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Jeremy Smith wanted to talk about Jesus, so he picked up a shovel and headed out to build a tunnel.
A virtual shovel, that is. As both a Christian and a fan of the video game Minecraft, Smith has one foot in two different communities coming into contact more frequently in the fuzzy halls of cyberspace.
And, as a senior writer at the online ministry ChurchMag, Smith uses each of these communities to serve the other. He “vlogs” — creates online videos of himself playing Minecraft — while simultaneously explaining Christian ideology in a series titled “Minecraft Theology.”
“I wanted to look at some of the more basic stuff, some of the core competencies of Christianity,” he said in one of these videos as his Minecraft icon sped across a screen full of the chunky landscape Minecraft allows users to create and navigate via a computer mouse.
“Part of the prayer process is admitting that you’ve sinned. If you are of the mindset that you are perfect, then you should probably just go ahead and turn this episode off because I got nothing for you,” he continued. “We have confession when we say ‘yes’ to Jesus and become saved.”
In the realm of video games, the 149 views Smith’s video has logged may be far from viral, but Minecraft is becoming what some video game makers hoped Christian-themed games like Catechumen and Adam’s Venture that failed to sell well would become — a tool for exploring and advancing religion among gamers.
Ithaca College professor Rachel Wagner sees the use of video games like Minecraft as part of what she calls the “gamification” not only of religion, but of the world. She says religions and video games have several things in common — rules, rituals, and a bend toward order and structure.
“Even if they are ‘open’ in the sense of allowing players to construct entire worlds for themselves, as Minecraft does, games always offer spaces in which things make sense, where players have purpose and control,” she said. “For players who may feel that the real world is spinning out of control, games can offer a comforting sense of predictability. They can replace God for some in their ability to promise an ordered world.”
Minecraft is what techie types call a “sandbox” game: It has few rules, so players can dig in anywhere and build what they like. They build with virtual bricks — think digitized Legos — to create bulky buildings, plants, people, anything, in mostly primary colors.
There are Minecraft versions where players try to survive or go on adventures of their own devising. And there are versions where people — sometimes children, sometimes adults like Smith — construct homes, buildings, bridges, churches and other houses of worship.
Some Minecraft users even “build” their own religious icons. Using blocky “skins” — Minecraft lingo for a character — they create Jesuses, popes, priests, rabbis, angels, and more to populate Minecraft worlds everywhere.
But while Minecraft can be used by players of every religion, it seems to be most popular among Christians. Gonzalez, who catalogs religious video games at religiousgames.org, estimates there are about 1,500 religion-themed video games, of which two-thirds are Christian.
Certainly, not all Minecraft players use religious skins or the churches and other houses of worship they build for some spiritual purpose or for proselytizing. But how they use them is hard to pin down.
“No one’s pastor is telling them the best way to minister to people is to pretend to be Jesus in a Minecraft world,” Gonzalez said. “So the question of why people want to dress up as Jesus and go around in Minecraft is hard to say.”
Still, Minecraft and other computer and video games have become so closely aligned with religion in some circles that the American Academy of Religion created a scholars’ group dedicated to its study four years ago.
“For most people, their virtual lives are an extension of their real lives,” said Gregory Grieve, a professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro who has studied the two decades religious people have engaged in video games. “Among Christians it was a place for proselytizing and a place for meeting people they would not otherwise meet. People who are religious just see these games as an extension of their religious practice.”
Some build houses of worship — YouTube is rife with virtual tours of churches, cathedrals, synagogues, and mosques, both real and imaginary. Some build Noah’s Ark or Solomon’s Temple or their own versions of Jerusalem and other “Bible lands.”
Others users create faith-based Minecraft “servers” — private virtual enclaves where members agree to certain rules (no swearing is a common one) and play the game in a form of religious fellowship.
These groups recently became a meme — or joke spread rapidly among internet users — in which users sardonically responded to foul language by uttering different versions of: “Sorry sir, this is a Christian server. No swearing allowed!”
But Eric Dye, editor of ChurchMag, says its Christian-oriented Minecraft server is merely a reflection of how its users see, or want to see, the real world.
“We can build things in it, like themed cities, and there is actually a church,” he said. “It is not like we have church services or anything but it seemed something fun to have. It seemed fitting. That is why you see religion manifested in Minecraft — it is just an extension of people’s interests in what they create.”
Chad Sapieha and his little reviewer-in-training came away with slightly different takes on Square Enix's blocky crafting RPG
Dragon Quest Builders looks and feels a lot like Minecraft, but adds ingredients missing from Microsoft's popular crafting game, including a story, missions, and plenty of guidance.Square EnixI’ve long thought it fascinating that Minecraft, one of the most popular and financially successful games of this – or any – era, hasn’t spawned more clones or direct competition. Square Enix recognized this market gap back in 2016 and tried to fill it with Dragon Quest Builders, a game that combines the Japanese company’s expertise in role-playing with key elements – mining, crafting, and freeform building – liberally borrowed from Microsoft’s powerhouse kids property.The most interesting thing about Dragon Quest Builders isn’t what it takes from Minecraft but instead how it fills in some of the gaps that have existed since that game’s inception. Namely, storytelling, quests, and building guidance. As you explore the world you meet characters who provide lore, you’ll embark on objective-driven missions, and you’ll eventually build items and structures according to specific blueprints. As in Minecraft, you can still build whatever you like wherever you like, but the blueprints help move the story along and provide ideas for things you might want to build on your own.
These are all features I’ve long wished for in Minecraft. And seeing them implemented within the familiar world of Dragon Quest – a long-running series of Japanese role-playing games that I’ve played for decades – was a joy for me when I played the game on PlayStation 4. But it seemed like I wasn’t in the majority. The game had sold a little over a million copies worldwide, last I heard. That’s not terrible, but it’s just a tiny fraction of the more than 130 million copies of Minecraft that have been purchased by kids around the world.
Still, I thought maybe people just hadn’t given it a chance. So I let my 12-year-old kid – a long-time Minecraft devotee and lover of role-playing games – loose with the soon-to-be-released Nintendo Switch edition of Dragon Quest Builders thinking it was bound to become her new obsession. Turns out she’d rather be free to follow her imagination than locked into linear story and told what to do.
Here’s a transcript of the discussion we had after she’d been playing for a few days. It will serve as our review.
Me: I thought you’d have a great time with Dragon Quest Builders. It basically combines the mining, crafting, and building parts of Minecraft with a colourful Japanese RPG – one of your favourite kinds of games. What did you think of it?
Kid: Honestly, it isn’t my favourite. For a few reasons. At the start the problem was mostly controls. I just didn’t like how they were set up. That’s something I can eventually grow used to, but I also didn’t like how you couldn’t explore the whole world right from the start. The story kind of limits you to a specific area – an island – because of some “unseen force.” There are also some things about the inventory that I didn’t like. I had to go back to my chest to store stuff all the time. It’s definitely not an awful game, but it’s not my new favourite.
Interesting. The control problem you mentioned happens to me all the time. Having played games for decades, I expect certain types of games to have specific button schemes. When a developer tries something new – like, say, uses the top action button to jump rather than the bottom one – it can be frustrating. At least until I get used to them.
I’ve kind of grown used to the controls now, but I still get frustrated. This game uses the A-button to get to the menu, which makes no sense to me because it’s your primary button. I’m always pressing it thinking it should do something else. Or at least I was at the start. It’s gotten a little better.
Fair enough. Personally, I have to say that I like Dragon Quest Builders a bit more than Minecraft, mostly just because it has a story and objectives. Minecraft is great when it comes to creative freedom, but I can only build towers and castles for so long until I get kind of bored. It might just be a lack of imagination on my part, but I like to have missions and objectives. Dragon Quest Builders gives us that.
Well, I’d like it more if I could at least leave the island and do whatever I wanted to do. That way I’d have the choice. I could either do the story stuff, or I could go off and just do whatever I wanted to. Find more resources to build stuff. I guess I kind of get why they can’t let you do that – it’d be hard for the designers to tell a story that makes sense if you could go places you weren’t supposed to see until later on – but it’s what I want. Minecraft might not have a story, but I can do whatever I want, whenever I want. I think that’s more important to me.
I get you. And I’m the first to admit that the story in Dragon Quest Builders isn’t anything special. Standard fantasy stuff involving monsters and world saving. But it provides a reason and context for everything you do, which I like. I also like how we get blueprints for building certain buildings and objects. They provide a starting place and a seeding ground for ideas – kind of like a Lego kit with an instruction booklet. Afterward you can go crazy building anything you like, but that initial guidance is nice.
Yeah I really liked the blueprints, too. I thought it was a cool spin. Even in the Lego games you don’t really get blueprints you can build piece by piece, not even in Lego World where you’re free to build anything. I think that’s one of the best parts of Dragon Quest Builders. Something other people who make games like this might want to copy.
Another thing I liked was how this game handles crafting. Once you have what you need for a complex object, you can just build it, instantly. That’s smart. When it comes to crafting, how and where in the world you choose to place what you’ve made is the fun part, not sorting through your inventory to pick out all the pieces you need.
Yeah, the designing is definitely the fun part. But, in Minecraft‘s defence, in newer versions you can go into the settings and change it so that you don’t have to manually go through your inventory to make stuff like beds and doors.
How about the look and feel? I’d be lying if I said Minecraft‘s retro pixelated aesthetic hasn’t worn a little thin with me. Dragon Quest Builders keeps the blocky vibe, but adds more vibrancy and detail. It just feels like it has more character.
Yeah. I do like how it looks more than Minecraft. There are little details, like bits of grass on blocks, that make things a bit more realistic. And I like that the characters in this game are like little cartoon characters with more personality. Maybe it’s just because of how much I’ve played Minecraft, but sometimes it gives me a headache. I’ll go to sleep at night and close my eyes and just see its blocky graphics.
Does Dragon Quest Builders make you want to try other Dragon Quest games? Part of the reason for creative spinoffs like this is to get new people interested in the core series. Other Dragon Quests aren’t really like this one – they’re much more traditional JRPGs – but they contain similar elements, like monster types and the style of dialogue.
It makes me interested in them. But I don’t know if I ever would. I love role-playing games, but they take so much time. I think I’ve got too many to play already. And aren’t there, like, a dozen of them? That’s, like, hundreds and hundreds of hours. I could never catch up.
Good point. Final verdict?
I think you know I’m pretty generous with ratings, so keep that in mind. I think I’d probably give it like a seven or seven-and-a-half out of ten. The idea is really good, and the animation is cute, and even the story isn’t half bad – and you can kind of skip it if you don’t like it – but something about it just doesn’t really click for me the way it does in some of my favourite games. I’ll probably keep playing when I get tired of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild or if I’m not online and can’t play Splatoon2, but there are other games I’d rather play.
I like to think I’m not quite as generous as you are with scores, but I’d give it a seven-and-a-half or even an eight. I actually think older players will like it more than kids, both because of the name – there are lots of grown-ups out there who grew up with Dragon Quest – and the guided elements. Problem is, it’s clearly targeted at kids, who, like you, might want a little more freedom and fewer limitations. I guess it’s a good little game that’s maybe stuck between audiences.
It’s true old people have no imagination. Every time you play Minecraft you just build big ugly towers into the sky made of random things and then jump off them into the water. Then you stop playing. And when we play Lego you’re just like Will Farrell in The Lego Movie, except you don’t have his hair or teeth. You just stick to the instructions and leave stuff built until it gets dusty. So, yeah, Dragon Quest Builders is probably about your speed.
One of the best alternatives to Minecraft comes to Nintendo Switch, with a charming spin-off that’s not just for existing fans.
It’s always seemed odd that no major publisher has ever tried to copy the success of Minecraft. There have been plenty of indie clones, but the only thing that’s come close from a traditional games company is the low profile Lego Worlds. And now this. Whether you care anything about the Dragon Quest games is irrelevant, as this offers a substantially different experience to both its inspiration and its parent franchise. And it’s a game that works particularly well on the Switch.
What excited us most about this game, when it was originally released in late 2016, is that it’s by Kazuya Niinou, creator of Etrian Odyssey – which happens to be one of our favourites. Although we’re sure most Western gamers have probably never heard of it, or probably Dragon Quest for that matter. Even though the latter is the most popular role-playing series in Japan. But if you are a fan there is a story connection here to the very first game, since you play in an alternative version of its ending – where the evil Dragonlord and his monsters actually managed to win.
The unusually non-combative solution to this problem is to rebuild the land of Alefgard from scratch, mining resources and constructing buildings by hand. But although it is still a sandbox game, where you’re free to go and build whatever you want, there’s a properly structured story to follow and non-player characters to talk to and recruit. Plus, some of that ‘mining’ involves beating up classic Dragon Quest monsters and using their carcases to build your home.
Another clear distinction between Dragon Quest Builders and Minecraft is that this is purely a single-player experience. You’re cast as the arts and crafts equivalent of the chosen one, with the plot hinging on everyone else having forgotten how to create anything with their own hands. Which as demonic curses go is a new one on us. They’re all keen to learn though, and the initial hours have you building up your first village from nothing and having various characters come to move in and help.
Unlike Minecraft, you’re treated to some very specific tutorials, that show how for the most common materials you need venture only a little way out of town to mine ores from the ground or harvest the local vegetation for organic materials. As you can see, the entire world is constructed out of little Minecraft-esque cubes; leaving you free to make the minimum of environmental impact with your excavations or carve out a giant statute in the side of a mountain, depending on your preference.
Monsters are little more than a nuisance at first, but inevitably they end up being the source of some of the rarer items. The combat is real-time and reminiscent of the top down Zelda games, so nothing like traditional Dragon Quest games – or at least certainly not the first one. The stronger monsters are what encourage you to build a blacksmith and armoury, and from there new weapons and armour. Before long your village is not only teeming with people but a self-propagating factory for its own enlargement.
Dragon Quest Builders (NS) – the graphics are a bit blocky
All of this is hugely charming and enjoyable. Dragon Quest Builders is not a fast action game, but is instead meant as a counter to such things. You’re rarely in much danger, or under any time constraint, allowing you to take the game at your own pace and digress into building things that have no real benefit to the main story. There’s an old-fashioned playfulness to the game that manifests not just in its lack of pressure or hand-holding but in the Nintendo-esque dialogue that’s entirely PG-friendly but still has flashes of wry, knowing humour.
And unlike most construction games it doesn’t get bogged down in complications during the end game. The crafting elements do get increasingly complex, but at the same time villagers start to help with the busywork, preparing chests full of restoratives and defending the village if it’s attacked. As you gain experience it’s they, not you, that are levelling up and earning more perks and abilities, which is a neat reversal of the usual role-playing formula.
Given anyone can see the influence from just looking at a screenshot, it’s unfortunate that Dragon Quest Builders is often dismissed as a mere Minecraft knock-off. Especially as that leaves it open to complaints that it’s not nearly as open, with very little ability to dig straight down into the ground and some nasty invisible walls whenever you come across water.
But those are stylistic choices as much as anything else, and the only major technical problem is the sometimes awkward camera system. There’s no significant difference between this Switch version and the original PlayStation 4 release, but the unhurried pace and simple controls make it perfect for the Switch and playing on the go (there’s already a PS Vita version). We’re happy to know that a sequel is already on the way, but for now it’s well worth digging out the original.
Dragon Quest Builders
In Short: A surprisingly successful mash-up between two completely different franchises, whose quiet charms offer a welcome alternative to incessant action and overbearing storytelling.
Pros: The Minecraft elements are neatly explained, and offer a significant amount of freedom for a story-base game. Charming script and characters, and some fun twists on the usual JRPG formula.
Cons: Compared to Minecraft there are some obvious limitations, especially when digging underground. Camera isn’t always that helpful. Dragon Quest in-jokes will be lost on many.
Score: 8/10
Formats: PlayStation 4 (reviewed) and PS Vita Price: £49.99 Publisher: Square Enix Developer: Square Enix Release Date: 14th October 2016 Age Rating: 7
Thanks to a news tip from Etamin616, we've learned of a new game currently in development for fans of collecting and caring for pets. PixPet is the “spiritual successor” to an earlier game called DragonAdopters that closed in 2013. The original developer is back and working on PixPet. Fan are invited to preregister to keep tabs on the development and earn an Early Adopter title when the game launches. In addition, community members can make suggestions on what they'd like to see implemented.
Inspired by Pokemon, Minecraft and Animal Crossing, the Pixel Pets Network is an independent online pet adoption game focusing on the collection of virtual pets. Along with the Pixpets come a huge amount of collectable objects that can be traded among registered users.
Decorate your realm to your hearts content with precious decorative objects or focus on gathering as many different and rare Pixpets as possible! The goal of the game is to expand your own realm so that you have enough room to give your pets a cozy home.
In order to expand your home, you have to send your Pixpets on hoards to gather new Pixpets eggs and objects which hat can be sold on the market. Grow plants and pumpkins in your garden and brew potions which you can give to your pets to increase hoard success.
Pixpet will be free to play with additional benefits given out to our Patreon supporters. Pixpet is currently under heavy development, please consider supporting us!
Last week we reported that Rime, the puzzle adventure game due out in May, is £10 more expensive on Nintendo Switch than on other platforms. It's safe to say this did not go down well.
The game's developer, Spanish studio Tequila Works, came under fire for the difference in pricing. Its follow-up comment to Eurogamer didn't help matters much, either.
Since then, we've done a bit of digging, and it turns out more expensive Nintendo Switch games may not be entirely the fault of developers.
Publishers and developers are free to set the price of their Nintendo Switch games, as Nintendo of America boss Reggie Fils-Aimé has already said, but based on conversations we've had with developers this week, it looks like companies making multiplatform games that are also coming out on Nintendo Switch are stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Let's start with Tequila Works' initial comment on the Rime situation:
“We set prices for our products based on the costs of development and publishing for each specific platform.”
Nintendo Switch carts cost more to make than Blu-rays.
What does this mean? Well, we've heard that the cost of manufacturing a Nintendo Switch game is higher than the cost of making a PS4, PC or Xbox One game, because the cartridges the Switch uses cost more to make than Blu-ray discs.
We've also heard that the cost of the cart depends on the size of the cart. Switch game card carts come in a variety of capacities: 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, 8GB, 16GB and 32GB. At a high level, the bigger the cart the more expensive it is, although the price may vary according to print run (lower the volume, higher the price, for example – an issue that may affect indie developers who don't expect to shift a huge number of copies of their game).
Developers working on Switch have to be mindful of the size of the game, because that will determine the cart it'll ship on. (As an aside, we asked Tequila Works how big Rime is on Switch. It replied: “as the Switch version is still being developed by Tantalus Media, we cannot estimate the final size yet.”)
But why would a Nintendo Switch game cost more on the Nintendo eShop? Digital games, after all, are just a download. There's no need to factor in costly cart manufacture with an eShop game. Well, we've heard that Nintendo's policy is that Switch eShop games should cost the same as their physical versions, in a bid to keep bricks and mortar shops on-side. A shop such as GAME, for example, is unlikely to go all in on a Switch game if you can download it for half the price instead.
Puyo Puyo Tetris costs a tenner more on Switch, too.
So, we end up in a situation such as Rime, where the game costs £39.99 on Nintendo Switch physical and digital, when the PC, PS4 and Xbox One versions cost just £29.99 physical and digital.
Rime isn't the only game to suffer from this problem, by the way. Puyo Puyo Tetris, from publisher Koch, costs £34.99 on Nintendo Switch both physically and digitally. It costs £24.99 on PS4.
We've heard this policy is why some smaller publishers and developers are going with the eShop only for their Nintendo Switch games. To release a physical version would mean factoring in the cost of manufacturing a cart, bumping up the price accordingly then price-matching the digital version.
Snake Pass, from Sumo Digital, comes out on 29th March priced £15.99 on all platforms: that's PS4, Xbox One, PC and Nintendo Switch. It's digital-only. There's no Switch cart.
“Snake Pass is digital only,” Sumo COO Paul Porter told Eurogamer, “and we have no issue keeping the price the same across all platforms digitally. Indeed, it was important to us that people wouldn't be penalised by which platform they decided to purchase.”
For Nintendo, it's not a good look. Here we have a new console from a company already accused of ripping off its customers with higher-than expected pricing. For many, the Switch itself is too expensive at £280. Mario Kart 8's port, which adds little, is £50. Then you've got the new Zelda, whose RRP is £60. Super Bomberman R costs £50, too. (Nintendo declined to comment on this story.)
So, back to poor old Rime. We went back to Tequila Works to try and find out more about the game's pricing, and received the following response.
“We cannot enter in any specifics, but we can assure you Rime's price is based on the costs of development and costs of manufacturing for each specific platform.”
Hopefully now you know a little bit more about what that means.
Me: I thought you’d have a great time with Dragon Quest Builders. It basically combines the mining, crafting, and building parts of Minecraft with a colourful Japanese RPG – one of your favourite kinds of games. What did you think of it?
Fair enough. Personally, I have to say that I like Dragon Quest Builders a bit more than Minecraft, mostly just because it has a story and objectives. Minecraft is great when it comes to creative freedom, but I can only build towers and castles for so long until I get kind of bored. It might just be a lack of imagination on my part, but I like to have missions and objectives. Dragon Quest Builders gives us that.
Another thing I liked was how this game handles crafting. Once you have what you need for a complex object, you can just build it, instantly. That’s smart. When it comes to crafting, how and where in the world you choose to place what you’ve made is the fun part, not sorting through your inventory to pick out all the pieces you need.
Good point. Final verdict?
