Just over two years ago, Pokémon Go took the world by storm, and even though the hype has died down since then, others are still trying to replicate Niantic’s success.
Others like the Catholic Church, for example.
Catholic evangelical group, Fundación Ramón Pané, has released their own version of the popular mobile game, and it’s called ‘Follow JC Go!’ because they’re not even pretending that it’s an original idea.
The game, which is currently only available in Spanish, consists of your character encountering saints and characters from the Bible and answering questions about them.
So Moses might ask you, “Was it me who said ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And if you answer correctly (the answer is no – Jesus said it), Moses will join your Evangelisation Team. Yay!
Go on, follow him!In addition to collecting saints and other biblical characters, you can also collect money, bread, water and spirituality in order to keep your character healthy.
Do you like my purple hair?
The game encourages players to stop and pray if they pass a church, and also enables players to donate to charity within the app.
While the game wasn’t developed by the Vatican itself, apparently the Pope is a fan. The executive director of the group behind the game told CruxNow:
“You know Francis is not a very technological person, but he was in awe, he understood the idea, what we were trying to do: combine technology with evangelization.”
Not a very technological person? The man has nine Twitter accounts!
According to the BBC, a team of 43 designers, Bible experts, and Catholic Church historians have spent 32,000 hours on the app since August 2016, thanks to $500,000 worth of private donations. What a fantastic use of money!
“Who’da thought learning about religion could be fun?!”
Think of this game as the Methuselah Rookie Card for a new generation. Flanders would approve.