Guitar Praise

Lore & Background

Guitar Praise was created after CEO Tom Bean received popular demand via emails and saw the success of Dance Praise. The game was designed to be family-oriented, providing a 'positive experience' with no offensive content. It lacks animated avatars, which some reviewers attributed to budget constraints, though the company also viewed Guitar Hero characters as negative role models. The game does not support peripherals from other music games, and its wireless guitar lacks a sleep mode, potentially draining batteries.

Reader's Guide

Guitar Praise holds significance as a niche Christian alternative to mainstream rhythm games, filling a market gap for families seeking faith-based entertainment. It was generally well received in both Christian and non-Christian reviews, with some outlets calling it a competent clone that stayed true to its market. The game exceeded sales expectations, prompting Digital Praise to consider expanding to full band gameplay and consoles, though they viewed this as a financial risk. Its expansion packs, including a Stryper-themed pack, required the base game. The game's online leaderboards are now defunct. While it lacked the polish of major titles—no vocals mode, no hammer-ons or pull-offs, and easier difficulty—it provided a positive experience for its intended audience. Its legacy lies in demonstrating that Christian-themed games could achieve commercial success within a specific demographic, though it remained limited by its PC-only release and proprietary hardware.

Did You Know?

• Guitar Praise does not support any peripherals from other music games, such as Guitar Hero controllers.
• The game's wireless guitar controller does not have a sleep mode, which can drain the battery easily.
• An expansion pack titled Guitar Praise: Stryper was released to celebrate Christian band Stryper's 25th anniversary.
• The game does not display song lyrics on-screen during gameplay and lacks a lyrics display feature.

Origins & Design Philosophy

Guitar Praise emerged in 2008 as Digital Praise's answer to the massive cultural wave created by Guitar Hero and Rock Band. CEO Tom Bean had been receiving direct emails from fans asking for a Christian alternative to those rhythm titles, and the company saw an opening after the success of their earlier dance game, Dance Praise, which had proven that Contemporary Christian music could thrive in a rhythm-game format. The design brief was clear: build a family-friendly experience with a soundtrack free of offensive content and no animated player avatars. The company explicitly cited Guitar Hero's cartoon characters as negative role models for their target audience, though some reviewers speculated that the absence of 3D characters may have also reflected the budget constraints of modeling and animating them. The game runs on Windows and Mac OS X, uses proprietary wired and cordless USB guitar controllers, supports a two-player mode, and displays on-screen lyrics in place of a vocal mode. Online leaderboards were included, though the supporting website is no longer operational.

Soundtrack & Expansion Library

At its 2008 launch, Guitar Praise shipped with 52 tracks drawn from 43 different artists, establishing a broad Contemporary Christian rock catalog. Digital Praise subsequently released Expansion Pack 1, adding 25 additional songs from various performers, followed by a smaller five-song downloadable pack available exclusively through their online store. The most notable addition came on March 31, 2010, with Guitar Praise: Stryper, a 25-track collection assembled to mark the Christian band's 25th anniversary. The pack pulled eleven songs from their 2003 live album 7 Weeks: Live in America, nine from Murder by Pride, and five from Reborn, giving fans a deep dive into one of the genre's most recognizable acts. Unlike the expansion packs for Guitar Hero and Rock Band, which function as standalone titles, every Guitar Praise add-on required the base game to operate. The physical CD-ROM versions of these packs have since been discontinued, though the songs remain available for download directly from Digital Praise's website.

Critical Reception

Guitar Praise earned generally favorable reviews across both faith-based and mainstream gaming publications. Christian entertainment site ICE awarded it 7 out of 10, calling it a "rock-solid" product that held its own against the competition, while flagging small text sizes and a clunky screen layout as drawbacks better suited to a console environment. PluggedIn Online, a site authored by the American evangelical organization Focus on the Family, delivered a pointed verdict: yes, it was a Guitar Hero clone, but "this clone is better than the original." On the secular side, MTV's Multiplayer blog called it a "slick and surprisingly competent" knock-off that wisely stayed true to its Christian market without forcing heavy-handed religious imagery. Stars and Stripes noted that Digital Praise "obviously has an idea that strikes a chord with Christian youth," though it was fun without being as polished as its rivals. Wired's Eliot Van Buskirk acknowledged the game lacked hammer-ons, pull-offs, and the deeper functionality of its competitors, and pointed out the wireless guitar's missing sleep mode as a battery-drain concern, yet still deemed it an acceptable family-friendly alternative.

Commercial Success & Franchise Ambitions

According to icepowered.com, Guitar Praise exceeded Digital Praise's sales expectations, a result that validated the company's bet on the Christian rhythm-game niche. The strong performance prompted the studio to explore ambitious next steps for the franchise, including adding full band gameplay support and the possibility of porting the series to game consoles, where the screen-layout and text-size issues that reviewers had flagged on PC would be less pronounced. However, Digital Praise regarded both of these expansions as significant financial risks, and neither materialized. The franchise's physical expansion packs, originally pressed on CD-ROM, have since been discontinued, and the online leaderboard website that once connected players is no longer active. What remains is the core game and its downloadable song catalog, still accessible through Digital Praise's website, standing as a modest but notable entry in the broader landscape of Christian video games.