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Blog ID: 1536 - Gary Gygax Dies - 2008-03-04
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.

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.

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Blog ID: 1524 - First Test of v6.0 - 2008-02-27
Last night my son and I tested the new version of the basic game.  It was dubbed an immediate success.  Not only did he really enjoy the game, but as soon as we were done, he lept into his ideas for cards for the advanced game (the collector/deck building game).  The cool thing was that his suggestions showed that he understood the scripture stories because the card effects he was talking about reflected the scriptures!  He was thinking, for example, of how a "Nephi" character card might interact on the table with a "Laman" character card.  It was thrilling to watch!  And the dude's only ten!

Anyway, I want to test it a few more times before I remake and repost the cardsets, and I haven't rewritten the new rules, yet.

Basically, it's the same game.  The verses are still chosen from the Scripture Mastery lists.  In fact, I didn't change any of the scripture quotes or excerpts I'd been using.  I've done a few things to streamline play, and especially to streamline learning the game.

  1. Now, instead of numbers representing the various Strength, Faith, etc..  points, there are simply letters:  S, F, etc..  Ultimately, in the published version, these will be replaced with visual graphic icons, in a similar way to the "mana" symbols in MTG or the Pokemon/Energy types in Pokemon.  Instead of trying to get 12 points in a certain theme, now you simply accumulate icons.  This keeps you from having to add up what's on the table, and all you have to do is count.  Most cards now have one or two icons/letters.  Some have more, and some will even have a "FF" double icon, counting as two.  I found this makes play much faster.  In fact, I was surprised just how much faster it is.  I still haven't decided how many icons you have to have in the chapters to close up a book.  I'm thinking 5 or 7, but the jury's still out.
  2. The card effects for the Basic game have changed, but only a little.  I went through all of the verses and counted the number of repetitions of each word (except for the "and"s and "the"s).  The most common words were the ones I set up for the "Keyword" effect.  One of the goals is that someone can grab the whole stack of basic game cards.  Split them in half, shuffle them, and play.  With these keyword verses relating to more words, then there is a greater likelihood that the combinations will actually come up.  I also had to re-write the wording of a few verse effects to reflect the new icon style of play.
  3. To streamline learning, there are only 4 standardized effects:  Quote, Prayer, Keyword, and Discard.  Everything else will be in the advanced cardsets.
Other than that, it's pretty much the same game.  It played much more quickly, much more smoothly.  It was very easy to teach it to my son.  That may well have been because he was a bit familiar with previous versions, and he's also fluent in playing more complex collectible games.  I'll have to try and teach it to some folks that have no CCG background and see what they think.

I'm getting re-excited to see how it might fit into the world of LDS games, and help people learn their Scripture Mastery.

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Blog ID: 1508 - The Future of C&V - 2008-02-19
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 accomodate 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!

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Blog ID: 493 - Covenant - 2007-12-08
This last week was a landmark week for me in some ways.

In most ways, it was just like any other week.  I went to work, did the fam thang, etc...

But this particular week, I submitted Chapter and Verse to Covenant Communications, on the good advice of my friend James.  Nothing ventured nothing gained, right?

We'll see if anything comes of it.  Thanks for all your support!

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Blog ID: 400 - Sunday Scripture: John 17:3 - 2007-12-03
#32 Know the Divine: John 17:3 “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent."

Stats: S0, W4, F2, H0, T0; Theme: W, Effect: Quote

One of the cool things about being the game designer is that you can inject personal things into your game.  Like, for example, when you come across a verse that is one of your favorites, and you think that it's one that everyone should be able to quote on a moment's notice, you can give it the "Quote" ability.

This is also one of the verses that was used in this last conference to refute those that claim that Mormons are not Christian.  The adherence to the Nicene Creed claims that God is "Unknowable".  But this verse shows that we can know God and Jesus on a very personal level.  Indeed, that knowing God is vital to our exaltation.

This verse implies that how well we know God will determine how qualified we are to become like Him.  Which only stands to reason.

In the game, this verse can be a powerful punch when combined with "#26 The Sealing Power" and "#84 The Testimony of Joseph".  These all have 4 points of Wisdom, and all have "Quote".  So, all you gotta do is learn these verses (which should be in your mind and hearts anyway), and you can throw down a Wisdom book for free!  Without quoting, you'd have to sacrifice six verses to get these three out.

Good gaming!

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