Now that the holidays are fast approaching many people are going to have overnight guests and friends over to celebrate. You will need to find ways of entertaining your house guests. Why not consider picking up some fun party games?
If you are tired of the usual board games and you want something more unique, then you’ll want to check out a fun word game called You’ve Been Sentenced! by McNiell Designs for Brighter Minds.
You’ve Been Sentenced is a challenging and funny game that uses random cards that players need to form into actual sentences.
The first thing you’ll notice about the You’ve Been Sentenced! game is that box the box and the cards are octagon in shape. Needless to say the box stands out from the rest of the board games that you might own. I keep our board games on top of the pantry and you can easily point out which one is the You’ve Been Sentenced! game because of it’s octagon shape.
Inside the box you’ll find 500+ cards! You won’t have to worry about being bored with this game because no two games will turn out the same way – ever!
Each card features five random words. That means there are literally a thousands of different words you can play with.
The object of the game is for each player to gets 10 random cards, facing down. When you are ready to begin all players must turn their cards over so they can see the words. Players have to use their cards to create an actual sentence. Sounds easy but it can be tricky sometimes.
You don’t have to use all 10 cards in the sentence, but the more cards you use the more points you can earn.
Everyone shares their sentence with all the other players and everyone has to judge whether or not it’s an actual grammatically correct, coherent sentence. Players earn points based upon their sentences, the words they use, number of cards used and bonuses for being the first to complete a sentence or if you use all 10 cards in your sentence.
You have to hear some of the sentences my kids come up with. They are too funny. My kids will also argue the point with you that they are legitimate sentences, although to us adults they sound really goofy.
What I loved about this game is that it’s educational without the kids knowing that. What they don’t realize is that they are learning new words as well as learning to form grammatically correct sentences. My son especially asked my husband and I a few times what a word was. Either he couldn’t pronounce the word or he just had no clue what it meant. Kids do something like this at school when they learn a new vocabulary word. They need to know how to pronounce it and use it in a sentence (no need to know how to spell with this game).
This game typically takes our family at least a half hour, if not longer. You can play by the rules or sort of “wing it” and come up with your own rules. There are a couple of times my kids played the game on their own and didn’t bother keeping score. They just tried to see who could come up with the most sentences.
You’ve Been Sentenced! comes with several add on cards you can purchase. The extra cards add a new element into the mix and new challenges.
The Reader’s Digest National Word Power Challenge cards are NOT for kids. Ha! I don’t think they are for adults too. Even me and my husband had to scratch our heads a few times and grab for the dictionary to look up what a word meant. The Reader’s Digest National Power Words Challenge cards REALLY add a challenge to the game. It was also a great way for us adults to learn a few new words too.
Both of my kids like the Pop Culture cards the best. The cards feature things that they can easily recognize and understand. If I’m not mistaken this is the set of cards they use the most.
We also have the Sports Highlights and Gourmet Cuisine cards. My husband and were better at making sentences with these cards then the kids were. The kids were unfamiliar with a lot of the terms, although my son is taking Home and Careers right now in middle school and is learning cooking so some of the words he did understand because he had just learned them at school.
You’ve Been Sentenced! also has a Sci-Fi and Fantasy set of cards. We have only tried these cards once so I can’t give you a good opinion on them as of yet.
Each add on set does come in it’s own box. Although I know for a fact several of the cards have made their way into the main game box. Right now a lot of the cards are all mixed up, compliments of my kids. I honestly don’t mind. I think it just opens up the possibility of even more sentences. Who knows. Maybe one day I’ll be able to form a sentence using a sports term and a cooking term at the same time. LOL!
The game was made for those 8 and up and typically last about 30-40 minutes (if you play by the rules). It’s also made for 3-10 players but my two kids have played together several times too.
Check out this great video to give you a bit more of an idea of what the You’ve Been Sentenced! game is like and see how silly the sentences can be. Those reading this in e-mail or RSS will have to come to the site to view the video.
Another fun game they offer which is also suitable for ages 8 and up is Twisted Fish. This is NOT the “Go Fish” you grew up with. This is Go Fish on a whole new, challenging level. You have to have a really good memory to play this game. It took us a bit to get the hang of it but after we finally figured it out we had fun playing it. I LOVE the cards. The fish are so hysterical looking. The game features other sea creatures too so it’s just not a bunch of cards with fish on them. The games also figures a few “Zinger” cards which can totally throw you off.
You win the game by collection all the cards in one color (red, blue, purple…) which add up to points. The one with the most points wins.
My kids tried to play this game with just the two of them but it wasn’t as fun as it is with multiple players.
To learn more about either game please visit McNeill Designs, www.McNeillBrighterMinds.com. The games are available at Toys R Us, Kohl’s, Barnes & Noble and hundreds of other independent stores, catalogs and websites.
Kimberly
*This review post was originally posted in 2009. Back then I had received free product samples in order to do this review. There was no other compensation.
Susan McNeill says
Thanks for sharing! 🙂