You’ve Been Sentenced!
From: McNeill Designs for Brighter Minds
Reviewed by: Ron McClung
You’ve Been Sentenced! is a new family card game from McNeill Designs for Brighter Minds.
In You’ve Been Sentenced!, players form sentences with the uniquely designed pentagon-shaped cards. There are a total of 540 cards in the box (now that’s a card game!). Most of the cards have different versions of a word along each side of the card – plural, past-tense, etc. Other cards have proper nouns, small “connecting” words, pronouns, or other related nouns or verbs. Some cards are wild cards and can be used as any word or to make a noun possessive (‘s).
From the box cover: “Play your cards right. Make your sentences count. For you will be judged. Seriously Hilarious!”
The game has several variations, but to start with, I’ll look at the standard game. Each round begins with each player getting a fresh hand of 10 cards, with previous hands discarded after the scoring of that round. The goal of the game is to get to 200 points before anyone else. You gain points by making sentences with the given cards you have. When you form your sentence, you knock the table. Once you knock, your sentence can not be changed. There is no time limit (at least on the standard rules) but the first person to form the sentence and knock on the table does get bonus points. A player can also get bonus points for using all 10 cards to form their sentence. So each round can be a mad dash to form a sentence using as many cards as possible before the next guy, at least until the first player knocks on the table.
In the standard game, once all players have finished their sentence, each sentence is submitted for Judgment. This is where the “play on word” in the game title (You’ve Been Sentenced!) comes in. Genius marketing! The sentence is judged by the Jury – the other players. They judge whether it is a valid sentence or not. Any jury member may object. If anyone objects, the player that formed the sentence must defend it. Objections can be made on the grounds of grammatical errors or simply not making sense. After all arguments are made, jury members vote with a thumbs up or down (except the objecting and defending player, who are forced to abstain).
The only confusion I had with this is what if multiple people object? Do they choose one to make the arguments or do they all? Do they all abstain or only the person that makes the argument? What if you are playing with three people and 2 people object. No vote can happen then? Does that kill the sentence automatically? Logically it would, but it does not state this anywhere in the rules.
From the web site: “Don’t try anything smart pal”
If the vote goes in favor of the player or ties, the objection is overruled and the player gets the points for the sentence. Otherwise, the player does not get the points. This step of the process relies strongly on good sportsmanship and honesty among the players, obviously. It might be just my group of friends, but I can see a case of the group uniting against a single player on the verge of winning and rejecting his sentence regardless of grammar or making sense, just to keep him from winning. Maybe I play with too many cutthroat players, but it seems that this could be a potential problem. However, this is family game, after all, and we should expect people to be fair and honest instead of thinking of the negative possibility.
The standard games is fun in its own right, but there are several variations to the game available in the rulebook and on the web site that really take this game to the next level. My favorite is the YBS 7 Card Stud by Don McNeill which is based, of course, on Poker. Players bet whether the sentence in their hand has the highest point total of all the other sentences or not. There are also expansion sets that add cards to the set, including Pop Culture, Sports, and my favorite, Sci Fi/Fantasy. There is all kinds of room for expansion in this game, as well as room for customization.
In conclusion, no matter what variation of this game you play, I think this is a very fun and satisfying game for casual and hardcore gamers. It has brilliant and flexible mechanics, a wide variety of variations, and great player interaction. The re-playability factor is very high when you throw in the variations of play. It’s a clean (unlike some of the other sentence forming games I have reviewed) and very educational game. The education value is worth the price alone. One top of that, it’s a good value — $25 is not a bad price for a game like this. I highly recommend this game to anyone.
Important Note: A portion of each retail sale of You’ve been Sentenced! goes to fight illiteracy in the USA through the not-for-profit organization Success Won’t Wait, Inc. Founded in 2002, the organization’s mission is to encourage reading, particularly by children. For more information about Success Won’t Wait and its literacy programs, please visit www.successwontwait.org.
For more details on McNeill Designs for Brighter Minds and their new Card Game “You’ve Been Sentenced!” check them out at their website http://www.mcneillbrighterminds.com, and at all of your local game stores.
You’ve Been Sentenced!
From: McNeill Designs for Brighter Minds
Type of Game: Family Card Game
Game Design by: McNeill Designs for Brighter Minds
Developed by: McNeill Designs for Brighter Minds
Number of Pages: 2 page folded rule sheet
Game Components Included: 540 cards, hour glass, rulesheet
Retail Price: $ 24.95 (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