Super God Delusion 64 - A Game Concept

Super God Delusion 64 is a game by Richard Dawkins. Or at least, how I would imagine it if he designed games instead of writing books. Released fresh on the heels of The Selfish Gene for the GameBoy Colour, it is his first attempt at true 3D. This concept has been written for Blogs of the Round Table for January, and it is my first submission. With no further ado:

A Summary

SGD64 is a game of hybrid styles. If I were to compare it most directly to a specific game, that game would have to be Animal Crossing. When the game begins, you play a young, single male or female character who has just moved into a new neighbourhood. The majority of gameplay will be spent controlling your avatar in your fully customisable home environment and in the neighbourhood, performing menial tasks and having conversations with your neighbours. There is a very strong but highly subversive narrative element to the game. There is a point being made by the designer about the existence of a supernatural 'God within the game', but this is a conclusion that the player must feel they have come to themselves.

The Subversive Narrative Aspect

The first, probably the only obvious narrative element is revealed right at the beginning. When your character first arrives at their new house, they see a man mowing the yard. He introduces himself as Hitchens. "Welcome," he says, "I live next door. I was just mowing your front yard as a favour, to keep it from growing out of control". Further conversation with Hitchens reveals that this is a neighbourhood inhabited by families from all of the various faiths and religions from around the world. "It's good," he says, "that they live here in relative harmony, but I am not one of them. In fact, I have almost moved away in the past, just to get away from all of the distractions." What exactly those distractions are, he does not say, but he urges you to go inside and set up your home to your liking. He says that later he might come around for a beer.

Once inside the house and customising the decor, you will discover that the creative possibilities are endless. Before long however, a little message will pop up. You have mail! A visit to the letterbox will reveal this as a pamphlet from The Watchtower. You can read it in it's entirety - it is in fact a faithful facsimile of real life Watchtower publications about faith, religion and creationism, or you can simply hit the 'discard' button (before, or after you have read it) and send the pamphlet to your recycling bin.

At the beginning of the pamphlet you are told that during the game, God will score you in secret, and at the end of the game, he will reveal that score to you.

This is where the subversive nature of the narrative kicks in. Your recycling bin has space for twenty items, and the local council will empty it automatically on the Tuesday of every in-game week. However, you will always recieve twenty five items of 'religious propaganda' plus five brochures from local vendors every week. Anything that does not fit into your recycling bin must be put somewhere - placed around your house, buried in holes you have dug in your back and front yard, put in somebody else's mailbox etc. There is no way that you can halt the flow of religious literature, however a 'No Junk Mail' sign can be purchased that will put an end to the shop advertisements. This 'problem' is never addressed directly by the game, and there is no real solution - it is intentionally implemented to irritate the player.

As the week goes on, and you play around with all of the little mini-games available in your house (cooking a meal, vacuuming the house, sewing a nice set of new curtains, gardening), you will get a knock on the door. This always happens in the middle of a task, usually just at the climax (how will my cake turn out?) and it will not stop until the door is answered. It is somebody of a religious faith - answering the door will initiate a dialogue tree that is long and extensive compared to other games of this type. They will ask you if you believe in their particular religion, and pressure you into giving them the answers that they want. If you say "no" they will explain at length about what they feel is the 'truth'. If you say "yes" they will ask you a deep question about the religion, which if answered incorrectly, will then trigger the response for "no". The only way to handle these dialogue trees is to be rude and shut the door (they will return again within a week) or to give them an answer that they have no reply to (see Mission Structure) which ends the dialogue tree and sends them on their way. They will return, but in at least a month, usually with no recollection of the previous exchange.

There is one other way to avoid these dialogue trees, and this is the second significant way the the narrative is subversive: Do not be at home when they knock. The game world is rich and vibrant, there is a lot to do and see, and it is the game's way of encouraging you to avoid the distractions alluded to you by your neighbour, Hitchens.

Mission Structure and Player Reward

If you venture out of your house you will discover that the neighbourhood is a very busy place. You will meet lots of other characters, most of them of a religious bent. Most people that you meet will offer you tasks that can be completed for reward. These are usually mundane tasks such as 'fetch this' or 'empty that' and the rewards that are recieved are more often than not simply copies of the same literature that is found in your mailbox on a daily basis. If the player is seen to be accepting of a gifting character's religion, then they will impart slightly better gifts, such as a raffle ticket for the local church fair, or a small statuette of the Virgin Mary. These tasks are intentionally obtuse and uneventful - the game wants you to avoid these like the plague.

There are, however, characters that stand out from the pack, and they always have a beautiful and intriguing visual design that the other characters do not possess. The first major character of this format is called Charles. Walking down the street, his garden will stand out to you - instead of a mowed lawn and a picket fence, his garden is large and has ponds, trees, long grass, rocks, caves and so on. In his garden you will see all manner of wonderful creatures, frogs, deer, bears and more. Charles is always on his porch, with an inquisitive look, scribbling on his notepad.

Talking to Charles will reveal that he is working on a theory of evolution which disputes the theories put forward in all of the literature presented to the character thus far. "But there is a lot more work to be done!" he says, and he imparts tasks upon the player which include going out into the surrounding wilderness to capture more animals and plant samples, or to observe creatures in the wild and return with photographs. These tasks are a joy to play and yield much, much greater reward, such as pets and plants for your home, or directions to places in the wild where you can find your own.

Another character of note would be Albert. Albert is a scientist, and performing his tasks will grant the player with better technology around the home, such as a bigger television set or a faster-cooking oven.

The most important rewards they give, however, are the answers to the questions posed by door-to-door evangelists that will send them packing almost immediately. They will present you with logical retorts that cannot be argued. As time goes on you will be rewarded with a bank of responses which almost entirely eliminate the nuisances which interrupt the enjoyable nature of your home life. They won't, however, stop the flow of paper into your mailbox.

Miracles, Endgame and The Ultimate Narrative Subversion

Over the course of time, the player will witness small miracles occur. These are things that happen outside the ordinary course of the game, and the religious characters will preach these happenings to the player. Investigation will reveal them as what they truly are, however - those frogs raining down came about because the machine that Albert gave to Charles malfunctioned and exploded. The rewards for debunking these miracles are immense - bigger upgrades to your house, maybe a car or some sort of atomic weapon for removing the cockroach problem in your kitchen. The answers are never obvious in these situations, but the player is encouraged by Hitchens, the neighbour, to question them thoroughly, and doing so will teach the player that the truth is much more beneficial.

During the time with the game, the player will be told repeatedly by the religious characters that their actions in the game will be given an invisible score by God, who sees everything you do, and upon death, that score will be evaluated by him and posted online for all to see. Did you get a high enough score to get into Heaven? The player will almost certainly be curious to see what their final score was at the end, but this is where our theoretical game designer Dawkins swings the final punch.

Once the character dies, the game stops. Your save is deleted, and the machine turns off. No high score. There is no God in the game, there never was, and the only value you get from the game is how much you enjoyed it while you were there at the time. Dawkins is uncompromising when it comes to his 'slap on the wrist' attitude towards religion, and his game is no different. SGD64 is a game that is enjoyed by those who are willing to question everything that religion presents to them.