Last year I decided to take the plunge and support a Kickstarter endeavour by Wisdom Tree (see this post), a company known for producing and distributing unlicensed games for both the NES and the Sega Genesis. A lot of their games contained religious themes and imagery that conflicted with Nintendo’s firm censorship rules, but despite these setbacks, Wisdom Tree fought the Lockout Chip War and found a way to get their games out there.
I first heard about Wisdom Tree and these bible-based video games from the Angry Video Game Nerd (Episode 17) back in 2009. The Bible Games episode just so happened to be the first episode I ever saw from the AVGN series and is what made me fall in love with the web show. Having grown up going to Catholic church, the games reviewed in that AVGN episode struck a special chord with me. It was both hilarious and intriguing to see stories I’d grown up hearing my entire life parodied in such an interesting and funny way, and I was pretty desperate to play the games and experience their “horribleness” for myself. One of the first gifts my boyfriend ever bought for me was a copy of Bible Adventures, one of the several unlicensed NES cartridges put out by Wisdom Tree. Sitting on my living room floor and playing “Baby Moses” for the first time on my 55″ LCD TV was an experience that had me laughing to tears, and I wanted more.
Unfortunately for me as an eager collector, these games have been launched into superstar status over the past few years and have consequently seen skyrocketing price tags along with many other retro games. When I saw the Kickstarter project come up, the initial premise was for Wisdom Tree to produce a plug-and-play console with all their original releases on it. Because I’ve become a bit of an audio/video snob and like a higher quality on original hardware for my gameplay experience, I didn’t want a composite video hookup directly into my flat screen. Thankfully, my wish came true as Wisdom Tree was releasing multicarts of their video game releases for the NES and the Sega Genesis! They were also re-releasing a game called Super Noah’s Ark 3D, which was a re-skin of Wolfenstein 3D with entities from the story of Noah’s Ark. I jumped all over that and pledged $95 USD. After a few delays, the games arrived at my house last month in all their glory!
Though I’ve played a ton out of Bible Adventures before, I’ve been dabbling a bit in the games I’ve never had a chance to play, primarily Bible Buffet and Spiritual Warfare. I think I’ve got Bible Buffet figured out (it’s actually really fun), but some of the other games are tricky for various reasons, and I really just need to spend more time with and get used to the controls and gameplay mechanics. I’m pretty desperate to sink some time into Super Noah’s Ark 3D since I used to love me some Wolfenstein 3D on DOS as a kid. What could be better than shooting food at animals with a slingshot?
I’m really happy I caught wind of this Kickstarter initiative while it was live and got to support these folks. It was actually really refreshing to be able to order classic games directly from the source rather than going through arbitrarily price-inflated websites (Lukie Games, anyone?)
If you’ve never heard of these games at all, I’d recommend checking them out. Though some of the games have incredibly frustrating controls and strange gameplay mechanics, they’re sometimes a really fun and challenging twist on familiar people and places if you’re even remotely familiar with the Old Testament. Tons of hair-pulling fun!
Happy long weekend, everyone! Thanks for reading!
-GG
hungrygoriya 
I got my Wisdom Tree games when they were new. I didn’t get the entire run, but as my parents looked for ways to try to keep us engaged at church, they found out about them at a local religious bookstore (which closed up shop a few years ago as it couldn’t compete with online E-books.). So that year I got Exodus, Joshua, and Spiritual Warfare. While the other games James looked over in those Bible Games episodes are abysmal, these ranged from average to surprisingly good. Joshua, and Exodus are really just average Boulder Dash clones with an Old Testament skin. They’re not terrible, but when I played them, all I could think about was how much better Boulder Dash is. Spiritual Warfare though, I have to say is a really good Zelda clone. It has a decent story, about trying to bring people to Jesus (Being a game about Christianity after all), and using the allegorical turned literal spiritual armor to kick Satan’s ass. I’m not kidding. You fight the devil with the divine fruits of the spirit. So if this gets backed, and your copy comes in the mail, it’s the one bible game I can recommend. Even to those who aren’t Christians but who love Zelda. I reviewed it awhile ago if you’re interested. Good luck!
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Ahhh what haven’t you reviewed?! Very cool. I never knew much about the nuances of Spiritual Warfare, but you probably know by now that I adore Zelda so this game is a pretty natural extension for me. I can’t wait to play it for longer than a few minutes when I have some time! With my Christian roots and a very religious mother, I’m surprised these games didn’t make their way into my own home growing up.
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I’ve honestly never heard of Wisdom Tree before. Thanks for the knowledge! The parody bible themed video game Rod and Todd were playing on an episode of the Simpsons suddenly makes sense to me! These really don’t seem like my type of video game themes though (I’m a heathen I guess, haha).
I hope you enjoy your glorious long weekend 🙂
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Oh my goodness… I haven’t thought about that Rod and Todd clip in years! Hahahah thank you for reminding me of that!!! You’re right – totally does make so much more sense!
Thank you for the well-wishes. I hope you’re having a lovely long weekend as well 😀
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How thematically appropriate for the weekend 🙂 I’ve never heard of these, but as someone who was raised Catholic, as well, these seem like an absolute hoot to play! Have fun!
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They definitely are a hoot! Lots of the games feature quiz questions based around scripture that reward you with health if you get them right, so it’s an interesting self-test to see how much of that religious doctrine has stuck around in the noggin. I usually play these games when I’m tired and everything consequently becomes hilarious, so the slippery controls and monotonous music become funnier and my enjoyment increases. I take them as a challenge. The games handicap you through the controls, so they’re genuinely tricky to get through. I hope you have a chance to try them out sometime and that you enjoy the experience if you do!
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