Story & Roadmap

Developer notes: how the book becomes a game, and where we suggest taking it next. These are proposals, not promises.

The book in sixty seconds

In John Bunyan’s 1678 allegory, a man named Christian, weighed down by a burden of guilt, flees the City of Destruction for the Celestial City. On the way he passes through the Wicket Gate, loses his burden at the Cross, fights Apollyon, loses a friend at Vanity Fair, is locked in Doubting Castle by Giant Despair, and crosses the River of Death. Every place and person is a picture of something in Scripture. The book is free to read online and is the best brief anyone on the team can have. See About John Bunyan and The Good News for why it matters.

Principles we suggest

1. Stay in the book. Every character, place and key line should trace to Bunyan. Where we invent, such as the neon city, the coin viewer or the exit scanner, we say so and never add doctrine.
2. No salvation by puzzle. The burden comes off only at the Cross. No item, skill or score can lift it, and the game should say so through the failures.
3. Margin Scripture. A “Marginalia” toggle shows the Bible reference behind each scene, as Bunyan’s margins did.
4. Wrong turns are real but recoverable. The by-paths and bad endings echo Bunyan’s warnings.
5. T-rated. Dark and uncanny, never gory.

What the demo covers

The Wicket Gate comes after the Slough, so it is not in the demo.

Suggested roadmap

Part Two (Christiana and her children, 1684) could be a later expansion.

Proposed endings

Open questions

• Do we keep Bunyan’s language or modernise the dialogue?
• How do we show the Cross reverently on screen?
• How graphic can Faithful’s trial be at T-rating?
• Do we offer in-game doctrine notes, or keep them on the website?
• Is Part Two a sequel or a stretch goal?

▶ The theology behind it

The Way Out: The Good News

Christian’s whole journey begins with one frightened question. A man in the Bible asks the same: “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” Acts 16:30 The game is fiction. The question is not. Here is the answer, plainly, from the Bible that Bunyan loved.

1. There is a God, and He is holy

The world and everything in it was made by one eternal God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He is good, just and holy, and He made us to know and glorify Him.

2. We are in trouble, and it is our fault

That is the burden on Christian’s back. It isn’t just bad habits. It is guilt before a holy Judge, and a heart that turns away from Him. “It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” Hebrews 9:27. Good deeds cannot remove it, any more than Christian could shake it off by hurrying faster. That is why Mr Worldly Wiseman’s road to Morality fails.

3. God has done something about it

Jesus Christ is God the Son, who became a man, lived the perfect life we have not lived, and died on a cross in the place of sinners. “All we like sheep have gone astray... and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Isaiah 53:6 On the third day He rose from the dead, so that the tomb at the foot of the cross in our game stands for a real empty grave. 1 Corinthians 15:3–4

When the burden falls from Christian’s back at the cross, that is the gospel. The weight isn’t worked off or paid back. It is carried by Another.

4. What do we do?

Repent: turn from sin and from trusting yourself. Believe: rest your whole weight on Jesus Christ, who died and rose, as the only Saviour. This is not a reward for good people. “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” Ephesians 2:8–9

5. Count the cost, and know the Keeper

Bunyan never pretended the road was easy. There are swamps, giants, markets and dark valleys. But the Saviour keeps His own: “neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.” John 10:28 Pilgrims stumble and some doubt, but none are left behind.

Where do I start?

• Read the Gospel of John. It was written “that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.” John 20:31
• Talk to God honestly. There are no magic words. One man simply said: “God be merciful to me a sinner.” Luke 18:13 Jesus said he went home forgiven.
• Find a church where the Bible is preached faithfully and believers walk together, a Palace Beautiful of your own. Hebrews 10:24–25
• Ask questions. Talk to a pastor or a Christian friend. Real faith can stand being examined.

Scripture quotations are from the King James Version, which Bunyan would have known. This is a fan-made tribute; the opinions on this page are those of the site’s authors.

Want more depth? ▶ Theology of the Journey

The Theology of the Journey

This page is for those who want to see what is underneath the game. You don’t need it to play.

Our reading method

Allegory is risky. Left uncontrolled, any symbol can mean anything. Bunyan’s safeguard was to print Scripture references in the margins of his book so every picture is tied to a text. Our design follows the same rules, and we use the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (first published in 1677 and publicly adopted in 1689, so “the 1689 Confession”) as our guide to how the Bible fits together.

1. Scripture interprets Scripture. The unclear is read by the clear (1689, ch. 1.9). A symbol means only what the Bible gives it.
2. It is Christ-centred. After the resurrection Jesus showed that all the Scriptures speak of Him. Luke 24:27, 44 John 5:39 Every scene must lead to Him.
3. It is covenantal. The Bible’s story runs through the covenant of works (Adam) and the covenant of grace, revealed from Genesis 3:15 and fulfilled in Christ (1689, ch. 7–8). The tension between Mount Sinai and the Cross is the spine of the first act.
4. Law and gospel are distinct. The law shows sin and cannot save. The gospel gives Christ (ch. 19–20; Gal 3:10–13).
5. The New Covenant community is a regenerate people. All who are in it “shall know me” Jer 31:34 Heb 8:8–11. That is why the game is about a person who is truly changed, not merely a person who belongs.
6. The allegory serves the Word. It is not a new revelation. The Bible alone is sufficient (ch. 1.1), and a dream is only an illustration.

The stations and their meaning

Four key ideas

1. Justification by faith alone. The burden falls at the cross, not at the gate or the house of Legality. The 1689 Confession teaches that God justifies sinners by counting Christ’s obedience and death as theirs, received by faith alone (ch. 11). The three Shining Ones give pardon, a new robe (Christ’s righteousness counted as the believer’s own, Isa 61:10) and a seal (the Spirit’s assurance, Eph 1:13). None of the three is earned.

2. Effectual calling. Christian does not just decide to leave the city. Evangelist’s word reaches him, and he cannot stay where he was. The Confession says God calls His elect by His Word and Spirit (ch. 10). Pliable is different: he too hears and follows with joy, but there is no root. The game lets you feel the difference.

3. Perseverance and assurance. True believers are kept by God (ch. 17), but they can doubt, and a true Christian may lose the sense of assurance for a time (ch. 18.4). Doubting Castle and the Key of Promise illustrate this. The key is not a feeling or a deed. It is something God has said. The same chapter warns that hypocrites may deceive themselves with false hope (18.1), and Ignorance represents them.

4. The church. Christian does not travel alone for long. He is received at the Palace Beautiful, joins Faithful, and is fed by shepherds. For Baptists, the church is a gathered body of professing believers (ch. 26, 29), and the road is walked together.

Where we do not claim too much

The Confession was first published in 1677 and adopted by the Baptist churches’ General Assembly in 1689. Bunyan died in 1688 as the pastor of an open-communion church in Bedford, and he is not listed among its signatories. His theology was Reformed in its doctrine and Baptist in holding to believers’ baptism, though he disliked party labels, and his book is a pastor’s work, not a systematic treatise. The Confession is our lens on the story, not a claim about his private opinions. The story belongs to Scripture, and where we are wrong it must correct us.

▶ Meet the author: John Bunyan

About John Bunyan

Notes from the development team’s research file.

A tinker from Elstow

John Bunyan was born in 1628 in the village of Elstow, near Bedford, England. His father was a tinker, a mender of pots and pans, and the son followed him in the trade. He had little formal schooling. As a young man he served for a time in the Parliamentary army during the English Civil War, was known for swearing and for playing games on Sundays, and later described himself as the “chief of sinners.”

Conversion

His first wife brought two religious books as her only dowry: The Plain Man’s Pathway to Heaven and The Practice of Piety. They troubled him. He tells us in his spiritual autobiography, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners (1666), how he went through years of fear, doubt and despair before finding peace in the grace of Christ. Some of those years later became the Slough of Despond and Doubting Castle. He joined a gathered congregation in Bedford under the pastor John Gifford, and began to preach himself.

Prison

After the monarchy returned in 1660, preaching outside the Church of England’s services became illegal. In November 1660 Bunyan was arrested. He could have gone free by promising to stop preaching, and he refused. He spent about twelve years in Bedford gaol, making shoelaces to support his family. Being parted from his family, especially his blind daughter Mary, grieved him deeply. His second wife, Elizabeth, pleaded his case before the judges. He was released in 1672 and became the pastor of the Bedford church. He was imprisoned again for a shorter spell in the mid-1670s. Biographers disagree about which imprisonment saw The Pilgrim’s Progress begin to take shape. Many favour the shorter one of about 1675–77, and others the long one.

The book and the last years

The Pilgrim’s Progress (Part One) appeared in 1678 and was an immediate success. Part Two, the story of Christian’s wife Christiana and her children, followed in 1684. Bunyan wrote about sixty other works, including The Holy War (1682). He remained a pastor and a peacemaker. In August 1688, he rode to Reading in heavy rain to reconcile a father and his son, caught a chill, and died in London on 31 August. He is buried in Bunhill Fields.

Where Bunyan stood

Bunyan was a Baptist who held to believers’ baptism, though his Bedford church welcomed both baptised and unbaptised believers to the Lord’s Table. He wrote in defence of this open communion against Baptists such as William Kiffin, a leading London Baptist who held a stricter view, and Kiffin later signed the 1689 Confession (first published in 1677 and adopted publicly in 1689). Bunyan, the pastor of an open-communion church, was not a signatory. Bunyan’s early work The Doctrine of the Law and Grace Unfolded (1659) already shows the covenant framework that shapes this game. It sets the law of works against the covenant of grace in Christ.

Why he still matters

Bunyan used plain words and vivid pictures. He wrote that the way to heaven is by Christ alone, that it costs everything, and that nobody walks it alone. He suffered for his conscience, and the book we are adapting is a record of what that suffering taught him.

Dates and details come from standard biographies and Bunyan’s own writings. If you spot an error, tell the webmaster.

▶ Back to the Story

Meet the Cast

Real actors. Real latex. Heights are to scale – look at Giant Despair!

ChristianOur weary hero. Lose the Burden!	EvangelistSilver-bearded guide.
FaithfulYoung, honest, fearless.	HopefulSturdy and loyal.
Mr Worldly WisemanGreat advice. Bad idea.	TalkativeNever stops talking.
ApollyonOwns the city.	Giant DespairJailer of Doubting Castle.

In Motion

Pick an actor, an action and a location. Slough scenes switch to the swamp automatically. Walkers and runners cross the screen. Everything is filmed, digitised and cut out by hand.

Zoom-Ins

Click TALK on anyone and the camera pushes in for a close-up. Lips and eyes move. Here Christian’s wife pleads with him in the hallway of the family home, while his own shoulder fills the left of the frame.

The Box

Retail box art – PC CD-ROM, MS-DOS / Windows 95. Shelves this Fall!

Screenshots

In-engine, 640×480, 256 colours. Look, Talk, Use, Take, Walk, just like the classics. (Pre-alpha – final game may differ!)

Cutscenes

Crunched full-motion video, played with real actors. Press SKIP at your peril.

PILGRIM.EXE – City of Destruction

PILGRIM.EXE – Apollyon’s Throne

PILGRIM.EXE – The Cross

PILGRIM.EXE – Doubting Castle

Concept Art

Downloads

System Requirements

Guestbook

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