David vs Goliath | Gerald, thus far

David vs Goliath is an iOS app that combines storytelling with mini-games (for those of you with kids or grandkids in the 5-10 age bracket it can be found here: David vs Goliath - Play it with them!).

The narrative tells the Biblical story of David from his early life as a shepherd up to his legendary showdown with the warrior-giant, Goliath. While famous worldwide, the story is commonly misunderstood as “rare win for the little guy facing a big bully” when in reality it is much more than that.

The David vs Goliath story is actually about a young man whose great faith in God led him to risk all to save his nation (Israel) from being enslaved by their enemies. To truly understand the gravity and faith involved is to also understand why the story was recorded for all time and why the Israelites made David their king.

Kids playing through the nearly 40 chapters of this story will encounter:

Samuel, the prophet
Saul, the neurotic King
Saul’s mischievous daughter, Merab
Jesse, the father of David and gameshow enthusiast
David’s less than helpful brothers
Spike, the barking sheep that thinks he’s a dog
Goliath, of courrse!
Goliath’s funny shield-bearer who, for reasons no one understands, seems to have a French accent
and more!

Story chapters are simple point-and-click narrated, but each includes several, optional achievements for the kids to find. Some are simple, but some are more challenging, even requiring a specific sequence of actions to be found.

The ad-free game includes top-notch voice acting, an original score, and sound effects.

Released in 2014, as of this writing, it is currently the highest rated David vs Goliath app on the app store and one of the highest ranked Bible-based games of all time.

Here are some app store screenshots to help illustrate the style of fun we concocted on this project.

And, finally, a bit of nice recognition / awards for the hard work that went into building what was a labor of love from the beginning.

David Hammer (Art Director/Lead Animator/Amazing-Partner-In-Everything) & Gerald Hinson (Script/Software/Audio-Engineer/some banjo) attending the Christian Media Awards in London to receive 1st Prize award.

And some other fun recognition screen-shotted from the RighteousTales website.

Creating David vs Goliath was done with:

1 software engineer
- me
2 full-time animator/artists + 1 part-time animator (for 1 year to help crank out animation frames)
- David Hammer, Nolen Lee, Patrick Tuorto
4 amazing voice actors
- Dave Pettitt (Goliath, Narrator), J.S. Gilbert (Goliath’s shield-bearer, all other voices not specified here), Mark Lund (David), Karen Lund (Samuel’s wife, Saul’s spunky daughter, Merab)
1 sound genius who created both the original score and sound FX
- Stan LePard

Overall, a pretty small crew given the scope of the project.

Pulling it off with the quality of animation, audio, and minimal size required to make it available on 1st-gen iPads involved a level of collaboration between art, design, and engineering that I had believed possible prior, but had never personally experienced. The sort of collaboration where egos and turf are forgotten and everyone takes ownership. I would be remiss not to thank David Hammer, in particular, for the immense commitment he brought to this project. It is a rare and beautiful privilege to work side-by-side with someone with that level of mutual engagement.

To this day, the David vs Goliath project stands alone as both the hardest thing I’ve ever done (professionally) and that of which I am most proud. 10 years+ later it is still rated 4.8 / 5 on the app store and I still get emails from all around the world thanking us for building it (and asking for more), both of which make my heart smile.

There were also some pretty cool God-stories that we experienced along the way. When those appear on my faith-blog, I’ll update this article with a link.

Gerald (thus far)