Saturday, November 24, 2007

A book of Mormon Cardset!

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Since the 2008 Curriculum for the seminary program is all about the Book of Mormon, we’re starting to work on a cardset of 100 verses focused on the Book of Mormon! There’ll be a few new game mechanics, like battle, and an increased focus on characters and the Histories theme.

What I need from everyone that comes here is some help! Take just a minute and leave a comment on this blog entry. Tell me your favorite:

  1. Book of Mormon verses
  2. Book of Mormon characters
  3. Book of Mormon stories (that my teacher tells to me…)


Let me tell you some of mine to get you started!

  1. The conversion of Zeezrom. What a story. I’d love to see that one written up and shot as a movie! It’s got everything. Intrigue, murder, politics… Everything you need for a good action show! And it gets me everytime I read about Zeezrom leaping up from his sick bed, after Alma and Amulek give him the blessing.
  2. Christ coming to America. Another powerful story. So much has been written about this one, that I’m not sure what I could add in a little blog here.
  3. The journey to the Promised Land. I love studying Lehi’s borderline dysfunctional family. It gives me hope for my own. Of course we only get to see it through Nephi’s eyes. I often wonder what it would read like if Sam had wrote it. I mean, he’s righteous, but he would have still seen it all from a different perspective.
  4. The Final Battles in the end would make a great movie as well. A sad, sad tragedy.


Anyway, you folks tell me what your favorites are!

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Sunday Scripture: D&C 14:7

#75 Endure to the End: D&C 14:7 “And, if you keep my commandments and endure to the end you shall have eternal life.”

Stats: S3, W1, F1, H0, T2; Theme: S, Effect: If this verse is in play when you have only one blessing remaining, draw that blessing.

My mom used to make jokes about this verse all the time.  My dad was in the stake presidency in various central and then southern Indiana stakes for about as long as we can remember, and we had to drive hours for stake conferences each way, each year, and then hang around for endless ordinations, settings apart, and meetings afterward before another hour or two drive home.  She used to refer to it as "enduring on our ends..."

But when I saw this verse, I wanted an effect that would reward a player for taking it all the way to the end of the game.  So, if there's only one blessing verse left, you get to pull it!

I have to admit, sometimes I think we Mormons take this verse a bit too literally.  I think all too often we take the attitude that life is something to be endured.  I don't think that's what the Lord meant here.  I mean, this is the same Lord that said, "My yoke is easy and my burden is light."

I just think that he didn't want us to give up, or stop.  All the way to the end, amigo!

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Sunday Scripture!

I’m starting a new feature here at the Chapter and Verse Website blog! It’ll be called the Sunday Scripture. What I’m going to do is pull up a random verse card from one of my decks, and comment on it. I might talk about the scripture and what it means, I might talk about how that meaning inspired the game mechanics of the effects or the numbers, and I might talk about some cool combos that can be made with that verse.

This time I pulled:

#82 – A Clean Slate: D&C 64:10 “I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men.”

Stats: S2, W2, F0, H0, T1; Topic: The Law; Theme: S,W Effect: Quote

I really like this one, because it tells me that I don’t have to be judgmental. In a lot of ways, this is a very freeing verse. Sometimes we look at forgiveness like it’s a burden, and difficult. Someone wronged us, and they should pay for that.

The bottom line is that we need to leave that stuff in the hands of the Lord. He, who knows all about us and all about those who’ve hurt us, is in the best position to judge. He can tell who He’s going to forgive, based on whether or not they are repentant. He knows their hearts.

We, on the other hand, don’t. We don’t know their stories, nor where they’ve been in life. Our judgment is flawed. So, we simply have to forgive and trust that the Lord will handle it.

Now, these days, it’s tough because we’re told by so much media that revenge is the way to live. Movie after movie is all about getting tough and getting back. For many years, and through many administrations, our country’s foreign policy is often driven more by a desire to “get the bad guys” than it is by what’s best for us all.

When I was in seminary, I loved this one because it was very easy to remember. For that reason alone, (and the fact that it’s a “Wisdom” verse), I made its effect a simple “Quote”. I have this one in my “Quote it” deck, but there’s no real combo I’ve attached to it. It’s just one that I can easily quote and throw down for free to complete up a book.

Nothing fancy on this one. Forgive me! :-)

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Long-Distance Game

James and I just played a bit of a game using yahoo webcams.  Long distance!  We tried to get the audio working, but we just couldn't do it.  As a PC man, I'll have to defer to the Mac's in this case.  They do make it much easier!

We talked about a lot of thing that the game needs.  One of the biggest is rules that are written more clearly.  They have to be so clear and simple that someone who's never played a CCG before can do it.  I'll have to rework it.  Again...

But at least this time I'm not changing the actual play rules.  I'm just making them easier to understand.

Sunday, November 4, 2007

Another Question for the Playtesters

I just realized another issue with the rules that needs clarification:  If you're playing along and you run out of verses in your deck, what do you do?

There're a couple of ideas I have right off, and I'd like your input.

  1. If you run out of verses in your deck, you lose the game.  In most other CCG's (Magic, Yu-Gi-Oh, and Pokemon), that's the way it resolves.  This also tends to make the decks that flow lots of verses a little less powerful.
  2. If you run out of verses in your deck, you keep playing, but you can't draw.  That would mean you'd have to have some way to pull from your discard, or your only source of new verses would be your blessing stack.
  3. The only other option I can think of is that if you run out of verses, you could shuffle your discard and flip them face down into your deck and continue playing.


What do you think?  Right off the top of my head, I'm leaning toward option 2.  I don't know why, but it seems to be pretty sensible.  Still, I'll defer to the opinions of the playtesters, if there's enough clear opinion either way.

The Testing of the Decks

Brendon and I just barely finished playing the two new decks against each other.  Wow.  What fun, to see two planned decks go head to head.  It showed me a bunch of cool things:

  1. "Quote" isn't as powerful as I thought it would be.  It is cool, and it did help Brendon bring out lots of verses, but it wasn't as uber-powerful as I was afraid it would be.
  2. The two decks really were pretty evenly matched.  If he hadn't won when he did, I would have won the next turn.  And the only reason I didn't win was that I didn't have enough verses to sacrifice to throw down the final combo and pull my last blessing.
  3. After this game and some of the other games I've played, I feel like there needs to be some limits on the turns.  Brendon, in his turn, kept drawing and playing.  Then, in my turn, I kept drawing and playing.  It makes for long, drawn out turns.  I'm flirting with the idea of a rule that would say that when you close out a book, the play phase of your turn ends, and you move into the end phase.  I dunno.  I'll have to play with that.  Another idea is to make more verse effects that can be played instantly instead of only in your own turn.  That way the turns can be more interactive instead of so long.  Maybe even some verses that can end an opponent's turn.

Anyway, these are just some thoughts.  Tell me what you're thinking when you play your games!

Thursday, November 1, 2007

James' new Blog

Hey, just got an email from James Fullmer.  He's started a blog about his experiences in art and game-making for the LDS market.  Check it out at:  http://bookofmormonbattles.blogspot.com/