Bible Buffet

"Well that's a pretty harsh statement there, JM," you're probably thinking. "Theft, even of ideas, is something Christians look down upon, and it's not very nice to accuse a developer representing Christianity of such an act." Oh, but it's true, dear reader. It's true. They stole it just as if they'd smashed the window of the toy store, yanked it out through the shattered glass, and fled into the night while alarms wailed. Then they spent the night in their ramshackle hideout scratching off serial numbers and painting over anything that might be recognizable. Then out it went as their "completely original" winding rainbow-colored video board game with named food sections.

That's also where you get the title, because Bible + Food = Bible Buffet. It's not the "smorgasbord of Bible" you would expect. It's an inoffensive little board game for kids, with occasional scripture quizzes coming at you if you land on specific board spaces. But any lack of knowledge and verses won't matter, since success only gives you a few extra stars/points at the end. The real question is if you'll bother to get that far.

The lack of computer players is probably due to the interactive points of the game. When you land on a regular space, you're required to play through a brief overhead level resembling the food realm you're currently passing through. The levels are a series of mazes, with food icons that can be picked up for points. You have three life hearts, and take damage from charging food creatures or forks and knives. If you lose all your hearts, you lose your turn and must play that space over again. The points you can acquire here will help you win at the end, since like Death Race 2000, it's about crossing the finish first AND racking up the most points along the way. But you have to balance the risk with the possibility of taking large amounts of damage and being forced to play the space over again. Aside from timing out the predictable patterns of most enemies, you can also drop what appears to be an exploding oil drum to clear your path. If you still thought the game might have something to do with the Bible, then wait till you wire up an improvised explosive device and blast Mr. Potato Head into mashed potatoes.

This game frequently gets bagged on for being created by and for "those crazy Jesus freaks." I'm going to go after it for another reason. It was Wisdom Tree's modus operandi to steal from and "Christianize" popular games blatantly and without remorse, and this is another example of that. They could have really created something original here with this Bible board game idea, and perhaps used actual Biblical stories to play as little minigames on the spaces. So you read a quote about David fighting Goliath, go to an actual minigame of that battle, and get rewarded if you succeed. Maybe even have one of the other players control Goliath and try to stop you, you know, something to make this a real party game. I'm a damn heathen and I just came up with a better idea than they did. Maybe they wanted to make it incredibly easy and accessible for kids much younger than I'm imagining playing this game. Maybe they didn't want to cheapen the stories like that - by having a little minigame where you tap the A button repeatedly to part the Red Sea or somesuch. But if maintaining the seriousness of the Bible was foremost on their minds, then how does that explain the whole food motif coming straight out of left field? Oh, that's right, cause they STOLE IT.