Video games are amazing, or at least they should be. While many video games are fun, few actually line up with the truths of the Bible. If we took Philippians 4:8 as our video games standard, very few would pass the test.
Brent Dusing wants to change that. He’s a Christian, father, and CEO of the gaming studio TruPlay Games. His goal is to create games that are fun to play and point back to truths about God.
Brent is the first to say that you don’t have to play video games, but if you do you should make sure it’s something that is good for your heart and mind. TruPlay is here to help make that happen.
Transcription:
Purposely. Your life. God’s purpose. Listen at onpurposely.com.
Nathan [00:00:12] Welcome to the Gospel Tech podcast, a resource for parents who feel overwhelmed and outpaced as they raise healthy youth in a tech world. As an educator, parent and tech user, I want to equip parents with the tools, resources and confidence they need to raise kids who love God and use tech. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Gospel Tech podcast. My name is Nathan Sutherland and this podcast is dedicated to helping families love God and use tech. Today we are joined by Brent Dusing of TruPlay. Thank you, Brent, for joining us.
Brent [00:00:49] Great to be here, Nathan.
Nathan [00:00:50] Really excited for this conversation today, everyone, because Brent is, as I mentioned, the CEO of TruPlay, which is a Christian game design and content creation studio and just going to have a conversation about video games, the gospel and kind of everything in between. So. Brent, would you kick us off by just telling us a little bit about yourself and how you got to the spot of being the CEO of TruPlay?
Brent [00:01:11] Yeah, I’ve been a technology entrepreneur for a long time. 17, 18 years. Started out my career in Silicon Valley in 2001 as a venture capitalist, then moved into sort of my first company when I was 26 in 2005 called Cell Fire. If you’re listening, you might not have ever heard of it, but you might have used our product. If you’ve ever shopped at Safeway, Kroger, any of their affiliates … Randalls …QFC for you up in Seattle. If you’ve ever gone in there and they say use your cell phone to save money or use digital coupons, that’s our product. So I invented that. We sold the business. It was a good outcome for everybody. I then started a company on making games on Facebook. You remember you might remember the days of Farmville on Facebook, right? So we made games like that. We didn’t make Farmville. We made games of that kind of style. But that told explicitly a biblical narrative. So we did The Journey of Jesus, The Journey of Moses, a game called Stained Glass, where you played explicitly biblical narratives. And we had 7 million people play these games and we had people play them, you know, high engagement statistics. We had people playing for long periods of time. The core audience for Journey of Jesus played for nine years. And so we knew how to build games that, you know, told a biblical narrative, were actually fun and engaging. You can look at engagement statistics and they indexed much better than kind of the average game on Facebook. And so that’s kind of how we got started doing Christian games. And that’s ten years back at Lightside. About four years ago, I started asking myself a lot of questions. What am I going to do with the rest of my life? And I was bothered by what I was seeing. Right? I was bothered by the fact that anxiety, suicide and depression rates are at all time highs for kids, which exactly mirrors the rise of social media on smartphones. I was bothered by the fact the average male in our country is exposed to pornography when he’s 11. And by the way, four years ago, that number was 13 years old. So it’s worse. You know, there’s so much kind of toxic messaging now, dumped on children from all kinds of different angles in content, in media and social media. And you realize the net effect of all those things are the following statistics: for the first time in your and my life, less than half of Americans go to church, while people over 40, 62% of people over 40 believe in God in America, which is actually pretty good. Only 32% of kids. So it’s half basically, which is which, you know, how do we get there? You know, that’s to me, that’s a crisis. And I think to a lot of people, that’s a crisis. And so you look at the reason we got there is because we spend so much time, you know, focusing on different solutions rather than focusing on where kids spend their time. They’re on screens, they’re on screens 52 and a half hours a week. And that’s where we’ve got to focus and that’s where we’ve got to be. And that’s really what Truplay kind of spurred Truplay, right, which is, let’s build a multimedia entertainment platform, really high quality, beautiful, fun, exciting entertainment experiences that also convey God’s truth.
Nathan [00:04:14] And that’s because they’re already there. So this is kind of a boat to fish from approach, of the kids already out there. And we are, we’re just going to go amongst them.
Brent [00:04:23] Yeah.
Nathan [00:04:24] Rather than hey let’s try to get these kids in a church per se. So kind of almost like a young life model. Would that be fair?
Brent [00:04:30] No I’d say it like this. I mean, look, I think every kid should be at church. This is not in any way replacing church. It’s just that the average I mean, how often are you at church? An hour. A week?
Nathan [00:04:39] Yeah.
Brent [00:04:40] Right. And only half of Americans are at church. So they’re there 30 minutes a week on average. Right. Whereas the average American child is on a screen 50 hours a week. So that’s literally 100 to 1. All right. So you look, what did Jesus do? Sure. He spoke in the synagogues, but he was also, to use your metaphor, right, of, you know, at the fishing docks. He was in the field. He was on the hillsides. He went to parties, by the way. Right. And so he was where people were. So today, where are they? Well, kids are on screens. And, you know, I grew up in the eighties listening to a lot of great Christian leaders and pastors who I respect, but essentially saying things like, don’t watch that TV show, don’t go to that movie, don’t listen to that music. Okay, fine. But what am I supposed to do? Like, you can’t tell children in 2022. Well, just run outside all day and eat tree bark. I mean, that’s a nice aspiration, but that’s just not realistic. You know, you go to school and they’re handed an iPad. Right. So if they’re going to be digitally engaged, we’ve got to bring content that’s truly excellent and fun and world class, not just mediocre. Right. And we’ve got to be right there.
Nathan [00:05:45] So then let’s start with the question of why video games as that medium for those screens to use those 50 hours.
Brent [00:05:53] Great question. A few different reasons. One is that if you look at the time and money spent in that segment, that’s where kids are. That’s where kids are, there was more money spent. I think there’s $190 billion on just mobile games were spent the last year alone, not counting PlayStation consoles or Nintendo consoles, just phones and tablets. You know, when you look at kids preferred time that they spend what they’re doing. Roblox. Minecraft. Right. Games they’re playing right on their IPad. Among us. Fortnite. Games they are playing right on these devices. And so that’s the medium. That’s the language. I mean, think about when Billy Graham in the 1940s began his ministry, he was using this brand new technology that was radical, which, by the way, not a lot of not every Christian was okay with. It’s called the radio. Now, see, now the radio seems antiquated, right. And outdated. And that’s an old thing. But at the time it was groundbreaking. Then they’d have a, you know, ministry shows. You look at, you know, other pastors, it would start, you know, TV programs. And that was also considered well, you know, TV is we’re not so sure about that. You know, the how can you really tell the gospel? Now it’s a normal thing to expect a pastor to have a video up on YouTube. Right. So it’s just that forms of media continue to evolve and change and the gospel has got to be right there with it.
Nathan [00:07:13] So what does that look like then? You mentioned there are games that are explicitly, you know, biblical. So we’re talking about Jesus, we’re talking about Moses. What does it look like to convey the gospel through a game format,because in my mind, like it, it would be difficult to do without either trivializing it. I know I grew up playing Bible. I played a Fruits of the Spirit game where you put on the armor of God, and I think there was a banana involved at some point, or like I went to collect sheep for Noah’s Ark. So how, how do you convey the gospel through a game then.
Brent [00:07:48] So I’ll give you a few examples. So one of our games is called stained glass. And stained glass was for a long time the top Christian game in the App Store. It was designed by a fantastic team, including a couple of Apple Award winners. And that app that actually stained glass game will be in the Truplay app that we’re releasing next year. So for everybody out there, before I get into the question, Truplay is one app with a whole bunch of games, digital comics, video experiences inside one app for for kids and families. So to answer your question, with stained glass, you collect your matching glass pieces like a puzzle. You set the game part, you collect the glass pieces you’re supposed to collect. They then form pieces of a stained glass window. Once you’ve collected enough pieces of a stained glass window, they form a stained glass window. And then it comes to life. And a character from the Bible comes and tells you their story. So in stained glass, in the beginning, it’s Eve and she’s telling you would be like if you had a cup of coffee with Eve and you got to ask, well, what was it like to live in the garden? And what was it like to look in God’s eyes and tell him you’d sinned? And what did it feel like for him to say, you can’t live here anymore? And so kind of the story of stained glass was conveying the Bible is not just a bunch of nice moral stories. The Bible is real people experiencing a real God. Another game that we had, it still stands as the most successful game in the genre is called Journey of Jesus. So in that game you played someone who followed Jesus. So it started out. The first scene was him getting baptized. So you assume no prior knowledge from the player. You walk in, somebody is getting baptized. What is this about? You see the Holy Spirit descend and your goal in that game, It’s kind of a task oriented game. So as an example, you go to the wedding, you go to this wedding and this guy’s stressed out and my wedding is going to be ruined and what’s going to happen? And you meet a woman as you go through the party who says go talk to my son he’s outside. And you meet a man. He says, Hey, go get these water jugs, collect them for me so you collect them, and he says go fill them with water. You fill them with water. Then he turns the water into wine. So it’s a very kind of task driven, conversationally driven game. And there’s a lot of games, you know, like diner dash, like Farmville, like a lot of the SIM style games that are kind of appointment mechanic task driven games that have been very popular. Now, that’s one genre. The biblical games that we make at Truplay. Inside True play also, there’s a different, a new world called the Rimverse. You can see my shirt, which is a little bunny rabbit with a tiger costume on it. Her name is Maple, and there’s an animated short you can watch about Maple. We have a new one coming out in a few weeks. And what in the Rimverse, it’s obviously fictional, but God is real and the Bible is true. And the characters inside the Rimverse are children who have their own stories and personalities and struggles as well we can get into, somebody, one of the kids parents are divorced, one of them’s brother died, one of them is adopted and they’re working through stuff, but they’re also combating real evil. And they’re also going on these adventures and quests because there are these evil forces in the world that are trying to manipulate or destroy or take power. And so through the course of the different games and episodes and stories, they’re confronting those things. But the kids are praying. God shows up sometimes in the way that they expect and sometimes not. And, you know, it’s kind of a juxtaposition of, I think, in our culture now, not as many people, you know, we kind of almost lost a meaning of what is truth. And so juxtapose it with what is truth, well truth is from the Bible and what does that mean? And so there’s a lot of that driven inside the narrative very explicitly in what we call the Rimverse, which is maple and all of her friends.
Nathan [00:11:19] Okay. And is the Rimvese like, is that a specific game or is that a thread that gets woven throughout multiple of these games?
Brent [00:11:26] It’s more of the latter. It’s a universe in and of itself that multiple games are contained in as well as animations. And so in other words, each of our characters, we have about six or seven main characters Maple, Lucas, Oliver, Ava, they each have their own game. They then combine in each other’s games. They have team up games where they’ll all combine forces to fight a certain bad guy and it’s all in. There’s digital comics inside the platform as well. If you go to our website at truplaygames.com, there’s an animated short where you can watch the very beginning of the story. And so the whole it’s kind of like there’s this metanarrative that’s woven over a long, long period of time. And then each individual game is a self-contained story, an adventure in and of itself that feeds into the larger narrative. It’s like an episodic TV show, you know, you can watch one episode and get an episodic story. Then there’s a larger thread that continues over time.
Nathan [00:12:16] It is, as you were talking about, that I don’t know if this is a good comparison, so I apologize in advance. That sounds like kind of the video game version of like almost a VeggieTales where you have an intentional gospel message, not current VeggieTales old school VeggieTales back when they talked about Jesus, but that idea of conveying an intentional message in this case it’d be interactive and you have, but you have your recurring characters, you have kind of your recurring themes and interactions between them and you kind of grow along with them.
Brent [00:12:47] It’s a little bit more, no …it’s a little less like VeggieTales and a little bit more like if The Avengers was telling the story that was Christian, you know, like when The Avengers started and it was you started with Iron Man and then ultimately ending with the Avengers Endgame, forget about what’s happened since then, but, you know, yeah, and at that point, right that was like an 11 year build up for a certain story arc to be paid off. Yeah. Even though within each movie there was always a narrative that was being resolved as well, even though they were large. So in other words, rather than what other people have typically done, which is, you know, syndicated content tends to be like if you watch an old episode of Seinfeld or, you know, cheers, everything the way everything started in the episode it ultimately resolves. Right, Right. You’re essentially or Friends and you’re the same thing happens over and over again from the beginning of the story to the end. Whereas if you watch most serialized television shows today, what’s happening in that episode, in episode one directly impacts what goes on episode two and three and so forth, right.
Nathan [00:13:49] For the crown or whatever.
Brent [00:13:50] The crown, Exactly. It’s a little bit more like that where again you’ve got and oh, but again, they’re in this world where God is real and the Bible’s true, but they’re also combating real evil. So it’s not so much about telling a… it’s not so much about telling kind of a self-contained story. It’s about a larger, you know, broader narrative about, again, with characters who I think are more relatable because it’s about again, it’s it’s issues kids deal with one of them like Maple she she’s just headstrong. You know, she she really believes in God. She has a high degree of faith, but she doesn’t really care about other people’s opinions. So that’s like her deal right now. If someone else is Oliver, who’s our kind of bookworm, he’s our nerd. He thinks he knows everything because he thinks he’s read all the books. And he’s also adopted. So he’s kind of struggling with that. Where’s this? Where’s God and all that? So it’s dealing more with characters that I think I think issues kids are dealing with today.
Nathan [00:14:47] Okay. Thank you. I think that helps, at least me and I hope our listeners as well as we think about, like, what does TruPlay look like, what would that mean for our families. I guess a pair of questions come out of that then. Who is your intended audience for this? When we come to who you’re hoping is going to pick up this app, play these games and what? All right. Let’s ask that one first, because then that next question kind of splits.
Brent [00:15:09] So, our audience is really we find family. So it’s built to be enjoyed by kids from five years old up. But we also find a lot of adults playing our games. So we were talking previously about stained glass and Journey of Jesus, which were previous games we made that we’re remastering for the Truplay platform. Those are games mostly played by adults we had a lot of kids play them and we tested, we test all the time with kids and we find a lot of adults want to play the games too. Maple, little light, stained glass. So that’s the thing is that it’s kind of like if you go if you, if you’ve got kids, if you watched a good animated movie with your kids, you actually enjoy it yourself. Yeah, that’s the way that we really design and that we write to be enjoyed by adults as well as kids.
Nathan [00:15:56] So primarily kids parents coming in, it sounds like, of Christian families, primarily like supporting a message at home, or is this intended to be an outreach like Jesus for the win as a group, you know, that goes out to gaming conferences and and just presents the Bible and that’s it. Just Jesus loves you. Jesus loves you, right? Like just handing out basically tracks at gaming conferences. Is it that idea of like, we were just want to be a game that anyone would enjoy it happens to be gospel or is this, man people are gaming and there’s really no content a Christian family can appreciate. So we want to make it for that group.
Brent [00:16:27] It’s really both. So I’ll give you some interesting statistics. So when we did at Light Side where everything we did was explicitly biblical, we had 7 million people play our games, a third of them were not Christians. Yeah, with true play, we’ve done a lot of survey data. We found 58% of non-Christians were interested. They said we had an independent non an independent secular firm interview 500 non-Christian families and 58% said we’d be interested in subscribing to this because there’s so so the answer is it’s both. We’re feeding the Christian family because the reality is and I’ve got kids too, and I know if you do as well.
Nathan [00:17:08] I do Yeah. Nine, nine, seven and three and a half.
Brent [00:17:10] Yeah. So you’re right in the middle of it, Right. So what, what options do you have? What, what you know, what do you have as entertainment options for your children that purport your values. They’re few and far between. You know, when’s the last time you’re able to go into a store, a Target or a Walmart and buy a t-shirt that had anything to do with Christianity? Right? When’s the last time you were able to buy your kid a Christian toy? They don’t exist. So we’re feeding a market in the Christian audience that’s really looking for things that they can trust, because I think a lot of Christian families are now feeling what we’re hearing. They’ve lost a lot of trust from established companies, established content. They’re not sure what’s safe for their kids anymore as well. On the second or second hand, there are a lot of families who aren’t Christians but who want good, wholesome, positive entertainment for their kids. They don’t want their kids playing Grand Theft Auto. They’re worried about the chat rooms and things that go on a lot of these online games. And they’re also worried about a lot of the, you know, oversexualized, hyper violent stuff that also goes on in general content that’s marketed for kids. And they don’t trust that either. And so they know that this is something a message that they can trust with foundations and principles that they can get behind.
Nathan [00:18:20] Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for that clarification, because I do think that it’s a fascinating idea of how are you guys going about it, which I guess is the second part of the question for. How do you determine, and this is going to be a little bit in the weeds, listeners, please bear with me. You know, I do love the weeds sometimes, especially in gaming. How do you determine which games are going to be a good fit? So you have your Rimverse and you have your kind of big picture vision of families and young people, positive content. But how do you determine which games are going to fit that? And then within that, the second part of that question is how do you determine which I guess game development tools are enough engagement to make it fun and entertaining, but not so much that it becomes manipulative and starts building that near-real, you know, hooked loop of behavioral training where now this is where we go when we feel sad. Instead of running to the Lord, we run to a game about the Lord, which is good for fun, but not good for kind of the secondary needs that we have spiritually and emotionally. So how do you guys manage both of those?
Brent [00:19:22] So that to the first part of your question, the way that we make sure that it’s conveying God’s truth. So the parameter we use is everything we do has to convey God’s truth. It doesn’t have to be a biblical game. I mean, obviously there aren’t bunny rabbits with tiger costumes running around the forest in the Bible, clearly. Right. But in Maple, for example, you know, she does, she does quote the Bible periodically because she’s a Christian. She does take actions and make decisions based on her faith. And she prays and God shows up, just like with all of us, sometimes in ways we expect in other ways, some ways we don’t expect, Right. But God’s a real part of her story. And so in the maple story, if you watch the animated short on our Truplay website, it’s the very beginning of the story. But what she ultimately is, is realizing there’s this evil, manipulative queen in the forest who’s twisted the meaning of truth, and she’s manipulating that to kind of seize power. But what it’s really doing is destroying the entire environment, Right? So it’s really the whole message of maple is that words matter, truth matters. What we believe matters, what we say matters. And that’s what’s woven into that story over time. And as I said, that the Bible is woven into that. Now, other games we make like stained glass, like journey of Jesus, we have another game we’re building called King David’s Battles. Those are explicit games, you know, straight out the Bible. So in just the same way that you, that someone might make a movie or a TV show about Jesus. Right. Or a movie or a TV show about King David. Let’s make a video game. And again, it’s a media form that people are using that’s become very popular. There is a lot of darkness in video games. Obviously, there’s a lot of neutral stuff. You know, I’m not here to tell you, Candy, something wrong with Candy Crush. I mean, it is what it is. It’s, you know, go have fun. But there’s hardly anything you can find in games that are positive that’s uplifting from a spiritual, you know, moral standpoint. And that’s what we’re delivering. Whether, again, it’s Rimverse or King David’s battles sorry or or or the Bible. So in other words, we hang everything against how is this conveying God’s truth, whether it’s out of the Rimverse it’s biblical or it’s even metaphorical, We even have a game called Little Light. Remember that little kids nursery rhyme, this little light of mine? I’m going to let it shine. There’s a game we have based on that. So you’re you’re you’re this flame and you’re lighting up these candles and lighting up this dark world, and there’s some scripture woven into it. It’s a fun, little fun little game. So that’s really the way that we look and analyze it. To answer that part of your question, I think the second part was, you know, how do we how do we kind of think about engagement? Right. So first of all, Truplay will be a subscription service. So there’s no in-app purchases, Right? So part of the issue you get into with if you think about if you’re building a game, a lot of companies build in-app purchases and that’s, you know, they have business reasons that they do that. And and a lot of times that’s just the way the economics have to work. But then you get into these issues when you design these games that some game developers have to try to entice people to spend money to buy coins buy extra lives, buy boosting powerups. Well, in Truplay, because it’s a subscription, you know, you subscribe once you get access to everything, just like a Netflix subscription, you know what works. And so there’s no kind of hidden extra, you know, pay me more money. Let me try to, you know, trick you into spending more money inside the game kind of mechanics. And so what it’s really about then is just creating a fun, compelling experience for the player.
Nathan [00:22:48] Yeah. Thank you. And that’s so that is an area of specific passion for me is that that idea of engagement, I feel like many, especially triple-A game studios, tend to act a little bit like Coca-Cola circa circa 1900, where they have they have a great product, but it hasn’t had the cocaine removed from it yet. And we’re delivering these games that basically developing brains can’t put down. They don’t have the inhibition of the frontal cortex to be able to walk away and go, Oh no, that was enough. I enjoyed it and now I should move on. I’m looking to you Prestige classes called Call of Duty Medal system is like a textbook class on how to make more content with doing zero extra programming. So it’s just my personal pet peeve. Not, by the way, the opinion of Brent. That’s just Nathan Sutherland’s opinion. Folks want to make sure you don’t go on the record here. Brent Sorry about that, but thank you for that. That’s awesome to hear. Kind of that’s how you go about thinking through the games and making them sounds like games. Like there’s a challenge, a ruleset, there’s a victory condition. And in that is both the focus on biblical concepts, even if they’re not Scripture per se, but they are biblically grounded, rooted, anchored. And then in addition to that, like just they’re fun to play, they’re, they’re wholesome, they’re yeah, point scoring.
Brent [00:24:05] Discussions juxtaposed in a different way. I mean, if you were going to make a movie, you would there be no question in your mind that you’d want the movie to be made in a way that’s fun and engaging that the people actually enjoy it. I mean, regardless of the message, right? That if you were making a Christian movie, that it should be fun and engaging, right? Or you know, it’d be entertaining, right? Because that’s the reason that’s half the reason people are there or more so. Right. So in the same way, it’s the same thing with a game, you know, you’ve got to design it in a way that it’s fun and compelling and interesting to use because if, if it’s not, then kids will just go play Minecraft and Fortnite and everything else.
Nathan [00:24:41] Yeah, and I guess, I mean, Minecraft, I guess my the reason I was asking is there are games that they have an interesting concept, but they don’t allow the interesting concept to carry the day They and that’s again this might be me going way too deep in the weeds but just to kind of wrap up the thought because I love where you’re taking it. And that’s what I was trying to say is there are games that I think started as an interesting idea. They realized they could make it more profitable, and so they added layers of motivation that didn’t come from the player. The players now being convinced these other things are now important, where it’s never anything that they wanted to play the game and it’s saying sure you wanted the game, but now you also want this and it gives you that next nudge. And once you accomplish that nudge, right, the neuroplasticity takes over at some point, that’s when you start playing games that aren’t you don’t like it anymore. Why are you still playing it? I don’t know. I’m just so invested. Right. And that answer and it sounds like on your guys’ end, you’re being intentional about, No, we’re just gonna play games. And when it’s not fun, you’ll quit playing. We’re not going to, you know, trap you here for any reason. That’s awesome. I think to kind of finish this question, I’d love to hear what was a game or an experience in the gaming world that’s been motivational to you that you’ve found like just personally in your development as a human being. You said child of the eighties. So we were right there.
Brent [00:25:56] I mean, Zelda. Zelda is a wonderful, you know, the Zelda series is a wonderful game.
Nathan [00:25:59] Yeah.
Brent [00:26:00] Oh, absolutely. I mean, the first one came out, it was 1986 so I was 8.
Nathan [00:26:06] Gold cartridge.
Brent [00:26:07] That’s right. That’s right. The first two were the gold cartridges. That’s right. But it should, you know. You know, however many years later, what is it, 30, 36 years later? It should have absolutely been the gold cartridge because it really was the best game made by a mile. I mean, what Shigeru Miyamoto and the other developers were able to do with a little bit of technology they had. Right. Design that first Zelda game. Now Zelda 2 was was okay but Zelda 3 …
Nathan [00:26:36] Link to the past is where it’s at
Brent [00:26:36] As well. Yeah, but that’s right. The Super Nintendo, right? Zelda three links to the past. You know, you can see I’ve never heard him say this publicly, but you can kind of see if you study the game. It’s probably the game he really wanted to make. And they finally had the tech In the early nineties that they didn’t have in the mid eighties and it’s still a masterpiece. I mean it’s still fun, it’s still beautiful It’s it’s you know and it Zelda is one of those games where, you know, it’s like the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, you know, the music, the, the, the artistry, the combat, the puzzles, the mystery all kind of weave together to, to make what I still think are the best video games ever made. I mean, I’m I’m still a huge fan of Skyward sword. I know I might get lit up in the comments about that one but I think it was a beautiful, fun game. So that’s one that I think, you know, when you’re in, when you’re building games and you’re building content. Right. And it’s true for TV shows as well and movies, you know, all of us geek out on different things. You know, I’m a huge fan of the Zelda series. I’m a huge fan of Star Wars. The original three, not the last three. And a lot of my, a lot of my colleagues would say that and they’d have other things that they’re big fans of as well. Because you, everybody, you know, you draw your source of inspiration from a lot of different places. But, you know, all of us were little kids once and got inspired by seeing these worlds, you know, bigger than, you know, taking, capturing our imagination.
Nathan [00:28:02] Yeah. Yeah. That’s amazing. Well, thank you for sharing that with us. I’m right there with you on Zelda. I’m glad to hear there’s another kindred spirit out there. Thank you for your time. Where can people find out more about TruPlay, about maple, about the resources and opportunities you’ve got coming up?
Brent [00:28:16] Yeah. Just please join us on truplaygames.com. You know, this is something we hope everybody enjoys. We’re on social media, you know, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, discord. Please hop on there. Enter your email address. We’re launching TruPlay next year. So jump, you know, hop on your email to get updates.
Nathan [00:28:33] What quarter, next year, do you think?
Brent [00:28:35] We haven’t announced that yet.
Nathan [00:28:36] Okay oh sorry.
Brent [00:28:37] So we’re still we’re still we’re still testing. We’re doing a lot of testing in beta and things. But so yeah, just would love to have people jump on to support. I mean, listen, this is something that we know Christian families have been asking us for. There’s millions of Christian families out there who want this, and there is a lot of non-Christian families who want this, too. And we really will see lives change. And look, we’ve got to all band together as believers to really help change culture for our kids. When you look at how alarming the statistics are on children falling away from God, on all the anxiety and suicide and pressure, it’s all the toxic things they’re exposed to. We’ve got to make a big push in the other direction. It’s got to come with positivity and truth and engagement, not just saying no to something, but giving them something to say yes to. And that’s why truplay’s here.
Nathan [00:29:25] That’s amazing. Well, Brent, thank you for your work. Thank you for your time this morning and excited to see where TruPlay goes.
Brent [00:29:30] Thanks, Nathan. I Enjoyed it.
Nathan [00:29:31] You can find more of the amazing work Brent and the TruPlay team are doing at Truplaygames.com or on Instagram at Trueplay games. And you can join us next week as we continue this conversation here about how we can love God and use tech.
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