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Development Update Sep-Nov 2024

3 Jan

We’ve reached the end of 2024, and we can sum it up as a year of deep, focused work – some of which we’ll be showcasing in our next big milestone: our vertical slice. The vertical slice will feature a small portion of our game that reflects the final version.

With many of the core components now in place, we’re excited for what 2025 holds as we head into full-fledged production!

Another milestone this quarter is that Friends of BCC Media Inc., doing business as NextGen Bible Media[nextgenbiblemedia.org]—the nonprofit established to support fundraising for the Gate Zero project—has officially been granted 501(c)(3) status in the US. We’re well on our way with fundraising, having raised ~11% of our budget this year alone.

Our team has grown to 30 members, including the NextGen Bible Media admin team. Happy New Year from all of us! We’re incredible grateful for your continued support and patience as we work to create one of the world’s first high-quality Bible video games.

Keep reading for an update from the past months!

New Team Members

We’ve expanded our team this past year to include talented developers with experience at studios like Rockstar Games and Ubisoft, who have worked on iconic games such as GTA, Red Dead Redemption, and Assassin’s Creed, ensuring that Gate Zero continues to push the boundaries of quality. New additions include a producer, level designer, texture artist, game designers, game writers, and an art team.

“I am really looking forward to helping bring this fun and unique experience to everyone. I think that this is something really special.” – Liam, Senior Producer

“I’ve always loved history and truth be told, I am looking forward to the struggle of trying to present this historical/biblical past in a way that is fun to experience and explore.” – Race, Lead Game Designer

“I’m more than excited to join this amazing team of talented people and to help create this innovative Bible-based project that’s bigger than myself. I look forward to crafting memorable experiences for players all around the world!” – Gabriel, Level Designer

“Upon joining the team I see a group of incredibly passionate people all with one goal in mind, bringing the word of God to the gaming industry. I can honestly say that I’ve never been more excited than now to partake in something as big and important as this and I'm looking forward to helping contribute to this incredible project!” – Justin, Texture Artist

Art

Capernaum 3D Models

With a lot of the concept art for Capernaum completed, our artists have moved on to creating 3D models of the different locations.

Capernaum Dock

Interior of the dock

Watchtower

We’ve also been working on 3D models of dock area props.

And here’s a look at the progress of the synagogue in Capernaum. Any guesses what stories will take place here?

Capernaum Synagogue

Capernaum Walkthrough

Check out an early look of the different components of Capernaum coming together in the game world!

Crowd Characters

This quarter, we’ve completed 15 high-resolution models of crowd types that can be made into countless different variations. We’re now working on technical implementation to give you an optimized experience of a lively, populated 1st century Capernaum.

Technical Art

In addition to constant performance testing and improvement, our technical artist has also been working on testing lighting.

Lighting Exploration in the Capernaum Synagogue

Materials & Textures

Lots of realistic textures are being added to the collection! Here is a small selection from the Capernaum area.

Capernaum Residential Area Textures

Capernaum Synagogue Textures

Ground Textures

Game Mechanics

Alongside refining the stealth and action elements of our game, we’ve been working on defining the moment-to-moment gameplay – systems like damage, health, stamina, upgrades, rewards and progression.

We’ve also been detailing the discovery elements, as well as the currency, skills, equipment and resources players can use to fully immerse themselves in the ancient world.

Story

Our game writers have wrapped up in-depth research of the Context, Message and Development for all Main Missions, filling our research database with rich, detailed profiles of characters, events and stories.

This lays the foundation for crafting immersive and impactful scripts that will bring the gospel stories to life in Gate Zero!

Reading Plan for the Dev Team

Last month, our team began an exciting journey together to read all the core biblical texts describing the events in Release 1 of Gate Zero.

Prepared with care by our game writers, the Gate Zero Daily Reading Plan contains stories packed with interesting narratives, monumental events, and growing tension as forces intent on resisting Jesus gain momentum.

To enrich the experience, each day’s reading includes a fascinating fact or insight that provides deeper context to the Bible passages, reflecting the script team’s depth of research.

We end off every week with a team game of Kahoot, and the winners get pride of place in our virtual office.

Fundraising

These past months, we have held two campaigns: the October Matching Gift Campaign and the Giving Tuesday Matching Campaign, both offering the opportunity for every dollar donated to be matched by an anonymous donor.

A project of this scale and quality demands a budget that reflects its excellence. With Christian projects traditionally suffering from low budgets and and thus quality, we are determined to turn the tide and create something the Christian community will be proud of, and in addition captures the attention of the wider gaming community.

Do you want to join us in making an impact in the lives of millions of youth worldwide with the gospel in the gaming space?

Click here to make a tax-deductible gift to NextGen Bible Media[nextgenbiblemedia.org]

Events

Backer Day at our office in Norway

Back in September, we hosted some special guests at our office in Moss, Norway – a reward promised to our high-tier backers.

The visitors got to meet the team, playtest our latest gameplay features (top secret!) and participate in an exclusive motion capture session where they saw themselves as NPCs within the game.

Click here for the writeup and video devlog from the day[biblex.io]

Reach Conf

We were proud to be part of the first-ever Reach Conf[www.reachconf.org] in Orlando, FL in September showcasing Gate Zero.

The conference was a reward for the content creators who had organized Alpha groups to share the gospel prior to the event. Creators could invite their community to the conference, and it was a uniting time with lots of games, food and encouragement.

We loved meeting the familiar faces of Christian streamers who love and support our game, as well as new people enthusiastic for what we’re creating. Already looking forward to next year!

Bible X

Development Update Jun-Aug 2024

18 Sep, 2024

Summer is slowly making its exit, and while things usually slow down during this time, the important work on our game has not stopped, with a good part of our team working hard through the warm months. Here is a look at our progress in the last bit!

Art

In the past months, we have expanded and strengthened our art team and made significant progress on this front. We have also established collaboration with a team of professionals who have worked on several Assassin’s Creed games, which we hope will take the quality and consistency of our art to the next level.

Capernaum Concept Art

With the exterior concept art done, we have now moved on to designing the interiors.

Concept Art: Rich Building Interior Living Room

Concept Art: Residential District Kitchen

Capernaum Residential Modular Set

As we work on building out Capernaum, we have also developed a modular system to improve efficiency and ensure optimized performance.

Capernaum Residential Modular Set

Materials & Textures

Our artists have also been hard at work with the details, creating materials and textures of building façades like roofs and walls, props such as carpets and pottery, and clothing textiles and fabrics. A lot goes into creating high-quality, realistic graphics which are at the same time optimized for an open world game.

Texture on a building façade

Carpet samples

Textiles

Game Mechanics

Recently, we’ve made major improvements to the stealth elements of Gate Zero, with the goal of making it fun by incorporating lighthearted, humorous moments. You may just find Max with lots of new tricks up his sleeve as you find creative ways to evade enemies and danger!

We have also been seriously prototyping some action elements for the game, working hard on making them balanced, responsive and fun. The goal is that these new elements will be easy to learn and rewarding to master. We’ve spent a good amount of time getting this right, and we can’t wait to show you more when we’re ready! Stay tuned!

Level Design

Level design is also an important part of game development, and one aspect of it is defining heights and spaces between buildings and other environment assets.

Rules for horizontal and vertical traversal ie. jumping and climbing distances defined for the environment art and level design will ensure a unified, clear and positive player experience.

Vertical Traversal Rules

Horizontal Traversal Rules

Story

Our scriptwriters have been doing extensive research into the gospel stories that will be featured in Release 1, determining the context and main messages we aim to bring out through the stories in each mission.

They have also been working on character development of the various people that Max (the player character) will be meeting in the game. It’s shaping up to be incredibly interesting!

Overview of the gospel stories we plan to feature in Release 1

Fundraising

In case you missed our last blog post or email messages, we are still actively fundraising for Gate Zero.

Our goal as one of the world’s first Bible video games is to create a product of excellence. The more resources added to the project, the greater impact we can make on millions worldwide with the life-changing message of the gospel.

Creating a video game of this scale and quality with care, respect and attention to the source material takes a considerable amount of resources, and we are grateful for any support you can provide!

If you would like to give to our mission, please visit our donation page here[nextgenbiblemedia.com]

Events

Forward Conference in Georgia

At the end of June, we attended a large youth conference in Georgia where 13,000 young people were gathered. Our Gate Zero booth was a hit with the crowd, and it was so fun to see these young Gen Zers' interest in our game!

Gate Zero booth at Forward Conference 2024

Bible X

Development Update Mar-May 2024

6 Jun, 2024

Time has flown by and although it’s been a quiet few months with fewer updates, our team has been working a lot in the background especially on the game design and programming side, getting the mechanics polished and tightened up so we can create a fun, cohesive and excellent experience for all of you!

Here’s a summary of our work and achievements since March in one BIG update!

Game Mechanics

So far, our team has completed 10 prototyping sprints this year. A sprint is a short, focused period where different design elements are prototyped, tested out and validated before further work is done to incorporate them into the game.

Through this process, our development team has iterated on the dialogue system, discovery and meta loop, traversal, time, stealth and combat elements of our game.

Yes, you read it right – we’ve experimenting with non-lethal combat mechanics. What do you think about that?

Lots of new mechanics have been tested in the past months, and we’re looking forward to revealing more once we’re ready to! We’ve been conducting rounds of playtesting among members of our community, and we’re getting closer to the result!

Art

We’ve made a lot of progress on the art front in recent months. One big milestone we’ve reached is that we’ve now completed concept art of the Capernaum rich district, residential district and Simon Peter’s house, and we’re now moving on to designing landmarks.

Concept Art: Capernaum Residential District

Concept Art: Capernaum Rich District

Concept Art: Simon Peter's House

Concept Art: Simon Peter's HouseWe’ve also started implementing the Capernaum rich district buildings into the game world. Check out an early look below!

To prepare for further world-building, we’ve been developing a modular system for buildings, structures, materials and textures to have centralized control over the art, improve efficiency and optimize memory and performance.

Aside from buildings, we’ve also been working closely with our history consultants to develop a solid basis for 1st century characters and clothing as we begin to create concept art for the crowd.

Concept Art: Jewish Rich Male

Concept Art: Jewish Regular Female

Concept Art: Fisherman

Another thing we’ve been prototyping that we haven’t shown much of yet are World State Effects – alternative renderings to the normal world that indicate a different state the player is in. The world effects are connected to the time travel element of our game and bring yet another exciting dimension to gameplay.

Concept Art: Time World

Concept Art: Corrupted World

Research

In the past months, we have established a tight, solid collaboration and workflow with our history consultants. Their insight and research is invaluable to the game we are creating, and we are constantly in awe over the rich depth there is to the Bible’s stories both from a historical and archaeological standpoint.

Besides offering input to ensure historical accuracy, we’ve experienced that the amazing teamwork we’ve got going with these historians extends beyond getting the facts right. Knowledge of archaeology and history can also add fun elements to the game’s design and mechanics, for example with the addition of maps, artifacts, caves and environmental obstacles, as well as daily-life habits and tasks of the locals.

Research board of characters and clothing

Research board of various elements in 1st century Capernaum

Team Updates & Office Fun

As development progresses, we have also been actively hiring to recruit the necessary talent to complete the game. New additions to the team include a game designer, associate producer, technical artist, texture artist, two level designers, and most recently, a senior game designer.

As our remote team grows, we’ve found different ways to collaborate and communicate. We now work together in a virtual office using Gather Town.

Some fun on the office Slack chat

Events

Game Developers Conference 2024

In March, we brought a Gate Zero booth for the first time to the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco. We received overwhelmingly positive feedback and met many awesome people genuinely interested in what we are doing!

Read the full GDC report and see the pictures here[biblex.io]

Marketing

In March, we hit an exciting milestone: 500,000 followers across all social media platforms and 50M combined views! We are overwhelmed with the attention Gate Zero is getting, and humbled and motivated to keep working hard. Thank you SO much for all your continued support and encouragement!

And with that, we leave you with an awesome piece of fan art created by VoxVulpes from our Discord community.

Bible X

We'll be at the Game Developers Conference!

8 Mar, 2024

We're looking forward to being at the Game Developers Conference in a week! 🚀

Come meet us at the South Hall, Booth S2026 to check out our video game Gate Zero 🎮✨

We'd love to:
👫 Meet talented game developers interested in joining our project!
🤝 Explore potential partnerships and collaborations within the gaming community
📣 Showcase our unique project merging gaming and faith

If you'd like to arrange a meeting, send us an email[biblex.io] or schedule a meeting on Swapcard!

See you there!

Bible X

Development Update Jan-Feb 2024

21 Feb, 2024

Hi everyone!

It's been a hot minute but here we are with a comprehensive update!

First of all, we'd like to announce that we'll be attending the Game Developers Conference (GDC) next month in San Francisco with a Gate Zero booth. If you plan to be there, be sure to stop by and say hi!

Research Efforts

What's unique – and challenging at the same time – about making a historical video game as compared to a TV series like The Chosen, is that players get to explore locations just as they were.

From a geographical point of view, this requires much more research to ensure the map is accurate as you can technically choose to run anywhere you like, while in a TV series, the viewer only sees the locations the camera shoots, and from limited angles at that.

We've taken this unique challenge seriously by doing due diligence in research, at the same time being mindful of the balance between historical accuracy and making a video game that is fun.

Historical Consulting Sessions

Last week, we invited archaeological architect Leen Ritmeyer[www.ritmeyer.com] to hold a talk with our team about daily life in Capernaum. Leen's reconstruction drawings of Capernaum and designs of 1st century homes have been an big source of inspiration for us.

One piece of advice he gave: "Do not look at life in 1st century Capernaum with your 21st century ideas." It was an incredibly insightful talk, and we're looking forward to incorporating the knowledge in our script, art and game design!

In addition, we've received over three hours of video research from historical consultants in the past week about character references and clothing from the 1st century, so our art team has been busy!

Members of our team attending a talk with archaeological architect Leen Ritmeyer

Our script team was visiting from the UK and also got to attend the talk at our office in Norway

Capernaum Art + Fun Facts

These days, our small but hardworking art team has been working closely with our archaeological consultants to ensure accuracy as they continue building the town of Capernaum.

Fun facts about Capernaum:

The 1st century synagogue of Capernaum where Jesus taught at was never excavated, so no one knows for sure what it looked like.
Fishing was quite a profitable industry. It was an elaborate business that could involve employees mending nets, maintaining boats, preserving, transporting and selling fish.
Torah scrolls were often kept in the house of the Ruler of the Synagogue and brought in a cart to the synagogue where they were read.

We've learned an innumerable amount of detail concerning architecture and life in Capernaum during Jesus' time, but we won't bore you with the nitty-gritty... Instead, we'll show you some results!

A redesigned version of the Capernaum synagogue following feedback from historians

Mood exploration for the streets of Capernaum

WIP concept art of the residential district in Capernaum

Models of fishing nets

Capernaum docks

Game Mechanics Prototype

Our prototype team has been working hard experimenting with game mechanics, and this past week, we had a new round of closed testing among members of our community. We'll show more of what we're working on when we're ready!

In the meantime, here's a funny bug our head of studio Arve discovered...

New Executive Game Consultant

We started this year off welcoming John Gibson as our new Executive Game Consultant and Gate Zero Development Board Member.

John brings two decades of experience and expertise in game development and publishing to our team. As former CEO, co-owner, and co-founder of Tripwire Interactive, he led the team that brought hit games like Killing Floor, Maneater, and Chivalry 2 to market, selling tens of millions of copies and winning multiple game of the year awards.

John has been offering support and counsel to our team in the past months, and will continue to provide guidance throughout our project's milestones and pivotal decisions. Following advice from John, we have also evaluated increasing the budget and quality of Gate Zero to ensure the highest possible success.

Read the official announcement here[biblex.io]

Social Media Growth

This month, we hit another milestone on Instagram: Reaching 5.2 million and gaining 65,824 followers in just one week!

In total, we have reached over 14 million unique accounts on Instagram since we first went viral in October last year. Word about our game is spreading more than we can imagine, and we're so excited to see where all this is headed in the coming year!

Bible X

Development Update Nov-Dec 2023

2 Jan, 2024

Happy New Year! Just like that, 2023 is over. The last couple months of 2023 have been busy and eventful for us here at Bible X, with progress being made on all fronts especially art, game design and marketing. Here's an update on what we've been working on!

Game Mechanics – Traversal Experimentation

In the last update, we announced that we’ve been intensely prototyping and working on improving the game mechanics in Gate Zero. This has been the focus of our design and programming teams for the past few months with one goal: to make the moment-to-moment gameplay so fun that players want to engage with our game again and again.

One of the areas we’ve been testing out are traversal actions for the player character. Here’s a clip from a little test of Max using a shepherd’s staff. What do you think?

Capernaum

Capernaum is a crucial location mentioned multiple times in all four gospels. It is the home base of Jesus when He began His public ministry, and is often referred to as His second home. Some key places include the house of Simon Peter’s mother-in-law, the Sea of Galilee and the synagogue where Jesus taught.

Our art team has been busy moving from the concept art stage to building Capernaum in Unreal Engine 5. Throughout the process, we consult with historians to ensure historical accuracy. Many elements here will need a lot more work, but we wanted to share the beautiful art our team has been creating so far!

Capernaum Docks

Concept art of the boat construction facilities

Capernaum Synagogue

Models of the synagogue

Sea of Galilee

We also recently implemented water into the world of Capernaum. Here's an early player interaction test at the Sea of Galilee.

Instagram Viral Success

In October, our Instagram[www.instagram.com] broke records. Over 9.5 MILLION people have now seen Gate Zero content in the last 90 days on Instagram! We also saw a 5x follower growth since October, and we're currently at 128,000 followers! We wrote a post-mortem detailing some stats and lessons learned here.[biblex.io]

Would you like to further support our mission?

Bible X, as a part of the media organization BCC Media, is a non-profit game studio. Donations to Bible X are tax-deductible. If you would like to make a year-end gift to support our mission to bring the Bible to the next generation, we invite you to check out our giving page here.[biblex.io]

And that’s it for now! We hope you've had a wonderful Christmas and New Year. Thank you for all your support for Gate Zero in 2023, and we look forward to sharing more in the year to come!

Follow us on social media: Mailing List[mailchi.mp] | Discord[discord.gg] | YouTube | Instagram[www.instagram.com] | TikTok[www.tiktok.com] | Twitter | Facebook[www.facebook.com] | LinkedIn[www.linkedin.com]

Bible X

Development Update Sep-Oct 2023

18 Oct, 2023

Hi G8-0ers! Here's an update on what we've been working on in the past month.

New location

We've been busy developing a new location where a lot of the gospel stories take place in: Capernaum. Last month, we completed the concept art:

We've now moved on to modelling Capernaum in 3D. Here are some screenshots from a very early First Pass of our Capernaum art development:

Game Design Sprints

We have entered an intense prototyping phase where the design, animation and programming teams are working on quick iterations to test out new game mechanics to potentially include in Gate Zero. These features are still in the testing phase so we can't show them publicly, but stay tuned!

All the feedback you guys have been sending in after playing our prototype here on Steam has been very helpful!

Below: What happens when a game dev tries playing around with a new feature but the whole thing backfires 😂 (Disclaimer: May not be seen in the final version)

We are hiring!

We have a few open positions available. Check them out here[biblex.io] and share them with anyone who may be interested!

Join our social community

Our community is growing on social media. Join our Discord[discord.gg] if you'd like to meet likeminded people, contribute to our game in various ways, and participate in contests to win cool prizes!

Follow us on social media: Mailing List[mailchi.mp] | Discord[discord.gg] | YouTube | Instagram[www.instagram.com] | TikTok[www.tiktok.com] | Twitter | Facebook[www.facebook.com] | LinkedIn[www.linkedin.com]

Bible X

Demo Update 2.1

9 Aug, 2023

We released a new patch for the Gate Zero prototype on 04/07/2023. This is a late update, but we would like to inform you anyway!

PATCH NOTES

Build version: Demo 2.1 (Revision 8807)

Additions:

Spanish translation added (subs and UI)
Portuguese translation added (subs and UI)
Added support for changing look sensitivity of mouse and controller
Olive press and first fruit oil item

Fixes:

Horse jumping animation freeze
Horse interaction & Max floating issue
Horse duplication issue
Last puzzle page is locked until the image puzzle is solved

These bugs you guys sent are hilarious 😂 But we decided to fix them after all...

Bible X

Back Gate Zero on Indiegogo!

9 Aug, 2023

On July 5, we concluded a successful Kickstarter campaign for Gate Zero, raising €307,154 with 4145 backers.

But we still need your help!

If you believe in our mission and are interested in supporting us so that we can create an even better game for you guys, check out our Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign.

THANK YOU for all your support so far!

Click here to go to Gate Zero's Indiegogo page

Bible X

Play our new prototype!

23 Jun, 2023

We're excited to have you try out a brand new preview of Gate Zero! Please note that this preview serves as a prototype and proof of concept, showing newly-designed game features. It may not have the polish of a full-blown demo.

Your feedback is invaluable to us as we refine the core elements of our game. We kindly request that you take a 5-minute survey[www.surveymonkey.com] after playing to share your thoughts.

Click on this link to report bugs.[biblex.canny.io] (Links to the feedback survey and bug reporting can also be found within the demo)

If you liked the demo, consider supporting us on Kickstarter!

Enjoy the experience!
The Gate Zero Team

To download the demo, go to Download Gate Zero Demo on our Steam page.

Bible X

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