The Title of Liberty

I'm really excited!

I've been working on a first draft of a whole new set of Seeker's Quest verses!

This set is tentatively titled "The Title of Liberty" and will cover the books of Alma, Helaman, 3rd Nephi, and maybe 4th Nephi as well.

There are some fun new mechanics! One is called "Battle". When a battle is activated, your opponent puts verses from his/her deck into his/her discard. If that happens enough, you can cripple your opponents. Remember, unlike Magic, or Yu-Gi-Oh, having an empty deck doesn't lose you the game. However, with nothing to draw, you're out of resources, and it will be difficult to carry on!

Another mechanic is the "Cross Reference". A cross reference verse will mention another verse. If you have that referenced verse in your hand when you trigger the Cross Reference effect, you can set it immediately.

We're also exploring the markers, with some new ones, like Righteous and Unrighteous Characters, and Locations. The "Wartime" marker boost the Battle effect.

So, what does all this mean?

Well, first I have to finish the first draft of the verses. I'm making them all on a big spreadsheet. Then, when I've got them done (I'm shooting for about 125 finished cards), then I'll flow the spreadsheet into a form and print out some prototype cards. These are the ugly ones, without graphics. Then, I'll tediously cut them apart and sleeve them.

Then the real work begins! Playtesting! We'll test the set in isolation, meaning using randomized decks only of the new set. We may find some problems that we'll have to fix.  Then, we'll mix the new verses in with the original Scripture Mastery set, and test that mix, using random decks.  Finally, we'll make some decks and test those against each other, using both sets.

If you're interested in playtesting, just let me know by emailing me at mrkhmusic@yahoo.com, and we'll get you in on the party!




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.

Card of the week: Write Our Stories

Verse:  BoM, 2 Nephi 25:23

Text: “For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ.”

Verse Rule: DISCARD: Mastery
Sacrifice Cost: 1
Markers: Histories
Icons: W, H, L

In Evangelical Christian theological circles, it’s often believed that Mormons are not Christian. Whether or not that’s true depends on what you mean by “Christian”. I don’t see how someone can look at this verse, or another one close to it, in verse 25, and think that we’re not Christian.

In reality, it simply means that even though we all strive to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, if I don’t believe the same things about Jesus that you do, then you can label me “not a true Christian”.

Oh, well...

The verse rules of this card were actually inspired by a mechanic from Magic: the Gathering. In that game, if someone plays a card that you don’t like, and you have a card with the “counter” ability, you can make your opponent’s play fizzle, and his card is discarded.

It’s a way to either keep your opponent from getting too much traction, or to prevent the play of a really powerful card.

In Seeker’s Quest, however, we do that with a twist: The DISCARD: Mastery mechanic! It’s a DISCARD ability, so you can trigger it in someone else’s turn, when they play something. That also means that you have to discard your verse, so you can’t go doing it over and over, unless you have more verses with the ability. “Mastery” means that your opponent has to be able to quote the text of the verse he’s attempting to play in order to successfully play it!

It means that when you’re about to make a key play, you’ll want to read over your verses in case someone goes all Mastery on you!

Seeker’s Quest! It’s the most fun you can have with your scriptures! To get the game, and get in on the fun, go to https://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/seeker-s-quest-scripture-mastery-set

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.

Card of the week: Live Again!

Verse:  1 Corinthians 15:20

Text: “But now is Christ risen from the dead.”

Verse Rule: DISCARD: Discard this verse and up to two other chosen verses from your hand to retrieve that many other chosen verses from your discard to your hand.
Sacrifice Cost: 1
Markers: Histories
Icons: Faith, Histories

This week, we continue on our quest for verses to help make our “Glory of God/Work of God” deck the most amazing deck ever. This one is a great helper verse.

The verse itself is all about asserting the reality of the resurrection. What is amazing, of course, about Christ’s resurrection is that it sets up the gift of our own resurrection when the time is right. Resurrection is a gift that the Lord has given to us all, regardless of our choices or our circumstances.  We are all saved from physical death. The atonement in the Garden makes it possible for us to repent and be saved from spiritual death.

The beauty of this card in the Glory/Work deck, is that it can fetch those two verses back to your hand. Once you’ve played them and closed a book, of course, they go to your discard. But then, you can play Live Again! as a discard and retrieve them back to your hand to play again. Notice that you don’t retrieve Live Again! The wording on the verse means that you have to chose other verses, as it can’t fetch itself.

So, the fact that Jesus has set us all up to resurrect is a part of the “combo” that allows Heavenly Father’s Work and Glory to move forward!


Seeker’s Quest! It’s the most fun you can have with your scriptures! To get the game, and get in on the fun, go to https://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/seeker-s-quest-scripture-mastery-set

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.

Card of the week: The Marvel

Verse:  Isaiah 29:14

Text: “…Behold, I will proceed to do a marvellous work among this people, even a marvellous work and a wonder”

Verse Rule: EFFECT: Seek: "Work"
Sacrifice Cost: 1
Markers: Wisdom, Histories
Icons: W, H

So, last week, I had a brilliant idea! The game mechanic that we had previously named “Keyword” should be named “Seek”! This is the mechanic that allows me to search through the verse texts in my deck for a particular keyword, then to put that verse into my hand. Since you’re seeking through your deck, it should be called “Seek”.

It was such a clever stroke of genius! It would tie the game play even closer to the name of the game, The Seeker’s Quest, and it’s more descriptive of the action of the mechanic.

What wasn’t quite so brilliant or such a stroke of genius about it was the fact that it meant that I had to spend lots of hours changing the graphics on about 1-2 dozen cards, a couple of which I had to recreate from scratch. THEN, I had to fix the rules booklets!

*sigh*

So, to celebrate the change, the Verse of the Week is one of the ones that changed, The Marvel. It’s built on the verse in Isaiah that talks about the “marvelous work and a wonder” that is about to come forth. That verse is requoted several times in the Doctrine and Covenants as well.

The work and wonder that it refers to is the restored Gospel, of course. LeGrand Richards used the phrase as the title to the book used as an introduction to the church, written when he was a mission president.

This verse rule used in this card is to seek out another verse with the keyword “Work”. The idea is that the “marvelous work and a wonder” is “about to come forth”, so playing the verse allows you to seek through your deck and fetch a “work”, so you can bring it forth.  It’s especially useful when you construct a deck using “The Work of God” or “The Glory of God”, http://chapterandversegame.blogspot.com/2015/06/card-of-week-work-of-god.html

This is a great way to seek out these two powerful cards and getting them ready to play so you can close up lots of books!


Seeker’s Quest! It’s the most fun you can have with your scriptures! To get the game, and get in on the fun, go to https://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/seeker-s-quest-scripture-mastery-set

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.

LDS Card Game Verse of the Week (Month?) Isaiah 29:13

Talk, Talk, Talk  "Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, but have removed their heart far from me…"  DISCARD: Mastery, Sacrifice Cost: 1, Markers: Trials, Themes: Trials, Life

This verse is a Scripture Mastery verse, one that’s in the new list, so it’s one that most LDS seminary students should know.  It’s a fun one, whose sentiment is expressed in a similar phrase in several different places in the scriptures, like in the first vision, in Joseph Smith History 1:19.  It’s usually used to refer to the Great Apostacy, where churches and religious leaders seek power and are not humble followers of Christ.

I like to think of this verse in a more personal way, and to think of my own religious observance.  I mean, how often do I sit in sacrament meeting and my mind and heart are focused elsewhere?  How often do I go about my daily life oblivious to the struggles of my neighbor?

Just the other day, my own neighbor came over and helped me to fix my car.  I thought how often I miss that kind of stuff going on.  But, on my blogs and in church, I’m eager to proclaim the gospel, right?

So, I hope this card captures that.  I called it “Talk, Talk, Talk”, but I could have just as easily called it “Bla, bla, bla”.  The effect is a discard effect, to be able to require an opponent to quote a verse he or she has just played.  It’s a way of saying, “Are you sure you know what’s on that card?  Or are you just full of talk...”

The best way to play this one is to hold onto it until your opponent is about to play a verse that’s important, like one that will close off a book.  After he/she plays it, drop this one down and make them quote what he/she just played, or it goes away!  If the quote fails, on your next turn, you might be able to drop in the final verse, and close up that book yourself!  It’s a great way to practice your scripture mastery!

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.

Scripture Mastery Card: City on the Hill

I thought it would be kinda fun to talk about some of my favorite verse cards from the newest Scripture Mastery set!  I keep working on the game, but I don’t always post it up here.  This idea, I think will help keep me more consistent!  I’m going to start with some of my favorite power cards.  These verses, if the game were to ever get published would be analogous to the “rares” in Magic, or Yu-Gi-Oh.  There really isn’t, unfortunately, an LDS game to compare it to, yet.

This first verse is from the New Testament: Matthew 5:14.  The card quote is: “Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.”  It’s Pearl verse, which means that it can add one icon of any theme to the total of the chapter it’s in (like a wild card). It costs 3 to play it, and its special rules are: “Unique, ALSO, ABILITY: When you play any other verse, you may set another verse into the same chapter”

I’ve always loved this scripture.  I used it in a song, in fact!  It’s one of the LDS seminary Scripture Mastery verses, so it’s a good one to memorize, anyway.  It comes out of the Sermon on the Mount.  The Lord is telling his followers to go out and do good for the world around them.  Even if the service is quiet and humble, it will be seen.  It will set an example.  The world will “see your good works and glorify your Father which is in Heaven.”

As I was preparing this cardset for the LDS game, I thought that good examples have a tendency to spread.  If you do something good, it feels good and you want to do more.  Often, it inspires others.  Soon, a lot more good is getting done.  As I thought about this verse, it seemed to me that light shining and cities on the hill in this sense can get things moving more quickly.  So, this verse in play allows you to set an extra, additional verse each time you play one into a chapter.  If I were playing it, I’d set it into an empty chapter, and use it to build up other chapters for the books and the win!

Chapter and Verse is a new kind of LDS Game!  Check out the print-and-play prototype cards!





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.

A Book of Mormon set is taking shape!

So, my son and I have been working on a new set of cards.  We're about a third of the way through the first versions (unplaytested) already.  It's all based on the books of Alma, Helaman, and 3 Nephi.  We began by choosing 9 stories that we wanted to include specifically.  The majority of the verses will be from those.  There will be some extras that will fill in gaps.

The stories include:

Alma, Amulek, and the conversion of Zeezrom
Ammon and Lamoni
The massacre of the Anti-Nephi-Lehis
The preaching and death of Korihor
The Kingmen Revolt and the Title of Liberty
The Lamanite Wars and the 2000 stripling warriors
The prophecies of Samuel the Lamanite
The Gaddianton Robbers
The appearance of Christ in Zarahemla

There are some exciting new mechanics and ideas, including the Battle mechanic.  Let's face it, most of the last half of the Book of Mormon is wars.  There's still some great doctrine in there as well, though.

There are now character verses, which can be either righteous or wicked.  There's a new mechanic called Convert, where a wicked character verse can be replaced by the righteous version of the same character.

There are also now location verses, which establish a setting for the chapters they're in.  These can give bonuses to certain verses with the same location marker.

I'm very excited, so far!





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.

The Title of Liberty

I’ve been bubbling over, lately, with ideas for a new set of verses!  I’ve been really excited about it, but I haven’t had any time to do much other than brainstorm an mull things over on my way to and from work.

This set will be set in the Book of Mormon, and will feature stories and lessons from Alma, Helaman, and probably 3rd Nephi.  So far, I think I’ve chosen these stories to focus on:

• The conversion of Zeezrom
• The conversion of the Lamanite kings
• The rise and fall of Korihor
• Title of Liberty and the Kingmen rebellion 
• The Lamanite wars 
• The Gadianton Robbers
• The preaching of Samuel The Lamanite
• The arrival of Jesus Christ in America

Much the content of those three Book of Mormon books is taken up describing wars and conflicts of various kinds, and so I’ve been working on a battle mechanic, to represent that.  It’s kinda tricky, because I don’t want it to become a wargame.  I don’t want it to simulate one player attacking another, but rather, a battle happening.  The tricky part of that is that it has to be activated by a player.  And, in order for that player to want to activate a battle-related verse, there has to be some in-game benefit.

Where the first set (Scripture Mastery) was all based in conceptual and doctrinal scriptures, there wasn’t much by way of stories.  This set, on the other hand, will have a lot of Histories icons, and new Markers like, “Righteous Character” and, of course, “Unrighteous Character”.  Special rules of many verses will play into those markers.

There will also probably be fewer Pearls and fewer “Keyword” verses.

As before, my goal will be to make the set playable both by itself, and combined with the Scripture Mastery set. The Scripture Mastery set is still in playtesting, and it's making for a great, fun, and consistent LDS game.  I want to test the overall set a few more times, and then our playtest team will start building constructed decks and we'll see if it's still balanced.

I’ll definitely keep you posted on how it all comes out!





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.

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!

The "Battle" Game Mechanic

As I started to work out the battle game mechanic, I started thinking about how it all works.  War is all throughout the scriptures.  I thought that most of the verses that would use the mechanic would be Tales (white) or Trials (black), because most of the scriptures that talk about war are telling about battles, and going through war is certainly a trial.

I've long believed that even though at times, war may well be necessary, nobody really "wins".  One side doesn't lose as many men or resources, and so they end up occupying the land, or getting their way, or whatever.  So, really, the "winner" is the one that "loses the least".

So, in the battle mechanic, you pull a verse from one of your incomplete books, and one from one of your opponent's.  Presumably, you'll pick a less important verse from yours and an important one from his. Thus, by picking the right cards, you "lose less".

Then, I started finding some scriptures where circumstances, like faith and divine intervention made a big difference in battle.  So, those verses will protect books from being the targets of battle mechanics, or things like "The Title of Liberty", which allows you to search your deck for battle cards, much like Captain Moroni did when he waved the flag to recruit an army against the kingmen.

When we do a Book of Mormon set of cards, there's gonna be lots of battle-related cards.  I mean, the whole books of Alma and Helaman are pretty much war, war, war...  It'll be fun to see how this plays out in the game.