Great Game Gifts for 2011

McNeill Designs for Brighter Minds, Inc is a company that produces games that are inherently educational, yet seriously fun.   We had the opportunity last year to review a collection of games from McNeill Designs and were impressed. 

When Hubs and I played You’ve Been Sentenced!, we really enjoyed it.  I plan to incorporate the You’ve Been Sentenced game into our language arts learning in homeschool, when Mister and Sister get a bit older.

In addition to their commitment to providing quality games for the family, McNeill Designs also partners with a not for profit organization, Success Won’t Wait, by donating a portion of the sales of the You’ve Been Sentenced game.  Success Won’t Wait encourages children to read and provides free books to organizations and programs nationwide. 

About You’ve been Sentenced…

The You’ve been Sentenced! game is a fun sentence-building game.  The game is played by drawing cards and using the words on the cards.  Each player gets ten of the pentagon shaped cards, each of which has five conjugations of a base word. The conjugates each have a point value assigned.  Players must use the words on the cards to form a sentence that makes sense, and earn the points for the conjugate actually used in the sentence.  It isn’t necessary to use all ten cards, but it is sometimes possible.  If a sentence doesn’t make sense, or is grammatically incorrect, any other player can object to it.  If a sentence is objected, the player can defend it, and the rest of the players vote whether the sentence is acceptable or ridiculous.  It’s the walk of shame for sentences deemed ridiculous, and the player earns no points.  With 540 cards in the game, and six add on decks available, the sentence making fun is virtually endless. 

You’ve Been Sentenced! is best played with 3 or more players, and is ideal for ages 8+. 

Another game by McNeill Designs is Twisted Fish.  This game is a twist on the old family favorite of Go Fish.  In Go Fish, you would simply ask other players for a card, such as “Do you have a six?”  With Twisted Fish, you have to be more specific, as there are 13 unique fish characters in five different color suits.  So, your query would be,  "do you have the yellow Blowfish?"  The game also includes 8 Zinger Wild Cards that allow you to change up the game. 

It’s like a game of memory and Go Fish combined, because the challenge is to remember every question that is asked at the table. 

For 3 to 6 players. Ages 8 & Up.

You’ve Been Sentenced! and Twisted Fish are now available in the game aisle at Toys R Us and Kohl’s, in addition to being sold at various independent toy sellers and on Amazon.

Either game would be a fun addition to your own family game night, or great games to gift to others.