New app called 'Follow Jesus Christ Go!' sees players hunt down SAINTS instead of Pokemon

Canny Catholics hoping to get children interested in religion have created a new game based on Pokemon Go - where players can hunt down and capture saints.

Follow Jesus Christ Go! from Fundación Ramón Pané was released last week in Rome and uses the same format as the Pokemon Go - but with a Christian twist, reports the Daily Mail.

The new religion-based app uses a similar mechanism to the massively popular Japanese pocket monster game, but substitutes Pokemon for saints.

Fundación Ramón Pané is an organisation dedicated to the promotion of new evangelization.

On their website, they said: “Our Foundation seeks to learn the new languages of today's society, not only as a language, but also in all forms of expression, understanding and communication, to present the Gospel, the message of God through the Sacred Scripture, from the Tradition and the Magisterium of the Church, attending to the real needs of the people.”

It is rumoured Pope Francis was introduced to the game upon its release and commended it for using technology as a tool to convert the masses.

The game will apparently be used as a tool in preparation for the upcoming World Youth Day that will take place in Panama in January next year.

According to the developer's website, the app is a 'religious educational type' that uses virtual reality with geolocation or GPS.

Players can 'collect' and add to their Evanglisation team famous faces such as Moses and Mother Theresa and characters from the Bible such as Mary - but not by throwing Pokeballs at them.

By walking through a city, GPS will guide users to find different Marian advocates, saints and other characters in real world locations.

They can invite these characters to join their 'eTeam' by answering a Bible or Christian-based question.

On your journey you can find spirituality, bread, water and currency to help you increase your supplies and stay alive.

Users can also use the game to meet other players in real life - with the idea of doing charitable work together in mind.

So far, the game has only been developed in Spanish, but will soon be translated into English.