About

Conviction is the first card game where you and your friends deliver sweet judicial justice to Trump and his cronies. Conviction puts key public figures on trial in front of Lady Justice herself. The goal? Get the most points by convicting the highest-value public figures. The prosecutor with the most points wins and saves America. From Ivanka and Jared to Betsy DeVos and Paul Ryan, the gang’s all included and ready to be convicted.

Dan lives in San Francisco advising technology start-ups, was previously a product manager at Google, and led product design at Leap Motion.

Neil is passionate about innovation within the healthcare space. He currently leads a Chicago-based consulting and investing firm.  

We have been friends for nearly 20 years, and over that time period we’ve played hundreds and hundreds hours of Risk, Settlers of Catan, Scrabble, Guillotine, and Cards Against Humanity. We first met in high school. Our last names being Peterson and Patel, we were seated next to each other in American History class. Fate or coincidence -- unclear which -- led us down a path to create Conviction, a game about a period in the history of these United States of America that will be taught in American History classes for years to come.

After the 2016 election we found ourselves oscillating between scared and angry -- but mostly frustrated. As President-Elect Trump started discussing his cabinet picks, supreme court appointments, policy agenda, and White House advisors it became clear that this was not a nightmare, but a reality that we were going to be dealing with for the next four years or less (Come on emoluments crew!). We shared articles back and forth with each other in exasperation and searched for an outlet for our frustration. 

We created the game to channel our energy into something positive, while doing so we found ourselves reading even more current events, policy briefs, tweets, and blogs. Conviction is a lot of fun, and it’s also been quite educational for many. We also realized that we didn’t want to profit from the mess in D.C., so we decided to donate the proceeds where they’re needed. And thus, El Pen was born, the company we formed to fund causes that are under attack by Trump. 

It may seem unlikely that creating a card game set in our nightmarish reality would serve as a diversion for us, but it did. Blood pressure is down, spirits are up, and Conviction the card game is a real thing.

We hope you enjoy playing Conviction as much as we enjoyed making it!