Idle Bibles - An Idle Thumbs Bible Game

[Zeusthecat]

It turns out that hypothesizing about how to make a cool game based on the Bible is pretty damn fun. In the interest of not further de-railing the Feminism thread, I figured it might be a good idea to move this topic to a new thread. To start off, here is the horribly fucked up series of posts from the Feminism thread that started this. 

https://www.idlethumbs.net/forums/topic/7428-feminism/?p=268850

 

Bjorn, on 13 Jan 2014 - 15:41, said:
Soooo, this is making the rounds over the last couple of days.  Posting it here because of a couple of oddities in it.  The primary graphic they've been using has been Lot escaping Sodom as his wife is turned to a pillar of salt.  What happens shortly thereafter is an incestual relationship between Lot and his daughters (while the Bible describes it as being initiated by the daughters, there are lots of dissenting interpretations that see it as an abusive father and rape by Lot).

And they make sure to point out in the sales pitch:

This is one of the most disturbing and anti-female passages in the entire Bible.  It seems a bit odd to put it front and center in your Kickstarter campaign for your Bible game.

TychoCelchuuu, on 13 Jan 2014 - 22:38, said:
This is a great opportunity to play one of my least favorite games, "salt or semen?" The developers say salt, but the polls say...

Gormongous, on 13 Jan 2014 - 23:27, said:
The polls say White Jesus. Man, those are the WASPiest Jews I've seen in a while.

 

Bjorn, on 14 Jan 2014 - 00:45, said:
Allan Quartermain saves two sacrificial virgins and escapes the lost city of gold only moments before it's destroyed!  Little does he know that the Semen God does not let go of its prizes so easily...

 

Rodi, on 14 Jan 2014 - 01:34, said:
I'd say in those times salt is still a very valuable commodity. A smart entrepeneur could devise a system of turning slaves into salt and make huge profits. Thanks, Sodom!

 

clyde, on 14 Jan 2014 - 05:25, said:
The idea of seeing how players game the system in a biblical setting to the point of absurdity appeals to me. How cool would it be if the game was just a survival-sim where they wrote in rules that evaluated whether or not a player just disobeyed some law from Leviticus and then rained frogs on them. A systems-based bible game = awesome.

 

Rodi, on 14 Jan 2014 - 06:23, said:
You descend from the mountain and see your people enraptured by a golden calf, dancing and frolicking in the desert after generations of enslavement. In your hands you hold the commandments of the Lord. What do you do?

 

> Smash one of the tablets
> Smash two tablets
> Smash no tablets, but gaze ahead with a mixture of reproach and disappointment

 

Rodi, on 14 Jan 2014 - 06:26, said:
After succesfully freeing your people, they are now dying of thirst in the desert. The Lord commands you to extract water from a rock.

 

> Talk to the rock
> Hit the rock
> Tear your clothing and spread ash over your head

---

You hit the rock. The Lord is disappointed in you. You will never see the promised land of milk and honey. Return to the beginning and try again.

 

clyde, on 14 Jan 2014 - 06:34, said:
One If my priests got honey in his hair and had to shave his head, I lost my magical bonus.

 

SecretAsianMan, on 14 Jan 2014 - 07:44, said:
Honey on the priest hair makes a mustache.

 

clyde, on 14 Jan 2014 - 08:06, said:
Here are the planned features for the bible game.
http://mobile.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Leviticus+21

We think that we will be able to implement all of the rules of Leviticus 21 by March, but we are still working on the bug that showed up when we implemented Leviticus 18; when the population gets low, there is a downward spiral in the favor-with-the-Lord value, and we aren't quite sure why.

 

TheCineaste, on 14 Jan 2014 - 11:14, said:

 

SecretAsianMan, on 14 Jan 2014 - 11:39, said:

 

Bjorn, on 14 Jan 2014 - 13:34, said:
I wonder if they'll include mod support.

 

Nachimir, on 15 Jan 2014 - 09:55, said:
Started eating my fist during the "This is educational because the Bible is made of facts" testimonial.

James got the raw deal in their team portrait, eh?

 

Zeusthecat, on 15 Jan 2014 - 14:22, said:
I can't wait to hear the stories of the dumb shit some kids might try after playing this because of it's "factual" basis. I can just see someone playing through the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and thinking, "Oh shit, as long as I believe in God I will be immune to fire!".

 

Gormongous, on 15 Jan 2014 - 14:29, said:
If they die, they must have not really believed in God, in which case no one should mourn their death.

 

Zeusthecat, on 15 Jan 2014 - 15:24, said:
Haha, nice. I wonder what the message is if they survive with third degree burns over 80% of their body?

 

Bjorn, on 15 Jan 2014 - 15:42, said:
Easy to joke about, but it's the kind of thing that actually happens.  Particularly faith in god's plan.  A reporter in Idaho found evidence of at least 10 children that have died in the last 2 years because of their parent's faith in god.  Idaho still allows negligent parents to claim religious faith as a defense when they kill their children.  Most other states don't do that, and will prosecute parents in extreme cases.  Like a couple who let two kids die within 2 years of one another.  Total deaths are unknown, as many of these believers live in small communities and mostly just interact with other people like them.

 

Sorry to be a downer, these people just piss me off too much to joke about.

 

Zeusthecat, on 15 Jan 2014 - 16:04, said:
Playing through the story of Daniel might be pretty fun too.

Nebuchadnezzar reveals a dream to you about an image with a head made of gold, its chest and arms made of silver, its belly and thighs made of bronze, its legs made of iron, and its feet made of a mix of iron and clay. Then he tells you that this image is shattered by a big rock. He asks you to interpret the dream. What do you do?

 

>Tell him some lame story about how the image represents a bunch of kingdoms and that the rock represents God's kingdom destroying the other ones.
>Tell him an awesome story about how the image represents a demon known only as "Big Dog" and that the rock represents the only weapon capable of destroying Big Dog.

 

You tell him about the threat of Big Dog and he gives you full control of his army to build weapons of mass destruction.

@Bjorn - Yeah, it is some pretty disgusting stuff. Sorry if my joking offends.

 

Bjorn, on 15 Jan 2014 - 16:15, said:
No offense taken at all.  I'd actually thought of a hell on earth joke in regards to burning when that story popped in my head and I bummed myself out.

 

Shit, I just imagined an Oregon Trail section of the game, traveling across the desert:

 

Jeremiah has dysentary
Pray for Jeremiah
Jeremiah died

 

Okay, maybe I can joke about it, after having taken a deep breath and accepted that I'm a terrible person.

 

Zeusthecat, on 15 Jan 2014 - 16:34, said:
Here's a thought on how abilities might unlock in this game.

 

You commit the original sin and are kicked out of the Garden of Eden.

-Ability to wear clothes and have sex unlocked!

 

You and everyone on the Ark are the only survivors on the planet after 40 days and 40 nights of rain.
-Light now refracts!

 

You give up all your riches so that you might enter the kingdom of heaven.
-Camels can now walk through the eye of a needle!

 

(Okay, I think I'm done for now)

 

Edit: Okay one more

You finally have achieved true faith in God.
-Ability to move mountains unlocked!

 

Bjorn, on 15 Jan 2014 - 16:54, said:
Will it have achievements?

Achievement Earned for finishing Lot's sidequests!

2 girls 1 dad

 

(I have no idea how to quote posts from other topics/pages so if someone cares to drop some knowledge on me I'll update this to show the posts from the Feminism thread properly) Apparently what I'm trying to do exceeds the maximum allowable number of quotes in a post so I'm leaving it like this. Thanks for dropping some multiquote knowledge SecretAsianMan.

 

Edit: And here is the link to the Wisdom Tree thread mentioned below - https://www.idlethumbs.net/forums/topic/9097-breaking-news-wisdom-tree-still-exists/

[mikemariano]

You tricked me into reading the Feminism thread!

 

Combine this with Tegan's Wisdom Tree revival of the Noah's Ark game and I think you've got something here, though.

[Zeusthecat]

Ooh thanks. I'll be sure to add those.

[Stuart]

So wait, what is the point of this thread? To shit on that gross Bible game? 

 

If so, well cool, I guess?

 

You tricked me into reading the Feminism thread!

 

Ey, what's that supposed to mean. 

[Zeusthecat]

In this thread we are building our own Bible game.

[Blambo]

/sacrifice "Isaac"

 

+1 Faith

-1 Relationship with son

 

"fuck you dad"

[Professor Video Games]

/sacrifice "Isaac"

 

+1 Faith

-1 Relationship with son

 

"fuck you dad"

 

"Isaac will remember that"

[Stuart]

Press X to Isaac.

 

"Isaac?"

 

"Isaaaaaaaac."

 

"Isaac?!"

[tegan]

this thread seems like a bad idea

 

 

 

 

 

..."God accepts your sacrifice. He seems pleased with you."

[TychoCelchuuu]

um I believe this game was ALREADY made it's called BIOSHOCK INFINITE which is a REALISTIC and BALANCED depiction of religious faith

[Professor Video Games]

..."God accepts your sacrifice. He seems pleased with you."

 

And God said to Abraham, "Sacrifice Isaac, your firstborn son, and I will bestow upon thou a sweet jetpack"

[Bjorn]

"Isaac will remember that"

 

I've been laughing at that for about 5 minutes now.

[Zeusthecat]

um I believe this game was ALREADY made it's called BIOSHOCK INFINITE which is a REALISTIC and BALANCED depiction of religious faith

 

I totally agree. Bioshock Infinite was simply a twist on the story of Elijah. Booker represents Elisha, but instead of having the power to send out bears to attack his foes he has crows. Then Elizabeth is a rough representation of Elijah, who was taken up into a "city in the sky".

[Ucantalas]

You turn on the game. You are in a room, first-person perspective. There doesn't appear to be anything going on. You look around, and hear a small ding. You move around the room, looking and moving, and then you try jumping. Finally you see a door, and you open the door. And you just explore this weird building until your character dies. And then you wind up in heaven with a number of sins based on the number of non-prayer and non-sacrificial actions you performed, including moving the camera, walking, jumping, and opening doors without divine instruction to do so. 

I present...

"Faith", the new PC game from My Imagination Right Now.

[N1njaSquirrel]

Could It be based on the silent film faith?

[Bjorn]

What if it was a system's driven game where you were god, and had the power to request/require a weird variety of things from your followers?  As time goes on and your idle whims get codified into a religion, you get to see what the results are.  If you're too inconsistent, your followers lose faith in you and your power decreases.  But a player may end up uncomfortable playing the role that the have defined for themselves due to unintended consequences.

 

A God game unlike any that has come before. 

 

This actually feels like how Christianity developed.

 

Player: Ha, wouldn't it be funny if I ordered my most loyal follower to sacrifice his son!?  Oh shit, he's really going to do it.  No, no, no, no, no!

 

Jesus comes about because the player realizes that they are a terrible monster and tries to shift the religion towards something radically different, with a bunch of unintended consequences and a permanent schism between the old and new religions. 

[Zeusthecat]

What if it was a system's driven game where you were god, and had the power to request/require a weird variety of things from your followers?  As time goes on and your idle whims get codified into a religion, you get to see what the results are.  If you're too inconsistent, your followers lose faith in you and your power decreases.  But a player may end up uncomfortable playing the role that the have defined for themselves due to unintended consequences.

 

A God game unlike any that has come before. 

 

This actually feels like how Christianity developed.

 

Player: Ha, wouldn't it be funny if I ordered my most loyal follower to sacrifice his son!?  Oh shit, he's really going to do it.  No, no, no, no, no!

 

Jesus comes about because the player realizes that they are a terrible monster and tries to shift the religion towards something radically different, with a bunch of unintended consequences and a permanent schism between the old and new religions. 

 

It would be especially fun playing as God through the story of Job. Just shit on him in every horrible way you can imagine to see if you can break him.

[feelthedarkness]

Dammit! I'm totally stuck on the Moses/desert escort quest. I can't get the lamp management mechanics right.

[Stuart]

I was in the middle of making an image where you talk with Jesus visual novel/dating sim style...

 

Then I realized what I was doing with my free time and stopped.

 

 

 

 

 

I may get back to it though. :x

[feelthedarkness]

It would be especially fun playing as God through the story of Job. Just shit on him in every horrible way you can imagine to see if you can break him.

 

like an old testament skin for Dungeon Keeper? 

[Bjorn]

I was in the middle of making an image where you talk with Jesus visual novel/dating sim style...

 

Then I realized what I was doing with my free time and stopped.

 

 

 

 

 

I may get back to it though. :x

 

 

That is not a waste of your free time, it's a glorious exercise in entertaining your fellow thumbs!

 

That also reminded me of Date Jesus.  I had no idea that guy was still updating his site.  You'd think that by now Jesus would have found someone. 

 

 

It would be especially fun playing as God through the story of Job. Just shit on him in every horrible way you can imagine to see if you can break him.

 

There's a weird mechanic where once the Faith stat is high enough, every single thing you do continues to raise someone's faith, no matter what.

[Justin Leego]

I'd like to play a version of Jonah and the Whale where it's not clear whether Jonah is an unreliable narrator fabricating the story in order to build up his own authority, or whether the whole thing is a satire. Afterwards, reviewers will call it the Terry Gilliam of Video Games.

[mikemariano]

the Terry Gilliam of Video Games.

 

I was about to make a Monty Python's Complete Waste of Time reference, but Wikipedia tells me there were four Monty Python video games released, not just the one I know about.

[Zeusthecat]

I'd like to play a version of Jonah and the Whale where it's not clear whether Jonah is an unreliable narrator fabricating the story in order to build up his own authority, or whether the whole thing is a satire. Afterwards, reviewers will call it the Terry Gilliam of Video Games.

 

And in an ironic twist of fate, once you realize Jonah's whale was just a big herring, you get to feed him to an actual whale. Then when the whale spits Jonah out several days later you realize that you just fulfilled his prophecy.

[Justin Leego]

And then we are reminded that the big blue marine mammal was actually described as being a great fish (lit. monstrous sea beast (sort of (maybe))) rather than a whale, and so we revisit the scene. There's a lot of scope for things to get all Call of Juarez: Gunslinger with this one.