For churches, schools and homeschool families
Roads of Galilee is a gentle browser game set in first-century Galilee. Players step into fourteen Bible stories as ordinary people who were there, with the story itself told in scripture, word for word. It's a way into a lesson, not a replacement for one: play a story together, then read the chapter.
What to expect
Every verse is quoted exactly from the King James Version, with its reference, and the Journal keeps the ones a player has read.
Biblical figures appear only as figures. They are never given lines of their own: their words come only through the quoted verses.
The player is a sailor, a reaper, a neighbour: never the hero. The neighbours they work beside are invented, and the game says so.
Violent verses aren't quoted. A few great moments are shown: the great fish, David's one stone, the signs in Egypt. The notes below mark them, so you can decide before you play.
The stories
Times are our rough guide for one player, not measurements: allow longer with a group. Each story ends with a keepsake for the player's house and adds its verses to the Journal. Stories give no points or coins.
Jonah 1
A sailor on the ship out of Joppa. Load the cargo, heave it over the side in the storm, find the passenger asleep below, and row for land.
Before you play: a storm at sea, and the great fish is shown coming up and taking Jonah.
Jonah 2 to 4
Jonah's prayer from the deep, then a fisherman on the beach follows him to Nineveh: sackcloth on the animals, food carried up the hill to his shelter.
Before you play: it ends on God's question in 4:10 and 4:11, left unanswered as the book leaves it. A good place to start talking.
Ruth 1 to 4
A hired reaper in Bethlehem at barley harvest. Leave the corners of the field, let fall handfuls for the young widow gleaning, and stand at the gate as Boaz redeems the land.
Before you play: the night on the threshing floor is told, not shown.
Luke 15
A neighbour holds the lamp while a woman sweeps her dark house for her lost piece of silver, then runs to fetch everyone to rejoice with her.
Before you play: nothing to prepare. A short one, and a good first story for younger players.
Jeremiah 18
A new apprentice digs clay and stands by the wheel with the visitor who has come to watch. The vessel is marred, and the potter makes it again.
Before you play: nothing to prepare.
1 Kings 17
A neighbour in a town in the drought balances water jars on a yoke and gathers sticks at the gate, where a stranger has come. It ends with the barrel of meal that did not waste.
Before you play: it stops at verse 16, before the widow's son falls ill.
Genesis 6 to 9
An apprentice at the timber yard cuts gopher wood and boils pitch as the ark goes up. The animals go in two by two, and the door is shut.
Before you play: the story leaves as the first drops fall. The flood, the dove and the bow in the cloud are told in the closing verses, not shown.
Exodus 1 to 13
A brickmaker in Goshen, the signs across the road, and the Passover eaten in haste, staff in hand. You leave at dawn with the kneading trough on your shoulders.
Play it first: the signs are shown, including the river turned to blood, frogs, hail and darkness. The death of the firstborn is neither shown nor quoted, so older groups may ask about it.
Exodus 13 to 15
The camp by the sea, the pillar of cloud, and a walk through on dry ground between walls of water, ending with Miriam's timbrel on the far shore.
Before you play: the sea closes behind you with nobody in it. What became of the army isn't shown or quoted.
Exodus 16 to 20
Manna every morning, water from the rock, and the mountain on a smoke with thunder and a trumpet. The Ten Commandments are given in full.
Before you play: it ends as Moses comes down with the two tables of stone, before the golden calf.
1 Kings 18
One of the people on the mountain waits through the long day, comes near when called, and carries barrels of water up from the spring. Then the little cloud, and the rain.
Before you play: the fire is told, not shown. The violent verses (18:27, 18:28, 18:40) are left out, so the prophets of Baal simply aren't dealt with on screen.
1 Samuel 17
The keeper of the baggage in Israel's camp, the morning a shepherd boy leaves his bread and cheese with you and runs to find his brothers.
Play it first: the fight is shown as a short scene. David slings one stone and Goliath falls on his face. Nothing after that is shown or quoted.
Genesis 37 to 45
The youngest hand in a spice caravan, the day a boy is sold to it. Twenty years later you buy corn in the famine, bake for the governor's feast, and hear him weep through the walls.
Play it first: a boy is sold by his brothers and walks with your caravan. The pit, the bloodied coat and Potiphar's wife are left out.
Nehemiah 1 to 8
A neighbour helping one family build the stretch of wall in front of their house, a trowel in one hand, until the law is read in the street before the Water Gate.
Before you play: there's a threat and a night watch, but nobody fights.
Two more moments from the Gospels are in the main game, reached by playing it: the roof broken up in Capernaum (Mark 2), and the crowd on the shore hearing the parable of the sower (Mark 4). More discussion sheets are on the way: tell us which stories you'd use first.
Planning a session
Our suggestion on ages: there's a lot of reading, some of it in King James English, so under about 8 it works best read aloud with an adult. This is only a guide.
Practical questions
It's free to play. There are no ads, no real-money purchases in the game, and no accounts to create. Coins in the game are only earned by playing.
A web browser that can show 3D. Nothing to install. It works on computers, tablets and phones, but school networks and older machines vary, so try it on yours before the day.
It's saved in that browser, on that device. Each computer can hold three travellers, and a save code can move a journey to another device.
Playing sends nothing to us. If someone chooses to send a bug report, it goes with game details and any contact they add, and our form provider records the sender's IP address. Sign-ups and this page's form use email addresses, so those are for adults.
Only on the wilderness road, where bandits and wild animals can be driven off. Nobody dies. A group that stays around the lake won't meet them.
The game quotes the King James Version and adds invented neighbours and everyday life around it. It isn't tied to a church or denomination, and it can't replace your own teaching. Some details will differ from how your tradition reads a passage.
Get in touch
We'd love to hear from the first churches, schools and homeschool families to use it: what worked, what didn't, and which stories you'd want next. Your experience will shape what we build. Using it regularly? A group licence supports the work and brings Season 2 to your whole group.