Designing Keep the Faith. Creating a Storytelling Game About a Religion in Transition

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.48783/gameviron.v22i22.272

Keywords:

Religion, Game Design, Tabletop Role-Playing Games, Board Games, Storytelling Games, Design Reflection, gamevironments

Abstract

This piece is a design reflection, written by the designer of Keep the Faith (2025), a storytelling game about a religion in transition. The piece highlights similar games and games that inspired the design and details the ways in which the game presents arguments about religions. It describes the functions served by fictionalizing a religion (e.g., refraining from setting the game in real history), and discusses how narratives around peripherality motivate different subsets of players via the game’s goal cards, and concludes by offering advice and suggestions for game designers considering creating similar games.

Author Biography

  • Greg Loring-Albright, Harrisburg University of Science and Technology

    Greg Loring-Albright, PhD (he/him) is a game designer who lives along the Susquehanna River. He designed Ahoy (Leder Games, 2022) and co-designed Bloc by Bloc: Uprising with T.L. Simons (Outlandish Games, 2022). He teaches in the Game Design and Interactive Media programs at Harrisburg University of Science and Technology. He has been, throughout his life, a Presbyterian, a Mennonite, a Quaker, an Episcopalian, and a "none."

The cover of gamevironments issue 22 with a diagram showing peripheries.

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Published

2025-07-31

Issue

No. #22 (2025): Special Issue "Peripheral Religions"

Section

Reports

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