not alot of Christian or good Christian ones. And I mean "cut and dry" RTS's, none of that RPG stuff

I thought of the idea when we were talking about the next competition and ArchAngel and some others said the next theme should be about Judges and I thought how cool a RTS game about Gideon would be.

I think it would really fit. It will take a little more than Bible dave to make it, but it's not like a hybrid game like other ideas on here that have been posted. That's why Bible Dave worked really well, it was a simple idea. A RTS game would be a simple idea (in the sense that we all know how one works).

And it being Gideon would work great too, it's Old Testament (alot more war back then) and his story has alot to do with war.

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[This message has been edited by Lava (edited October 12, 2006).]

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[This message has been edited by Lava (edited October 12, 2006).]

quote:

---

Originally posted by kiwee:
hi, I can't be bothered to read the whole thread, but I get the jist of it. I will help with this project in any small way I can

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lava:
What about real time strategy game? Not alot of Christian or good Christian ones. And I mean "cut and dry" RTS's, none of that RPG stuff

---

I like how you want to keep it simple -- that's great. I had a lot of fun playing SSquared's little mini-RTS from the 2-week coding competition, so I'm interested in hearing more about what you're envisioning as I could see it having some great potential.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lava:
I thought of the idea when we were talking about the next competition and ArchAngel and some others said the next theme should be about Judges and I thought how cool a RTS game about Gideon would be.
...<snip>...
And it being Gideon would work great too, it's Old Testament (alot more war back then) and his story has alot to do with war.

---

I agree -- the book of Judges has a lot of potential for game material. I'm not very comfortable taking creative license with "what-if's" of Biblical history, and so I'd like to hear more about how you envision the game being all tied together with scripture and history. You don't have to lay out a full design doc or anything, but I really would like to hear more about how you would see battles and scenarios being set up (not necessarily game mechanics, but more of how the game world interacts with real history).

Thanks!

--clint

God bless you all and this project!!

------------------
Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."
--Matt. 19:26

"Time is an excellent teacher, but eventually it kills all of its students."

quote:

---

Originally posted by HanClinto:

I like how you want to keep it simple -- that's great. I had a lot of fun playing SSquared's little mini-RTS from the 2-week coding competition, so I'm interested in hearing more about what you're envisioning as I could see it having some great potential.

---

Thank you I will definately do that.

quote:

---

Originally posted by HanClinto:

I agree -- the book of Judges has a lot of potential for game material. I'm not very comfortable taking creative license with "what-if's" of Biblical history, and so I'd like to hear more about how you envision the game being all tied together with scripture and history.

---

Same here, and we don't even have to take a Bible story. The main ideas could work either way. Though the problem with not using a Bible story is I wouldn't involve God in something fictionally that God was never involved in and it would be hard to make a game where you are at war as a Christian game without using the actual war events that actually took place. So without God in it, and with war elements in it, it would be inaccurate to say it would be a Christian game.

quote:

---

Originally posted by HanClinto:

You don't have to lay out a full design doc or anything, but I really would like to hear more about how you would see battles and scenarios being set up (not necessarily game mechanics, but more of how the game world interacts with real history).

---

Will do

Thank you for taking the time to read and reply to my idea I actually didn't expect it to get much attention and I really appreciate you taking the time

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[This message has been edited by LAVA (edited October 13, 2006).]

I would like to see it done in C++ and not just because I have spent the past 2 weeks writing a pretty complex game framework for uni

------------------
"One World. One Web. One Program." -Microsoft promotional advertisement
"Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer!" -Adolf Hitler
"I believe in freedom... not freedom like America, freedom like a shopping cart"

Although my life limits my free time, and I have never worked on a group project before so I don't know how much aid I will be.

Except for hosting - that is available in any case.

My suggestion - someone take the 'bull by the horns' be in charge find out what help they have in each case and then just do it.

Based off the tools you have you then set the target platform, and genre of the game.

At least that is my thoughts

quote:

---

Originally posted by HanClinto:

I wasn't originally leaning towards making another side-scrolling platformer, but if we do, one feature request I'd like to put in right now is to have a dynamic camera that can zoom in and out so that the cooperative players can walk a pretty far distance apart without being clamped to being in the same small space.

---

Actually I didnt mean to suggest of making another side-scrolled but an 3D game. The reason why I mentioned side-scrollers and the good parts in my opinion from mario and sonic are: 1. It's possible to play alone or your friend can just jump in and help. 2. Simple methods against enemies, no brutality. 3. The length of the game is determined by the amount and difficulty of the levels not by the length of the story and the game has replay value. 4. Graphics are relatively simple, even 3D.

Good that we got this rolling a bit, just remember to pray, it He who must build the city (Psalm 127:1).

------------------
1Jo 2:9-10 He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now. 10 He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.
Joh 17:26 And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.

[VoHW] (Help needed) [Blog] - Truedisciple (mp3)

------------------
Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."
--Matt. 19:26

"Time is an excellent teacher, but eventually it kills all of its students."