I have designed and published an interactive
3D Temple of the Old Testament, based upon the Tabernacle of Moses. This
format is in what is called a module or mod. The mod is for computer game
called Neverwinter Nights or
NWN. (I will be using the abbreviations as I continue on this page). Whether
you hate or love computer role-playing games, what is unique with this
game system, is that you can create your own mod's or games.
This feature is so nice, there are 2 projects
I know of where schools have used NWN as an education tool.
To teach fact-finding
skills, professors at the University of Minnesota have turned the fantasy
computer game "Neverwinter Nights" into a tool for journalism students.
Instead of slaying monsters and gathering gold, the players tackle sources
and gather information...
...The team, which
includes game designer Matt Taylor and journalism professor Kathleen Hansen,
have now modified the game graphics to look like a modern town, the fictional
Harperville. A train has derailed, spilling toxic ammonia, and the players
are sent out to cover the story. They dig up information by going to the
library, government offices or talking to a retired train engineer at the
bar...
...The goals of the
game are not only to reinforce the thinking process behind information
gathering and distinguishing between different types of sources, but also
to teach etiquette, Paul says...
...Russell talked
about using MIT Comparative Media's Revolution NWN mod with homeschoolers.
Revolution is an NWN mod created to teach students about 18th century colonial
Williamsburg. Russell argued that the game allows students to learn about
aspects of social history; it is an educational resource to be used among
others. For example, in the workshops of each of the 7 characters, players
learn about their tasks and goals.
Among the learning
objectives of the game, Russell included geography, trade and employment,
social class, gender relations, slavery, family obligation, and communication.
In one hour of class play, Russell wanted to see how the students would
model the complex social system of an 18th century colony...
Revolution is the
Education Arcade's multi-player, American Revolution-themed role-playing
game based on historical events in the town of colonial Williamsburg. Set
in 1775, on the eve of violent revolt in the colony of Virginia, the game
gives students an opportunity to experience the daily social, economic,
and political lives of the town's inhabitants. By allowing role-play from
one of seven social perspectives -- from an upper class lawyer, to a patriotic
blacksmith, to an African American house slave -- Revolution places students
in a situated learning context. Games respond to player choice. One's actions
have real consequences that depend on one's politics, gender and class
standing in colonial society...
...Developed as a
multi-player 3D game, Revolution is designed to be played in a 45-minute
classroom session in a networked environment. Each participant navigates
the space of the town, interacts with other players and townspeople, and
is given the opportunity to act in and react to various events that in
one way or another represent the coming of the war. Revolution includes
a strong narrative component, an important aspect to drawing the player
into a world of actual historical events. But players also improvise their
own stories, based on the resources available to them as well as the choices
they make in real-time as the game unfolds. Because the game is networked,
players collaborate, debate, and compete, all within a simulation that
maintains historical suspension of disbelief with graphical and behavioral
accuracy. Revolution combines the best elements of live classroom role-playing
exercises and period drama films to provide a new kind of teaching resource
for understanding American history.
I was able to find
the download for Revolution but not for the journalism module. The main
page for Revolution is here:
As you can see Revolution was made by MIT.
Download the file named: revolution.zip , then unzip it and read the instructions
inside. More instructions can be found here:
As you can see, I am not the 1st to use
NWN as a learning tool. I took a peek at Revolution and think they did
a great job on it. Be warned, installing Revolution makes permanent changes
to NWN. I think these are merely starting screen changes but am not sure.
More info is in the instructions listed above.
By creating your own mod, you can control
everything that is placed in the game. As such, I have created a Biblical
environment which has NO fantasy elements such as magic or monsters. Of
coarse a person is limited by the computer graphic models to use in the
game. As such, some models are not accurate to what the Bible gives. Fortunately
NWN has been around awhile and because of this flexibility many computer
artists and modelers have created numerous custom content to be used. Unfortunately
the more content you use, the bigger the resources for the mod. Revolution
uses alot of custom content for example. Some extra content has to be added
via hakpaks or haks. This is not like other computer game hacks where a
person breaks into the code to allow people to copy and play the game for
free or changing the graphics illegally. Bioware, the company that made
NWN, has made hakpak compatibility, where you can load in custom content
just by using the games tools. In fact they encourage this and have given
out awards for such content.
I have chosen minimal custom content to
make the mod and corresponding hak as small as possible while giving satisfactory
Biblical imagery to the appearances needed. You can see pictures below
of such examples. If I were a modeler or computer programmer/scripter I
could make an impressive realistic temple that could look almost exactly
like the pattern God gave Moses, unfortunately I don't have those skills.
If someone out there has such skills and wants to make such models for
me, I would gladly use them for another mod.
I am not setting you up for a disappointment
however, as I am very pleased with the final outcome. It gets the job done.
I have taken the time to make the quality as good as possible to represent
the excellence God desires His people to give the world and to His church.
This is no shoddy work. I have spent about a year of experience creating
mods for NWN and thus have experience to make a mod of quality. Of coarse
there are many out there who can do better than me, based on their computer
skills or the amount of time they spent in fantasy gaming. That is not
my focus or calling and as such I think I can put my other skills into
the task at hand to give a New Testament look at the Old Testament Temple
imagery. While those with modeling skills may not have the gifts needed
to put together a Biblical tool such as this.
NWN may be the best vehicle for such an
endeavor that I know of, for what I wanted to do. There is other such vehicles
for other similar works. For example you can download a 3D Tabernacle of
Moses which you can explore here (free):
They also have an online version and I
think even a chat room version. But there are no lessons involved, only
looking at the imagery itself. And the imagery is much more accurate than
the one I have created. But you can move around inside the 3D environment.
There is another such project, the old one is no longer working and they
are working on a new one. You can check out their webpage and work here
(but the program is not up and running yet):
Bioware is about to release NWN2 (this
was written spring of 2006), this will slow down NWN future projects, but
some predict, because of the flexibility of NWN, it will continue to get
support from the community as well as from Bioware, and some are reluctant
to believe NWN2 will be any better. The benefit of this is you can get
NWN cheap, especially used copies. Whether you go to Ebay or a local used
media store. However, to use my original mod, you will also have to have
both expansions for NWN: Hordes
of the Underdark (HOU) & Shadows
of Undrentide (SOU). Again, these expansions give commercial fantasy
mods, but also give new tileset terrain, useable for making mods as well
as other newer features, thus they are redeemable and don't have to be
used for fantasy entertainment. However, as of the new update, I now have
a no-expansion version available for download as well. There are other
expansions, in particular one called Kingmaker, I believe, but that is
solely a commercial mod and adds no more content for mod builders. These
2 expansions can be purchased together in 1 package with NWN if you buy
the NWN Diamond
Edition. It contains everything you need. Be aware though there are
many DVD copies of this, and it won't work unless you have a DVD player
for your computer. I think, but am unsure, that there also are CD versions
of the Diamond Edition. Look for this format if it is a concern before
you purchase a copy.
There is also a Gold
Edition, but this is only basic NWN with SOU. You could buy that and
then purchase an edition of HOU separately. Or you can purchase all 3 separately
like I did, and I got the expansions used real cheap, less than $10 each.
One locally the other on Ebay.
You will then need to install all these
onto your computer, and probably need to update the game via the patching
process through your internet connection (this is free and just fixes errors
in the game and adds more content).
Remember, I also have a no-expansion version,
and thus you only need basic NWN to run it. But you can run both versions
with the expansion installed.
The following is the readme file I created
for my mod called The Temple Pattern:
a NeverWinter Night's module made by Doma,
webmaster of www.kingdom-gospel.com
This module involves a series of quests
to study the Old Testament Temple patterns via New Testament understanding.
A small hakpak is needed for this mod,
named sheep2.hak. This hakpak is just a merger of someone else's
custom content of sheep and a Pillar of Light creature I made from Bioware's
shaft of white light. This was not any modeling work by me, I simply followed
a tutorial in how to make objects into usable models for new creatures.
You need to place the sheep2.hak here: C:\NeverwinterNights\NWN\hak
or wherever your hak folder is for your NWN's game. Then you must place
the TemplePattern.mod here: C:\NeverwinterNights\NWN\modules
or wherever your modules folder is in your NeverWinter Nights folder.
To play the mod, no level, class, or any
other restriction is needed. A level one character of any race, class,
or alignment can play. Or any level can play as well. To start the game
simply start NWN, hit Play, New, Other Modules, (scroll
to:) Temple Pattern, Load, (then choose:) Create New Character
or Select Premade Character.
If you choose Create New Character, you
must then follow the instructions to make it, hit Ok, then click
Play.
If you choose Select Premade Character, you must scroll to a character
you want, click on it, and hit Play.
To begin your adventure speak to the very
first person you see in the game, a priest holding a staff. You are free
to explore if you want, but you will not get the quests until you see that
particular priest first and follow his instructions.
One note on doing quests. The priests and
other NPC’s may ask you for items. After you get the items, you only need
the item(s) in your inventory. Simply follow the conversation nodes to
give the item to the NPC, the NPC will take the item from your inventory.
You do not need to “hand” any items in, they will take the item if you
have it. You cannot complete a quest without having the quest items in
your inventory and the series of quests is progressive, therefore you must
do them in order to complete the module adventure. The journal may be auto
activated to help with the more complex quests. Simply access it to see
what quest you have been given, not all quests have journal entries.
Some of the conversations are a little
long. Make sure you scroll down the text to read all the conversation.
There isn’t anything extremely long.
Feel free to contact me about any game
bugs you find.
www.kingdom-gospel.com/contact.html
Thanks,
Doma
webmaster of www.kingdom-gospel.com
-----------------------
Here are the additions/changes in the no-expansion
readme:
This version was made for those who do
not own or don't want to buy the expansions needed for the original Temple
Pattern mod for NWN. You should read the original readme for the Temple
Pattern, as well as this one. There are small differences between the 2
versions. This version lacks the "bread" graphics, the tents, as well as
NWN's desert (and a few other minor changes). I have added a custom made
desert tile set instead. Thus 2 hakpaks are needed for this version. The
2nd hak is bigger than the sheep hak. But is relatively small compared
to many other tile sets or other hak's out there (and it's free). This
hak is named desertv0022.hak. Just like the sheep2.hak, you must
place this hak here: C:\NeverwinterNights\NWN\hak . You may also
notice a different name for the mod: The Temple Pattern.mod . I
added a "The" to it, so you can own both mods if you like.
This mod goes in the same folder the original one does.
I also made some other changes of minor
difference, little things like more sounds and such, just some extra details
I missed in the original version.
------------------------
You can download that readme file at the
link above as well as here:
That link leads you to the webpage on the
Neverwinter Nights Vault where I uploaded my modules. It is a website for
NWN content. I am NOT the owner or webmaster of that site, it is simply
a tool I am using for them to host my NWN content for free. I am however,
the User content provider for that page. I have access to what can be downloaded
there as well as descriptions of my content. I do NOT have any authority
over the advertising on the page. My website cannot handle the actual mod
or hakpak for my mod, and thus have to use such websites.
On that page you can view some pictures
of my mod: The Temple Pattern as well as download the needed files. That
page has the readme's and mod's zipped together as 1 file without the haks.
You can also download a complete package that has zipped together the readme(s),
the mod, and the hakpak(s). I suggest downloading that as it has everything
you need (if you own NWN, SOU, HOU - for the original mod, or download
the other package if you do not). But the hakpak is not on that page (separately),
but there is a link to it. Which takes you here:
That page is on the same website and is
simply the page for the hakpak I created. Which is needed for the mod.
The desert hak was not made by me. I chose
a small desert tile set, that had relatively good graphics. There was a
smaller desert tileset, but the tileset was not very good. There was a
3rd desert tileset that was awesome, but the size was huge. You can download
the desert tileset here (if you want to download it separately):
You will need a zip utility to uncompress
these files (except the solo readme file). They are compressed so that
they can be stored with less space as well as downloading faster. I zipped
them with Winzip. You can get Winzip for free here:
That will zip and unzip any files you need
with the .zip format, if you do not have a utility that does so. There
are other free zip utilities on the internet as well.
I suggest looking at the 4 other pictures
I have at the Vault which I linked to above as well. The 2nd picture here
is the High Priest standing behind the Ark of the Covenant. As you can
see it is not an exact resemblance of the actual pattern God gave Moses,
but the image is close enough to get the point across. The other character
you see was the character I was using to take pictures of the module. All
pictures were taken in the original module.
As I understand it, we are not allowed
to charge for modules for NWN, as well as any custom content we make. And
this means there is lots and lots of free stuff to download, but that doesn't
mean there are plenty of christian works to view. If you would like to
make a donation for this project, you can do so here:
I am considering making other christian
based modules, perhaps fantasy ones similar to C.S Lewis' work. If there
is a call for such work, this will help me decide. Please contact me if
you are interested or if you find any errors in my module, so I can update
and fix it. Thank you. Download this free christian based game free now!
If you would like to tell a friend about
this webpage click here:
If you wish to contact me, click on the
link in the pink area on the left or below.
