The Gaming Quadrilateral (Yes, Really)

A Wesleyan Way to Read Games

If you’re anything like me, you probably learned how to read in levels.

I went through the U.S. school system here in the southeast. I took AP English. I loved English. I learned how to close read—how to pick apart a poem, how to notice why this word is here and not that word, how to sit with a paragraph until it gave up its secrets.

Then I went to seminary, where that got turned up to eleven.

We learned how to read Scripture on an exegetical level. That means we don’t just skim a passage and call it a day. We tear it apart. We want to understand:

• the etymology of the words,

• the context it was written in,

• who wrote it,

• who probably didn’t write it,

• who influenced that writing,

• what was happening around it historically and theologically.

We want to understand everything about a text before we preach it.

That whole way of doing theology is often framed—especially in the Wesleyan world—as the Wesleyan Quadrilateral: Scripture, Tradition, Experience, and Reason. Scripture is the “seat of the stool,” and tradition, experience, and reason are the three legs that hold it up.

Reading The Well-Read Game pushed me to ask a simple but kind of dangerous question:

If this is how we read Scripture seriously…how might we read games seriously?

And that’s where this idea came from: The Gaming Quadrilateral.

From the Wesleyan Quadrilateral to the Gaming Quadrilateral

In the Wesleyan tradition, the Quadrilateral is how we do theological work:

• Scripture – the primary source

• Tradition – the history of the Church’s reflection

• Experience – what we have lived and sensed of God

• Reason – our God-given capacity to think and discern

I started wondering: what happens if I swap some words out and bring that same structure into my life as a lifelong gamer?

Could we propose that games should be experienced with:

• a “source material” at the center, and

• three supporting lenses: tradition, experience, and reason?

Could we create a Quadrilateral of Gaming that helps us read games like texts, not just consume them as content?

I think we can.

The Seat: Source Material (The Game Itself)

In theology, Scripture is the seat of the stool.

In the Gaming Quadrilateral, the seat is the source material: the game itself.

Not the marketing. Not the discourse. Not the speedrun meta. The actual game you’re playing:

• the code,

• the levels,

• the systems,

• the writing,

• the art,

• the music,

• the way your hands and body are invited to move through that world.

This is what Brian Upton would call the game as designed. It’s the literal thing in front of you—the “text” you’re engaging.

Before we talk about tradition, experience, or reason, we start by just asking: What is this game? What actually happens here?

Leg One: Tradition (The History Behind the Game)

Then there’s tradition.

In theology, tradition is the history of the Church’s reflection—creeds, councils, liturgies, centuries of people wrestling with God and neighbor.

In the Gaming Quadrilateral, tradition is the history of gaming that comes before this moment:

• the genre the game lives in,

• the series it belongs to,

• the games it’s quoting, subverting, or quietly stealing from.

To imagine you can truly understand Undertale without ever brushing up against EarthBound is… optimistic. You can absolutely enjoy it. But my experience of Undertale is different because I came in as someone who had already played EarthBound.

Same with RPGMaker horror/weird games. If you’ve never played Yume Nikki, your experience of later RPGMaker titles is going to land differently than someone whose brain has already been bent in that space.

So the tradition leg asks:

• What games, genres, or design philosophies are standing behind this one?

• What line of “ancestors” brought us here?

• What assumptions am I carrying because of the games I’ve played before?

There is a tradition of gaming, whether we name it or not. Bringing that tradition into awareness is part of reading a game well.

Leg Two: Experience (The Self That Shows Up to Play)

The second leg is experience.

In theology, experience is: what have I lived? Where have I seen God? What has suffering, joy, doubt, or healing done to my understanding?

In the Gaming Quadrilateral, experience is the you that shows up with the controller in hand.

Not just the body sitting on the couch, but the whole timeline of you that’s standing there:

• the kid who stayed up too late playing,

• the teenager who used games to survive,

• the adult who brings stress, grief, or delight into a save file.

When I play a Story of Seasons game now, I’m not just experiencing the cozy farming sim in front of me. I am also, all at once, 8-year-old Nathan sitting in front of a glowing TV with a GameCube controller, playing Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life at two in the morning.

No one else can bring that Nathan into the experience but me.

Same thing when I’m playing Hades II: I’m not only banging my head against Chronos. I’m also the Nathan who has already played Hades, who already knows this studio, this combat rhythm, this style of storytelling. That history is part of the text now.

Experience asks:

• What versions of me are standing beside me while I play this?

• What mental health, trauma, joy, theology, or nostalgia am I unconsciously bringing along?

• How is my identity (neurodivergence, church background, relationships, etc.) shaping what I notice?

This is where Howard Thurman’s double awareness comes in: I’m experiencing the game, and I’m also experiencing myself experiencing the game.

Leg Three: Reason (What’s Actually Going On Here?)

The third leg is reason.

In theology, reason is simply our God-given capacity to think things through. Scripture and tradition and experience give us raw material; reason helps us ask, “So what does this actually mean?”

In the Gaming Quadrilateral, reason is where we look at:

• what is literally happening in the game, and

• what those systems, choices, and outcomes suggest.

This connects back to Upton’s idea of games as designed, experienced, and understood:

• Designed – the code, systems, inputs and outputs.

• Experienced – your run through the loop, your victories and failures.

• Understood – your mental model of the rules, consequences, meanings, vibes, themes.

Reason is where we ask:

• What is this game telling me about power, success, failure, grace, violence, community?

• What do its systems reward and what do they punish?

• Where does what I say I believe line up—or not—with how I’m actually playing?

This is where a game like Hotline Miami hits differently. It’s not just: “I cleared the level, that was fun, the soundtrack slapped.” Reason forces us to walk back through the level in silence and ask, “Okay, but what did I just do? And why did that feel cool a minute ago?”

Putting the Gaming Quadrilateral to Work

All of this is neat in theory, but here’s why it’s stuck with me:

It feels like a concrete way to help people experience games on a deeper level, not just listen to me talk deeply about games.

As a pastor and as someone who runs a digital church for nerds, geeks, and gamers, I don’t just want to preach at people about games and theology. I want to equip them to do that work themselves.

The Gaming Quadrilateral gives us a simple framework for that.

Four Simple Questions

For any game (or even a single scene), you can ask:

1. Source Material (Game):

   • What actually happened? What did I see, hear, read, or do in this moment?

2. Tradition (History):

   • What other games or stories does this remind me of?

   • What expectations did I carry in because of those?

3. Experience (Me):

   • What am I bringing into this—age, mood, trauma, nostalgia, faith background?

   • What past version of me is standing next to me while I play?

4. Reason (Meaning):

   • Given all that, what might this game be saying about being human?

   • Where do I agree or push back—and why?

You could easily turn that into a one-page worksheet, a recurring discussion format in your game club, or a reflection guide for a sermon series.

Why This Matters (For Church and Beyond)

I’ll be honest: this whole idea convicted me a little.

If I really believe people should be experiencing games on a spiritual level—if that’s what I’m trying to do with Checkpoint Church, Pixel & Pulpit, nerdy sermons, Pixel Pilgrimages—then I can’t just keep modeling it from the front and hoping people catch on.

I need to give them tools.

The Gaming Quadrilateral is one of those tools.

• It honors games as art and text.

• It honors players as unique, unrepeatable readers of that art.

• It honors the history of the medium.

• It honors the act of thinking things through.

And it gives us a way to move from:

“It’s just a game, bro.”

to

“This game is doing something to me. I want to understand what—and what I’ll do with that.”

That’s the work of theology.
That’s the work of ministry.
That’s the work of being a more awake human being with a controller in their hands.

I’m walking away from The Well-Read Game with this concept lodged deeply in my brain: how do we equip others to experience games well?

The Gaming Quadrilateral is my first draft of an answer.

World 3-30 Complete