The Bible Retold: The Bread and the Fishes

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Having a huge number of followers is great when you're the prophet of a new religion, but all those people tend to get hungry and grumpy at some point. Sadly, sermons don't sate their bodily appetites.

Playing as Jesus Himself, in The Bread and the Fishes it falls upon you to provide the five thousand believers who have gathered on the shore of lake Gennesaret with food. While you're at it, you might as well grab the chance to heal some sick, wounded or disabled people.

The author thought it funny to portray the relation between Jesus and God as an irreverent father-son buddies friendship, filled with informal speech and anachronisms. Not that this bothered me, I just didn't think it was funny.

Overall, the game is well-implemented and detailed. It has a pleasant atmosphere throughout, with nicely written locations and characters. The puzzles are mostly easy and straightforward, except for one mathematical problem which, allthough not too hard, is a bit of a bore and doesn't fit the tone at all.

An attempt at a funny riff on the miracle of the bread and the fish, not always successful. The mythological gravitas of this bible-episode is completely stripped away, and the jokes are not good enough to fill the gap. Even then, a pleasant way to spend an hour or so.

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BR:BF is a fun game, if some of the puzzles misfire. It's a jokey retelling of Jesus feeding a crowd with bread and fish. You, as Jesus, need to actually find the bread and fish. It's a tricky prospect. There are people to be healed, and once they are, your Father above--well, he certainly lets you know what to do next. It's kind of a goofy joke I don't want to spoil, but it doesn't get old. No great theological arguments are broached.

Some of the puzzles require Biblical knowledge, and one sort of does--or you can use trial and error. It's based on the number of verses in each chapter of Mark, which seems a bit odd, and there's a bit of arithmetic too. While i like having numbers integrated into a puzzle, this felt like busy work to me, although it also gave the feel of a big, lost place, and it was sort of neat and different to put different priorities on things you needed to map. You then unsurprisingly have to do something based on a Bible verse.

This all is a bit odd and uneven. But there are neat moments of talking with the people you've healed and getting very modest favors back from them in search of your big grand meal. I am, however, glad I had David Welbourn's walkthrough as a crutch, so I could enjoy the humor scattered through the game, and I found it interesting enough to replay for what I saw in the AMUSING menu. Certainly I studied it harder than those old Bible verses.

Oh, the ending is a funny take on things. Crowds being crowds, what they do is sort of expected, and it makes for a satisfying denouement.

Though BRBF's puzzles seem forced, I did enjoy the general storytelling and world and humor involved even if it never soars. So I do quite recommend it, but keep a walkthrough handy so it's not too frustrating. Navigating the addresses in the village is an arithmetic grind.

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Best game description ever..?!:

In this Biblical tale, you play as Jesus. A crowd of five thousand people have gathered in a field outside the town of Bethsaida to hear you preach, but they’re all very hungry. It would take a miracle to feed this many people, but since you’re the son of God, you might find a way to do that. But how, exactly?

This game was an entry at IF Comp 2006 where it took 21st place. At the 2006 XYZZY Awards, it was a finalist in the Best Individual NPC category for the character of God.

(Emphasis added.)

Excerpt from David Welbourn’s blog.

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Biblical games are always interesting in how they play out. Tenth Plague, about the plagues in Egypt, takes a dark and bitter look at God; Cana according to Micah takes a thoughtful approach; and this game takes a goofy and buffoonish look at God.

You are Jesus, and you have to feed the 5 thousand. To get the 5 loaves and two fish in the story, you have to collect them yourself. Throughout the game, God will accidentally hurt people, send you text-like messages, joke about sex, etc.

The puzzles are a bit uneven. At first, they are mostly standard adventure puzzles, but then they enter a weird mathematical-ish realm where you have to use arithmetic progressions to find houses corresponding to verses in the Bible.

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