Chapter and Verse: The Past and Future of My LDS Scripture Game

This adventure all started for me in early 2006.

Well, earlier, really.  I’ve been a tabletop gamer all of my life.  I loved the early role-playing games, and I played Avalon Hill’s wargames with my friends from as early as 8th grade.  I’ve come up with various game ideas over the years, too.  But in the early parts of the century, as I got more and more involved in collectible card games (CCG’s, like Magic: the Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh, and Pokemon, which I played with my sons), I found myself wanting to make an LDS game that expressed my faith.  I tried making one that was based on the Book of Mormon, but I struggled with it, and in the end, it didn’t satisfy me.

But in early 2006, an idea gelled for me, and I created a set of rules, and a set of cards.  I talked about it in my Mormon commentary blog here, and here.

Rather than be a strict story-line game, it would be more abstract.  The players take verses of scripture, from the seminary scripture mastery list, combine them together into thematic chapters and then close them up into books.  The verses would have individual effects which would change the play of the game, just like MTG and YGO cards do.  It was, and still is, a new idea in the LDS game market.

Over the years, I would work on it, abandon it, then work on it, and abandon it in a sort of creative/frustration cycle.  It was usually my son that would break the frustration part by asking to play it again.  That would trigger a new wave of creativity, a new version of the rules, and more playtesting, until the next cycle of frustration would make me set it aside for a while.

All the time, I thought I wanted to publish it, but I’ve never known how to accomplish that.  I’ve looked at lots of options, and I’ve submitted it at times to various publishers, I’ve priced out printing, etc... but I’ve never really been sure how to proceed with it.

A few months ago, after I turned in the manuscript for my the final book of my Dutch oven cookbook contract, I started thinking about it again.  I brought it out, dusted it off, and started reworking some rules ideas that had been bugging me about it.  I made a whole new set of cards, and Brendon and I started playtesting it.  My boys started taking a deeper role in the development and promotion of the game.  Then, another idea hit, and the Church changed the official list of Scripture Mastery verses, and we remade the whole cardset again.  We’re now in version 11 of the rules.  I’ve been contacting a number of key people and sharing the game with them, gathering input and even endorsements.

Last week, I met with a friend who owns a game store, and I demo’ed the new Chapter and Verse for him.  He was very positive and his suggestions were more directed toward how to get the the game published and distributed, rather than any fixes that needed in the game.

A switch turned inside me that night.  I realized for the first time inside me that this game needs to be published and that it will be published.  I’m not sure when it will happen, but there are now several options on the table to get it done.  For the first time in the 7 years I’ve been working on this game, it feels ready and it feels like it will actually happen.

And that is very, very exciting!




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 Seekers!

I've been feeling for a long time (and that feeling was confirmed by playtesters) that the game needs a setting, to help make the experience more immersive.  One of the problems with the game is that it's pretty abstract.  You're making books out of chapters out of verses, yes, but in what context?  In what setting? 

As a M:TG player, or a Yu-Gi-Oh player, you represent a great wizard, summoning monsters or casting spells.  in Pokemon, you're a trainer, sending your creatures to fight in the arena.  What are you in Chapter and Verse?

I came up with the idea of "The Seekers".  These are souls searching the world through history and places looking for pearls of truth.  Still a bit abstract, but it gives a bit more context.  It's something you can imagine, and become as you play.  See the description on the left to get an idea of how it will work.

That also means that I need to develop two new types of cards:

• "Pearls" - These will be very strong verses, probably with the "Unique" ability, rare (in published form) and expensive to play.  They will probably give some really big benefit to a player who closes a book with a Pearl verse in it.
• Location verses - I imagine these would function in a way similar to the Location cards in Chaotic, the Planechase cards in Magic, or the Field Spell cards in Yu-Gi-Oh.  These verses would define where and when in the history of the earth the game is taking place, and give certain additional benefits to verses markered to those locations.

What's cool is that I can add these verses to the game, and add a lot of context and flavor to the game.  However, they won't add any actual rules!  It's all in the cards.

And I will, of course, keep you all posted!

Here's what's new in v8.1

OK, enough with the big story and the bla, bla, bla...

On with the nitty gritty.  In the process of making the game more fun, and playable, here's what I did with the newest version:

1. The most immediate change is to note that the chapters are no longer "owned" by any player, nor are they "combined", "stolen", nor "included" together.  There are four chapter spaces in between all of the players, and verses are played into any of the four by any of the players.  Players are, in that sense, working together to build the chapters into books.  But, each book is still closed up by one player!
2. When a book is closed, any player that added verses to it benefits.  The player that closes the book draws two blessings, and anyone else that added to it also draws one.
3. This also means that each player needs a good number of blessing verses to start with.  I've tested 5-verse games and 7-verse games.  I think I prefer the five.  The games are done in about 20 minutes for two-player, 35 minutes for three.
4. I'm working on the "backstory", or the "Setting" of the game, to help the players feel more immersed in the game.  This has been difficult, because the game is really so abstract.  You're not a wizard, or a pokemon trainer, or whatever.  I'll reveal this as I have it more fleshed out.

Thanks much for coming along for the ride.  I'm excited to see this add to the world of LDS games, and scripture mastery games.

In Which I Go Through Phases

Life is cyclical, right?

So it is with Chapter and Verse.

See, I have too many hobbies, and too many interests, and not enough time or money to really pursue any of them.  One is this thrill I get from gaming and game design, and another is my LDS rock music, and yet a third is dutch oven cooking.  Mixed into all that is blogging and internet marketing (which is my day job).  Oh, and I also have a wonderful family that I try and take care of on occasion.  So far, they haven't disowned me.

So, I go through these phases where one or more of the "extra-curricular" hobbies takes center stage and the others tend to get pushed off. 

Gaming is pretty much a constant, but game design, particularly working on Chapter and Verse, tends to get sidelined a lot.  I've been working pretty steadily on a new CD, and also have been gradually preparing a dutch oven bread cookbook.  So, I've not worked much on C&V.

I haven't abandoned it, though.  In the years since the last blog entry, it's actually gone through another full revision, with a few sub-revisions.  I played with some card design ideas, and put them up on a facebook page.  I even joined a Mormon Game Design e-group, and started an online class in game design theory.  Great stuff.  Even still, I hadn't seriously looked at it in about a year.  Then, a few weeks ago, a friend of mine suggested we dig it out of mothball and give it a spin.

He got excited about it, and that fueled my own excitement.  That night, he and I fixed a few issues that have been troubling me about the rules and the concept ever since.  In a flood of ideas and activity, I've done another full revision, and now we're up to version 8.1 of the rules.  My son and I have been testing the new revisions.

I know I've said this before, but I'm finally feeling like it's solid, playable, and FUN! 

All that has made me rethink many things about the game, and the status of the website is a big part of that.  So, I've been copy/pasting  all of the old blog entries to this new Blogger.com spot, and it's now done!  I'm missing a few pictures and a few of the links, but it's still online.  I'm going to transfer the domain as soon as I get more of the static content added.  It will be much better!

Thanks for taking the time to play along.  We'll keep you updated!

Discussion Group

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!

It can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/chapterandversegametalk/

Join in the discussion!

MRKH

Rebirth, Refocus

I haven't done a thing with the game or the website in a long time, as you can see.  For a long time, I've been wondering what the future of the game is.  It's not practical for me to try and self-publish the game, and I can't really do a lot of development as a single author.  I was simply not sure what to do next.  In the meantime, a lot of my own additional creative effort was going into my music and my blogging.

So, today, I was noticing that, even without any promotional effort on my part, people are still signing up as playtesters on the mailing list.  And that baffles me a bit.  I haven't done any thing at all to encourage that or to promote it.  But still people are coming and checking the game out.

Suddenly, as I was commenting to my wife about that phenomenon, it hit me in a rush of the Spirit.  I need to keep doing the game, to keep adding to it, and I need to not worry about whether or not it will EVER get published.  I just need to make the game and share it with everyone out there.  As that thought came to my mind, I was overwhelmed and it even brought tears to my eyes.  That was my answer.  I just need to make and share.

So, suddenly, I have a clear vision.  I will do just that.  I spent the rest of the evening re-editing the v6.0 of the rules, and then I posted it and the 6.0 cardset.

Please join in the fun.  If you've never tried Chapter and Verse, give it a whirl.  If you've got an older version, give 6.0 a try.  And let me know what you think!

6.0 Rules rewrite almost done

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Now that I've tested the new version of the game a few times, I've felt the need to write them out to share them with the rest of the world!  So, I've been working on that lately.  I was up a bit last night trying to do that.  It was tricky, 'cause I was sitting with my laptop in bed, and my wife was watching TV.  It's kinda tough to focus on writing with Chuck Norris kicking the trash out of the bad guys on the screen...

Still, I got a lot done, in between the good karate scenes!

Gary Gygax Dies

By now, of course, every geek on the planet has heard the news.  Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons has died.  He was suffering from failing health for the last year or so, and finally succumbed.  For more information and other links, you can read this article (Link removed).

As a gamer and game designer, I have to take a moment and give a tribute to Gary Gygax, the man who pretty much defined adventure gaming.  And, personally, as one who grew up playing D&D, I have to tip my hat to him.  For me, in high school, I had few friends.  The few that I had were other social outcasts.  We drew together for our weekly "game club" role-playing sessions.  We played all of them, Traveller, Boot Hill, Top Secret, but mostly we played Dungeons and Dragons.  We did some miniatures gaming, too, but by far it was D&D that held us together.

For a young boy with an innovative and creative mind, D&D provided the perfect outlet.  One by one, I saw others like me turn to drugs as a way to fulfill their need to explore, but my friends and I could do all that by living our fantasies with swords and wizards.

Unfortunately, for a while, in my life, the game consumed me, and especially my attention and time.  My senior year, my grades were horrible.  College was even worse.

But in the end, I grew up.  Now, there is much that I both like and dislike about the game.  I learned a lot about good and evil by playing the game.  I learned especially, that even when you're just pretending to be evil, it still can mess with your friendships.  And I learned that in the game, you can even find yourself being better and more noble than you might be in real life.

So, I'd like to thank Gary Gygax for making Dungeons and Dragons, and I hope his family is well.

The Future of C&V

In the last few months, I've been giving a lot of thought to the future of the game.  It all started out when Covenant turned down the game.  No fault of theirs or mine, really, just a business decision, but it made me look at the game in a different way.

At first I wondered if I wanted to continue on with the game.  I mean, I'd put a lot of work into it, and if I were to carry on my own, I would have to put in a lot more.  Did I want to take that away from my family or my other pursuits, like music?  Or did I want to proceed with the game design?

Well, it seems like the game can't leave me alone.  As I've been mulling over the comments I've been getting back from some of the testers, and the comments I got back from Covenant, and combining that with my own knowledge of both game design and marketing, I've been getting hit with ideas out of nowhere to make it a more fun game, a more intense game, and ultimately  more marketable game.

So, what that means is another version of the game!  V6.0!  I'm going to start work on it this week, and hopefully have a basic cardset out within a few weeks after that.  I'm actually very excited about the ideas I have for the rules.  This new version will accommodate those that want to casually pick up a stack of verse cards, shuffle them and play the game, as well as those that want to be more in-depth gamers and make competitive decks.  That's a tricky balance to find, but I think we can make it happen!

Anyway, join me for the ride!

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!