Magic: The Gathering and KeyForge creator wants to reinvent the trivia game in Half Truth

Legendary designer Richard Garfield and quiz show champion Ken Jennings have teamed up to create a party game that they believe fixes the problems with answering trivia around the tabletop.

Half Truth has apparently been in the works for more than a decade from the Magic: The Gathering, KeyForge and King of Tokyo creator and 74-time winner of US quiz series Jeopardy!, after Garfield read Jennings’ book Brainiac and contacted the trivia whizz about making a game. 

The trick to what makes Half Truth different to your typical question-and-answer affair lies in its name. Every question card has six possible answers, half of which are correct. So, for example, the question might involve naming a music video set in Paris or a movie over three hours long.

The players don’t have to get all three answers to score points, but they can push their luck (and knowledge) by betting on up to three of the choices. For every answer they get right, they get a number of victory points decided by a die at the start of the round plus bonus points for multiple correct answers – the most points after three rounds wins – but if they bet on an answer that’s wrong, they don’t get any points at all.

The idea is that even if players don’t know all of the answers to a question, they might know at least one and be able to score something – hopefully avoiding situations where players are left frustrated by being unable to answer anything or require specific knowledge.  

Half Truth comes with 500 questions cards, ranging from subjects such as animals with blue tongues to cities on Route 66. Prolific board game illustrator Ian O’Toole – known for Vinhos, Lisboa and the recent Pipeline, among many other tabletop titles – has lent his artwork to the game.

Half Truth is currently up on Kickstarter, where its campaign will run until September 20th. It’s already more than tripled its initial £8,000 goal, with the game set to arrive with backers this December.