Tearing Down the Idols

My designer diary for Kingdom of Solomon kicked off quite a controversy. A cry has gone up against our inclusion of an Idol space on the board. Comments and emails poured in urging us to purge our game of such paganism. Well, not exactly--several commentors politely suggested that we reconsider our use of a morally-ambiguous (at best) element in a game with great appeal to Christians and Jews.

As one of those aforementioned Christians (and a Bible-believing, serious one, at that), I was a bit perplexed. I guess I'm just very secure in my personal commitment to eschew all idol worship. I viewed the Idol space as an addition to the game's theme. After all, Solomon did turn to idol worship at the end of his reign. But the comments continued. Even some of my non-Christian friends agreed.

Finally, James Mathe, head of Minion Games, decided the sensible thing to do was to make a change. And I agree. There's just no reason to ignore this much vocal opposition against something that will be so easy to change. At the end of the day, I have to consider that this is a bigger deal than I thought it was. As I said in the comments on BGN, I certainly don't want to be seen as promoting idol worship or needlessly offending whole groups of people.

Therefore, the Idol space will soon become the Altar space--the good kind, such as would be found in the Temple. The people have spoken and we have heeded their call! We hope this change will help the game reach an even wider audience. And thanks for all your support during the beginning of our Kickstarter campaign--we are nearly 50% funded in less than a week!