Yes, you’ve nailed one of the cardinal difficulties I’m facing when creating a Christian game. To really get to the roots of what a Christian game can be, I need to be aware of the differences involved between what my message is (submission to and faith in God instead of human works) and what my medium is good at conveying (working through problems to gain rewards by improving a skill).

Games are good at teaching people skills which they can acquire through practice and trial-and-error… that’s why so many games are based around physical actions in the gameworld (running, jumping, shooting, etc.) Furthermore, many gamers like the feeling of agency – of being in control of their actions, making their own decisions and seeing how the game will respond to it. To create a game about submission and the worthlessness of the player’s efforts to solve the problems may get the message across, but it won’t be a very fun game. People will not recommend it to their friends to play, nor come back to it once they have “got” the message. I’ve actually seen an example of that sort of game… been trying to find it as a reference for some time now, but lost it – it’s called “The Shepherd” (I think), and I think it was a Flash-based game, parodying a typical point-and-click action/adventure game. That’s precisely the sort of game I don’t wish to make.

I want to make a game which both accurately conveys some part of the Christian message and values (it may not necessarily be ’salvation is by faith, not works’), and yet still be fun for people to continue playing and recommend it to friends. I’m pretty sure it can’t be the Gospel message, because games are simply not suited for it. But what is? How to create a Christian game that can have viral appeal? That’s the difficulty I’m trying to work out here. Not a very easy task, though.