You've Been Sentenced! Don McNeill Interview

You've Been Sentence! -- A Success Story
I met Don McNeill, Inventor and Chairman of Designs for Brighter Minds at SIIA in NYC. He gave about a 60-second talk that was a much-needed positive note.

McNeill has turned a family dinner idea into a successful board game. That's right, a game of mad libs at a family night out, sparked what has become a extremely successful word-sentence forming game. The idea, according to McNeill was the easiest part. After finding that there was nothing out there like it, McNeill discovered that the rest was a lot more difficult. "After working on the game for about 5 weeks, I discovered it didn't work. And then I figured out the math--the geometry of language to make the game playable," says McNeill.

The key was the pentagon shape--the most important thing, 5 was the key for game words--for example--play, plays, played, playing, and player. Most words would fit the game, even those that could be configured a little over or a little under that number. Additionally McNeill read the dictionary--a lot--to find words that had seven definitions or more. "That allowed for an easy play method, where words could have multiple uses--noun, verb, adjective," says McNeill. "And then we attached a humor value--from 1 - 5 for each of the words."  5 different kinds of cards were developed to form "pack cards", which included conjunctions, famous people from history, and places. And no game would be complete without "Wild Cards" -- thanks goodness -- I'd be looking for those wild cards all the time!

For the prototype, McNeill's daughter designed the pentagon shapes on her computer, and he and his wife cut them out and wrote the words by hand on the edges of over 500 words for play testing--and it worked--the game was ready. The first game release was on 5/5/05. McNeill admits that the directions weren't perfect for that first release, but were modified, with the help of original players, and they took on a more of a "judge and jury" approach.

I asked McNeill how long it took from idea to perfected game. He said that the game will always be a work in progress because card packs are being added regularly. His add-on card decks for the game keep it fresh--the most recent is a Space Add-Ons deck.
What in the game's future--McNeill says it's the online version.

Check out You've Been Sentenced! and the Designs for Brighter Minds Web site -- http://www.mcneilbrighterminds.com.