I imagine this tool most often being used to help visualize a sermon being delivered to a church congregation. The goal of the tool would be to present an environment that someone on the media team – a “player” if you will – can interact with.  The player would interact with the environment in a way that matched up with the speaker who is delivering the message.  One example would be if that speaker was telling a story.  The player would explore the environment and trigger events to match up with the timing and emphasis of the speaker’s story.  If the speaker was emphasizing a certain part of the story, the player could trigger events to help emphasize that part.  The final result would be an expression of the story experienced simultaneously through the mediums of virtual interactive experience (of which I consider computer games to be a subset) and oral tradition.

Here’s a run-through recording of the prototype.  It’s based on a story given to me by Chris Petrick, Perry Ross, and Richard Webb at Lutheran Church of Hope, with music and sound design by Paul Gratton (one of my partners from the Napkin Sketch collective), and voice acting by Julie Bull.

Here’s a recording from the production room while I, err….performed it during the last of 4 worship services at Lutheran Churh of Hope.  It kind of shows how the whole thing would fit into a traditional Christian church service. In this case, it was between two songs and presented on the screens. I imagine a “final version” being like this, but with a speaker telling the story live up on stage and a more developed interactive environment.

I feel like I’m embarking on some epic quest here.  I feel like I’m part of an expedition, or maybe a group of expeditions, exploring the nether regions of the globe.  That’s what game development seems like right now, especially the so-called “indie games” scene.  Ha!  I suppose I’m being over-confident when I assume I’m “part” of it, but it is all around me and I can’t help but feel like I’m a part of it.

But I shouldn’t get hung up on that.  On “being a part of something.”  I need to just do stuff.  Just freaking make things.  They don’t even have to be games.  I guess at first they can’t really be games, since I’m more of an artist or designer type than a programmer.  As long as whatever I do represents me, or more specifically what God has made me to be, I think that’s what matters most.

How can developers work so hard making some AAA title for a huge studio, on a game they don’t even care much about, only to release a game that will be forgotten in a month?  I guess I’ve done it, but I could only tolerate it for a little while.  Why aren’t there more developers just striking out on their own?  Doesn’t the fear excite them?  It excites me.  I think God turns that fear into excitement for me.

Spiritual games?

I think He wants me make meaningful, experimental, or quirky games.  Games that explore spirituality.  Games that explore theological concepts.  Games that are deeply personal.  I hope I’m right.  I hope that is God’s voice I hear and God’s desire I feel.  Everyone who has advised me on this decision has told me that I should go for it, but I can’t help but feel some doubt.

Maybe that doubt is my fear.  Instead of being afraid to be independent, I’m afraid to be confident that what I’m doing is right.  Maybe that makes me just like the other game developers out there.  I should find that out and ask some developers about it.  I bet I’m like them in surprising ways.

At any rate, I’m going to charge ahead.  As I’ve been told before, I should put myself in a situation where only Jesus can save me.  So my intention is to do just that.  To embark on an adventure so perilous, that I’m almost doomed to failure, if it wasn’t for some supernatural power preventing me from failing.  Would that be proof enough for some?  I hope so, because it would be proof enough for me.