Designers: Richard Garfield, Ken Jennings Publisher: Nighthawk Games Players: 2-12 Ages: 12+ Time: 30 minutes
Half Truth: Second Guess is the standalone sequel to the 2020 board game Half Truth. Each question has six answers, half of which are wrong. Team up with other trivia enthusiasts to find the Half Truth of a question. What’s special about Half Truth as a trivia game is that you don’t have to find all the right answers, you can give 1-3 answers. The more you guess, the more points you get, but if you get even one wrong answer, you get 0 points for that question. Second Guess introduces team play, allowing up to 12 players. It’s a standalone product, but you can combine it with the basic Half Truth game to ask more questions.
To begin the game, split players into teams of equal numbers (although you can handicap players by splitting them into smaller teams). Each team is given an answer card of each player’s color and a team scoring disc. The question mat is placed in the center of the table, and one of the question decks is placed nearby, question side up.
One question card is inserted into the mat and someone reads the question and all the answer choices out loud. Then each team looks at their scoring disk and announces if an icon is visible. If an icon is visible, it changes the rules for that round, potentially increasing bonus scores for that round or instructing players to answer incorrectly instead of correctly.
Next, every player selects one to three answer cards that they believe to be the correct answer. Every player must select at least one answer. Teammates cannot communicate with each other about specific answers, but they can state how many answers they selected and their level of confidence in those answers. Remember, question cards have six options, three of which are correct.
Once everyone has chosen an answer, flip the question card over and reveal all players’ answer cards. The correct answer will be displayed in green on the answer side of the card. All players check their answer cards, and if any answer is incorrect, they return all of their cards to their hand. That player’s answer will not be scored for this round. After that, all remaining answer cards will be counted towards the score.
If a team finds at least one correct answer, they move the dial up two spaces. The team with the most correct answers earns a bonus advance on the scoring dial. This bonus goes to the team with the most correct answers out of the three, regardless of how many correct answers the team gets.
The game continues until the round where at least one team dial has a red exclamation point icon, indicating that this is the final round. Teams can earn more points for correct answers in this round. The team with the highest score at the end of the final round wins. There are no ties.
My thoughts on the game
Half Truth: Second Guess is the latest version of this quiz game, but I have never played the original version, so I have nothing to compare it to. From my first playthrough, I really like that this quiz game gives you a chance to compete even without an initial hint as to the actual answer. Of course, you have a better chance of doing better if you know the answer, but even if you make one 50/50 guess, you can still get a decent reward. So it’s a quiz game that isn’t too frustrating even if you don’t have a hint, which is a drawback of most quiz games, but in my opinion, it seems like it’s not going to be frustrating if you don’t know the hint.
The scoring system ensures that you are rewarded for knowing all the correct answers: you get 2 points for each correct answer and bonus points for the most correct answers. Of course, multiple answers come with risks, since one wrong answer invalidates the whole round, so when choosing which answer card to use, you should always consider the risk of losing everything in pursuit of the bonus points.
The questions I’ve seen so far are very diverse, touching on a wide range of topics. I have yet to play a game where each player hasn’t been stumped at least once, or where each player hasn’t fully understood at least one question, which is quite an accomplishment for the team behind the questions.
Additionally, the wrong answers are well-crafted and often make you really think about whether you know the right answer. One thing I noticed is that many of the question cards have a second implicit question. On many cards, the wrong answers relate to the theme. As a hypothetical example, if the question is about Broadway shows, all three of the wrong answers are books written by Orson Scott Card. This means that even if you don’t know anything about Broadway, if you’re familiar with Orson Scott Card’s books, you’ll understand the theme and be able to dominate the category.
The team element is a good way to get more people into the game, but it’s not very interactive since there’s no discussion between teams. Stronger players may earn more points, but there will inevitably be rounds where someone saves the day with a lucky guess or knowledge of a fairly niche topic. Either way, there aren’t many games that can accommodate up to 12 people and give everyone an equal chance to participate in the game, so Half Truth: Second Guess definitely excels in that regard.
The cards are well made and I decided to put rubber bands and sticky notes on each card deck so you know when you last played with a particular deck. Once all the cards have been played, you shuffle and redistribute them into random decks and repeat this all over again. The game actually takes a while to end. The game end trigger is around 35 points and you’ll end up using quite a few cards to get there.
The icons on the dial add a little spice to some rounds. The effects stack, so be sure to announce if you have the icon. The double bonus icon motivates you to try and give an answer you’re not sure about in order to get 4 points for the round. Also, for some questions, the “wrong answer” icon can be useful, because sometimes you’re 100% sure that it’s the wrong answer, even though you have absolutely no idea which one is correct…
Most of the games I’ve played have had pretty anticlimactic endings because, while you do get a small boost in your score in the final round, it’s really only a few extra points, and if you’ve done poorly the whole game, you’ll never catch up. Plus, at least in my case, when you’re behind, you try to get bonus points to catch up, but then you’re more likely to give the wrong answer, which will give you zero points for that round and put you even further behind… That said, it’s still fun trying to answer each question, and even knowing you’re not going to win the game, you can still enjoy it in that respect.
Trivia games have left a mark on me (after hours of playing Trivial Pursuit in the early ’90s), but games like this give me hope. Half Truth: Second Guess works well as a traditional individual game, but it also gives you a lot more flexibility to team up and play together to earn points.
For more information, check out the KS Coming Soon page: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/halftruthgame/halftruthsecondguess
Until your next reservation
Gaming Doctor
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