Half Truth: Second Guess

• Designers: Richard Garfield, Ken Jennings
• Publisher: Nighthawk Games
• Players: 2-12
• Age: 12+
• Time: 30 minutes

Half Truth: Second Guess is a stand-alone sequel to their 2020 board game, Half Truth. Each question has six answers — and half of them are wrong! Team up with other trivia enthusiasts and discover the Half Truth of the question. What makes Half Truth special as a trivia game is you don’t need to find every correct answer; you can give 1 to 3 answers. The more you guess, the more points you earn — but giving ANY incorrect answer earns you zero points for the question. Second Guess introduces team play, allowing for up to 12 players. It is a stand alone product, but can be combined with the base Half Truth game for more questions.

To start the game, split the players up into teams of equal sizes (though I suppose you could handicap players by putting them on smaller teams).  Each team gets a set of answer cards in their color for each player as well as a team scoring disk.  The Question mat is placed in the center of the table, and one seck of the Question Deck is placed nearby – question side face up.  

One question card is slid into the mat and then someone reads the question aloud as well as all of the options.  Now, each team looks at their scoring disk and announces if they have an icon showing – if so, this will change the rules for the particular round – possibly increasing the bonus score for the round, or instructing players to give wrong answers instead of correct answers..  

Then, all players select one to three answer cards which they feel are correct answers.  All players must select at least one answer.  The teammates are not allowed to communicate with each other about specific answers, but they can state how many answers they chose and their confidence level in those answers.  Remember that there are six choices on the question card, and exactly three of those answers are correct.

Once everyone has chosen answers, the question card is flipped over and all the player answer cards are revealed.  Correct answers are highlighted in green on the answer side of the card.  All players look at their answer cards, and if a player has any incorrect answers, they return all of their cards to their hand, and their answers do not score this round.  Then take all surviving answer cards in consideration for scoring.

If a team has identified at least one correct answer, they move their dial up 2 spaces.  The team that has the most correct answers gets a bonus advance on the scoring dial.  It does not matter how many times a team has given a correct answer, this bonus is for the most correct choices of the three correct ones.

The game continues until the round where at least one team dial shows the red exclamation point icon; this signifies that this is the final round.   Teams can score more points in this round for correct answers.  At the end of the final round, the team with the best score wins.  There is no tie breaker.

My thoughts on the game

Half Truth: Second Guess is a newly updated version of this trivia game, but as I’ve not played the original, I don’t have anything to compare it to.  From my initial plays, I really like the way that this trivia game gives you a chance to still compete even when you don’t have the first clue about the actual answer.  Yes, of course, you’ll likely do better when you do know the answer – but you can get a decent reward here for making a single 50/50 guess.  As such, it’s a trivia game that proves not to be too frustrating when you don’t have a clue – that is the downfall of most trivia games IMHO.

The scoring system certainly rewards you when you know all the correct answers; as you lock in the 2 points for getting something correct and the bonus point(s) for having the most correct answers.  Of course, there is risk involved when you give multiple answers because a single incorrect answer nullifies your entire round!  Thus, when you are choosing which answer cards to use, you always have to weigh the risks of losing it all when you try to chase down that bonus point.

The questions that I have seen so far have been quite varied, touching on a number of different topics.  I’ve yet to play a game where each players wasn’t stumped at least once nor a time when each player didn’t have at least one question which they knew through and through.  That’s a pretty good accomplishment for the team behind the questions.  

In addition, the incorrect answers are well crafted – often causing you to really think about whether or not you know the right answers!  One thing that I have noticed is that many of the question cards have a second unspoken/unwritten question…  Many cards have their wrong answers linked thematically.  As a made up example, the question might be Broadway Shows, and all three of the wrong answers turn out to be books authored by Orson Scott Card. So… even if you didn’t know anything about Broadway, if you are familiar with the books of Orson Scott Card, you’d pick up on the theme and still be able to sweep the category! 

The team aspect is a good way to include more people in the game, but as there is no discussion between teams, it’s not overly interactive.  Stronger players will still likely score more points, but there will certainly be rounds where someone saves the day with lucky guess or knowledge of a fairly niche topic.  In any event, I don’t have many games that can accommodate up to 12 people and give them all an equal opportunity to participate in the game, so Half Truth: Second Guess definitely has that going for it!

The cards are well produced and i’ve taken to putting a rubberband and a post it note on each deck of cards so I know when I’ve last played with a particular deck..  Once they’ve all been played, I’ll shuffle them up, redistribute them into random decks and do it all over again.  Games actually can take awhile to finish, the game end trigger is around 35 points, and you will end up going through a fair number of cards to get there.

The icons on the dials add a bit of spice to some rounds, and the effects do stack, so make sure that you announce whether or not you have an icon.  The double bonus icon certainly motivates you to give answers that you aren’t sure about to try to get 4 points for the round, and depending on the question, the “wrong answer” icon is sometimes helpful because you might be 100% sure of a wrong answer while not having any clue about which ones might be correct…. 

Most of the games we’ve played so far have had a fairly anticlimactic ending because while there is some increased scoring in the final round, it’s really only a couple of extra points – so if you’ve done badly throughout the game, you’re never going to catch up.  Additionally, at least for me, when I’m behind, I try to get the bonus points to catch up but then this means that I’m more likely to give an incorrect answer, end up scoring nothing for the round, and get even further behind…  That being said, it’s still fun to try to answer each question, and the game is enjoyable in that regard even if you know you’re not going to win the game.

Trivia games have scarred my psyche (after hours-long games of Trivial Pursuit in the early 90s), but games like this give me hope.  Half Truth: Second Guess works fine in a traditional individual game, but it also gives you a lot of flexibility when you can team people up and have them play together to score points.

If you want to learn more – the KS coming soon page is: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/halftruthgame/halftruthsecondguess

Until your next appointment

The Gaming Doctor