The newest issue of online gaming publication The Escapist focuses on religion and philosophy within gaming. The articles vary from thought-provoking to curious to strangely silly. The two articles that I found the most worth reading were “Jesus was not a gamer” by Joe Blancato, and “A Lack of Faith: Why Christian Games are Doomed to Fail” by Lara Crigger.

“Jesus was not a gamer” pokes a bit at the tendency we have to pray to whatever god/God we know of for help in winning games, and then dives into a survey of how religion and games have mixed historically around the world. The article gives some fascinating examples. I finally have some clue as to what a dreidl is, and while I had heard of the ancient Egyptian game of Senet before, I didn’t realize that the rules had actually been reconstructed. (The article links to a Flash version of the game, but at the time of writing this it seems to be down.)

Interestingly, Blancato looks for a gaming connection to Christianity and finds that there seems to be none. He attributes it at least partially to Christianity’s underground beginnings, but isn’t that the exact circumstances in which he says that Judaism invented the dreidl? I don’t know how deeply the two situations are parallel, though, so maybe I’m misunderstanding.

“A Lack of Faith” is, initially, a pretty harsh criticism of the current state of Christian games. But looking past the nasty subtitle and the Left Behind: Eternal Forces abuse, Crigger actually dives into what I believe to be a fundamental challenge for Christian games, or faith-based games in general. Are Christian games willing and able to create a deep and meaningful look at what it means to have a crisis of faith? The article takes a close look at the story of Job as an example of what a truly challenging faith story looks like, and holds that up as a measure. Ultimately, Crigger is advocating what (I think) I’ve been trying to cheer on via this blog all along – for games to create a deeper and more meaningful representation of what faith is, how it turns your life inside out.

One thing I’d mention is that I think the article doesn’t do justice to just how hard that goal might be to achieve, especially in a Christian context. Crigger brings up this core question from the look at Job:

If by being good, you can entirely avoid misfortune, what distinguishes righteousness from commerce, a mere business transaction between you and God?

Certainly struggling with this question is what makes the book of Job so challenging. Unfortunately, in a slightly different light it’s also what makes creating a compelling Christian faith story so challenging as well. Both game rules and computer systems are excellent at creating representations of predictable, mathematical relationships. But if we try to embody a story of faith with a living and incalculable God in the rules of a game, how do we distinguish righteousness from commerce? How do we keep our representation of prayers from being “mere business transaction(s)” in an economy of game mechanics?

About a month ago, I mentioned The Shivah, an adventure game that deals strongly with issues of Judaism, and faith in general. (“deals strongly with issues”? Gah, I’ve written too many English essays lately!) To my surprise, Dave Gilbert left a comment offering a review copy, and I gladly took him up on it. The long and the short of it is that I got to play through the entirety of what is not only an excellent indie adventure game, but also one of the best examples of portraying faith through a game that I’ve ever seen.

So, a review (after the break)!

To recap a bit from my previous post: The Shivah is an “old-fashioned” adventure game, in a visual style similar to the old Lucasarts adventure games. Conversation options are chosen from a menu, and the interaction options are handled by the two mouse buttons – either right-click to look, or left-click to take / interact / talk to.

Conversation choices are usually, but not always, given abstractly, rather than quoting exactly what you’ll say. For example, you might give an “incredulous response”, a “confrontational response”, or the ever-popular “rabbinical response” (which amounts to responding in the form of a question). Being familiar with adventure games, I thought it worked quite well. There are also some excellent conversation-based “puzzles” along the way, but to say anything more would be spoilers.

Interestingly, The Shivah uses a clue-based inventory as well as a more standard physical inventory, and the clue inventory is usually the much more useful of the two. Bits of information or outstanding questions about someone are kept in the clues list as a name or phrase, and can be referred to during conversations with key characters. You can also click on one bit of information to pick it up, and then click on another clue to try and “put the pieces together”, so to speak.

Overall, I thought the gameplay was pretty solid as an adventure game goes. There was one moment in the game’s plot where the clue system hadn’t seemed to have caught up with what I had learned, and the next plot action seemed to be waiting for me to revisit a specific scene arbitrarily before it would trigger. However, aside from that one glitch, everything flowed and the clue system and puzzles were great.

Now that I’ve got the gameplay talk aside, let me say that this game is hands-down the best example of putting sincere faith into a game that I’ve seen yet. Rabbi Stone presents a character of faith going through a time of doubt, and his struggle of faith isn’t brushed off or viewed as some cliche of backsliding. He presents to us a real-world faith: broken, fighting disillusionment in a painful world, but refusing to let go of the questions that matter.

Judaism is both theme and setting for The Shivah as Rabbi Stone digs into his past actions as a stubborn, conservative rabbi, and as he interacts with a less hard-line rabbi at a much wealthier temple. Stone’s history with the murder victim is revealed gradually as the story progresses, and draws you into who Stone is and why he’s so bitter. By the end of the story, I wondered if some of the issues Stone chose to stand so firmly on are plausible in modern Judaism, but since Dave Gilbert is a lot more Jewish than I am, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.

There are a few variations on the ending, two of which seem “complete” and not like you’ve lost the game, but only one of which feels to me like the right one. I’ll leave it to you to discover them, but I will say that the overall message when you get that “right” ending is a great finish to both the story, and to the deeper questions raised from the beginning.

The game’s voice acting also deserves credit for bringing the characters to life.  The script alone is excellent, but bad voice overs have shattered many a script in an indie game.  The Shivah, on the other hand, has voice work which brings out the characters’ personalities and emotions powerfully.

So, to step back a little bit into what I feel this blog is really about: is this the perfect “faith-game”?  It’s certainly a good one, although it doesn’t necessarily answer the question of how to portray faith through gameplay itself.  The adventure game genre is often seen as more story, less game than most of the game genres that are popularized today.  It’s not surprising that an indie adventure game would be able to rise above most other game offerings to present a compelling story about faith.  The Shivah also does a fantastic treatment of a few key moral choices, played out in the ending, so that’s not to say that it doesn’t embody some portrayal of interactions involving faith.  But the moral or faith-based choice element, as far as anyone’s cataloging these things, isn’t anything groundbreaking.

Still, I have no problem in saying that you should head over to Manifesto Games and pick up a copy if this at all interests you.  There’s a demo, if you’re feeling timid about spending the $5 like I was.  (Hey, I grew up semi-Mennonite, I don’t need to be Jewish to be overly thrifty.)

Quoting from the Manifesto Games writeup:

Rabbi Stone Has a Crisis of Faith

Before we go any farther, please notice the headline. When was the last time you heard a game described in remotely similar terms?

The Shivah is an old-style graphical adventure game by Davelgil Games. It’s your everyday “Rabbi questions his faith and becomes a murder suspect” sort of adventure game plot (which is to say, unlike pretty much any game plot ever).

If you’re an old-school PC gamer like myself, you’ll quickly be able to look past the dated graphics – in fact, they might even be a nostalgic throwback to the days of Lucasarts and Sierra adventures. And if you’re interested in works that explore the nature of faith, you’ll probably be hooked immediately by the game’s beginning. What other game opens with a film noir intro speech, follows it up with the Problem of Evil and a confession of lost faith, adds a dash of sarcastic dialogue and then throws in a murder investigation that includes a large donation to the Rabbi in the victim’s will (just in case the hero wasn’t conflicted enough for you yet)?

This is the part where I confess, I’ve only tried the demo. (I know, it’s a mere $5, but right now the only reason I stay within budget is by second-guessing every entertainment purchase I’m about to make.) I can’t speak about how good the entire game is yet. As best I can tell from the intro, the game seems both very knowledgable and respectful of the Jewish faith, but doesn’t whitewash the challenges of holding onto a faith when life starts to, well, suck. I like it.

Go give it a look. At the very least, it’ll get you poking around Manifesto Games’ site, which is jam-packed with all kinds of eclectic and indie PC games worth taking a look at. (I think the site is still officially ‘beta’, so if it crashes or explodes on you while visiting, don’t hold it against them just yet.)