Facebook users can now follow in the footsteps of Jesus, with help from a new on-line game. 

Journey of Jesus:  The Calling—the first-ever video game based on the life of Christ—launched on May 15, 2012.  The new video game, created by Lightside Games, follows last year’s highly successful Old Testament-themed adventure, Journey of Moses.” 

To play the game, Facebook users can simply type “Journey of Jesus: The Calling” into the search bar.  Registration is simple and free.  Players can choose from different paths, explore intricate and intriguing game spaces, search for items and artifacts, and overcome various obstacles.

The game opens with Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan River.  Then, on-line gamers travel to Galilee to watch Jesus cleanse the temple and invite Simon and Andrew to follow him.  They’ll travel with the Master to Cana, where they’ll attend a wedding feast and witness Jesus’ first miracle.  The company plans to add new chapters and adventures each week, so that more experienced players will continue to find new opportunities for creative play, and for learning about the customs and traditions of the biblical era.   

Lightside Games CEO Brent Dusing is a self-described “game developer and evangelist.”  His company’s number one focus, he explained by phone, is “to continue to make the Jesus game into a great game.”

One wonders whether Brent Dusing’s friends and family might have predicted that he would embark on a career in social gaming.  As a child, he invented board games to play with his friends.  At an honor student at Yale, he majored in Economics. 

Dusing was especially influenced, he reported in a telephone interview, by the 2004 drama The Passion of the Christ, starring James Caviezel in the role of Jesus.  Although he had gone to church in his youth, Dusing—like so many others—was profoundly moved by the film, which he described as “a great film, with great acting, great cinematography, great music.”  The Passion helped Dusing to understand Jesus’ profound sacrifice, and it inspired him to try to create a video game to carry the gospel message to social media enthusiasts.

Dusing is proud of the game’s high-quality artwork, music and excitement.  He explained that the company’s threefold goal is to create games which
(1) are fun to play,
(2) utilize high quality graphics and music (the opening scene features a song by Enya), and
(3) are faithful to biblical truth.

Already, Dusing reports, early feedback from players has been enthusiastic.  With 300 million people playing games on Facebook each week, Lightside Games hopes to attract a wide audience of game enthusiasts for its biblically based Facebook games.