by Rich Stratton, Assistant Director of Public Relations
A rare faith-based video game, “Mr. Mueller’s Grand Experiment,” was quietly released on June 21 on Steam, a video game digital distribution service.
The game was created by international missionary Scott Tipton with the help of three Cedarville University computer science students — seniors Mason Beale (Streetsboro, Ohio), Christopher LaFave (Fenton, Michigan) and Jackson Adams (Clive, Iowa).
Tipton, who serves in Spain, has invested his ministry into reaching young people, and a video game seemed like a natural way to continue this effort.
“I remember that before I was a Christian, I was impacted by the media I consumed in both positive and negative ways, and I realized this was a powerful way to communicate ideas,” said Tipton. “I saw an opening for positive, Gospel-focused content.”
"Mr. Mueller's Grand Experiment" is an interactive story based on 19th century Englishman George Mueller, who ran several orphanages exclusively funded by faith in God’s provision. The game is designed to enrich players’ lives with the story of someone who had great faith in God, while giving them fun choices and multiple endings.
Ultimately, “the goal of the game is to show people what great faith in God looks like,” said Tipton. “It was designed to cause people who may think Christianity is flawed or irrelevant to take another look.”
Dr. George Landon, professor of computer science at Cedarville, who learned of the project from a mutual friend and longtime supporter of Tipton’s missional work, recognized the combination of faith and computer science as an excellent opportunity for a senior capstone project.
“This was a perfect project for our students. We have students who want to make video games and appreciate the concept of games that could be used for evangelism,” said Landon.
The students collaborated with Tipton through email and regular video conferencing over the period of several months, taking on the roles of writing the code to turn the written script into computer data, creating the graphic design artwork and creating menus to guide the player experience.
Beale, the team leader, was excited to be part of this effort.
“Working on this project helped me to experience what is required to follow through on a long-term project,” said Beale. “How to work through feedback, determine the best tools and ideas and how to work as a team. It really allowed me to experience what real-world projects look like.”
In addition, Beale was inspired with the concept and purpose of the video game project.
“As I thought through the objectives and worked with my classmates,” said Beale, “I began asking various questions, including what else we could do in the sphere of video games and media to engage people with truth, to cause people to consider the Christian faith.”
“Mr. Mueller’s Grand Experiment” is available in English and Spanish (Castilian and Latin American). Tipton’s next project, “Screwball,” based on C.S. Lewis’ “Screwtape Letters,” is scheduled for release in 2025 and will expand on his effort to grow the faith-based video game market, a prospect supported by Landon.
“Globally, we have a generation coming up that communicates and consumes media in ways very different from those who came before them, and games make up a big part of that. Any title that we can help publish in this arena provides another Gospel opportunity where there are currently very few.”