Crowdfund This: ‘Magic: The Gathering’ Creator Richard Garfield & ‘Jeopardy’ Champion Ken Jennings Team Up For ‘Half Truth’!
This is a new game designed by Richard Garfield… do I really need to say any more?
I picked up my first pack of Magic: The Gathering cards when I was about eight years old. I played the game for years (and fell in and out and in and out of it depending on where I was in life) and hope every day that I see some news about Magic: The Gathering – Arena dropping on mobile platforms. Last year at PAX West, Artifact made me feel like a kid again — leading me to feel a sense of wonder and excitement that I hadn’t felt in quite some time. A few months later, a unique deck game called Keyforge released. It’s a card game with no deck building or booster packs, just inexpensive, algorithmically assembled pre-built decks that absolutely made buying decks as addicting as buying boosters used to be — this is a game that even my fiancé Mikaela got into, and prior to this I would have never, ever thought I’d see her play a card game.
So, you could say I’m a fan… and you could say that I was probably going to back this the moment that I read the names that are attached to it. Garfield designed the game along with essentially the master of trivia, 74-time Jeopardy winner Ken Jennings (with art by Ian O’Toole). Half Truth is also being produced by Studio71, the studio behind games like Shady Agents and previous Kickstarter darling The Binding of Isaac: Four Souls. After reading Ken’s book Brainiac, Garfield wanted to design a trivia game, and after more than 13 years of the pair crafting and playtesting the title, the game is ready to be revealed.
The game is called Half Truth, and it’s a party / trivia game designed for all ages. According to the just-launched Kickstarter for the game, it “comes with 500 trivia question cards and each card has a category on it, like “Animals with blue tongues.” There are six possible answers, three right and three wrong, and players have to place bets on answers they believe are correct. Players are usually surprised by how well they do. We’re all smarter than we think.”
Gameplay sounds pretty simple, and it also sounds like unlike a lot of other trivia titles, there’s not a lot of waiting around (which can get boring and wouldn’t make for a very fun party game). Every player will play every round. Jennings and Garfield get more in depth with the gameplay right here:
Honestly, it just looks like a take on trivia that I’ve never seen before. As someone who knows a lot about certain things (movies, video games, other useless stuff) and not enough about others (history, politics, sports), a game like this that gives you a chance even if you’re trivia worthy knowledge isn’t the most well-rounded sounds right up my alley. There’s even a risk/reward system that can earn you extra points if you guess more of the possibilities, so when a card pops up that you feel confident about, you’ll be able to act on it.
The campaign has just started, and based on the rate that the backers are coming through, I think that Half Truth is going to blow past its goal pretty quickly. Naturally, there are some cool rewards up for grabs for backers, including discounted copies of the game, multiple copies of the game, copies signed by Garfield and Jennings, and even the option to add your own custom card to the game!
Jonathan even had Richard Garfield to talk about his achievements in gaming, as well as the creation and development of Half Truth. You can listen right here, and the episode is also embedded below.
Take a look at the campaign video for Half Truth below, and head here for (much) more information and to back the project. The game is estimated to ship in December, and I just can’t wait to play!
