On Friday, March 4th, I witnessed something incredible. On the last day of GDC, I attended the "Game Design Challenge 2011: Bigger than Jesus" session. Like the Game Design Challenges before it, this event tasks a small collection of developers to create a game based on a particular theme prior to the week of GDC. The panelists present their ideas at the session and the audience votes on its favorite submission. This year, the challenge was to create a game that's also a religion, or could become a religion in some way. Returning champion Jenova Chen (thatgamecompany) was joined by John Romero (Loot Drop) and independent developer Jason Rohrer.

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At the start of the session, I couldn't have imagined the outcome.Rohrer began his presentation by describing his grandfather, who passed away early in Rohrer's life. Rohrer had little memory of the man, but his grandfather's contributions to his home town resonated long after his death. Even his grandfather's sayings, which included the simple but beautiful "life is to be enjoyed," were learned through living family members -- no one remembered Rohrer's grandfather speaking the words himself.In this way, Rohrer explained, our family members become legends after they're gone; less like people and more like a collection of stories, phrases, and photographs. He continued that these legends are similar to gods. They're things we believe in as opposed to things we've lived through. This intriguing dynamic formed the basis for Rohrer's creation.Rohrer wanted to design something where one player's interaction with the world would form the "starting state" for the next player. Players would not directly interact, but rather see the influence the previous player had over the world. Rohrer used Minecraft as the foundation for this idea and developed it into a playable experience.The result is Chain World, and a strict set of laws that all Chain World players must follow. There's only one true copy of Chain World and it exists on a USB drive Rohrer carried with him into the GDC session. This USB drive contains a Minecraft world and a custom script that Rohrer created. A player of Chain World inserts the USB stick and loads a Minecraft He plays until his character dies. Following the character's death, the player must immediately save, quit to the main menu, and leave the game. Rohrer's script than creates a duplicate of this altered world, saves it onto the USB drive, and deletes it off the player's PC. The player can never play again and must pass the drive on to the next player.Put simply, this is a video game only one person on Earth can play at one time -- a chain of people that influence a single world. Rohrer was the first to walk through this world and, following his character's premature death, was the first to influence it for the next player.At the end of his presentation, Rohrer held up the drive and pondered who in the audience would be the second player of Chain World. Hands shot up eagerly and some even shouted "Please!" as chatter erupted from the crowd. Rohrer looked around the room and clarified that he wanted someone that was truly interested in the experience. At this urging, a nameless attendee got up from his chair and rushed to the podium, holding up his hand towards Rohrer silently. Rohrer looked down from the stage and smiled, passing the drive on to the second player on Earth that would experience Chain World.Knowing all this, you might wonder why Chain World is comparable to a religion. In its current state, it might not seem like much. But imagine years, perhaps decades later, after hundreds of players have influenced this single, digital landscape. How would it feel to walk through a massive labyrinth that was created at some unknown point in time?Rohrer won the challenge after receiving tremendous applause from the audience. I don't know what happened to the attendee that received Chain World, but if someone ever hands you a USB drive and mentions Minecraft, I suggest you take it.