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Wisdom Tree is an American developer and manufacturer of Christian video games, formed as a spinoff of Color Dreams, one of the first companies to work around Nintendo's lockout chip technology on the NES.

Most of Wisdom Tree's games were modifications of existing Color Dreams titles, with cosmetic changes to make them more palatable to Christian audiences. They were perhaps best known for Super 3D Noah's Ark, a biblical reskin of Wolfenstein 3D and also the first and only unlicensed game for the American-market Super NES.

History[]

Besides the sale and production of religious video games, Color Dreams' rationale for establishing Wisdom Tree had more to do with tapping into the then-nascent Christian video game market—as Christian bookstores were at the time not known for selling video games, they were thus not vulnerable from pressure from Nintendo, who threatened to cease selling games to video game retailers who offered unlicenced software for Nintendo systems.

Indeed, conflicting accounts either claim that Color Dreams founder Dan Lawton thought about making Christian video games more "as a joke" than out of sincere piety, or that Mike Wilson, who moonlighted as a Sunday School teacher, suggested the idea. Regardless, their efforts paid off, and Wisdom Tree outlived its parent company, having spun off while Color Dreams left the video game industry to focus on surveillance cameras.

Despite producing games for the NES without any official approval, Nintendo never threatened any legal action against Wisdom Tree, as the company probably feared a PR backlash from parents and religious groups. Ironically enough, while Wisdom Tree's games were unlicensed to bypass Nintendo's strict content guidelines forbidding religious content on licensed titles, a number of officially-sanctioned games such as Castlevania II and III, as well as Noah's Ark either contained religious imagery, or in the case of Noah's Ark, was based extensively on it. Furthermore, an early concept art made for the original The Legend of Zelda shows Link praying in front of a crucifix prior to Nintendo scrapping almost all references to Christianity in the game.

Games released by Wisdom Tree[]

Title Format Release Date Source
Bible Adventures NES 19901990 GameFAQs [1]
Exodus: Journey to the Promised Land NES 19901990 GameFAQs [2]
Exodus: Journey to the Promised Land GB 19901990 GameFAQs [3]
The King of Kings: The Early Years NES 19911991 GameFAQs [4]
Joshua & the Battle of Jericho NES 19921992 GameFAQs [5]
Joshua & the Battle of Jericho GB 19921992 GameFAQs [6]
Spiritual Warfare NES 19921992 GameFAQs [7]
Spiritual Warfare GB 19921992 GameFAQs [8]
Bible Buffet NES 19931993 GameFAQs [9]
King James Bible GB 19941994 GameFAQs [10]
Super 3D Noah's Ark SNES 19941994 GameFAQs [11]
Sunday Funday: The Ride NES 19951995 GameFAQs [12]
NIV Bible & the 20 Lost Levels of Joshua GB 19961996 GameFAQs [13]

External links[]

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