I’m a Christian and interested in starting a faith-based studio; hopefully Unity will provide a solid starting point.
You could say I got started gaming at a young age. My early favorites included Clyde, Xargon and Super Mario World. (Yeah, I grew up in the '90s.)
For my first project in Unity, I’ve decided on a straightforward animated storybook. Which brings up a question- has there ever been a successful attempt at making 3D graphics look like drawings or paintings? Maybe I’ve hit upon something new; maybe it’s been tried and failed. Either way, I look forward to your replies.
Yes there are many games that take different illustrative styles. One of my favorites is Team Fortress 2 takes a very illustrative rendering approach. A google image search will show you quite a few more examples.
There is a Asset Store asset for Unity that can help you if you like its look and feel:
That’s prprobably not sound coding practice, though.
What do I mean by faith-based? Well, a lot of games today allow, even encourage, the use of magic. I won’t say I refrain from those kind of games, but an alternative would no doubt be welcome.
Then too, while the violent titles have been the most popular these days, we are seeing renewed interest in point-and-click adventure games. Who knows; they might be the wave of the future.
‘Faith-based’ also means looking into Bible-inspired projects, like a strategy game where players take charge of Israel’s armies. It doesn’t mean a ‘Christians only’ organization.
Playing devil’s advocate here
The bible, as well as organized religions, is full of magic, mysticism, deceit, violence, and sexism. Magic and mysticism holds attention so if you remove those elements you lose a lot of the “shiny” that makes a game fun. Children especially like shiny. You mention taking charge of an army but that inherently means violence.
I’m just saying, don’t be so quick to remove a lot of elements that make a game fun. As an example: The latest Noah movie wasn’t, from my understanding, liked much by christians because it didn’t stick to the exact story in the bible and was overdone with “hollywood”. But I strongly disagree because the meat of the story was still there but, like the bible has come to be, was someone else’s interpretation; I liked the magical theme of the movie. And afterwards my jewish wife was intrigued enough to read the bible’s version.
The programmers have faith that their code will work… the artists have faith that their assets will fit in the poly budget… the designers have faith that people are reading their emails… the producer has faith that the publisher will sign off on the next milestone… and the studio head has faith that people will be OK with their pay checks being late this month…
Umm… Zionist Israel and true primitive Christianity as Christ taught it are two entirely different ideologies at severe odds with each other. Would Jesus be bombing and lasering Gaza into a hell pit? Did Jesus not say that if you harmed the children it was as harming him. 400+ dead children in the latest round of atrocities. 10K wounded…couple thousand civilians dead…and they won nothing but the world scorn. If you are Christian you may want to review the works of Jonas E Alexis at VeteransToday. He is a truly blessed soul who has written some of the most erudite and scholarly researched articles on this if anybody on the internet or in libraries.
Religious games/studios/or any other any religious institution/company/organization/product/name/etc are not[Edit] Sorry,it doesn’t make sense to name as: ‘Spirit-led’… ‘Spirit-led’ could mean so many things outside of religion. People can be spiritual and not believe in any religion.
Same goes for ‘Faith-based’ you could have faith in anything really; I have faith in people not needing religion. See how easy it is to use vague words.
If you want to start a religious[EDIT]/religion-based studio; it’s a: ‘religious[EDIT]/religion-based studio’. If it’s a religious[EDIT]/religion-based game you are making; It is a: ‘religious[EDIT]/religion-based game’.
Any game studio that labels themselves as serving a specific segment of society is going to struggle. Christianity may be big in some parts of the world, but in most of the world, it is not. The fastest growing segments of our worldwide society as a whole are not Christian. These forums are worldwide so I don’t think you are going to get a lot of kudos for your announcement.
I absolutely agree that we need more non-violent games and I love adventure clicking games. But your announcement that you are a Christian studio tells me that your games are not being made for people like me. I respect your beliefs but I don’t like being segregated from the rest of my fellow gamers based on any belief or non-belief I might have. Games can be moral, ethical, and educational without embracing a specific belief system. And game studios can make games that are non-violent without labeling themselves as Christian or Buddhist or whatever.
What you should say is that you are a game studio that plans to break the mold and have a mission of making non-violent games rooted in reality. Welcome anyone who wants those sorts of games. Don’t come out and say: We are making games for people like us. Others not welcome.
Not sure how much of a market you will have as we are currently making a game that has it’s share of violence but no magic…and you would be surprised how much flack I get for that. Of course, we are NOT leaving out magic due to any moral stance against it, just because we don’t want it in this particular game.
