The Aetherlight: Chronicles of the Resistance

We are a Christian family but we don’t go to church on a regular basis. We have our reasons. Because we don’t go to church regularly, Clay and I have to find fun and new ways to introduce the Bible to our children. I love to find things in our everyday lives that relate to something from the Bible. Another way, with kids this day and age, is through video games.

Most kids and teens love video games but they don’t want to play a game that is strictly Bible related or tells the story word for word. I’ve found that my kids learn more and put things together more when they can take something fictional or fantasy and see the similarities between that and something Clay or I have told them about the Bible. They are then seeing it for themselves and it seems like they are being taught. It works really well!

Disclosure: I received a complimentary sample from BuzzPlant. All opinions are my own.

We’ve been testing out a new action adventure game called The Aetherlight: Chronicles of the Resistance (pronounced (ether-light) and it’s pretty cool. The game doesn’t straight up copy the stories from the Bible. The names are different. It is set in a Steampunk style. You’re not following Moses through the promised land or anything like that. Instead, you are helping to save a world from darkness and evil. Airships get shot down. You have to save the residents from evil automated machines. You will join a Resistance and work with the mysterious Scarlet Man against the evil Usurper.

So, you see, it isn’t strictly Bible. It is good versus evil to save a world from a terrible fate.

The game is a download. It is heavy. We have fairly good internet. But the first time you start it, it does seem to take a while for it to load up and check for new content and updates before we can log in and play. I didn’t notice a ton of lag after that.

Parents can create a “parent account” to change some of the settings like allowing chat. Also, if a child signs up they enter their parent’s email and you receive a verification email that you have to click before your child can play.

The graphics are gorgeous! The colors are bold and vibrant and there is a lot of nice detail to the setting. My teenage son and I both thought that the story was a little hard to follow. The characters have captions that tell you what they are saying. There is a “map” icon on the upper left that gives you missions to accomplish.

As you accomplish a goal it will update with new goals to achieve. The part of The Aetherlight that was hard for me to follow was the missions. They tell you what you need to complete but they don’t really give you any detail on how to do it. I found myself just clicking around the screen trying to find what I was looking for.

Players collect items throughout the game that let you build things like watering cans and other items to help complete a mission. I wasn’t really sure which items were to be collected so i just clicked on everything at first. Then I started to recognize items that might be lit up or useful.

You have to avoid the “Automaton’s”. These are characters that you fight along the way. You can usually avoid them but running in a new direction if you see one. If you do have to fight them, your friends you’ve made along the way help you out. You ‘ll take turns fighting. You use a weapon of your choice to hit it, then it takes a turn at you. This was a little slow and draggy on my computer.

I can see how The Aetherlight game gives kids an example of good versus evil. I’m not sure kids would really ever connect it to the Bible if the parents didn’t give some idea about it relating. With that said, I do still feel that it helps you learn right from wrong as far as the good guys fighting the bad. I think with a little hint from parents, kids would make the connection to the Bible at some point.

Either way, it’s a cute game that can be played on PC, Android or Apple devices.