Andy Geers on Creating the Narrative World of The Serpent & The Seed

I have been playing games since I was a child and have always especially loved story-driven games like point-and-click adventure games. As a young adult, I first caught the vision of using narrative adventures to help people explore the Bible, but it has taken me 20 years to realize that vision.

Discipleship Tech is all about using technology to help introduce people to Jesus. We believe that he is the best news in the world, and we want as many people as possible to have the opportunity to come to know him and explore the Bible’s message.

The idea for The Serpent & The Seed began with a simple question: “What if the Bible had been outlawed so that only one copy remained?” What would the experience be like if you discovered that book and tried to read it in secret while exploring its message?

We wanted to build something that was accessible to as wide an audience as possible, without assuming anything about the player or whether they already had any kind of faith. We aimed to create an experience that was beautiful and emotionally engaging—and these awards would seem to suggest that we succeeded.

The two things that really stand out are Greg Clifton’s stunning visuals and the musical soundtrack by indie folk duo Poor Bishop Hooper. Together, they create a beautiful and relaxing experience that draws you in.

We also developed an innovative shadow-based lighting system that further enhances the game’s visuals.

It was a real challenge figuring out how to adapt the Bible into game form without distorting its message along the way. We didn’t want the Bible to be used merely as a “theme” or “setting” for the game; instead, we wanted the gameplay itself to reinforce the message of the passages we were exploring, so that the interactions and mechanics worked together to tell the story.

It was hard work and meant everything took much longer than if we had simply been inventing our own story from scratch.

For a small team like ours, this was especially important. We had to keep the scope and scale of our ambitions in check to make sure we could finish the game—especially when trying to cover the whole Bible story from Genesis to Revelation.

I just love indie games and want to see that kind of originality and vision continue to go from strength to strength, not just over-commercialized games driven primarily by profit.

Give me human-made art over something made by a machine any day! With our project, we aimed to build something that helped people engage with the real world and those around them—playing side by side with a family member, incorporating built-in limits on screen time, and encouraging gameplay that inspires players to look at the world in a slightly different way once they step away from the screen.

This was so important to us—we didn’t want to simply teach “facts” about the Bible. Instead, we wanted to get under the skin of the emotions within the text and explore why the Bible’s message is so powerful, engaging the player’s emotions in a meaningful way.

We want people to think differently about their lives and how they fit into the bigger picture of the universe. It’s hard to imagine a game with a bigger ambition for the impact it could have on people’s lives.

There is hope. No matter how broken our world feels, or how much you personally may have messed up, don’t give up. There is hope for restoration and redemption.

To be honest, this has been my dream project for 20 years! It has been a privilege to work on it with such a talented team of collaborators.

We are continuing to develop The Serpent & The Seed and exploring ways to translate it into other languages and bring it to additional platforms. We also have a few early ideas for follow-up projects to help people engage further with the Bible.

The rise of mobile has been a major change since I first had that vision 20 years ago. The idea of creating a mobile-first game would have been unheard of when I first set out on this journey.

For us, the big discovery was the importance of prototyping—finding those little moments of delight in each scene and endlessly refining them until the experience felt truly fun and joyful.

I am the biggest fan of Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP—and that game was a huge inspiration for The Serpent & The Seed.

Just do it. Don’t be discouraged if it takes longer than you expect. Keep going and keep trying new things.

Find other people who can help you in the areas where you feel weakest—but don’t be held back if you can’t find them. Focus on what you can move forward on.