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As with any unlicensed game company, Color Dreams had trouble selling their Nintendo games. This trouble was mostly due to Nintendo threatening to cease business with stores that sold unlicensed Nintendo games. Retailers could not afford to lose Nintendo (as they gave over 50% of the sales stores like Toys R Us) so unlicensed companies got the boot.
In 1990, someone at Color Dreams had made the suggestion to make bible games. Although many of the programmers took the idea as a joke, Roger Deforest explained that "it was a concept that had never been explored in video games before...scenarios from the Bible turned into challenging and educational video games. It was quite revolutionary in that aspect. I remember when the owner presented us with the idea of making religious games. He was so excited with his idea. And he convinced us it�d be BIG."
The first game released under the Wisdom Tree name was Bible Adventures. The guys at Color Dreams used many tactics to promote their game to Christian stores. Wisdom tree sent out 3-foot Bible Adventures cardboard displays and even a few VHS "demos" showing footage of their latest game. In one such video, the following was said: "This game promotes bible literacy and teaches children about the bible while they play a fun and exciting Super Mario Bros. style video game." These promotions helped Wisdom Tree get their foot in the door at many Christian stores.
The majority of Wisdom Tree�s releases were made using the Crystal Mines game engine. Exodus and Joshua were Crystal Mines games with tweaked graphics. The engine was modified again for Spiritual Warfare and yet a third time for Bible Buffet.
Below is a list containing information such as interesting facts, known game revisions, and so forth concerning Wisdom Tree�s NES games. The games were revised to keep up with Nintendo's constant change of the "lock out" chip and to fix bugs found in the earlier releases.
Bible Adventures | Versions: 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.3/BC-3, 1.4, 5.0 and 6.0
Wisdom Tree�s first Nintendo game. The original releases had glitch in the Noah�s Ark game. This prevented the user from obtaining all of the necessary creatures to complete the game. Cartridge available in both black and blue cases.
Bible Buffet | Versions: 6.0
This video game is actually a board game. The game came with a large Bible booklet which contained the questions to go along with the answers programmed in the game. Only one version of this game is known to exist.
Exodus | Versions: 4.0, 5.0 and 6.0
One of the "sequels" to Crystal Mines. Although three versions of this game exist, version 4.0 seems to be the most common.
Joshua | Versions: 5.0, 6.0
Another one of the "sequels" to Crystal Mines. Two versions exist, though we aren�t sure what was changed between them. The Lost Levels of Joshua was released for Gameboy on the NIV Bible cartridge.
King of Kings | Versions: 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 5.0
The original artwork for this game was done by a professional painter. The people at Color Dreams/Wisdom Tree were dissatisfied with the work so they got Nina Stanley to design up a new artwork design. This design was used on the original game carts, then the artwork was redone yet a third time to appeal to kids. As for actual differences between games, the color palettes have been slightly changed between the game revisions.
Spiritual Warfare | Versions: 6.0, 6.1
Spiritual Warfare was probably Wisdom tree�s best game. Warfare is a Legend of Zelda clone, and quite a good one at that. A secret message has also been found in the game: "SUPER SECRET BONUS ROOM. Game Design & Programming Jim Vance & Charles. Artwork by the amazing Nina. Music & Sound Effects Roger & Vance." However, no one seems to remember how this is accessed.
Sunday Funday | Versions: 6.0
Sunday Funday is broken up into three different games: Sunday Funday, Fish Fall, and The Ride, a sing-a-long song by 4him. Funday and Fish Fall were graphic hacks of previous Color Dreams games, Menace Beach and Free Fall respectively. The game Sunday Funday was the last Wisdom Tree (and the last Nintendo) game released, manufactured in 1995.
A few unreleased WT games have been rumored, such as Creation and Jericho. However, no one seems to remember anything about these titles (so I doubt much work was done on them).
Over the duration of seven years, Wisdom Tree released the following: seven (7) NES games, one (1) SNES game, six (5) Gameboy games, four (4) Genesis games, and numerous PC titles. Wisdom Tree still sells many of their games today after all of these years. We can expect to see a PC version of King of Kings in time for Christmas of 2004. Amazing.
Special thanks goes to Michael Lucas, Brenda Huff and Roger Deforest for their countless help and support. I�m not sure what I would do without you guys.
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