Short Game: Followers of Christ



“Followers of Christ” is a “Snake remake where you play as Jesus and you have to acquire as many followers as you can” (1). The snake begins with three sections, all smiley faces, and the player must guide the snake through the field of play and collect followers. The disconnected figures, those that need to be “collected”, are represented by frowning faces which quickly turn into smiley faces as soon as they are picked up and incorporated into Jesus’ “snake-train”. One thing that interested me was the fact that though the player is playing as Jesus while he collects souls to follow his path, there is no actual image of Jesus. While the fact that the player is playing as Jesus, and could therefore be seen to have some agency over him, would cause a problem for Rachel Wagner, I think the lack of a Jesus image in the game may be intentional and work to alleviate this issue (2). Wagner would say a game in which the player could “control” Jesus was blasphemous and offensive to Christians, because Jesus, as the Son of God and God himself, should not be able to be manipulated by man (2). I think the exclusion of any particular image of Jesus on the game relieves it of any possible offense it may have, because the player does not see his/her moves being directly translated into the movements of a Jesus figure. If fact, the game screen does not include very much religious symbolism at all, until the player “dies” by running the snake into one of the game’s boundary walls or itself. Once the player’s game is over, a Bible verse appears on the screen, usually one having to do with death, or an ending.

1. http://www.mybiblegames.com/games.php

2. Wagner, Rachael. “The Play Is the Thing.” Halos and Avatars. Ed. Craig Detweiler. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010. 47-62. Print.