Wolfenstein is fairly violent. I’ve been faffing around in the latest incarnation, New Order, for a few hours and barely a moment goes by where I’m not shooting off limbs, slicing tendons or putting holes in faces. It’s progenitor, Wolfenstein 3D, didn’t skimp on the violence either.
That’s why it was a tad unusual when, in 1994, it spawned Super 3D Noah’s Ark, a game showing the harsh realities of life on the mythological Noah’s Ark. And when I say harsh, I mean you have to feed a lot of animals. It’s been re-released, too. And, not at all surprisingly, it’s on Steam Greenlight.
Violence and shooting is replaced with flinging food at a variety of animals until they fall asleep. For some reason, Noah and his family didn’t consider providing the animals with troughs or enclosures (to be fair, the world was about to be consumed by a giant flood because their deity was grumpy).
It’s still recognisably Wolfenstein 3D, though. But happier. And more Christian.
The feeding of animals, which is facilitated by a bunch of rickety instruments like tiny catapults and slingshots, is punctuated by quizzes, which immediately draws me back to the days of being forced to go to Sunday School, something I’d very much like to forget.
I can’t for the life of me imagine a situation where a man would litter his boat with questions about his life that he has to answer, but then again this is a boat where two of every animal under the sun (apart from dinosaurs) live in harmony.
While it’s a Christian game with that quizzes your knowledge of Christianity, made by a Christian developer, it’s not about forcing religion on anyone. So says developer Wisdom Tree. “Put aside your prejudices, this game is not about forcing religion. The quiz merely covers the story of Noah’s Ark and never penalizes the player. It is most definitely not a 1:1 clone of the game it is based upon.”
Honestly, I am considering playing this. It ticks a few of my boxes, namely ‘90s corridor shooters, cute animals and bearded men. Also, I rather like boats. And maybe I’m getting a wee bit tired of killing things, and would rather like to shoot nourishing food instead of deadly bullets.
You can grab it now for $4.99 or pray that it gets through Steam Greenlight.
Cheers RPS.