You’ve Been Sentenced! Expansions
Gourmet Cuisine, Pop Culture, Reader’s Digest National Word Power Challenge, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Sports Highlights
From: McNeill Designs for Brighter Minds
Reviewed by: Ron McClung
All the You’ve Been Sentenced! Expansions are new expansions for a family card game from McNeill Designs for Brighter Minds. Each expansion contains 80 pentagonal cards that, except for one expansion, can be used as either a Mix-in or Side Deck expansion to the base game, You’ve Been Sentenced!
Because they are small expansions, I am reviewing them all at once in a single review.
Gourmet Cuisine – This expansion contains what it implies – words related to food, making food, people that make food, and Wild cards related to food. For example, the proper nouns range from countries where certain foods would be from to names of chefs. Verb cards include ‘mixed’ or ‘mixing’, ‘blend’ or ‘blending’, and of course, ‘burn’ or ‘burning’. There are also more generic conjunction cards. This expansion is not only fun but also makes you hungry.
Pop Culture – As the name implies, this set focuses on what is hip and “in,” what’s “today” and happening – pop culture. Some words are dated-pop culture, like Walkman, and bell-bottoms, while most are words from today. Many are from the internet – Google, spamming, and browsed. Others are from TV like Sponge Bob, Survivor, and South Park while others are from news like Iraq, war, and politicking. This expansion will either frustrate you because it makes you feel out of touch with pop culture or relieve you because it opens up more options that you can relate to.
Sci-Fi/Fantasy – I have to admit that I am more partial to this expansion as I am a huge sci-fi fan. Heck, I run a sci-fi convention. These contain new and old sci-fi. From Star Trek and Star Wars, Babylon 5 to Battlestar Galactica, Dr Who to Dune. It also has references to Lord of the Rings, Dungeons and Dragons, as well as a few horror references like Jason and Pinhead. It has several classic references, like Forbidden Planet and some literary references like Narnia and Harry Potter. There is technobabble and common sci-fi or fantasy words that you would not normally use every day. It has everything a sci-fi fan would know and love to use in a round of You’ve Been Sentenced!.
Sports Highlights – These cards bring in everything you can imagine that is sports related. From golf to basketball, football to baseball and even soccer is thrown in there (pun intended), a sports fan will find it a lot easier to create sentences for You’ve Been Sentenced! with this expansion. You can slam dunk with Arnold Palmer and Cy Young or kayak in Japan with Larry Byrd. You can have a touchdown in baseball or a hole-in-one in basketball. The sports possibilities are endless.
Reader’s Digest National Word Power Challenge – I left this expansion for last because it is special. It is the only set that should be used as a Side Deck. They do not want you to mix these words in. And for good reason. For one, the points values are a little higher. Also, these are, as the name implies, pretty hefty words. I consider myself a reasonably smart person but I did not know how to pronounce some of these words. These are a considerable challenge for the literary inclined. These are what some folks in my area would call 10-dollar words. Words like confabulate, colloquial, akimbo, invective, and balustrade. This pack contains 400 of these types of words and nothing else – no extra conjunction or article cards like the other expansion decks had. This expansion is also the only one of the five that does not contain any Wild cards.
Except for the Reader’s Digest National Word Power Challenge, all these expansions can be used in one of two ways – Mixed-In or Side Deck. As the name implies, when using the Mixed-In option one mixes all the cards into the base set. With the the Side Deck option, the players use the expansion decks as a separate deck from the word pool and can draw 2 cards from there as well. For the most part, the values of these cards are 5 points with a few 10s and 20s thrown in. In the case of Reader’s Digest National Word Power Challenge, the points values are a little higher, with most being 10s and some 15s and 25s.
The good thing is that each expansion (again except for the Reader’s Digest National Word Power Challenge expansion) contains generic conjunction, articles (‘the’, and ‘an’) and verbs like ‘are’ and ‘am.’ With all these new subjects, more of the generic cards need to be in the stack. Another nice thing about them is that they are all distinguishable from the base set so if you do not feel like using one particular set – like you do not want to freak out your family with all the Sci-fi references – you can take them out.
All the expansions (again except for Reader’s Digest National Word Power Challenge) contain some sort of Wild cards. For instance, the Sports Highlights deck has Wild “Equipment” or Wild “Arena.” The Sci-fi/Fantasy Expansion gas Wild “Villain” or Wild “Hero.”
In conclusion, if you read my review of You’ve Been Sentenced!, you know that I loved this game to start with. The expansions make the game even more interesting and more fun. This is a game that has the potential for endless expansions and equally endless replayability potential. I highly recommend it and highly recommend the expansions. The expansions are great in particular because you can customize the game to appeal to your players.
For more details on McNeill Designs for Brighter Minds and their new Family Card Game Expansion “You’ve Been Sentenced!” Expansions check them out at their website http://www.mcneillbrighterminds.com, and at all of your local game stores.
You’ve Been Sentenced! Expansions
From: McNeill Designs for Brighter Minds
Type of Game: Family Card Game Expansion
Game Design by: McNeill Designs for Brighter Minds
Developed by: McNeill Designs for Brighter Minds
Game Components Included: Each expansion is 80 cards
Retail Price: $ 7.95 each (US)
Number of Players: 3-10 players
Player Ages: For ages 8 and up
Play Time: 30-40 min to play
Website: www.mcneillbrighterminds.com
Reviewed by: Ron McClung