Text: “I saw a pillar of light, exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun...”
Verse Rule: Unique. ALSO, Quote. ALSO, EFFECT: Search your deck for up to two chosen Histories verses, and set them into the same chapter as this verse.
Sacrifice Cost: 3
Markers: Histories, Epic Event, Testimonies
Icons: W, F, HH
This verse, in many ways, is the key to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It describes the moment that God, the Father, and His son, Jesus Christ, appeared to the boy Joseph Smith in the woods near his home in Palmyra, New York, in a place we now call, “The Sacred Grove”.
This one moment expresses so many of our core doctrines and beliefs.
That God wants to communicate with his children, and does so through prophets, in all times and ages.
That God and Jesus are separate individuals that work together as one.
That God and Jesus are both physical beings with omnipotent reach.
Such a defining event expressed on a game card should be huge, right? it should be a game changer. So, to be able to drop a bunch of histories icons on single chapter in one turn can really change it up. That’s plenty powerful, to be sure. Then, to be able to quote it and play it for free, well, that just takes it over the top. That’s why it’s also Unique. It only happens once in a game.
Mark has a lifelong testimony of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormon Church). Mark also has other sites and blogs, including MarkHansenMusic.com and his Dutch Oven blog.
“Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”
Verse Rule: Quote
Sacrifice Cost: 1
Markers: Wisdom, Law
Icons: W, F
This one is a pretty core doctrinal verse. It’s part of the story of Nicodemus, who comes to Jesus asking questions. Jesus teaches him about the necessity of baptism and repentance. At first he doesn’t get it. He thinks of being literally “born again”. But Jesus teaches him that he needs to be baptized and that his heart needs to change.
Because it’s such a core doctrine, I gave it “Quote” as its verse rule. This is one that we should all know by heart. It’s icons are wisdom and faith. This is at the core of our doctrinal knowlege and our faith.
In game, it’s not the strongest card, but the fact that it’s quotable, with two icons can move you forward pretty quickly toward closing a Wisdom or Faith book. Also, there are a number of verses that allow you to set wisdom verses from your hand (like “Clear Sight” or “Revealing” - which also lets you draw a verse). “Treasures of Knowledge” allows you to search your deck for a chosen Wisdom verse, so you could fetch this one, then quote it and play it for free.
Mark has a lifelong testimony of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormon Church). Mark also has other sites and blogs, including MarkHansenMusic.com and his Dutch Oven blog.
There's been a lot happening in this little card game's world lately! It's all very exciting, and a lot of work.
First of all, we've been rebranding. It turns out that there's another scripture based game on the market already that got published using the name Chapter and Verse. It actually looks like a pretty cool game. While it's been a challenge to rebrand, it's a good thing for us, too. My use of the Chapter and Verse name was always a "place holder", and I was never certain I wanted to use the name in publication. Now, we brainstormed, researched, and have chosen the name "Seeker's Quest".
In addition to having a more enticing, exciting sound, it also ties in better with the game's theme and backstory, as well as connecting strongly with advanced achievement gameplay.
I've also been preparing the graphic look and feel of the game, setting up prototype logos, icons, and cards. That's been very time consuming, as it's difficult to find royalty-free graphics for almost 200 cards! Still, I've been very pleased with the results so far.
Here's the card back design:
And here's an example of the face of one of the cards:
Most of this is being shared and posted over at the new Facebook page, at https://www.facebook.com/seekersquestgame. I hope you'll join the fun over there, for regular posts and updates as the new cards get ready for publication!
Mark has a lifelong testimony of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormon Church). Mark also has other sites and blogs, including MarkHansenMusic.com and his Dutch Oven blog.
I'm very excited, and I have been for the last three months or so. I've been reworking the rules, the cards, the game, all with the intent of submitting it to publishers. As I've dealt with publishers in the past, I've realized the power of praise and endorsements. Good, kind words from the right people can make a huge difference in their decisions.
So...
If you have ever had the chance to play a game of Chapter and Verse, I would love to have you write a paragraph or two saying why you liked it and what you learned from it, and to email that to me, at mrkhmusic@yahoo.com, so that I can include it in the submission. Alternatively, you can post it in the comments below.
If you haven't had a chance yet to play, let me invite you to download the cards and the rules (in the nav bar to the left) and give it a try. Then, post me your comments.
In all fairness, if you have any complaints or suggestions for improvement, please send those to me as well.
Chapter and Verse is a very unique kind of LDS game, and so publishers might now "get" quite how it all works and how popular it could be. Your words could be the assurance they need to know that it is viable and exciting!
Thanks!
Mark has a lifelong testimony of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormon Church). Mark also has other sites and blogs, including MarkHansenMusic.com and his Dutch Oven blog.
In my recent efforts to prepare and promote Chapter and Verse, I had a visit with a seminary teacher. He was very helpful in a lot of ways, and one was to let me know that the Church was making some changes to the Seminary Scripture Mastery verse lists.
If it’s been a while since you’ve been in Seminary, or if you joined the church after your teens and never attended, here’s an explanation. Those in the Church leadership that oversee the Seminary Program and its curriculum choose 100 passages, 25 from each of the standard works (The Old Testament, The New Testament, The Book of Mormon, and The Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price, combined). The Seminary students spend each year learning about and even memorizing the 25 scriptures that are part of that year’s curriculum. After the four years of High School, each student should, in theory, have a good command of all 100 passages.
Now, since the entire first set of Chapter and Verse cards is all based on the 100 scriptures of the Scripture Mastery set. And suddenly, that was changing! I got a copy of the new lists from the Church’s website at LDS.org, and I set myself to revising.
Several things happened:
One, most of the verses remained unchanged. A few were lengthened, others were added, and some were removed, so that the final tally would still be 25 per course.
Two, I really liked a lot of the cards that were now no longer a part of the Scripture Mastery List. Faced with the idea of removing them, I decided to keep them in the set as sort of “Legacy” cards. So, I added in new cards, and new verse rules for all of the additions.
Three, since I was taking so much time to revise add in so many cards, I was going to use this as an opportunity to revise the entire set in a few ways. One was that I wanted to add a sixth theme icon: Life (Things dealing with the earth, nature, and the practicalities of temporal existence). As I read through the new verses, there were lots of opportunities for that.
Also, the themes were way out of balance in the original set. There were almost twice as many “Wisdom” verses, for example, as “Histories”. I went through and counted each icon and each marker, and did some thematic revisions to even the numbers out some. They are still not exactly equal, but they are much more so than before.
So, the current themes are:
1 - Strength: Represented currently by a Red Shield. This is the theme of action, of doing, of taking a stand, of holding fast to your beliefs.
2 - Wisdom: A glowing Yellow Candle. The theme of knowledge, of doctrine, of understanding, and of living in accord with that knowledge.
3 - Faith: Represented by the Blue Eye of Faith, spoken of by Alma. When we look to the Heavens and believe, our lives are full and complete.
4 - Histories: A White Page, with writing. The scriptures are full of stories and characters, teaching us by example how to choose the right.
5 - Trials: Represented by a Struggling Fist, surrounded by Dark Purple. All may seem to be black as we face our difficulties, but as we overcome them, and the dawn comes, the darkness starts to fade.
6 - Life: a Green Leaf. This is the theme of our home, our earth. We are born to it, live in it daily, and will eventually return our bodies to it.
All of the verse cards relate in some way to one or more of these themes, and that’s how the verses are added into chapters and eventually into books! That’s how you become a Master of Chapter and Verse!
Mark has a lifelong testimony of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormon Church). Mark also has other sites and blogs, including MarkHansenMusic.com and his Dutch Oven blog.
Today, Brendon spoke in Sacrament Meeting. It was very different from the previous times he’s spoken. In the past, we worked together on his topic, and we pretty much wrote out everything he would say. This time, he researched his topic on his own, compiled his quotes and citations, lined them up in the order he wanted to, and just spoke from his notes and his mind.
Watching him up there, it made me feel really proud. Jodi said that he looked like a missionary. The talk flowed pretty smoothly all along, without any big gaps or stumbles. He didn’t even look all that nervous, even though I knew that he was feeling it that morning.
His talk was on the Godhead, and he showed some good research and understanding of the quotes and scriptures he cited. It was well-done, especially for a 15 year old.
The whole reason I’m mentioning it here is because, at the end, he cited one of my favorite scriptures: Moses 1:39 “This is my work and my glory, to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man”.
And, of course, since that’s one of my favorite scriptures, it was turned into one of my favorite cards. Two of my favorite cards, in fact: “The Work of God” and “The Glory of God”. One’s rule reads: “ABILITY: If this verse is in the same chapter as “The Work of God”, the chapter may be closed as a book.” The other is similar: “ABILITY: If this verse is in the same chapter as “The Glory of God”, the chapter may be closed as a book.”
So, all you need to do is to get these two verses into the same chapter, and you can close up a book. I did it this way because I felt it was interesting to think of how the Work and The Glory of god are so intertwined.
Here’s another interesting anecdote that I DIDN’T think of when I was creating the card. I made a deck with three copies each of these two verses. Then, I added in a lot of verses with the “Prayer” ability. That allows me to look at so many verses on top of my deck and pull one of them into my hand. It basically allows you to cycle through your deck faster. That way, you can get to these three verses quicker and make your short books, winning the game!
It didn’t occur to me until much, much later that I was using “prayer” to bring about “the work and the glory of God”!
Mark has a lifelong testimony of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormon Church). Mark also has other sites and blogs, including MarkHansenMusic.com and his Dutch Oven blog.
I just sent this out to the email list (the yahoogroups to the left):
Hello, everyone!
I'm starting to get caught up on maintaining this mailing list, and I'm very excited to get moving forward on the game. I've decided that I'm going to enter the game in a design contest held annually at a Salt Lake City game convention every January. I'm excited to press forward with that.
To that end, I need some help:
First of all: I would very much like to hear back from anyone on this group who has played the game, especially in its most recent form (version 8.1). Unfortunately, because of spam, I had to shut down the discussion option in this group, but I would encourage you to join the chapterandversgametalk discussion
yahoogroup. You can find it at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/chapterandversegametalk/
If you don't want to join that group, you can privately email me your reaction to the game at mrkhmusic@yahoo.com
Please take some time to try v 8.1 and to let me know how it goes. The more feedback I get, the better I will be able to get the game ready for the contest. Entry deadlines are the end of October, even though the presentation of the games and the selection of the winner won't happen until January.
Second of all, if there are any graphic designers in this group, I would sure love to talk to you about helping to prepare the game for the contest, and eventually for publication. I would be open to negotiating a split of any of the sales with anyone who was interested.
Thanks to all of you. It has sure been encouraging to see so many people express an interest in the game!
I just set up a YahooGroup (an email discussion group) where people who are playing the game can talk and share ideas. I'd love to meet lots of you there. Share your card ideas, your decks, and your strategies! Help us make this game amazing!
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Favorite verses: Alma 37:23 about Gazelem's stone. Wow, what if we had a stone like that!
D&C 123:13-16. Waste and wear out our lives in bringing to light hidden things of darkness. Really ponder this scripture’s significance and meaning. Future things depend on our understanding and fulfilling this scripture. Amazing!
Favorite characters: Captain Moroni is amazing standing up for righteousness and values. Ammon is amazing in how much faith he has in the promise that he received and in the trust he had in his prayers with the Lord. Some amazing things happened because of his faith. Nephi and his two sons Nephi and Lehi who raises his brother from the dead, performs miracles, promised that whatever he asked for would be given to him, (Helaman 10:4-5), etc. just before the saviour visits the Nephites...these two Nephi's were amazing! It just says that the father left and was never heard of again (3 Nephi 1:2-3)...wonder where he went...Jerusalem? That would be interesting...
Favorite stories: I love the story about the three nephites and how they could not be contained or destroyed. I often wonder where they are now and who they are talking to. That is amazing! I also love the story about how the saviour visited the other sheep (lost tribes) and how some day we would have their record too. Where are they and what are they doing?
The other amazing story that I love is that Joseph Smith was only allowed to translate the unsealed portion of the Book of Mormon. WOW! What about the sealed version, wouldn’t it be awesome if we could prepare ourselves to find out what is within!
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I just realized (by back tracking my MoBoy Blog archives) that the Chapterandversegame.com website is a year old! It was established last September. And that means that the first draft of the game itself was created within a few weeks prior to that.
Ah, history!
Normally, when a company has an anniversary, there's a big gigantic sale where they reduce everything to 50% off. Well, all our products are free, so far. Still, I hate to leave you all hanging. So, we're announcing our 50% off First Anniversary Sale! Buy all your cards for half off! Heck! Why stop there! We'll do it at 100% off! We're just givin' away the store! Somebody stop me!
