Charlie produced this wisdom...

quote:

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Originally posted by charlie:
If I were to throw out a challenge for Christian game designers (and maybe a topic for next year's speed competition) it would be to design games with Christian gameplay mechanics. ... I'd like to see more designs that focus on creating "Christian" mechanics as opposed to trimmings.

...the principles that we'd find most intrinsically "Christian" (patience, death-to-self, humility, temporal loss for eternal gain, etc.) are often the most opposed to the core principles we find "fun" in games (self pride, greed, conquering at others expense, instant gratification, etc.) That’s not to say there is no overlap – just that we need to be really creative, introspective and honest with ourselves about what we enjoy in games, and what is worth enjoying in games, and how to communicate those things in a game.

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So, i open the floor to discussing Christian Game Mechanics. I would only ask that you try to keep things specific and not generalize like "non-violent" or "solving puzzles".

EDIT: Another thing that people may also be inclined to discuss are existing game mechanics that "fit" with the christian world view. Those would be appropriate too.

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Sam Washburn

Check out my CCN SpeedGame 2 Blog

[This message has been edited by samw3 (edited November 06, 2007).]

In his book A Theory of Fun, Raph Koster talks about what makes games fun. I highly recommend the book, but to sum it up, he equates learning with fun. Very similar to the idea of flow in games -- learning to interact with and succeed in a system is what makes a game fun, and when we stop learning, it becomes stale, and it's time to move on to another game.

It becomes particularly interesting when we see that this "system" takes a small piece of reality, isolates it, and lets you interact with it in an experimental way. It lets you play with it, and try things out in a "safe sandbox."

Some game systems relate more directly to reality than others. Chess and Go are fairly popular distillations of the kinds of choices that come up in battle. Monopoly is a pretty obvious distillation of the real-estate market.

Tetris and Scrabble are a little more disconnected to real-world problems, but they still apply for generic problem-solving / optimization-within-constraints type of thinking.

A few years ago, I made an experimental game to test out this idea of making games that can take real-world skills and have them apply to games. The premise of the experiment was to see if someone was good at this skill in real-life, then they would be better at the simulated version of it in the game. I made a welding-based minigame (repairing ship armor for money or to keep your hull intact) as part of a larger space-ship game I was working on, and initial experiments with the game were very successful. People who I knew who were already good at welding were able to pick up the game and do better than me (even though I had played the game more).

After that, the goal was to see if the lessons learned in the game could be back-applied to the real world. Could someone, after playing this game, take the techniques learned and directly apply them to real-life welding? Could they hone their skills of interacting with the real world by playing a fun game?

I think that they can.

So this is much of what was kept in mind when we were designing a Spiritual Warfare simulation game called Little Light of Mine. I posted the design doc on these forums a while back.

Basically, the idea of having a "Christian-based game mechanic" was to help train the player how to react to spiritual issues. For instance, if you're being attacked by a temptation of lust in the game, you know that you can't fight it alone, because you're more susceptible to lust when you're alone. As such, you have to go and get some friends to help you with it. Similarly, spirits of strife and pride can spread discord among larger groups, so they may be best dealt with alone.

The hope and goal was to make a game that could help bring principles to mind when faced with similar issues in real life. "Oh, this is just like in the game! I should get a friend to help me with this one" sort of thing.

Okay, that's enough for a post.

Is this the sort of discussion you had in mind, Sam?

In Christ,
clint

[This message has been edited by HanClinto (edited November 06, 2007).]

I've thought about this over lunch here and have noticed a possible distinction or at least a layer in seeing the difference between typical game mechanics and those that are centered around a particular world view.

Christian principles are more about "being" than "behaving". From my limited knowledge, aside from role-playing, game mechanics are more about behaving than being.

Also, there is always(?) some kind of risk/reward system that is set up in games. Perhaps that is one of the place to "connect in" the christian world view. hmm.

I have played several 2D RPG/adventure games that have toyed with the idea of allowing the player to choose between good and evil and the outcome of the game varies based upon the decisions.

The funny thing is, I think I can come up with existing video games that present Charlie's chirstian principles mentioned above (patience, death-to-self, humility, temporal loss for eternal gain, etc.). They probably would be presented to the player as morals that are optional.

So, that said, here is a stab at being honest with myself as what I enjoy in games.
Given that I enjoy:
1. the intrinsic reward of experiencing a rich story and completing it.
2. being rewarded for solving a puzzle
3. experimenting with aspects of the game
4. maintaining an assortment of items/skills/tactics to help me solve my problems
6. experiencing character growth as the story progresses
7. nostalgic reminiscing

And I hate:
1. Total unrecoverable randomness
2. Hidden details that can only be revealed by failing first 100 times
3. Long, complicated physical feats
4. Split-second decision making
5. Simply building character stats
6. So much social interaction that I lose the story immersion.

Some game mechanics that really work for me as a player are:

1. physical challenges that enhance my character in the story
2. hidden secrets that embellish the story
3. decisions that branch and further complicate the story
4. puzzles that directly or indirectly reveal a new part of the story
5. having a purpose to revisit earlier levels
6. levels that have areas that can only be accessed after an item/skill/tactic has been acquired
7. Combining items to create something new
8. Item/skill/tactic upgrade decision trees
9. Story-oriented side quests
10.Dialog decisions that drastically affect the story and outcome of the game.

That's all that I can think of for now. There are probably many more.

I believe all these mechanics can be applied to Christian-themed games.

Any thoughts? or other angles?

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Sam Washburn

Check out my CCN SpeedGame 2 Blog

[This message has been edited by samw3 (edited November 06, 2007).]

quote:

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Originally posted by samw3:
I've thought about this over lunch here and have noticed a possible distinction or at least a layer in seeing the difference between typical game mechanics and those that are centered around a particular world view.

Christian principles are more about "being" than "behaving". From my limited knowledge, aside from role-playing, game mechanics are more about behaving than being.

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At the same time, 'behaving' generally reflects 'being', so a person who is in the state of waiting on the Lord is more likely to be patient. However (and maybe the point you were getting at) acting patient to beat an area in a game doesn't mean you’re a patient person. Does the process of learning skills through games (as Clint referenced above) also carry over to learning character?

Although I thoroughly enjoyed Raph Koster's book, my concern with it is that he narrowly defines games as skill learning / puzzle solving. What we're talking about in this thread extends beyond that into learning character traits. I personally believe that games need to extend even further into emotional experiences, which go further into the realm of teaching life principles and heart changes. From Raph's view, we enjoy music because our brain is trying to understand it. I think that's a bit narrow. I think we enjoy music because it creates an emotional response, and I think we would be hard pressed to show that it is the process of our brain 'chunking' the musical data that generates the emotional response. How do we then get various responses from different music? I think music goes beyond 'learning' to 'experiencing'. Learning is certainly one aspect of what goes on in many games, and certainly results in an emotional stimuli which is pleasurable - but it's not the only thing we experience in entertainment that is enjoyable. I don’t want to go too far down the discussion of creating emotional experiences in games, as that topic is deep enough to be it’s own thread.

So if we’re talking about character here, maybe that could be defined as the places where ‘behaving’ reflects ‘being’ (and the cases where it doesn’t would just be about skills).

What’s interesting to me, is that the games most tantalizing to game developers are games that are about a fairly narrow set of character traits. Generally more in the ‘Hunter’ category than the ‘Gatherer’. There are a lot of FPS / fighting / shooting / destruction games out there. At first I thought that was just because those kinds of games are more fun (they are to me). But then when you start looking at the games that sell well, it’s much more diverse. I think constructive games can be just as much fun to play -and sell just as well - as destructive games, they are just harder to make. Understanding how to the extrapolate and emphasize the core experiences of success and well-being that come with constructive games is more difficult that that of destructive games. I think this is because in the real world, the joy is often embedded in a lot of tedious trappings. Or are they simply more difficult to create just because they are not our first tendencies?

As a final not, I thought I’d bring over another point I made from the other thread. Just to clearly define the difference between “content” and “mechanics”:

quote:

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Originally posted by charlie:
One final thought on an already overly long post. When I mentioned "Christian game mechanics" above, I wasn't meaning things like having "Prayer" or "Miracles" as options in the game. That's content. The mechanic behind that could be pressing buttons at the right time, or multiple choice stories, but term "Prayer" could be replaced with any other content and the mechanic would be the same. When I talk about "Christian game mechanics", I'm talking about designing gameplay that rewards Christian character values (games are all about teaching behaviors anyway), and discourages poor character choices. So basically, creating gameplay that encourages team work, self-sacrifice, planning for the future, creativity, constructive as opposed to destructive, team success as opposed to individual success, short term loss for long term gain as opposed to instant gratification. I'm not trying to make any new claims about what is a "Christian game" or not. For those that know me, they know I've been a big opponent of even using that term since the early days. I'm just trying to say that I think this is a great area for us to stretch our creative juices as game designers, and look for opportunities to create games that are original and interesting at more than just the content level. I'm trying to present a challenge here, not a criticism, if that makes sense.

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Your lists are also what makes a great screenplay. These are principals that are in us as human beings.

The root "mechanics" of a video game are to shoot something. Even pong is a shooting back and forth of a ball. Tetris shoots the pieces at you.

There's exceptions, like PacMan and Donkey Kong, and computer versions of board games.

The root mechanic of a video game is to push a button and shoot something.

The mechanics of being a Christian means that you infiltrate whatever you interact with. So, there are Christians who work in the industry, making secular games, and those (like me) who want to make Christian games.

Working backwards... A Christian game, if the christianity were taken out of it, would cease to be a game. The Bible is a story of an all-loving God and a rebellious Man. The climax of the story and the solution to reconciling the two irreconcilable characters is when God becomes Man. This is the essence of Christianity. If you take it out of the story, it ceases to be Christian. To be sure, if you take out the early church, or the works of Paul, or the coming of the Holy Spirit, the message is not complete, either.

So Chrisitian game mechanics would need to include some sort of foundational Christian theme.

Here's what's distantly Christian: morality lessons. Morality is brought into the world through Christ, even from the foundation of the world. But it's "distantly" Christian because many religions teach morality. Paul even says "such immorality is not found even among the gentiles," meaning that even gentiles sometimes know what morality is. So, "Good clean fun" and "Teaches kids morals" is not Christian game mechanics.

To be fair, there are Christians who make these kinds of games, and even games where the characters quote scripture. These games do good. But these are a sermon inside a game. The actual game mechanics are not Christian.

The Word is made flesh, so anything that has scripture in it is Christian. Scripture in itself is a Christian mechanic. It is alive and when we read it, it interacts with our Spirit. When we put Scripture into a game, it does it's job of sheading light. Our Word says that all Scripture is good for something, and it does not return void.

There are two ways of putting scripture in a game. One way is to take a model of a secular game and put scripture in it. This way is not a Christian game mechanic, either. The Scripture inside the game is doing it's job as the living Word, but the game itself is not overtly Christian. Scripture word puzzles, and Bible trivia are fun ways to learn the Bible with people, but they are not Christian game mechanics. It's puzzle mechanics placed applied to Scripture. Nothing wrong there.

The second way is to have the meaning of the Scripture be a part of the game, and this is where Christian game mechanics begins.

I'm running out of time here...

We know that when we read a Scripture, we read it's every jot and mark. We read every word and can find new meaning in a word search, or looking up the Hebrew/Greek. We read the Scripture as a whole and get more meaning, and different meaning. Then we look at the context within the paragraph, and see how it all relates. We also look at the chapter and the book, and the whole Bible. On top of that, Scripture can be literal or metaphorical, even alagorical, prophetic, and even literal in the Spirit world, alagorical/prophetic in the Spirit World. There's a whole spectrum of the way we interpret Scripture. To be sure, we argue among each other as to its meaning. Like "The river is in the mountains! --no it's not, I found it by the sea!" And it's the same river. So, widening our horizons on what the living Word is like will open up the possibilities of how we discover what Christian game mechanics can entail.

Christian game mechanics starts with Scripture.

I admit this probably isn't a completely accurate representation as this adds a gray area that doesn't really exist. The benefit is that such a system (depending on how it is implemented) should encourage the proper actions.

By symbolic representation, I mean a character or a graphic -- something that you can *see* in the game. Maybe your character has a little stink bomb come off the top of his head when doing something bad, or maybe your character spawns an evil twin or something. This brings up another point that the graphical representations can diminish or amplify the Christian mechanics within the game-- If I have a graphic of Jesus in my game, there's no way that it can be interpreted incorrectly. It's a game about Jesus. My attitude toward Jesus is yet to be revealed. (Have you ever played a game (or watched a video) and wondered for a little bit whether it was making fun of Christians, or promoting Christianity?) Jesus as an NPC (coupled with an obvious pro-Christian feeling to the game) can get by with morality lessons and need very little Scripture. But perhaps the person wants to make an alagory and use ... i dunno Vegetables or something ... In this case, vegetables are funny, but whether or not these characters are Christian or not, we don't know. They have to say that they are Christian in the game. And just saying "I'm a Christian" constitutes like .00001 Christian game mechanics. The game needs more scripture in it to be considered a Christian game.

There is a way to use alagory without having Scripture in the game, but the only way to do this is to re-create the Bible using other characters. You need to have an all-powerful, all-loving character that gives up his life in order that his creations can have eternal life. If you have any other type of alagory without scripture, you're running the risk of being confused with every other religion. Only Christianity has God becoming fully man and dying for us.

quote:

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Originally posted by JeTSpice:
The root "mechanics" of a video game are to shoot something. Even pong is a shooting back and forth of a ball. Tetris shoots the pieces at you.
...
The root mechanic of a video game is to push a button and shoot something.

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This is a heavy generalization of the industry. So much so that I'm not sure if I'm reading it correctly. ONE game mechanic is shooting things. It provides a sense of conquest and strength. Lots of other game mechanics out there provide lots of other feelings. The two best-selling PC games of all time (by a good distance) are the SIMS games. They have no shooting that I know of, and provide little in the way of feelings of power – rather, they focus their appeal on the creative and nurturing desires of players.

About half the games out there focus on shooting things (which does show the unnatural preference of the destructive appeal of games), however, about only a quarter – or less – of the actual sales of games are accounted for in shooting games.

Wikipedia’s List of Best-selling Games

This is the gap that I see us as Christians having an opportunity to take advantage of. The bottom line is that people DO have fun playing games that involve good choices, it’s just that not a lot of people are making those kind of games. Unfortunately, many of the people trying to make “clean” games end up taking games that have poor values in their mechanics (shoot everything that moves) and then take the fun out in their effort to make them “clean”. Better to start with good mechanics and make them fun.

Again, I’m not trying to talk about “Christian” games here necessarily. I’m talking about recognizing, understanding, and designing games whose gameplay mechanics represent Christian character traits. I think that games can be based on solid character traits without having to be evangelistic. So a game can teach, say, wise usage of your money, and be a boon to saints without having to preach the Gospel.

I’m not sure I’m following everything you’re getting at, but I think I agree with you on the first two possible ways of inserting Christian material are not really getting at the mechanics:

Games could teach scripture and share the gospel, but that doesn’t mean that they put the player in a place where their real actions of playing the game and the conscious choices that they make within the game train them

Second is getting back to the issue of content, and I agree with you again. Taking the “Shoot everything that moves” mechanic and replacing it with “Knock out everything that moves” doesn’t really give the game any more of a Christian mechanic. The content would be more Christian, but the mechanic still is focused on us defeating a bunch of bad guys. Likewise, just giving the players the options to “Press (R) to repent or (C) to Continue in sin...” really is just a mechanic of making choices (and isn’t even a really meaningful choice from a gameplay standpoint, as the right answer is too obvious).

quote:

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Originally posted by JeTSpice:

The root mechanic of a video game is to push a button and shoot something.

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One last point. I’d like to put a difference between the physical interaction and the gameplay mechanic. The implementation of the game interactions system (pushing a button) is not something we’re discussing here. I’m not suggesting that people be required to make cross signs with their wiimote.

Generally at the interaction level, games have two categories – coordination and logic. Games require the player to take actions with a certain level of precision, and make logical choices. Most games require a mixture of the two, but there are extremes as well (Whack-a-Mole vs. Chess). But that’s not what I’m calling gameplay mechanics. Gameplay mechanics is the layer above the physical interaction, where you take their actions and choices and string them together to make them into a meaningful gameplay elements. Those have content put on top of them, and then all the interactions and content are pulled together to make story.

Lots of people are interested in putting in Christian content, fewer are putting in Christian story (Finding Andia was a great example of a simple game with a great story - we need more like that), but hardly anyone is looking at what the mechanics themselves are theaching the players. I'm not saying it's required to make a game "Christian" or anything - it's just a fun area of design to explore.

[EDIT: Fixed URL tag]

[This message has been edited by charlie (edited November 06, 2007).]

Here's the point I wanted to make:
In film school, you learn that action movies are actually a derivative of comedy. Who'd a thunk? So, mastering comedy makes you a great action writer. Picasso was an excellent and realistic sketcher. When he painted his masterpieces, he knew where to destroy lines, and which lines were important. on and on, understanding the basics...

In the same way, understanding the root mechanics of video games can help us push the envelope.

Although it's not necessary to have shooting in a game, the root mechanic of video games is shooting stuff. Another is "control" over a character. And a third would be voyerism and the enjoyment of spectacle.

It wouldn't surprise me to find out that most games are made from a few root mechanics. But we're talking about mechanics on a hirer level, Christian mechanics. The reason I bring up pursuing the basics is from my background as a writer. Aristotle said that plot comes from character. It reminded me of "everthing derives its name from the Lord." Also, in the Hebrew language, words are traced to their roots. All the attributes of the Lord can be traced back to His Glory. It kind of tells me to look for the root mechanics in video games and understand them, and then weave it all back together with the roots of Christian mechanics and see what we get.

Jumping to the quick, SIMS is a great area to explore.

On the subject of allegories, I'll use literature as a little guideline. One of Tolkien's (J. R. R. Tolkien, Mr. Lord of the Rings) pet-peeves so to speak, was allegories with a 1 for 1 translation. Like Edward in the allegory IS Peter from the Bible, Aslan in the allegory IS Jesus from the Bible, and so on. One of the great things about Narnia was it was an allegory that wasn't all the way through 1 for 1. Although Aslan, and the Emperor beyond the sea was a 1 for 1, most everything wasn't. The White Witch may not have been the devil, it could have been an evil minion of the "devil" with unusual power.

I kind of like my implementation of Biblical values in a Biblical story with "The Well of Bethlehem". You must go through enemy territory and take some water from the Well of Bethlehem for David. But the catch is you can't kill (at this point I may allow you to kill but at a cost, (an immediate solution causing long term problems) for fear of alerting the enemy.

But what it lacks is the applicability to real life. while it may encourage later on thinking about long term before using short term, it doesn't have much applicability.

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MM out-
Thought travels much faster than sound, it is better to think something twice, and say it once, than to think something once, and have to say it twice.
"Frogs and Fauns! The tournament!" - Professor Winneynoodle/HanClinto
I reserve the full right to change my views/theories at any time.

@Clint, I finally had a chance to read the "flow" link. Some great thoughts on mechanics particularly in regards to play balancing there. I was thinking about providing an ample "reward" to meet a challenge. The reward is what drives us to take up the challenge. I remember several occasions when I was a kid of being seriously disappointed with the ending of a game. I expected more for the effort I was putting into it.

@Charlie, I agree with the emotional experiences of games being important. In fact, personally that is more of a driving force to complete the game than solving the puzzle or attaining mastery of a game.
As for character, I think a game can directly affect the role the player is playing more than the player himself, however, I know that there is a indirect "undertow" that almost secretly bleeds into the player's life, like what you mentioned. I believe this was discussed a while back in a topic on Christian Games and Bhuddist Games.
Constructive games are more difficult to create, perhaps, because its easier to remove something than to create it. There are issues of constraints like world/level boundaries being violated, physics interactions and "constructing" to the point of circumventing the challenges of the game. i.e. building a bridge instead of swimming with crocodiles. But, perhaps the nature of game play could change (maybe has changed?) to fit this.

@JetSpice, great comments! I agree with the difference between morality and Christianity. I also like your comments about scripture inside the game. However, its important to note here that Christianity includes spiritual experiences that go far beyond what is in scripture. Now, before you think I'm a universalist.. just think, the Bible records a lot more spiritual experiences than it does commandments. In fact it might even have more immorality than morality if you get right down to counting words. There is murder, rape, thieving, idol worship, witchcraft, oppression, etc. all through the bible. And each of us has a spiritual experience in our lives as we interact with God and what he has done for us in Christ.
Also, I would *love* to see a "root game mechanics" list.

An interesting thing about games is that they present to the player an opportunity to experience something new in their life, albeit virtual.

@christo, some nice ideas there. I believe Jari's toying with the idea of visualizing sin. The time-sensitive package mechanic is nice. I really like it.

@mene, seems this is a regular stealth game mechanic, but is a nice application of it with Christian content.

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Sam Washburn

Check out my CCN SpeedGame 2 Blog

Allegorical Christian works must be based on the foundational principal of Christianity: that Jesus died for us and rose again. Consider this carefully: if Aslan or Gandolph had not risen again, these works would not be considered Christian allegories.

However, in a Christian SIMS game, no such allegory exists. In a Christian SIMS game, (where characters would pray and learn the Word and quote scripture over the problems they have in their life--a re-inactment of the Christian life as we know it) there would be no Jesus NPC who dies in the game and rises again. But such a game would be indirectly based on that Christian principle: The NPCs would be relying on the power of the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ to transform them. [Possibly a non-Christian player could discover this for themselves later (not in the game, in their real life). They could search for Jesus in their real life because of the curiosity aroused from seeing scripture work in the lives of virtual characters.]

Neither LOTR nor Narnia have any scripture in them, but there are many scenes which are taken from scripture. It's an example of something indirectly being based on Scripture. In the same way, a video game with Christian allegory does not need scripture (but could be indirectly based on it).

Concluding this thought, a Christian video game is either:

1. Allegorical, meaning that it has a Christ figure in it who dies and raises from the dead.

OR

2. Has literal Scripture in the game.

There's creative rule-breaking allowed. The Lord expects us to use our creativity. However, if a video game does not have at least one of the above, it cannot be called Christian.

If you disagree, please site examples so we can get to the bottom of it.

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Root Game Mechanics:

1. A foundational game mechanic is Control.
2. Another is Reward.

I rescind "shooting stuff" after a day's thought because "shooting stuff" seems to be a manifestation of game mechanics, but not a mechanic in itself. That most of the games which first came out were based on shooting is a reflection of the available technology, and the physical ability of the populace to play games in the 80's. Pac Man, one of the most successful, had but a joystick and no buttons (and it was not a shooter). So, "shooting" is a manifestation of the game mechanic Control.

Come back, Charlie! I repent!

quote:

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Originally posted by JeTSpice:

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Root Game Mechanics:

1. A foundational game mechanic is Control.
2. Another is Reward.

I rescind "shooting stuff" after a day's thought because "shooting stuff" seems to be a manifestation of game mechanics, but not a mechanic in itself. That most of the games which first came out were based on shooting is a reflection of the available technology, and the physical ability of the populace to play games in the 80's. Pac Man, one of the most successful, had but a joystick and no buttons (and it was not a shooter). So, "shooting" is a manifestation of the game mechanic Control.

Come back, Charlie! I repent!

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LOL!

Really though, what’s kept me away is more my day job, house upgrades, and Clint threatening to “Shoot the engineer and ship the product” if I don’t get him a direction for Finding Keepers soon (all the more disturbing, considering he IS the engineer...)

Anyway, I realize I poorly defined what I was calling gameplay mechanics, so I really need to come up with a better definition of these terms before I insist on anyone agreeing with me.

I see things like reward and control, as well as plot, environment, and many other things as gameplay elements, and not so much mechanics. The mechanics set what actions you need to take to get the reward or move on. Mechanics deal with system which assesses to your choices and reflexes in response to gameplay elements and produces additional game results – which could be more gameplay scenarios or a reward scenario. I’m beginning to think “mechanics” is too vague a term.

As a quick aside, I don’t want this to turn into a thread about what is a Christian game. It’s really getting to a splitting hairs point when a game about David and Goliath, or the early church, or George Mueller is not considered Christian if it does not contain direct scripture references or talk about Christ’s death and resurrection. I totally understand that it might be better to categorize David and Goliath as a “Biblical Game”, and George Mueller as a “Religious Game”, and keep “Christian Game” restricted, but at this point so many people have so many preconceived notions about the term “Christian Game” that it becomes purely an issue of semantics – and not anything that can be won on logic. For this reason I think it’s better to avoid the term all together when attempting to categorize or reference a game in a precise way.

In this case, the title is a little misleading, as this thread could be read as about “Christian Game, Mechanics” or “Christian, Game Mechanics”. The second is what we’re going for here. By the above definition of mechanics, there’s not way they could be “Christian” by your terms, which is why I think the better phrase is “Game Mechanics which reflect Christian Values”.

Let me say that again, in bold, for anyone who is just scanning this thread:
________________________________

What we’re looking for is:
“Game Mechanics which reflect Christian Values”

By that, we mean we’re looking for game interactions that on the mechanical level (so below story and content) that promote or reward character traits such as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and any of the other host of character traits and behaviors we would deem most relevant to a Christian mindset. Furthermore, we’re looking for way to add them into games in a context that makes them enjoyable.

________________________________

So christo’s reference to a game above that teaches patience by causing the player to wait is a good example. The player actually has to wait (we mean NOT simply pressing ‘W’ for wait, and then go on without actually waiting.) Hopefully the game would then give a reward that would actually justify the wait, and make the player believe the effort was worthwhile. So the “mechanic” is rewarding patience.

The example of verse memorization is a little different. In that case, the “mechanic” is memorization. The player is required to memorize things to get the reward. The fact that Bible verses are being memorized is at the content level. So then the question is memorization a “Christian value” or character trait? It certainly is constructive, and a valuable skill. Whether it is Christian this is a little more nebulous, but still worth discussing. Is memorization fun? Can we make it more fun?

No, we don't want to digress from the thread's topic. However, if we don't define what a Christian game is, our flesh is inclined to make a morality tale.

Yes, Reward and Control are not Christian. When we discover what is distinctly Christian and weave it together with what we know to be game mechanics, we'll get a totally new and creative thing.

Patience is not distinctly a Christian character. It's a morality lesson that any religion has. But the power of the Holy Spirit to transform us is distinctly Christian.

Waiting patiently is never fun. But timing something just right is fun. A game where the player attempts to follow the timing of the Holy Spirit will teach more than waiting.

Memorization is not fun (maybe to those who pride in knowledge). But suddenly remembering something is. Like in LOTR, where Gandolph appears in the Eastern Sun, and we remember that's what he said he would do. That kind of recall is super fun.

Kids need to learn Scripture as it applies to their lives. If they are afraid, they should quote "No weapon formed against me can prosper," or "God has not given me a spirit of fear, but one of love, power and a sound mind."

So the game would need to teach them Scripture that applies to their lives. Say, they walk their character through a dungeon platformer, and come up against a monster.

Now, what kid can type? Typing is not fun. Nor is having the game stop and selecting the appropriate scripture. Stopping a game is not fun.

But lets say that three icons appear. One is a broken heart, the other is a wine goblet, and the third is a frightened "smiley face" icon. The player clicks the broken heart icon and Scripture is spoken: "He will mend the broken hearted." and the monster approaches. The player rapidly clicks the frightened icon and Scripture is spoken: "God has not given us a spirit of fear..." The monster flees.

Now suppose this game mechanic were developed to be progressively harder, with more and more scriptures, icons, and scenarios. There's tons of icons filling the screen. There's people in a burning pit. You find a guy-behind-bars icon. Click. "He's come to set the captives free." They're saved! There's a mob of baddies. You find the Crown icon. It's the atomic bomb: "Every knee will bow!" Ka-boomsters! Monsters flying everywhere.

There's no memorization, but the game easily conditions the player, if the player is willing. We can totally imagine a non-Christian, after playing such a game, will say the same thing the game does the next time he/she is confronted with fear, feels like he is trapped, or overwhelmed by forces.

We didn't really teach anything. He just had fun and now he quotes the game because it was so fun.

It doesn't mean he's saved or anything. But one of our beefs is that the world influences people, and what we want to do is influence people. People act like the SIMS, dress up like HALO, quote Star Wars, or rap songs, or whatever. But what we want is for them to be influenced by the Word.

[This message has been edited by JeTSpice (edited November 08, 2007).]

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Originally posted by JeTSpice:

Patience is not distinctly a Christian character. It's a morality lesson that any religion has. But the power of the Holy Spirit to transform us is distinctly Christian.

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Originally posted by charlie:
What we’re looking for is:
“Game Mechanics which reflect Christian Values”

By that, we mean we’re looking for game interactions that on the mechanical level (so below story and content) that promote or reward character traits such as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and any of the other host of character traits and behaviors we would deem most relevant to a Christian mindset. Furthermore, we’re looking for way to add them into games in a context that makes them enjoyable.

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Bottom line is, mechanics don’t share the word of the gospel - mechanics show the work of the gospel in the player. These are mechanics that I would want my kids playing, not that I would try to lead someone to Christ by forcing them to play it. Sure, if a non-Christian played it, he might come away with a deeper understanding of the real effects of bad choices, and maybe learn something about making choices that have better long-term benefits, but the mechanic won’t save him. Likewise, you could layer Christian content and Christian narrative on top, and create a really potent package for the unbeliever, but that’s after we get the mechanics worked out without all the layers on top. But I still think the better use for these mechanics is to allow believers to play games that reinforce the character traits they should already have.

I think a great example of a game that teaches good principles is Settlers of Catan. In that game, you learn pretty quick that picking on other people will not bring you success in the game. In fact, the way to win in that game is to be everybody’s friend; making good trades that help both of you. You also learn about working together with people that may have things you don’t have, and you have things they don’t have. One of the great things is that the game allows you to make bad choices (like picking on other people) but the actual mechanics play out such that it’s rarely a good idea. But you have to learn that by trying it out. The game doesn’t just force you to make the right choices. It gives you several reasonable, meaningful choices, and then the mechanics are balanced such that the right choice actually bears out its just reward. Now that’s good design.

Is this game (which I've not played) baised unrealistically? Maybe it's for kids?

The thing I sense is that evil will flourish until Christ returns. And Job was exacted some terrible undeserved punishment.

But, if it's for kids, then that's a good start.

It looks like both employ simple game mechanics that produce a wide range of dynamics. Games like these are really about second-guessing your opponent, right? Aside from the written rules, what really makes risk fun is if you can maintain a low profile and then make your huge move. If Catan is the same, then the "human element" might be a clue as to how mechanics that reflect Christian character traits can be incorporated into a game. There is an Xbox version of Catan that boasts superlative AI, and Luxor (computer risk) has okay AI, too. They emulate strategies.

In order to teach a Christian trait, I think you need an opposition to it. I also think you need to have a measurement system of these Christian character traits.

Is this like a very complex role-playing game, where you have a stat for every Christian trait?

Although it is true that being good doesn't always reap temporal reward (and in some cases, like Job, may reap the opposite) it still is the more rewarding way to form relationships with people. All humans still have a natural tendency to trust those who are good to them, and not so to those who are unkind. Furthermore, the real eternal view presents a MUCH greater reward to those who do good, especially those who do in the face of persecution for their good actions. If a game can present long-term effects of choices, then that would seem the even better way to go.

In any case, I would think that even if we were sure that doing good might not result in an earthly reward, we'd still want to present it as the right choice. I remember the words of Solomon, at the end of Ecclesiastes, where he sums up with a dismal sounding “vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” But then goes on to say “But because the preacher was wise, he still taught the people understanding.” (Paraphrasing, I don’t have it handy.) Just because we realize that there may not be an earthly reward doesn’t mean it’s wrong to teach – we just need to point people to the eternal then.

Back a while ago I began design on a game called “The Netmaker’s Son”. In that game you play a child solving puzzles in a town that is a literal home to practically every parable Christ told. The widow with her missing mites, the fishermen sorting their catch of the shore, the unjust judge, and couple dozen more make their dwelling there. One of the things I tried to aim for in the game was to literally cause the player to physically apply actions of the parable as part of the solution.

Here are some ideas that I was thinking about that fit in the mechanics category (and naturally they would be made even more applicable by adding content and story):
Going the extra mile: The player is given a set of rules such that only a certain amount of results are needed to complete the section, but going on and beyond the call of the rules will result in a special reward. (Go the extra mile, he who would take your cloak, give your shirt also.)
Perseverance: Sections where you’re called upon to take an action, but the first couple times you take it, there appears to be no change in the result. After a number of tries, however, you get the needed result. (Unjust judge, knocking on the neighbor’s door.)
Discernment/Matching: Typical matching games where you’re called upon to recognize similarities or differences between objects. (Sheep and goats, old and new wineskins, new cloth in new garments, fish matching like Finding Keepers.)
Patience: As christo said, create a situation where the player is told to watch or wait for an event. For the progress to trigger, the player is required to actually stay at the specified location for an reasonable amount of time (not known to the player). (Watching for the master’s return, waiting for the bridegroom.)
Seeking: Games where the player must search through a variety of locations to find missing item(s). (The Widow’s mites, the lost sheep.)
Risk: The player is placed in a situation where they have to give up progress they have made for the chance of making greater progress. (Pearl of great price, treasure in the field, giving to the poor.)
Doing good to your enemies: Technically, to be effective, this one moves beyond just the mechanical. However, the mechanical portion of this is to purposely create situations where the player’s emotional response will be the opposite of the actual actions they need to take. Specifically, create a situation where the player will not like another character due to their actions against them, but then they still must do good to that person to continue the game. (Turning the other cheek, you’re your enemies.)
Counting the cost: This one should be pretty easy, but I still haven’t figured out a way to incorporate it into the gameplay.
Others?

And I also had an epiphany of sorts.. gnothi seauton (know thyself).

The first step to finding the mechanics of any type of game is similar to finding the motivation of a character in a novel. If you discover what drives the character internally or what external forces shape the character during the story(plot), I think the game mechanics will fall out of that as controls, guiding the behavior of the player.

Personally, I want to organize these ideas, so I've stubbed a page on the wiki about Game Mechanics. Feel free, everyone, to jump in and edit it.

Again thanks for your input!

God Bless!

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Sam Washburn

Check out my CCN SpeedGame 2 Blog

Charlie's last post really started making sense to me. And another a few posts up where he rephrased things to be "Game Mechanics which reflect Christian Values". But I wasn't sure whether this was the gist of the entire thread or not. It's hard because there are multiple people throwing out answers, all slightly different. I really like how Charlie defined it.

With that said, one important factor to keep in mind is to not make the game feel forced. Use those ideas/concepts in a way where the player needs to figure them out. A verse which says, "Be patient..." and then have some tough situation placed in front of the player will scream "JUST WAIT!!!!" and the impact is lost. If I can give a spoiler for a minute...

******* SPOILER: MYSTERIES OF THE SITH *******
OK, it's an old game and most of you will probably not play it these days, but a spoiler nevertheless. This game was pretty bad, but the ending has left an impact on me to this day. The final battle is the typical big boss battle. I played and played and played and.....I could not beat the final boss. We were locked in a stalemate. We would get wounded, but would continue to heal. It seemed like an endless battle. But I noticed a statue or a wall carving (I can't remember, it's been like 8 or 9 years) in which the person was kneeling down and bowing. Hmmm, interesting. I realized this may be a clue. I turned off my lightsaber. I can't totally remember the details, but perhaps that triggered my character to bow down or something. In any case, that was the key to finishing the game. Just turn off the lightsaber and not fight. Wow! Years later, it has still left an impact on me as a thrilling moment of discovery.
******* END SPOILER *******

I still fall back to "Eternal Wars: Shadows of Light" as an important game in the industry and one to look at and examine. What factors in the game caused people to find Christ? To at least seek Him and learn more? Was there anything in the actual gameplay drawing people to Christ? Was it the storyline? Was it a mixture of both? What if the gameplay was bad? Would it have had the same impact? What about if there was no storyline? Was it splattered with Christianese? Was there a supernatural impact within the game?

In the end, my feeling is the one factor which should set a Christian game apart from others is the impact to be transformed. Transformed in a unique, special, and supernatural way through the power of the Holy Spirit. Of course, there are certainly many game mechanics which can be used to bring that about. And I guess that is sort of what this thread is describing.

I, too, wonder if these mechanics can be more submersive, and present choices.

But we know that the way is narrow. Ultimately, such a game would require right choices.

Perhaps wrong choices do not limit gameplay, and right choices are subdivided a little. There might be an indicater so that the player can understand that he/she is on the right track. Rather than points, it could be a hot/cold compass? If so, stats can be presented at the end of the game showing a graph of the condition of the spirit over time. The player can see where he climbed spiritually, where he fell, etc.

When the character's spirit is cold, trials and tribulations come to him to buffet him and get him on the right track. When he is lukewarm, nothing happens. When he's hot, lots of good action is coming.

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Originally posted by charlie:
Others?

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Hi, im a christian game mechanic, part of the pit crew at the Christianapolis 500

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>>>--supercoder--<<<

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Originally posted by ssquared:
With that said, one important factor to keep in mind is to not make the game feel forced. Use those ideas/concepts in a way where the player needs to figure them out. A verse which says, "Be patient..." and then have some tough situation placed in front of the player will scream "JUST WAIT!!!!" and the impact is lost. If I can give a spoiler for a minute...

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Great point! In this case, more than ever, player’s figuring the solutions out themselves is essential. For instance, if you tell them that they have to knock four times for the door to open, then the mechanic has basically become just “follow instructions”, and not really showing the act of persevering. The great thing about a lot of these mechanics is that they basically break various fundamental rules of gameplay mechanics and cause players to have to act in creative ways. For instance, with the example above, a mantra of adventure games is that if you get the same response twice from an interaction, you know that you and need to do something else. Here you have to think creatively to realize your situation calls for perseverance.

For The Netmaker’s Son I figured we’d have a couple disciples in the town teaching on one of the corners. They would basically be talking through a bunch of the parables applicable to the elements in the game, and would then act as a hint system for the player if they stopped and listened.

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Originally posted by ssquared:
In the end, my feeling is the one factor which should set a Christian game apart from others is the impact to be transformed. Transformed in a unique, special, and supernatural way through the power of the Holy Spirit. Of course, there are certainly many game mechanics which can be used to bring that about. And I guess that is sort of what this thread is describing.

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This gets back to the ubiquitous question about what is a “Christian Game”. I suppose it also depends on what you mean by “Transformed”. If you mean the transforming work of the Holy Spirit that we equate with the act of salvation, then no. We’re not talking about mechanics that will get people saved. Again, I don’t think that mechanics, in their pure form, can ever get people saved. We cannot dictate nor force the work of the Holy Spirit. On the other hand, if you are talking about the transformation that occurs with character growth and maturity, then yes. Think about what character traits would be worth teaching children from Christian families. There are many, many verses that call for us to move beyond the work of salvation to the doing of good works – that’s what we’re talking about.

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“Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection”
“What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works?”

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“For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another”
“And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward.”

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Originally posted by supercoder:
like give more honor to weaker folks who lost or never had honor

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Excellent idea! So a mechanic would be to set up a situation where making sure that all players are given the opportunity to succeed. Another would be to provide opportunities for weaker players to be essential in some situations.

Mechanics that involve multiple players have a lot of really neat opportunities to encourage good behavior. Interestingly, many of them are already quite common.

Caring for others: Game scenarios where all the players need to survive to win, and enemy attacks are not balanced. (Support those in need.)
Importance of being weak: Systems where player’s having essential functions for the team survival are lacking severely in other areas. (Giving greater honor to those parts which lack.)
Self-sacrifice: Scenarios where only one member of a team needs to make it though for the whole team to win, and team members have the capacity to put themselves at risk (or even certain death) to increase the odds of survival for other members (Greater love hath no man, then that he lay down his life for his friends.)

[This message has been edited by charlie (edited November 13, 2007).]

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When I say “Christian” I think of “Whatsoever you do, in word or deed, do it all heartily as unto the Lord”.

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That, to me, is key in designing and creating a game. The most effective game will be one that follows the above.

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What makes us different is that we do them without reward – for even in the face of persecution, we are called to love our enemy.

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Hmmm, I tend to disagree with this. I believe many non-Christians do things without expecting anything in return. Hurricane Katrina. Fires in CA. Tsunami. Now, would they do this for their enemy? I don't know, and maybe that's what you are getting at.

In any case, I am not really trying to discuss whether or not certain attributes, characters, or actions are inherently Christian. I just wanted to mention what I see as a difference between self-motivated and Christ-motivated. You can take the same character in two people and have two different responses. My point is to somehow develop a game which can promote a Christ-motivated action.

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Originally posted by ssquared:
In any case, I am not really trying to discuss whether or not certain attributes, characters, or actions are inherently Christian. I just wanted to mention what I see as a difference between self-motivated and Christ-motivated. You can take the same character in two people and have two different responses. My point is to somehow develop a game which can promote a Christ-motivated action.

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That's a good distinction. As I was looking through several of those verses today the phrase "in my name" kept showing up. God certainly wants us to do things for him. Adding that to a game would be an interesting challenge. (Is it actually possible to do something for Christ's honor that doesn't involve other real people?) Maybe worth it's own thread as a discussion.

In any case, yes, I agree with pretty much everything you said and think we're on the same wavelength. I think I'm just getting jumpy on that topic.

The door example that charlie gave could be expanded so that there is a significant delay before the door actually opens after you knock. This might help in the perseverance and maybe patience areas especially if you didn't tell the player that there would be a delay. Some of us in our impatience(maybe assuming it didn't work) would try to repeat the process and hence knock 8 times or more rather than the 4 we were instructed. Or we might leave assuming that the area is broken. There could be something like a trap or something to tell the player they messed up if they don't follow the instructions or give up. This is basically the exact same problem(follow the instructions) but with a slight change so that it might teach a lesson(patience/perseverance) within it's lesson(obedience).

For another patience idea(which I have seen used a few times):
You can have a question to which the answer is to not answer.