Wisdom Tree
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
manufacturer and distributor of unlicensed Christian video games for the Nintendo Entertainment System
Nintendo Entertainment System
The Nintendo Entertainment System is an 8-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America during 1985, in Europe during 1986 and Australia in 1987...
, Super Nintendo Entertainment System
Super Nintendo Entertainment System
The Super Nintendo Entertainment System is a 16-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America, Europe, Australasia , and South America between 1990 and 1993. In Japan and Southeast Asia, the system is called the , or SFC for short...
, Game Boy
Game Boy
The , is an 8-bit handheld video game device developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on , in North America in , and in Europe on...
, PC
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
, Mac
Macintosh
The Macintosh , or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced by Apple's then-chairman Steve Jobs on January 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a...
, and Sega Genesis, headquartered in unincorporated
Unincorporated area
In law, an unincorporated area is a region of land that is not a part of any municipality.To "incorporate" in this context means to form a municipal corporation, a city, town, or village with its own government. An unincorporated community is usually not subject to or taxed by a municipal government...
Pima County
Pima County, Arizona
-2010:Whereas according to the 2010 U.S. Census Bureau:*74.3% White*3.5% Black*3.3% Native American*2.6% Asian*0.2% Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander*3.7% Two or more races*12.4% Other races*34.6% Hispanic or Latino -2000:...
, Tucson, Arizona
Tucson, Arizona
Tucson is a city in and the county seat of Pima County, Arizona, United States. The city is located 118 miles southeast of Phoenix and 60 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border. The 2010 United States Census puts the city's population at 520,116 with a metropolitan area population at 1,020,200...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Wisdom Tree was born from the remnants of Color Dreams
Color Dreams
Color Dreams was a company that developed video games for the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System . While most companies that developed NES games obtained an official license from Nintendo to produce game cartridges, Color Dreams was unusual in that it developed NES games without an official license...
, one of the first companies to work around Nintendo
Nintendo
is a multinational corporation located in Kyoto, Japan. Founded on September 23, 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi, it produced handmade hanafuda cards. By 1963, the company had tried several small niche businesses, such as a cab company and a love hotel....
's lockout chip technology
10NES
The 10NES system is a lock-out system designed for the American version of the Nintendo Entertainment System video game console. Various companies found ways to bypass the authorization chip.-Design:...
on the NES.
History
In the late 1980s, Color Dreams and TengenTengen
Tengen may refer to:*Tengen , the center point on a Go board, and the name of a Go competition in Japan*Tengen , a city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany*Tengen , a defunct video game publisher and developer...
were the largest producers of unlicensed games for the NES, but, due to pressure from Nintendo, Color Dreams faced many difficulties getting retailers to stock its games. Although Color Dreams violated no laws in opting out of the Nintendo licensing system with its workaround of Nintendo's lockout chip technology, Nintendo was displeased that it was receiving no revenues from Color Dreams games, and wanted to prevent other companies from following suit. Thus, Nintendo began to threaten to cease selling games to retailers that sold unlicensed NES games. Because retailers could not afford to stop doing business with Nintendo, unlicensed companies were at a disadvantage. Color Dreams thus had great difficulty getting access to the retail market, and decided to work outside of mainstream NES distribution channels. Also, many of their games were reported to have problems getting to run properly, and were criticized for their lack of quality and gameplay.
In 1990, Color Dreams began to consider producing games with biblical
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
themes. At the time, there were few religious video games for console systems. Officials at Color Dreams saw that there was a market for them and that many stores that would be most interested in retailing Christian games – Christian bookstores – were likely not to sell video games at all, and thus not vulnerable to pressure from Nintendo. While many Christian bookstores at the time sold much more than books—they also sold religious movie
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
s, Contemporary Christian music
Contemporary Christian music
Contemporary Christian music is a genre of modern popular music which is lyrically focused on matters concerned with the Christian faith...
, and other goods—such stores did not sell video games. In order to convince these stores to sell religious games, Color Dreams, through its new Wisdom Tree subsidiary (which would live on long after the demise of its parent company) worked hard to promote this new genre of video games. Wisdom Tree sent Christian bookstores 3-foot Bible Adventures
Bible Adventures
Bible Adventures is a Christian video game by Wisdom Tree and not sold through video game retailers, first released in 1991 for the NES, and re-released in 1995 for the Sega Mega Drive/Sega Genesis. It contains three different games: Noah's Ark, Baby Moses, and David and Goliath, all of which are...
displays, as well as VHS
VHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
cassettes showing gameplay. These promotional videos made the case to Christian bookstores using lines like: "This game promotes Bible literacy and teaches children about the Bible while they play a fun and exciting Super Mario Bros.
Super Mario Bros.
is a 1985 platform video game developed by Nintendo, published for the Nintendo Entertainment System as a sequel to the 1983 game Mario Bros. In Super Mario Bros., the player controls Mario as he travels through the Mushroom Kingdom in order to rescue Princess Toadstool from the antagonist...
style video game." Ultimately, these efforts proved successful, and Color Dreams was able not only to find a new distribution channel for its games, it was also able to launch a new genre of video games, which meant that no other companies competed with its new Wisdom Tree label.
Games
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
theme to them, and were often sold in Christian bookstores and the like. Most games attempted to use the medium to tell Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
stories in such a way as to make them interesting to children of the video game era. Interestingly, many of their games were partial conversion
Mod (computer gaming)
Mod or modification is a term generally applied to personal computer games , especially first-person shooters, role-playing games and real-time strategy games. Mods are made by the general public or a developer, and can be entirely new games in themselves, but mods are not standalone software and...
s of titles previously released by Color Dreams, with appropriate changes in theme. A Wisdom tree product catalog shows screenshots from Joshua & The Battle of Jericho, displaying a side scrolling game using the Bible Adventures engine. The actual released game used the Crystal Mines/Exodus engine.
The company's first release as Wisdom Tree was Bible Adventures
Bible Adventures
Bible Adventures is a Christian video game by Wisdom Tree and not sold through video game retailers, first released in 1991 for the NES, and re-released in 1995 for the Sega Mega Drive/Sega Genesis. It contains three different games: Noah's Ark, Baby Moses, and David and Goliath, all of which are...
, a three-in-one multicart
Multicart
In video game parlance, a multicart is a cartridge that contains more than one game. Typically, the separate games are available individually for purchase or were previously available individually . For this reason, collections, anthologies, and compilations are considered multicarts...
which borrowed many gameplay elements found in the American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Super Mario Bros. 2
Super Mario Bros. 2
Super Mario Bros. 2, often abbreviated SMB2, is a platform game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Entertainment System as a sequel to the 1985 game Super Mario Bros. The game was also remade as part of the Super Mario All-Stars collection for the Super Nintendo Entertainment...
, applied to three different Bible stories: Noah
Noah
Noah was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the tenth and last of the antediluvian Patriarchs. The biblical story of Noah is contained in chapters 6–9 of the book of Genesis, where he saves his family and representatives of all animals from the flood by constructing an ark...
collecting animals for the Ark
Noah's Ark
Noah's Ark is a vessel appearing in the Book of Genesis and the Quran . These narratives describe the construction of the ark by Noah at God's command to save himself, his family, and the world's animals from the worldwide deluge of the Great Flood.In the narrative of the ark, God sees the...
, saving Baby Moses
Moses
Moses was, according to the Hebrew Bible and Qur'an, a religious leader, lawgiver and prophet, to whom the authorship of the Torah is traditionally attributed...
from Pharaoh
Pharaoh
Pharaoh is a title used in many modern discussions of the ancient Egyptian rulers of all periods. The title originates in the term "pr-aa" which means "great house" and describes the royal palace...
's men, and re-enacting the story of David
David
David was the second king of the united Kingdom of Israel according to the Hebrew Bible and, according to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, an ancestor of Jesus Christ through both Saint Joseph and Mary...
and Goliath. The game sold 350,000 copies, encouraging the company to continue pursuing this path of making games.
Other Wisdom Tree games included Exodus
Exodus (video game)
Exodus is a video game that was released for the Nintendo Entertainment System by Color Dreams through its Wisdom Tree label in 1991. Like all Wisdom Tree games, Exodus was not officially licensed by Nintendo....
(a conversion of Color Dreams's old Crystal Mines game, with the story of the Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
ites' 40-year desert trek grafted onto it), King of Kings
King of Kings: The Early Years
The King of Kings is an unlicensed NES video game game published in 1991 by Wisdom Tree, the creators of Bible Adventures.-Gameplay:Gameplay was split into 3 games, each illustrating a Bible story relating to the early years of Jesus...
(similar to Bible Adventures, but now featuring three events in the early life of Jesus Christ), and Bible Buffet (a "video board game" with Bible quizzes). They also released Spiritual Warfare, an action-adventure title similar in style to The Legend of Zelda, albeit with the requisite religious theme (the player, as a foot soldier in the Lord's army, is tasked with saving the souls of the heathen populace, using fruit of the spirit). The company also released ports of some of these games to the Sega Genesis and Game Boy
Game Boy
The , is an 8-bit handheld video game device developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on , in North America in , and in Europe on...
, as well as Bible-reading programs (both King James and NIV versions) for Game Boy. Their Sunday Funday
Sunday Funday
Sunday Funday is a Christian video game that was released for the Nintendo Entertainment System by Wisdom Tree, formerly a subsidiary label of Color Dreams, in 1995. The game was the last to be released by any company for the American NES...
, a conversion of the Color Dreams game Menace Beach
Menace Beach
Menace Beach is a video game that was released for the Nintendo Entertainment System by Color Dreams in 1990...
, was the last commercial NES release in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, with a 1995 copyright date.
Wisdom Tree holds the distinction of having made the only unlicensed game ever commercially released for the American Super Nintendo Entertainment System
Super Nintendo Entertainment System
The Super Nintendo Entertainment System is a 16-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America, Europe, Australasia , and South America between 1990 and 1993. In Japan and Southeast Asia, the system is called the , or SFC for short...
, Super 3D Noah's Ark
Super 3D Noah's Ark
Super Noah's Ark 3D is an unlicensed video game for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and for DOS. It was released by the biblical video game producer Wisdom Tree in 1994, and was the only commercial SNES game that was not officially sanctioned by Nintendo...
. This conversion of the Wolfenstein 3D
Wolfenstein 3D
Wolfenstein 3D is a video game that is generally regarded by critics and gaming journalists as having both popularized the first-person shooter genre on the PC and created the basic archetype upon which all subsequent games of the same genre would be built. It was created by id Software and...
engine featured the player, as Noah, attempting to quell upset animals on the Ark by flinging sleep-inducing fruit at them. Its shape (the only American SNES cartridge to not use the standard Nintendo-manufactured shell) resembles that of the SNES Game Genie
Game Genie
The Game Genie is a series of cheat systems designed by Codemasters and sold by Camerica and Galoob for the Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Game Boy, Mega Drive/Genesis, and Sega Game Gear that modifies game data, allowing the player to cheat, manipulate various...
or Sonic & Knuckles
Sonic & Knuckles
Sonic & Knuckles is a 1994 platform video game in the Sonic the Hedgehog series for the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis. It was developed in the United States at Sega Technical Institute by members of Sonic Team, and was published by Sega worldwide on October 18, 1994.As well as working as a standalone...
on the Sega Genesis, with a pass-through cartridge port at the top; the game requires an "official" Nintendo-licensed cartridge plugged into this pass-through, which allows the game to bypass the SNES's lockout protection and boot up.
The Wisdom Tree game "King of Kings" was listed as the honorable mention in Gamespy.com's "Seven Christmas Games That Make You Hate Christmas", due to its unentertaining gameplay and the farcical feel of dodging "acid spitting camels."
Current activities
Wisdom Tree is still somewhat active today, selling religious video games. The company released an all-in-one "TV controller" system featuring seven of their NES games in a single, self-contained unit. More recently, they have released Heaven Bound, a more modern 3D game for the PC. These games are produced on 3D Game Studio (e.g. Joseph and Galilee Flyer), using the default models that come with the program. Super Noah's Ark is known to be a version of Wolfenstein 3D, as mentioned above. All Wisdom Tree NES games are playable through the official website in the Arcade Section via vNES, a JavaJava
Java is an island of Indonesia. With a population of 135 million , it is the world's most populous island, and one of the most densely populated regions in the world. It is home to 60% of Indonesia's population. The Indonesian capital city, Jakarta, is in west Java...
-based NES
Nes
-Localities:In Norway:* Nes, Akershus, a municipality in the county of Akershus in Norway* Nes, Buskerud, a municipality in the county of Buskerud in Norway* Nes, Hedmark, a former municipality in the county of Hedmark in Norway...
emulator
Emulator
In computing, an emulator is hardware or software or both that duplicates the functions of a first computer system in a different second computer system, so that the behavior of the second system closely resembles the behavior of the first system...
.