Christian Video Game as a Master’s thesis?

Table of contents for The Making of a Christian Video Game

1. The Making of a Christian Video Game – Starting Thoughts
2. The Making of a Christian Video Game – Ethical Dilemma
3. Christian Video Game as a Master’s thesis?
4. The Makings of a Christian Video Game – Facebook

Lately, I’ve been seriously thinking about changing my Master’s thesis topic away from “Nonverbal Communication Channels for NPC Interaction” to “Video Games as a tool for Christian Education”. In other words, I’m thinking about making the object of my research and the object of my hobby the same thing – make a Christian video game, and do research based upon it for my Master’s thesis. There have been several reasons why this is happening:

1) The gaming industry and gaming academic circles are now going into the original field of research that I was planning – nonverbal communications, using body language, gestures and facial recognition, etc. What seemed new and exciting and innovative at the time to me is now less so, especially because whatever research I do will take 2 years to come into fruition. I’ll be behind the forefront then.

2) The original research topic was, simply-speaking, too big a topic for me to research at a Master’s level, I think. Just making the game alone would be extremely challenging, especially since I don’t have the faintest idea who I can work with, and it’s not really a project I can handle by myself. Or rather, anything which I alone do in this field will almost surely be substandard, and I don’t want that. If I want to do something, let it be good. If not, don’t do it.

3) I find myself talking a lot more about the making of a Christian video game to other people than I do about nonverbal communications channels. I think I’m perhaps more comfortable with that after all… although it is a little frightening, because I feel sometimes intimidated to suggest that as a formal academic study in my field. It feels like I’m shouting “I’m a fundamentalist Christian!” in a room full of liberal humanists / atheists. That’s sort of holding me back… even though in my rational moments I think it’s just an irrational fear with no proof… still I feel awkward, declaring myself that way.

4) I already found someone who’s interested in helping out – a programmer and a former VCF friend of mine, Jeremiah Goh, who’s now working with the Fellowship of Evangelical Students here in Singapore. That’s one skill which I lacked for the other project, but is present here. Also, the technical difficulty of implementing a Christian video game is a lot less than that of implementing a non-verbal communications channel game. I can actually see and have an idea of how to design the game I want for the Christian video game.

5) My original intention behind the nonverbal game was eventually to lead up to research into emotional-centric games like counselling, negotiation, etc. However, that in turn was supposed to lead up to games featuring Christian-centered activities (pastoral counselling, etc.). Why not just cut the loop short and go straight to making Christian games from the beginning?

There are a few objections causing me to hesitate, though;

1) I don’t have a clear internal sense that this is where God is leading me. Although a lot of the external signs seem to be lining up, I am asking for a clear sense of direction and conviction on the inside before pursuing this for the next two years, and so that I can continue on despite objections and criticisms in the knowledge that this is what God wanted me to do. I think I want to pray more and consult with other godly people before really going ahead.

2) Frankly, although the Christian component, and the implementation and application details are much clearer for this project, the academic and research part is a little weaker. I’m not sure how to approach and frame the study of this topic for my thesis.  Should I make a game and measure its’ effects on my target audience? Should I instead study the audience’s reactions to playing this game? Should I try to derive principles of design for religious games? Should I talk about how to embed religious instruction into games? Which approach is appropriate for a Master of Arts and Social Sciences? I’m not sure. Is the game which I want to make even aligned with Christian education principles in the first place, or is it just another fun game with Christian stuff in it? It’s entirely experimental, and because I think it’s novel and not much has been done in this field, I can’t tell whether it’ll succeed or I’ll have a failure in my hands after 2 years. Should I dare it anyway?