Foundations of Hope: Spiritual Warfare

Game Name: Foundations of Hope Online
Technology: TGE + MoM Kit
Genre: Christian Fantasy MMORPG
Company: Lethal Games Corporation
Game Website: Foundations of Hope Online

As stated in my original blog, The Foundations of Hope is a Christian MMORPG, or at least it can be considered Christian-acceptable. The goal is to create a game that can be played by both mainstream gamers and by Christians and neither side be offended. All the character classes that can be chosen have the option of never really getting into any religious aspects, that is except for the Paladins(Warriors of God). It is clearly stated that gamers should stay away from the Paladin class if they do not want to deal with any Christian aspects. A portion of the quests in the Foundations of Hope game will be very class-specific quests. The Special Forces will have their secret missions, soldiers will have quests dealing with the army, and Paladins will deal with these spiritual warfare creatures that no one else will ever see or know about. So if you never play the Paladin class, you will never have to deal with these creatures.

Why class specific? Although not part of the spiritual warfare discussion I figured I would explain. The Foundations of Hope series is based in a futuristic Earth that has been put into medieval-like state because of sun storms that continuous flood the Earth. So although a fantasy game and series, I really try and keep things as real and scientific as possible. In the real world, the Special Forces would not be doing secret missions with other armed branches, etc... So to keep things real, there will be general quests that all can participate in, but there will also class specific quests that each class must bond together and fulfill by themselves as if they were really doing the job of the character they were playing. The Spiritual Warfare stuff definitely depart from my personal scientific views and from my scientific approach to the game, but it sure makes some interesting critters for the Paladins to face.

The Foundations of Hope is a game of war. The physical war between the humans, Saurians(Lizard Creatures), and the Dragons. All classes have to deal with this physical war. But the Paladins have another battle they must deal with. The Paladins have vowed to search out evil and destroy it. I have Paladins in my book series, but I do not ever dwell on anything dealing with what they actually do. I only hint and that is about it. The Paladins are provided "Gifts" by God(healing, etc.) that come into play in the series, and many of their other Gifts will be used when they start battling these creatures in the game.

It was actually something I really had to think about whether putting the Spiritual Warfare realm into the game was business smart. Could Christians, and for that matter mainstream gamers, really handle it? The overwhelming consensus is "Bring it on!". Each class will have a separate storyline(quests) that also are part of the main game storyline. So the tricky part is to somehow incorporate the spiritual warfare storyline into the physical world storyline.

So as you look at the screenshots you will start to get any idea that although the Foundations of Hope game can be considered Christian, it is going to be far from a light-hearted, make-you-feel-good, game you would expect. Nor will it be a "preachy" game. My goal is to create a serious and raw game, that no matter whether Christian or non-Christian, the game play will be so hardcore they really will not care. The way Paladins will deal with these creatures is by using "blessed" weapons and by using the Gifts provided by them by God(not magic, therefore Christian-acceptable). I personally am interested to see how I will modify AFX to provide the special effects for these Gifts.

As the screenshots go down, they are going from a medium level critter down to a higher levels(don't know what I will use for low level yet). As the Paladin advance, they will deal with these critters that have skin texture. But the higher they advance they will encounter more evil creatures that have a more fire and lava style texture. This is to signify these creatures are closer to the "lake of fire".

For my July GG post, I plan on a focus of the Saurian(Lizard Creature) characters that players will be able to play so lookout for that. I am burnt out on the whole spiritual warfare modeling. Watching Sci-Fi's Ghost Hunters and modeling these characters at the same time makes for some restless sleep.

Also as promised from my previous post, here is the process I use for using Milkshape, fragMOTION, and Ultimate Unwrap3D to model, texture, animate and get into the Torque DTS format. It is only the process, not the how to use the programs. Hope it helps somebody.

Tutorial

As previously stated in the last blog, although the characters are not actual Daz characters, I have been given permissions to create similar low poly looking models so that the illustrations in the book series match the game.

Paladins:
Male Paladin Screenshot1
Male Paladin Screenshot2
Male Paladin Screenshot3
Female Paladin Screenshot1
Female Paladin Screenshot2
Female Paladin Screenshot3

Critter screenshots are taken from ShowTool Pro.

Spiritual Warfare Critters
Demon1 Screenshot1
Demon1 Screenshot2
Demon1 Screenshot3
Hellhound Screenshot1
Hellhound Screenshot2
Lava Troll Screenshot1
Lava Troll Screenshot2
Lava Troll Screenshot3
Demon2 Screenshot1
Demon2 Screenshot2
Fire Dragon Screenshot1
Fire Dragon Screenshot2