Over 6,000 Backers + NEW Tiers!
over 4 years ago
– Tue, Sep 10, 2019 at 02:47:01 AM
Over 6,000 of you have supported Half Truth and are helping us every day to bring this incredible game to market. Please continue to offer us more suggestions and feedback!
Based on some of the ideas we received recently, we just announced final tiers for the campaign:
BOOKWORM ($58): This one comes with the book Brainiac by Ken Jennings, which was the original inspiration for the game. Richard was given the book as a present and after going through it, decided to make a game inspired by it. In all, the tier will come with a standard base game, the exclusive game mat and a copy of Brainiac. Who knows, your copy may even be signed by Ken.
DEFENDING CHAMP ($81): This tier comes with Half Truth swag! In addition to everything from the Bookworm tier (standard game + exclusive mat + Brainiac), the tier will include an exclusive T-shirt. We are currently working on the design and will reveal it soon. The sizing for the T-Shirt will be collected during the pledge manager.
Update on the exclusive game mat
This is being designed by Ian O'Toole, who also designed the game and we should be able to share final design for this soon!
Review from GeekDad.com
The wonderful folks at Geekdad.com reviewed a prototype copy of Half Truth and this is what they had to say. Link here and excerpt below.
AMA with Richard Garfield
over 4 years ago
– Fri, Sep 06, 2019 at 06:02:48 PM
Hey everyone,
Thanks so much for submitting your questions about Half Truth for the AMA. Below are answers from Richard to the most frequently asked questions. We look forward to hearing your thoughts!
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Are the cards of Half Truth standard size?
Yes.
Will there be expansions in the future? If yes, what themes are you considering?
I am hopeful there will be a steady stream of questions. I love to write them and I love to play them. As far as themes go, we will take direction from the community. I could imagine things like sports or movies or science fiction, or branded content like Harry Potter or Marvel. That said, for me, there will never be anything that replaces the grab bag of not knowing what you might get on the next question. I have never enjoyed heavily themed content in trivia games as much as being surprised at every turn what I was being asked.
How hard is it working with Mr. smarty pants. Still love ya Ken.
It has been really easy working with Ken. I was almost certain I would like it based on his book, Brainiac. I anticipated a know-it-all basking in his glory, but found someone who was introspective, realistic, respectful, playful, and filled with love for trivia, a love that grew naturally out of a curiosity about everything. I liked it enough; I designed this game based on what he wrote, and still enjoy reading whatever he writes. He provided excellent editorial direction for what sort of questions we should make, and what worked well in the questions and what didn't work so well.
Besides for what you wrote on the campaign, what is the main mechanic that sets Half Truth apart from the plethora of other trivia games?
The main mechanic is that half the answers are true, and a more subtle one that the rewards for answering a single one correctly gets you a huge amount of value. Generally players don't feel like they have to guess a second or third answer to feel competitive. This is really different from how I think the rewards for this sort of game would usually be handled - where players would get huge returns on pressing their luck. By making it so, the rewards were focused on finding a single correct answer the game feels more inclusive - where the players who are very good with trivia will certainly have an advantage, but they won't dominate as much as with most knowledge based games.
How many themes are there in the current deck?
There are many different subjects covered, with many that are hard to categorize. Ken made a rough breakdown of topics - like movies, history, science, and so forth - and we tried to keep them equal-ish. However, many questions don't really categorize easily (Which of these are discontinued breakfast cereals). Since we didn't only roughly categorized them and didn't actually put a category on the card - I don't know exactly.
Are there any fun facts about the making of Half Truth game?
This might be the first game which I have made that I like the final name better than my placeholder name. Generally my games end up with my placeholder names - like Magic or King of Tokyo. I don't claim my placeholder names are perfect, or that I always dislike the final name - but I never like them as much. I would have bet solidly against this being the game that broke that rule - because I really liked my placeholder name - Inconceivable. All the brainstormed names were worse. Until - Half Truth - which is such a perfect name for the game it is almost like we came up with the name first rather than over 10 years later.
How replayable is Half Truth? Will additional trivia questions be made available to continue playing?
I am guessing the base game will be good for about 25 games; and solidly replayable within those 25 games in that the questions will be fresh each time - I don't think they get old or fail to surprise from time to time. We do, of course, intend to keep the questions coming as long as there is demand. And, they are fun to make!
What’s the logic behind the three round trackers?
The three different rounds do several things. With the three rounds, it is easy to make the stakes later in the game more valuable - so you have more capability to catch up from behind. The stakes are set so that the first rounds don't feel meaningless, but the last round is most important. Another thing it does is makes it so that players who fall behind are not simply trying to catch up for the rest of the game. I have seen players get totally owned the first round, and there is a real sense of relief when the next starts fresh. It gives a chance for 'little victories' for people - a player might not win the game but winning a round - or even just doing well on a round - can feel satisfying. Finally - it breaks the game into three acts - with a climax at the end of each.
There are blank spaces on each of the three round trackers. What score do they represent?
The round trackers are broken into scoring zones. Players can as far along as possible when the round ends - because that is where the biggest points are. The blank spaces are in a particular scoring zone - but the score is noted on a different square on the zone. The colors of the squares has no meaning - other than the red at the end which signifies the end.
Is the game US centric only?
Most questions should be broadly entertaining to English speakers. There will be US-centric questions, however, as well as some that will only mean something to older or younger players for example. The sample cards should be pretty reflective of what sort of questions there are. In general I like to make something for everyone and am willing to have some questions that are duds for some players if they have a chance of being special for others - as long as most are good for everyone.
I hope that we can do other languages as well as more localized versions in English. One thing that's easy to miss when skimming the question topics, however, is that there will be some that look US-centric, which are not. For example, there is a question on discontinued cereals, which I mentioned earlier in this AMA. We had some folk working on a French version of the game (delayed for now) who were going to replace it - "because a french person would never know that". It is possible it would be correct to replace it - but that is not the right standard. I have given that question to maybe 100 people and have never found any that knew the answers. Instead they went on the sound of the names, and made educated guesses - and generally enjoyed the question. I can't name a single Justin Bieber song but enjoyed my wife's question as to which were real Bieber song names. They all sounded ridiculous. (weirdly, my memory is that Ken claimed the same and yet got every answer on that card right. Is he a closet Bieber fan or did Koni have a tell in her fake answers?)
That does not mean that all questions are equally good even if people at the table know nothing of the topic. If I were hit with a question on cricket players I would have no hook whatsoever, unless I recognized a name to eliminate because it was Brad Pitt or something. But a question about cricket terms... that might be ok for me. I don't know any off hand, but they will sound more or less plausible and I will take a guess that is based on something that isn't entirely random.
BIG UPDATE -- (First QUIZ WIZ WINNER)! Level 3 UNLOCKED + 5,400+ Backers!
over 4 years ago
– Wed, Sep 04, 2019 at 02:21:52 AM
Hope everyone had a great Labor Day weekend!
We've been busy behind the scenes on quite a few production details and will have some exciting new updates over the next few weeks. In the meantime, there's been a lot of activity on the Kickstarter and we want to share some key announcements and also respond to some very valuable feedback that you all have been providing.
Here goes:
Update #1 -- FIRST-EVER WINNER OF THE HALF TRUTH QUIZ WIZ DAILY CONTEST ANNOUNCED
Thanks to everyone that participated in the first daily quiz that we hosted on the Half Truth Instagram today. Congratulations to Chris Hulbert for winning a signed copy of Half Truth! The daily Quiz Wiz activation will run on the Half Truth Instagram everyday at 12 noon PST and the winner will be announced at 6pm PST.
Update #2 -- We hit 5,000 backers over the weekend and the number is close to 5,400+ backers today.
Update #3: Which means you guys hit the last stretch goal task and unlocked Level 3! We also announced Level 4 stretch goals. We are very excited to see how soon you can unlock these because we are working on a few really cool unlocks!
P.S. If you have any ideas for unlocks you'd like to see, leave us suggestions in the comments section!
Update #4: We saw all of your feedback and want to confirm that the playmat will definitely be available as an add-on during Backerkit. We are actively looking at more add-on options and welcome your suggestions!
We plan to share the final design within the next few weeks.
The more feedback you provide, the better we can make this game and the Kickstarter campaign.
