I'm currently finishing off designs on a concept I'm rather fond of. The game is called 'Religion' as one word names usually appeal to the masses.
The game's general concept is that you are a god vying for converts in a small city. Each god represents an element (earth, air, fire, water).
Before the game each player has the opportunity to write twenty prophesies in their 'Holy Book.' When the game begins players will move in turns lasting a maximum of two minutes each. Gods have five actions a turn and are able to do a number of things - perform miracles, create prophets, and other god-like things.
Prophesies are very important. When writing them there are virtually no limitations so "a large building shall be set aflame to mark the coming of the almighty god of fire" would be fine. As in normal culture, a people's belief in a deity would be directly related to how they see him working in their lives. If none of the prophesies are fulfilled that doesn't send a very good message to them, where as if too many are fulfilled in quick succession they'll be come dependant.
Other signs can be used to create converts as well. A believer in another god bursting into flames would sure convince me that I was wrong. I plan to implement a large social network that works in half-lifes. If one citizen sees it and tells his friend, citizen A would have a stronger influence than B. It would continue down the chain until it no longer has any influence.
All in all, this is based in a functioning city. Every citizen has a job and biases towards certain religions. It won't always be the same, however, so you can't say, "Oh, Joe always liked the fire god - he'll make an easy prophet."
The game will last two months (game time - it'll only last an hour or so in real life) and you have a turn every day. You can fulfill ten prophesies every month.
So, what I'm looking for, are your ideas, suggestions, critism, and compliments. What I am not looking for is a tale about how morally incorrect this is. If you consider replying like that, ask yourself if you've ever written a game. That's just like playing god. This just makes it a lot cooler. :-)
ID:153212
 Sep 21 2004, 11:36 am
|
|
If you do actually mean right then it's easily abusable.
You could make a few prophecies like: Take one step north. Take one step south. Take one step east. Take on step west. Hit verb x once. Hit verb x twice. Hit verb x three times. And in turn gain lots of favour. | |
They're selected from a menu, but there's a lot of room in them. There are several submenus to make them very customizable. There should be thousands of options.
| |
Gods can't walk, and those won't be the types of prophesies there are. They will be prophesies like you might expect to find in the Bible.
| |
HavenMaster wrote:
Gods can't walk, and those won't be the types of prophesies there are. They will be prophesies like you might expect to find in the Bible. How about ones like Nostradamus? Nice 'n cryptic for the most part. | |
They'll be nice and vague, for example:
"A building in town square will catch on fire." Will be something like: "A bohemeth towering above the people shall erupt with the very fires of heaven and all shall know that I am the one and only god." Or, perhaps: "Something will happen. You'll know what it is, so I won't bother telling you." | |
If you want my response to this, If I'm not mistaken you told me in chatters you we're a Christian that was very knowledgeable in scripture. If this is so, why do you make a game about many gods (lower case g). I am not ranting just giving an opion that really i don't want a reply to. Even though we had conflicts in the past I want to put the past behind and discuss this like mature adults/young adults.
| |
He's asking why he is making a game with many gods when he is a Christian. And Christians believe in only one god.
| |
All Nyck is trying to say is why does he not capitalize the "G" in "God" when he specifically stated that he was Christian. That is all. There really is nothing hard to understand here....
| |
You are so far off base. When you are refering to a god as in the Christian god, where he is the only one, You capitalize the G; God. You capitalize it because it it is refering to a being. When you have multiple gods, you dont capitalize it. Anyway, the implications that I see are based on christian belief, not a grammatical or spelling error.
| |
Sounds fun. I look forward to spreading the word of Alvis- drinking deeply the holy liquor and shooting the pistols of faith! (see Sealab 2021 for further insight)
Seriously, though, good concept. I am curious how the game will actually *play* however. Will the deity be able to take incarnations to meddle...errr... help spread his words? What about "faithful" who have more secular interests (IE corruption of faith)? Will players be able to attempt sabotage of their rivals or form alliances (a sort of pantheon closed-shop)? | |
Yes, I am a Christian who believes in one God. I don't see how that partains to this thread at all. What I'm creating is a game, not a religion. You're merely emulating gods, not becoming one. I don't see any spiritual or moral implications from that.
| |
Yes to the majority of your questions. I plan to have a very high quality social interaction system and personal traits will play a large roll too. That's all I'll tell you. :-)
| |
Being a non-religious fellow, I'm not entirely sure about this, but isn't there a commandment (or something) about not setting up false gods, or the images thereof?
Something about idolatry and such... I remember something about a golden statue of a bull or something... Which leads me to believe that any form of setting up a false god (or gods), whether it be actual worship, or even a fictional video game depiction, would be frowned upon... Of course, it is obviously much worse to actually be worshipping false dieties (as in reality, not in video games), than simply creating fictional representations of them... But even so, I think the latter would still be regarded fairly negatively by the religiously minded... Which is what I think Nyck is questioning... He seems to be saying that a truly Christian individual wouldn't be creating a game like this one, that idolizes false gods, even on a fictional, non-worshipping basis... | |
I'm sure that God would understand the difference between pretense and genuine belief. Evangelists like Jack Chick assume God is some kind of stupid figurehead whose words should be taken literally -- words which are, by all accounts, translations of translations of translations.
God judges people, not actions. | |
Or do you not actually write them, and instead select them from a menu?
Also, will there be an option to create extremely vague prophecies that are intended to be taken metaphorically and thus may be fulfilled by anything whatsoever?