Category: Play The Bible Ultimate Verses

Why Did We Develop Bible Verses in a Game?

bible versesWe Really had to Think and Prayed it Through Before God Gave Us the Wisdom to Seamlessly Insert Bible Verses in a Mobile Game App

I’m Troy, one of many team members working for RD Games. Prior to Play The Bible, I was fortunate to work on and distribute numerous faith-based games for the PC which also included Bible verses. One was a match-three game, another was a word game, another a karaoke game, even a scripture chess game. We also did other interactive Bible games for youth that became popular among Christian circles. The most well-known was based upon a popular Christian novel series.

Throughout it all, the life-changing impact of these games never seemed to occur from experiencing their entertainment. Instead, the links to our online website with evangelism content, from within the game, is what gave people a chance to Know God and encourage visitors to play to come to faith or recommit to God: https://www.dontbeleftbehind.org/knowing-god/

With mobile games being fairly new in the world, less than a decade, I thought it was time to create a faith-based mobile game for Android and iOS devices that have more than just graphics, but also something unique – Bible verses. My concern was that I didn’t just want to create another game with lots of Bible trivia quiz for kids that’s also filled with entertainment that would link to life-changing content. So, rather than try and out-do the supernatural impacting words of the Bible, I thought, how can we create a game that “is” the Bible?

bible versesAs I thought on it for many days, it got to the point where the concept of making a game that featured the “actual text” of the Bible, without changing the static-text itself, seemed completely ridiculous. Think about it. The text must be in the face of every player, without changing, so the life-changing impact of each Bible verse would not be modified in any way – seems like an impossible task, doesn’t it? Creating this interactive Bible games for youth seemed like a daunting task, but with the Spirit of the Lord guiding us we were able to put the pieces together efficiently.

Many ideas came to mind that were interesting to consider, but in the end, they were ineffective as a fun, healthy and addicting experience for gamers. And then, after several days of prayer, I feel the Lord answered. I remember exactly where I was when the primary game elements came to mind – concepts that would be fun and interesting. And within a month, a prototype Bible verses game was up-and-running.

For many months, I sought to find game developers to help, because it had been many years since I’d developed a game from scratch – and I had never before developed anything for the modern mobile platforms. Even for games like word link games free online, similar to our game, the design process was somewhat cumbersome and no funding was in place, either. So, without any income or funding, I sought out to learn a new programming language and development platform, as in times past.

My situation seemed as if I had to choose between developing Play The Bible for love of God and those in need of His saving grace, or only if money would arrive to pay me for it. Because I had years earlier become to believe that God’s calling on my life has been to be a prolific faith-based video game developer, I worked on it for 6 months – and then, family and friends chose to get involved. At first they too were skeptical about this interactive Bible games for youth that have actual Bible verses on it (I expected their instant reaction to be it’s a red flag for the mainstream audience), but approved of my idea later on.

bible versesWhen considering how best to present Bible text in the game, a lot of time and thought went into how the text could be displayed – choosing the right font was crucial, especially in view of the tiles and character spacing. We tried dozens of fonts and spacings before we found the right one. The artwork for the text and throughout the game was consistently being improved. As you can see, the final game screen looks far more interesting and appealing than that of the prototypes above.

When we considered how to display Bible verses in an easy-to-read format, we had other size and font considerations, too. Ultimately, we found a font that looked right, but due to errors within the font file, we had to write special code to properly handle line-spacing – a task that tested how committed we were to using an elegant and easy-on-the-eyes font. Now that’s a Bible trivia quiz for kids that I call, “fantastic!”

 

bible versesFrom the outset, we’ve wanted Play The Bible to be a useful tool for believers to introduce others to the Bible, with a focus on evangelism, so we partnered with CRU® to incorporate The Jesus Film (with more than 1500 languages) and other Jesus Film Media content, directly from the game’s navigation screen. As a result, in-between all levels, gamers have an opportunity to Know God and view Jesus Film Media.

bible versesWe also wanted to give players an opportunity to play and learn where some popular Bible characters were written about in the Bible. This will make the game particularly interesting as it includes interactive Bible games for youth. To introduce them, we created our own originally written biographies of our first 28 characters. To insure accuracy, we literally wrote everything in a spreadsheet first, with a Bible verses reference that was double-checked to support and justify every statement. This scientific approach was used to insure the integrity of God’s word would not change and that the biographies would be based upon scripture without error. It was laborious, but a joy to bring these characters to life – in each biography within the game – originally written material not available in any other game.

Of course, once we had developed a character section within the game, we then needed to show players how they were progressing through.

Since the time, the game has been in pre-release status. Here are just a few things that people have said.

bible verses“The best game in the world!” – Audrey Francis

“Lots of fun!…great way to learn and memorize scripture” – Nathaniel Martinez

“So entertaining. I love that I can still play it even when there’s no wifi.” – Isabelle F

“I absolutely love it!” – LaSonia Cannon

“Awesome way to review scripture” – Jane Davis

“First Bible app game that is actually a fun way to become more familiar with verses” – Elisabeth Cawthon

If you are a game player, download Play The Bible Ultimate Verses.

If you are a game developer with an interest in making faith-based games with Bible verses in it, be encouraged to keep God’s words in a higher regard than any content that you can create yourself. Consider how you can present God’s word effectively, in context, in a new, fun and engaging way. Feel free to share your ideas for comment at “troy [at] rdgames.us”.

bible versesVery Kindly yours,

Troy L

Play The Bible Team Member

Play The Bible Ultimate Verses Main Features

Play The Bible Ultimate Verses is Unique

One important feature which differentiates Play The Bible Ultimate Verses from all other Bible-related games is the fact that actual Bible text is, without question, the ‘star’ of the game. The game reads it to you out loud consistently, while the words are in your face continually, in proper order, as you play.

5 Languages and numerous Translations

The game also has, on average, seven translations per language to appeal to various followers of historical manuscripts.

Ad Free and Free-to-Play

But perhaps what is most interesting features of Play The Bible Ultimate Verses are that the game are that it is ad-free and truly free-to-play. A gamer can pay money to support RD Games or to acquire moves and power-ups, but it’s not required. A gamer never has to pay money to advance to the highest levels. Once a gamer finds themselves without moves or in need of more power-ups, all they need to do is wait about 2 hours at a time, and ‘moves’ will regenerate to their original number. As gamers complete levels, they will earn gold bars and unlock premium features, including the unlocking of characters. Gamers have completed thousands upon thousands of levels without having to pay any money. Of course, we encourage purchases to help finance additional features and future games.

play the bible ultimate verses

Title Page Options:

  1. PLAY – This large button will take the gamer directly into the action with a single click.
  2. CONNECT – This button will give the player an opportunity to earn 50 gold bars by simply registering via Facebook, LinkedIn, Email or other method as we are looking to expand registration options.
  3. READ – Depending upon the licensed rights and translation chosen by the player, a gamer may be able to read the entire Bible, chapter by chapter, just as in most free Bible apps for Android phones. At the time of this writing, more than 90% of our supported translations enable Bible reading. And to make reading easier, we’ve added text-to-speech functionality so the text is reinforced audibly as you read the text.
  4. SETTINGS – You can A) share the game with friends and receive gold for every install that uses your customized link; B) add a church to our database; C) choose a different language or translation; D) view the Moses intro again; E) find out how to redeem your spirit points and F) if you haven’t yet registered, you can Connect (register) and earn 50 gold bars. You can also turn sound, music and speech on or off, as well as change the master volume.

Once you have clicked PLAY for the first time, you will be instructed to “Press any Tile to Start”. As you select each colored tile, the game will highlight various other tiles that you can move the selected tile to. The Play The Bible Ultimate Verses game will continue to help you in this manner for the first two levels. Keep in mind that if you click tiles too quickly, you should wait for the game to adjust and recommend the proper tiles – otherwise it may confuse you, as it lags behind players who move tiles to quickly without understanding what to do. So, take your time. You will learn how to play in just a couple of minutes. The game has lots of verse-related Bible trivia questions      that’s repackaged as a colored tile game and a word puzzle game combined.

play the bible ultimate verses

As you progress through the first 7 levels, you will be introduced to various game power-ups – all of which appear within the bottom icons of the main game screen. These power-ups include Swaps, Fireballs, Icebooms, Electrocons and Lightstrikes.

  • With a Swap power-up, gamers can exchange the position of tiles. This is especially useful when the board gets more filled.
  • The Fireball expands the power of the gamer to score an entire word, without having to individually move tiles to each letter.
  • The Iceball expands this same power to include an entire line of text.
  • The Electrocon goes a step further by empowering a gamer to score 3 lines at one time.
  • The Lightstrike is a useful way to score the entire board quickly and move on to the next level without losing valuable moves.

In between every level of Play The Bible Ultimate Verses, gamers can choose to upgrade the number of various power-ups available to them. You can exchange gold or purchase more gold with real money – although optional.

Easy-access icons are also available on the main game screen to access other game features including Settings, Help (?), Cart (Super Bundle Shop), Bible (Navigation) and Progress.

After passing level 10, a gamer will automatically see the Navigation choices.

Navigation Page Options:

  1. CHOOSE VERSE – choose from any verse from any book in the Bible
  2. CHOOSE NEXT LEVEL – go to the next unplayed verse
  3. CHOOSE NEXT VERSE – go to the very next verse in the Bible
  4. CHOOSE CHARACTER – once unlocked, you can choose from any of the game’s Bible characters to play verses where they appear in the Bible
  5. CHOOSE CHARACTER VERSE – this will play the next unplayed verse where your chosen character appears in the Bible
  6. KNOW GOD – this will open a web page, step you through the 4 Spiritual Laws and give you and give you an opportunity to come to faith or recommit your life to God
  7. JESUS FILM MEDIA – this will open a web page and give you all the video options available from The Jesus Film based upon your selected language

After passing level 15, a gamer automatically unlocks an Angel – also available as one of the icons at the bottom of the main game screen icon.

Play The Bible Ultimate Verses Angel Help Tips:

  1. You must click the Angel on every level where you want help. She will not help you unless you request her help.
  2. If 2 or more colors already exist in a word, she will attempt to move like-colors into the word for you.
  3. She works from left to right and when she finishes searching the entire board to help you, she’ll start searching again from the top of the board.
  4. To help her the most, place at least 2 matching colored tiles at the back of a word. She will then fill the rest of the word, assuming you keep other colored tiles from filling the same word.

play the bible ultimate verses

Once characters are unlocked, gamers will have access to character info and newly written biographies – each statement within every bio has been taken from and verified from scripture. No facts were assumed, and we used verification methods to insure the integrity of content. By doing this, Play The Bible Ultimate Verses includes character summaries of extraordinary quality not commonly found in similar works.

play the bible ultimate verses

In the Character Progress page, gamers can see how well they are completing the verses relating to each of the game’s Bible characters.

play the bible ultimate verses

After a gamer has registered via Connect, each time they play, they will have an opportunity to view their country and worldwide ranking from the Progress page.

Connected games will also have the opportunity to Join or Create (host) a multiplayer version of the game with friends.

Multiplayer Game features:

  1. Only friends you invite can join your game – this keeps unknown people away
  2. A no-chat feature keeps gamers safe from other people’s comments
  3. Game hosts can design levels for customized event experiences defining:
    1. Verse
    2. Level of Difficulty
    3. Number of Power-ups
    4. Music

play the bible ultimate verses

In summary, Play The Bible Ultimate Verses has been designed to provide you with hundreds of hours of fun as you learn scripture in a new, unique gaming experience.