Princeton Couple Launches Kickstarter Program to Jumpstart Phraze-It!

A Princeton family has taken an idea they invented in their minivan and turned it into a fast, funny, and creative party game. In Phraze-It! – the Game of Crazy Phrases – players roll letter dice and initials are turned into silly, thought provoking and surprising phrases. 

Todd and Ruth Greenwood and their company, Lots-o-Watts Games, now hope to raise funds through Kickstarter to print and promote Phraze-It!

The Greenwood's Kickstarter campaign went live on August 16.  

The Greenwoods got the idea for Phraze-It! about five years ago during a family trip of Midwestern factory tours.

“We got into the habit of playing games like I Spy,” Ruth Greenwood said of playing with the couple’s two sons, now ages 16 and 19. “Then we just ran out of games and started making them up.”

Ruth Greenwood said soon they realized they had a growing collection of "no stuff needed" games. 

"You don't need paper, you don't need things, you you just need to look out the window or start singing," she said. 

The Greenwoods invented more than 100 such games and developed an iPhone App called Family Car Games.

One of the Greenwood's games involved calling out a phrase with words starting with the letters from the license plate of a passing car. R-B-T might become "Roaring Bohemian Turnips." That was the start of Phraze-It! But they realized that there was so much more they could do to improve the game. They worked for more than 2 years perfecting Phraze-It!, creating cards and twists and turns.

Then they played it with friends and family and brought the game to play test groups where it played well with people of all ages. 

Now they are ready to bring Phraze-It! to the world.

"In the old days, you tried to get a meeting with Parker Brothers or Hasbro and they would tell you to take a number or go away,” Todd Greenwood said. “Kickstarter allows us to retain the control we need and want." 

The couple has set their Kickstarter goal low, at $6,000, but say more money will allow them to print up more than the basic game version, one with bells and whistles.

If they get funding up to $25,000, the couple says they could take the game to half a dozen toy fairs, where there’s a chance a game company could want to make a deal or the couple could seal deals with distributors and large chains.,

Both Todd and Ruth Greenwood work full time. She’s a research and development copy editor at Educational Testing Services. He has a background in design and works in medical marketing designing health and wellness programs for Inventive Health. 

Yet both are also creative. Ruth helps create songs that went into the games app. Todd studied design and industrial design at Pratt Institute, then later created treasure hunts around Manhattan for the Learning Annex in New York City.

“It was a blast,” he said. “I’ve sort of had games in my blood for years.”

The couple has lived in Princeton since 2000. 

Phraze-It! involves dice, picking letters and then the game's "judge" pulls a card that outlines the judging criteria- a secret from the other players. Points are awarded for different things, like longest word, funniest performance, etc.

And it’s great for all ages, the Greenwoods say. 

“You could have someone from IAS playing and you could then go to Littlebrook (Elementary School) and play it and then have college kids doing it with all kinds of racy stuff and then you could go to Sunday school,” Todd Greenwood said. “It’s fun to win, but not as fun as playing turn by turn.”

And at the end of the day, it's all about the experience of family. 

"What we love about what we're doing is we're helping families play together," Todd Greenwood said. "What we really want to do is help families get closer together.