The Game Boy Advance Bible That Never Saw The Light Of Day
The Christian Bible is the best-selling book of all time by a wide margin, a title it has held onto for an untold amount of time. It's been printed and reprinted time and time again for well over a thousand years. And in the last few decades, the Bible has made its way to a number of new platforms, including audio books, digital copies, and even video games.
You've probably heard of games like "Super Noah's Ark" and other such Bible-centric adventures. Ever since the gaming industry took off, companies with religious interests have been putting out games meant to simultaneously entertain and teach kids about different biblical stories and figures. A newer game, "I Am Jesus Christ," looks to provide players with an opportunity to experience the New Testament through the eyes and deeds of its main character. But what may surprise you is that the Bible itself has also been ported to video game screens!
In one case, the full text of the Bible was meant to be made available on Game Boy Advance, presumably for kids on the go who might not have room in their suitcase for the whole book. However, the cartridge never made it to market.
The GBA Bible only exists as a prototype
Forest of Illusion, a collective dedicated to video game preservation, brought this canceled title to the public's attention in April 2023 after finding a test cartridge for the game. Forest of Illusion has previously saved lost Nintendo games like "Carnevale" and exhaustively documented other titles that were never release, including "Mario Kart XXL." According to Forest of Illusion, the GBA release of the Holy Bible got so far into production that cover art was created for it.
We've preserved a cancelled version of The Holy Bible for the Game Boy Advance, developed by Rainbow Missions and originally set to be published by Crave Entertainment! It came very close to a release, with even boxart being created. Unfortunately it never ended up releasing. pic.twitter.com/VE10mqLNNi
— Forest of Illusion (@forestillusion) April 10, 2023
The GBA Bible's publisher, Crave Entertainment, was no stranger to producing religious-themed video games. The company had previously put out "The Bible Game," a bizarre little title in which players must participate in mini games and answer Bible trivia questions posed by a demon. This "game" would have been significantly less interactive, however, with the main inputs seeing to be pressing Start to begin reading and a few other button presses to scroll through the book's digital pages.
It's unclear why Crave Entertainment's Bible never saw a full release, but Forest of Illusion has dumped the full ROM for the unreleased title on the group's website for curious game historians to check out.