Posted in: Board Games, Games, Interview, Tabletop | Tagged: Half Truth: Second Guess, Nighthawk Interactive, Richard Garfield

Interview: Richard Garfield Talks Half Truth: Second Guess

We had a chance to chat with legendary game creator Richard Garfield about his latest title, Half Truth: Second Guess, which is out now

Last month, Nighthawk Interactive released a brand new tabletop sequel, as Half Truth: Second Guess is now out on the market. The game is a sequel to the game Half Truth, which was created by legendary tabletop game designer Richard Garfield and Jeopardy champion and current host Ken Jennings. The sequel builds on the first title with a few new mechanics and a number of new questions that will have you second-guessing about a lot of things when it comes to basic trivia. The game threw a successful Kickstarter and has been making its way out slowly to the public, as it seems a more public release is on the horizon. We got a chance to chat with Garfield about the game and how it's played, along with his work in designing it.

BC: Hey Richard, how's things been going for you this year?

RG: Just fine. I am enjoying a new environment living in Sydney. I am working on many interesting projects, and enjoying my twin 7-year old boys getting better and better at testing games.

Getting right to it, how did you and Ken Jennings first end up meeting each other?

I read Ken's excellent book, Brainiac, and was swept up in his enthusiasm for trivia. I was left compelled to design a game that brought out the things that he loved, and when I did, I contacted him and asked him to try it out. He played two games, and despite being the best at the table at trivia (duh), he lost the second game. He saw that the design would favor the best trivia folk, but was also structured to reduce that advantage so that a broader set of players could compete, perhaps even people who didn't realize they liked trivia.

How did the discussion about working on a tabletop game come about?

After that game, we decided to partner up. I would have been happy to have him join in just an advisory role, since I felt he was the spiritual inspiration of the game. However, he was a workhorse, helping to design style guides for the questions, and providing… possibly more questions than anyone else. I might have done more, but it is close, and his are, naturally, better.

What was it like for you to work on the first game, Half Truth?

Working on Half Truth was a blast. The format of the game is multiple choice questions where there are three correct and three incorrect answers. It turns out that there is a lot you can do with that format, and we explored it, learning how to inject humor, headgames, traps, and hints, for example. At its best, each question felt like a little game you were playing with the designer.

The game kinda took off on its own as a party title when it was launched. Did you expect the kind of response it got or were you a bit surprised?

I was gratified by the reaction of the players, for many it did what it was supposed to do and shared the joy of the marvelous hobby of trivia. I think the pandemic kept it from reaching the broader audience I hoped to reach, however.

What do you believe was the main factor of it catching on so quickly?

The multiple-choice questions make it so that no one is ever without an answer, and you really never have that bad a chance. Game players immediately understood and appreciated the simple press-your-luck mechanic with answering. You could try to get more than one of the three answers, but if you mess up one, you don't get anything.

How did the talks of doing a second title come about?

Before Half Truth came out, probably. We knew we wanted a follow-up game, in part because trivia is typically one use, so our game came with about twenty plays. Anyone who liked the game enough to keep playing would be looking for more questions!

What did you do with Half Truth: Second Guess to improve and change things up from the original?

The big question was what the second title would look like. We knew we wanted it to be stand-alone rather than just a collection of new questions. That is because we would want new players to be able to join the game with Second Guess rather than be forced to track down a Half Truth. That gave us the opportunity to add some new rules for team play and for quicker games as well. I think, though, the biggest improvement is in question quality. Our best questions in Half Truth can stand with Second Guess, but overall, by the time we were making Second Guess, we were much better at making questions in this format. We got good at injecting humor and giving people multiple ways to get at a question. For example, suppose I told you that three of these were AC/DC songs:

A: Witch's Spell

B: Sweet Candy

C: It's in the Rain

D: Drifting

E: Pax Deorum

F: Touch Too Much

This has (at least) two angles, and a sense of humor because the wrong answers are all Enya songs. A player can get in with knowledge of AC/DC, Enya, and even if they don't recognize any of them, simply eliminating one or two gives you a good chance you are doing well, with most groups, if you just get one! The answers, by the way, are A, B, and F.

What made you decide to go through Kickstarter to help fund the game this time around?

That is the publisher's decision rather than mine. But, it is a good way to get a relationship with your customer, which is a great thing for games in particular; it helps develop a community up front and can allow a better product to be made as well.

What do you hope people will get out of the sequel?

My most ardent hope is that we bring more people into the wonderful hobby of trivia; there are many ways to engage with it beyond a board game like Half Truth. And, for the players who already love trivia, I think we are offering a way to play that will allow them to share it wider within their playgroup.

What else are you currently working on that you can talk about?

One of my most interesting projects is a game with GMT called Founders of Reyvick, inspired by the economic ideas in the book, Radical Markets. The game is built around assets which players own, but that are always available for other players to buy. The price is set by the owner, but they pay tax proportionate to that price, so getting the correct price is quite important. Too low and someone will buy it from you; too high and you will be paying too much in taxes.

Aside from the obvious, is there anything else you'd like to promote?

One game I always thought deserved more of an audience was Spy Net, and it has recently been reprinted as Shadow Blades. It works well 1v1 or 2v2, and is one of the few games, of my design, that I pull out regularly.

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