Build Noah's Ark
Three decks, limited room and a deadline you cannot move. Load the animals as God commanded, choose supplies that actually matter, then answer for what you have learned.
Leaderboard
The twenty highest scores for this game, by day, week, month and all time.
About Build Noah's Ark
Build Noah's Ark turns the flood account into a resource problem — three decks, limited space, animals to load as commanded and supplies to choose — and then asks what you have actually learned from the text.
The account runs from Genesis 6 to 9. God sees the violence of the earth, instructs Noah to build a vessel of gopher wood with specified dimensions and three decks (Genesis 6:14-16), and gives detailed instructions about what goes aboard. Genesis 7:2 distinguishes clean animals, taken by sevens, from unclean animals taken by twos — a detail widely remembered inaccurately as 'two of every kind'. Food for all of them is commanded in Genesis 6:21.
The narrative ends with the waters receding, the raven and the dove, the altar Noah builds, and the covenant God makes with every living creature, marked by the bow in the cloud (Genesis 9:8-17). The covenant, not the vessel, is where the account is heading.
Christians differ on how the flood narrative relates to geology and to ancient Near Eastern flood traditions, and this game does not take a position on those questions. It stays with what the text specifies: the dimensions, the instructions, the sequence and the covenant.
How to play
- 1.Load animals across three decks, keeping to the counts the text gives for clean and unclean creatures.
- 2.Choose supplies. Space is limited, so some obvious-looking items have to go.
- 3.Watch the deadline — you cannot move it.
- 4.Answer the flood-fact questions at the end; each one explains itself and gives its reference.
What it reinforces
- The specific instructions in Genesis 6-9 rather than a remembered children's version.
- The distinction between clean and unclean animals and their different counts.
- The sequence of the account, including the birds and the altar.
- The covenant at the end, which is the point the narrative builds to.
What to notice while you play
- How much detail the text actually gives — dimensions, materials, decks, a door, a window.
- The care for provision: food is commanded, not assumed.
- How long the waters last, which is longer than most summaries suggest.
- The covenant language in Genesis 9, which is addressed to every living creature.
Taking it into your Bible reading
Read Genesis 6-9 in one sitting with a notebook, listing every instruction Noah is given. The list is longer and more specific than the version most of us absorbed as children, and the specificity is part of what the passage is doing.
Then look at how later Scripture uses the account — Isaiah 54:9 recalls the promise, and 1 Peter 3:20-21 and 2 Peter 2:5 refer back to Noah. Reading a narrative alongside its later use is a good way to see what the biblical writers themselves drew from it.
Passages to read
- Genesis 6:9-22 — The instructions, the dimensions and the command to store food.
- Genesis 7:1-16 — The clean and unclean animals and the boarding.
- Genesis 8:1-19 — The waters receding, the raven and the dove.
- Genesis 9:8-17 — The covenant with every living creature.
Read these in full rather than as single lines. A game can only point at a passage; the passage itself is the thing worth your time.
Keep learning
- Bible Timeline Challenge — where the flood sits in the early chapters of the story.
- Daily Bible Crossword — clues drawn from Genesis and beyond.
- Learning Center — lessons on Genesis and covenant.
Keep going through Genesis with the Bible Timeline Challenge or step inside the story in Bible Escape Rooms.