Back when I was a kid, I would generally greet my mother’s announcements of a pending dentist or doctor’s visit with about as much enthusiasm as her orders to go clean up after my dog Rusty.
If it was a good day, though, those doc visits might just hold out one little island of relief for the young and helplessly miserable tyke that I was. When I walked in the waiting room I’d always check the magazine rack for a fresh copy of Highlights—that kid’s monthly that features short stories, puzzles and maybe some pictorial about a monkey’s comical grooming habits or some such. If I could snatch up an issue, I’d head for an empty corner in hopes of blending into the wallpaper and being forgotten. And though, as a kid, I’d always be ready to read anything concerning monkeys, the hidden pictures page was always stop number one for me.
There was a simple joy in disciplining my eye to spot an object cleverly hidden on the picture. “There’s that comb in the weave of the girl’s sweater. And … aha, that guy’s nose is actually an inverted conch shell. Got it!”
Of course, today we live in an age of high-tech, well, everything. And it’s all designed to keep us as entertained as possible in the waiting rooms of life. But let’s admit it, those simple joys of old can still have their appeal. Which, I guess, is why the gamemakers at Lightside games combined a little of both and created the new Facebook game Light the Way: The Bible.
In case that company name rings a bell, these are the same guys and gals who designed other Facebook fun we’ve mentioned in the past. The Journey of Jesus and The Journey of Moses games, for instance, invite kids and adults to share in simple quests and puzzles and work their way through biblical tales. Well, now Lightside has taken another creative tack by mixing hidden object searches with images from the History Channel’s popular miniseries The Bible.
The new game challenges kids to find hidden objects in images pulled directly from the ten-hour program. And as it rewards players with points for their discoveries, it gradually doles out a streamlined version of the miniseries’ abbreviated walk through the scriptures. I know that sounds like a whole lot of shortening and simplifying going on, but amazingly, the essence of the scriptural tale stays as sound as a Sunday School lesson and becomes a great introduction to biblical truth that many players may not have heard before.
“If you want to give your kids a game they’ll remember, you can teach them to use birds to shoot pigs, or you can teach them the Bible,” Lightside games’ CEO Brent Dusing said in a CNA Daily News article. He went on to say that he’s made it his “life’s calling” to stir up people with “God’s Truth in a fun, engaging way.”
And I’ve gotta say, he and his crew know how to make it work. I’ve played the game and it’s fun. The searches are challenging enough to keep kids and parents tag-teaming their way through a list of objects and working against a ticking clock. And at the same time each picture is full of enough fresh detail and the story narration is told in a cheerful enough way to keep players coming back for more.
The game encourages everyone to share their accomplishments and rewards with Facebook pals while it keeps handing out new searches. All you need are a few spare minutes and a desire to have fun and learn a little about the Bible’s story along the way. And no magazine subscriptions or doctor’s visits are required. That’s aces with me.
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