Random: Collect Saints, Not Pocket Monsters In The Most God-Like Pokémon GO Clone Yet

Ha, I see what you did there.

That's actually an interesting idea, assuming the saints are related to the area. Although that would mean most of them would only appear in Israel or Europe.

Oh God! Literarily

Sigh. I mean, Pokémon Go was bad enough, but this... This takes the cake. Religion, bah.

@Blizzia I think this game is horrid to, but what's wrong with religion?

@Kalmaro So, so much. Look at history. Look at the newspaper.

@Kalmaro Do I even need to elaborate on that? I mean, it's kinda obvious what is wrong with religion (hint: everything), especially if you take even one quick glance at history.

@Kalmaro I could mention a lot of things wrong with religion, but I don’t think I’m allowed to on this platform. And it’s not the right place for it either.

@Blizzia @Quarth @dequesi
This place may not be the best spot for a religious debate, but I am curious about what people think. I don't think tagt all religion is as bad as some folks make it out to be... But a video game website might not be the best platform to discuss it.

Well, this is an interesting one. I mean, it’s a silly idea for an app but I’m sure some guy will love it. Also, I can see this comment section becoming a religious battleground so I recommend everyone stays clear while the battle commences.

@Kalmaro I agree on this not being the best platform, but absolutely not regarding all religion not being as bad as it is made out to be.

Religion is a terrible thing. Maybe not in and of itself (other than going into the area of deluding yourself into thinking there's a big dude up in the cloud, or other such omnipotent beings), but our race simply cannot have something like that exist without abusing it to cause war, bloodshed and conflict.

Humans cannot handle such a thing, because it is ridiculously easy to abuse as long as you have enough weak minds to infect.

@TheFanatic Yeah, I think it’s best if we all keep our beliefs or (at least in my case) lack of beliefs to ourselves or it won’t end up pretty.

Glad this has come out, was getting bored of PoGo

@Spectra That comment made me laugh out loud. Thanks!

Just want to thank for the final paragraph for at least taking a view into the positives this could bring to its target audience. Religion is of course a very “touchy” subject and will always bring out snide comments (so far this place is rather tame towards some other sites). As a practicing Catholic its nice to see someone simply state at what the app offers.

@Blizzia People will just find other stuff to abuse for igniting war. "Divide et Impera" and stuff

@Bensei Except it just ain't that easy if you can't generate a mob of mouthbreathing zombies who can't think for themselves.

An interesting idea for an app. I'd like to at least see it in action.

@Bensei This always reminds of that South Park two-parter. The world becomes atheist in the far future and was thought would be an era of peace. In the end multiple factions ended up fighting over a more ridiculous thing.

I personally await the day violence breaks out over whether men should wear boxers or briefs.

@Blizzia It's not that hard, really. I don't wanna get too political here, but you just need something people can identify with and then create an enemy with baseless assumptions. "Divide and conquer".

@FX102A: Yeah, basically that. And even in the idealistic future of South Park without the -isms, there still were wars for non-religious reasons. Which is quite the realistic approach, I think. Wars aren't actually about religion, it's mostly over ressources and territory disguised as them.

As a Christian I’m a little confused

Edit: Going back and re-reading the article, I think they have sincere intentions, but I’m not sure if this is the best way to share the Gospel via video games. I’ve mulled over different ideas and think an RPG would work best.

@Blizzia I have to disagree with religion being dangerous because of wars. We've had many more casualties from war without religion than with it.

I do think that not all religions are equal though.

@MH4: I'd personally like to see a RPG as well.

@Tyranexx And not one littered with random Bible trivia. One that actually presents God’s word in a compelling way while still having deep, engaging gameplay. As a video game nerd and a Jesus freak, that’d be my dream game.

I went to Catholic school in Glasgow so I've had my fair share of evangelisation. That being said, relating to the debate going on in these comments, I don't think religion in itself causes wars and such. I think it's more organised religion that causes debate, which causes hate, which causes wars. I had an RE teacher that would tell us absolute nonsense about Muslims, homosexuality, abortion etc. but most of us knew that was more his personal beliefs than the beliefs of the everyday Catholic on the street. Religion gives people comfort in a truly terrifying world and sometimes that causes them to lose sight of how to treat other people. A world without religion ie forced atheism roughly equates to Stalinist Russia. Which doesn't strike me as a particularly fun place to live in.

@Blizzia Y-yeah, let's just not mention the casualties and atrocities caused by atheist states such as the Soviet Union and WW2 Germany among many others

@Blizzia: There will always be people who use different "religions" for bad reasons. That does not mean all who practice a certain religion, or are of a certain faith are bad people. It's no different than people manipulating others, through other means. It is just that manipulating people through faith, or religious practice has been, and is very easy, and successful for people with bad intentions. I'll pray you meet somebody of faith, who is clearly not a monster. Maybe a pocket monster, instead.

@RupeeClock: The trivia questions are seen as a learning tool for people not familiar with a certain faith, or religious practices, and as a study tool for people already of a certain faith, or religious practices.

@Everyone_Else: Wisdom Tree(the spin-off co. of Color Dreams) is still around. They sell compilations of their old software. They use to allow you to play their old games in your browser, using, I'm assuming, a Javascript emulator.

As far as this (goes), great, as long as it isn't pirating code from Pokemon Go, or as the article mentions, has the same issues associated with it, as PoGO, or common-sense-neglecting smartphone use(looking at your screen, walking into traffic).

That title.... my father in law would lose his crap if he ever found out about this, lol. JC is his homeboy. Can’t be using his name in vain 😆😆

I also commend posters here for trying to have an honest, but civil discourse on religion. Certainly, there are deeper conversations to be had and a poster above alluded to some tragic and unfortunate aspects of religion where these discussions need to happen. But I do think I we should be able to have these surface conversations and act like adults about it.

What a fantastic write up, Damien. Great job. As a Nintendo fan and Catholic, this interests me. I hadn’t heard of it until now but plan on downloading the English version when it comes. It hurts to see some of the sweeping statements in the comments but I appreciate the article taking this seriously. For some additional insight and context, the 2018 synod focusing on and including youth just wrapped up and one of the things to come out of it was the idea that social media and new technology is not only the world youth live in but could be powerful ways to connect and evangelize. Though the recognition, backed by research, that it can isolate young people was also brought up. Still, there was a strong sense that it could be used in a way to provide tools for young people to navigate life more intentionally, make wise and informed decisions and grow as self-knowing and loving people. This game seems a product of those sentiments which have been around before the synod but expressed so clearly in it.

Seeing as in my area every 1-2 blocks have a church or two (especially as a PokeStop), I can imagine it will be a holy ground.
This would have made stuff like sunday school interesting and fun as a kid.

@MH4 I've often dreamed of a cinematic RPG that takes place in first century Palestine where you play as a random (there could even be a character creator) and encounter personalities from the Bible narrative. The kind of game where you are on the outside looking in and then become embroiled in the narrative as it comes to its climax. I think that could be a pretty powerful vehicle for sharing the Gospel.

@MH4: I'd have to agree there! I admittedly haven't played many Christianity-oriented games (though I've played plenty of games with themes that borrow from different religions) as there's usually not a lot of balance between the gameplay and the message.

Personally, I'd like to see a RPG with different scenarios from the Old and New Testaments where you're a bystander or a member of the group of people involved.

@Tyranexx @jwfurness Christian game devs, take notes! 😃

Trick everyone into attending mass by holding an "Epic Tier Boss Raid" at specified locations every Sunday morning!

I'm going to hold off downloading until they implement PvP (prayer vs prayer)

The inherent weirdness my homeland often manages to make headlines with never fails to leave me speechless.

You're welcome, I guess...?

@Kalmaro Well, people here will still believe that religion is bad, because of wars and all and all ... Like you know ... In history religion prooved being dangerous ... (spoiler : it's as dangerous as everything else), no religion ? There would be still wars and bloodsheds, religion doesn't change much except the excuse being something else
I'm not telling that to you personaly of course

But I still don't understand how people can say "religion is dangerous, look at history, it is so bad" when it proved it could be both, it only depends on humans. So why do you say that religion is bad when it depends on someone else ? That makes no sense. It is supposed to be good, if somebody makes it seems bad, it doesn't change the core itself.

So it is dangerous, imo not more than any form of system where somebody can have a greater power (so religion or not, power is dangerous, when you see through history, you don't see that religion brought wars but you see that it is power and money, and it still the same today). That's why I prefer when religion is not organized by somebody like a Pope, but rather by the local people themselves, imo it is less dangerous and closer to what is is supposed to be. Something who bring people together.
Anyway, still kinda nice to see sometimes religious debates, even in a video games website. As soon as people are not being insulting, is it ok and I think it shouldn't be taboo.

Well, my comment is already huge but I've just realised I didn't talked about the news itself, and I think it looks kinda weird to "catch" the Saints, but eh, as soon as it is made with good intentions ... why not ? These games as old as video games, so it must be because there's people to play these

@LightBeam I agree with pretty much everything you said. I don't understand when people say that religion caused more deaths than anything else, that's false. People don't need religion to get into wars. We are very capable of hating each other without religion. Which is why politics gets nasty in here xD

This is a pretty cool idea for a Pokemon Go clone as well as a fun way to express oneself with our fellow faithful. This Protestant is certainly no fan of the current Pope Francis or his opinion of this game, but it's not often you see a positive representation of Christianity in any medium period, least of all the video game world, so this title is quite a breath of fresh air. Very nice to see!

Loosely-related, I would love to see more biblical-era games. The Bible is a huge, strangely untapped source of material ripe for open world video game depiction.

Ech. Religion isn't my thing. Not that it's arbitrarily bad, but I was told earlier today I was a sinner for not wanting children. Ech.

@Totaldude911 You should have asked them to prove it. There's nothing in the Bible at least that says you MUST have children.

@Kalmaro Not to start a religion competition, but he was Jewish. S
He is a super cool guy though.

@Totaldude911 Ahhh I see. I'm sure he's cool.

Interesting idea, looks like something my parents would have pushed on me as a child.. probably would have hated it.

@Kalmaro While not wanting to open a debate, personally I believe religion doesn't need wars to be dangerous - religion teaches people to alter their reality to fit their faith, even when good sense would show the other way around to be sensible. The meteoric rise of Young Earth Creationists does have me worried for humanity.

@DanteSolablood Have young earth creationist been causing trouble? I don't recall them doing anything lately, except believing the earth is young.

@Kalmaro Does someone/something necessarily need to be causing trouble to be detrimental to society in the long term? The act of deliberately undermining both science & historical research for the benefit of religious literalism is worrying in it's own right.. especially considering that Young Earth Creationist (YEC) groups such as AiM have made massive inroads into homeschooling & educational organisations around the globe. However.. this IS definitely a discussion for another format!

@DanteSolablood I hear your concerns, I just don't think there is as big a problem as you think. YEC have yet to actually try and stop scientific research. If anything, they encourage it and interpret the data to support their views. Apart from that, they aren't actually doing any harm that I'm aware of.

If everyone on the planet suddenly believed the earth was young... I am sure life would go on as normal. That's my opinion anyway.

@Kalmaro I think that's one of the problems, it might not seem like something that could cause problems yet it is directly analogous to the issues of "fake news" spreading around the world... YEC directly teaches that if you believe in something, all evidence contrary is a lie/fake & it's now being taught directly to increasing numbers of children.

I'd also suggest you research the connections between YEC/fundamental Christian connections with the Anti-Vaccination movement which is leading a large spike in preventable childhood deaths. Invalidating science in order to support your views does have serious side effects whether you're willing to consider them or not.

Anyway, I apologise - I will simply shut up as I do NOT want to turn this into a long debate. Let's leave it at... we disagree.

@DanteSolablood Fair enough.

Totally just made an account to say it's just Pikachu and Eevee not Pikachus and Eevees, Multiple Pokémon are the same name as they are.

@DakkaDakka "Their faith"? Yeah, no. Not quite.

No, the regime was pretty much atheist. The higher-ups supported the boycott of Christianity and most influencial nazis very much despised religion, except for, perhaps, certain variations that supported their twisted ideology.

A majority of the population was still Christian, yes, and so it would be perfectly reasonable for them to reopen churches as to tell the native population that they aren't as bad as their previous occupiers.

Also, I don't know if you were saying that the Wehrmact were the ones that reopened the churches or just that it was an event that took place after they took over, but the Wehrmact was made up of regular men, not necessarily supportive of their regime, so it would once again be perfectly understandable for them to do something like that (even though the orders would still be proclaimed in favor of the regime, obviously).