Superhawk
United States
Milwaukee
Wisconsin
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What is a "sweeping review"? A sweeping review is a review that does not focus on the details, yet tries to get just enough of them so the overall feel of the game can be felt.
Components are that of typical professionally produced party games. One thing to note here is that unlike another party game in my collection, all of the dry-erase markers worked perfectly. That is right, I won’t Say Anything more about which game in my collection came with a total of zero working dry-erase markers. The game comes with dry-erase answer cards and paddles to write hidden answers on, cards, working dry-erase markers and a dry-erase score card.
Game setup is a snap. Hand each player a dry-erase marker, a paddle, and an answer card and write each player’s name on the score card. Oh yeah, something to wipe the dry-erase stuff off with would help some people; I just used my sleeve, but that is just me.
Game play is straight forward, unlike a few of the more current popular party games. It is a race to 15 (I think) points. Players take turns being “the host”. The Host gets the scoreboard and the box of cards. The Host then draws a card and reads the phrase aloud to the group, substituting their truthful answer for the “blank”.
At the same time, all the other players besides the Host also write an answer on their answer card. The answer they write isn’t their personal answer, but an answer they think the Host would write. All these answers are passed to the Host who then shuffles them and reads them aloud to the group one, after the other.
After all the players hear what everyone has written on the answer cards they write what they think the Host answered on their paddles. Once everyone has written an answer the paddles are turned over and the Host reveals the true answer.
Scoring is where this little party game stands out. Most games I have played like this either the Host is the one who scores or the players are the ones who score and this requires an equal amount of go-rounds to play the game. In this game anyone can score any round, and in more than one way. Players get 1 point for correctly guessing the true answer. The Host gets 1 point for each vote the true answer gets. Players get 1 point for each vote their answer gets for fooling the other players into thinking his answer was the true answer.
So how is it? Like most gamers here on the geek I do not spend the majority of my time playing party games; party games are usually reserved for family functions or holiday and times when the regular gaming group isn’t around. I guess I am saying I am far from an expert, though I have played a lot of party games over the years.
I played this game with a group of people I game with weekly. We had an extra game night where we just played party game and goofed off and had a blast. Truth Be Told held its own against the games we played that night, which numbered somewhere near 10 different games. The round was highly contested, and some strategy worked out and there was a distinct chance for me to win, but in the end my plan did not work and I took second place by one point so it was an exciting finish. This compares to 2 other acclaimed games in this category that after breaking the shrink on them we decided not even to try them. We did play a couple of games twice that night as well. The part most people liked about this game was that you could score at anytime, not only when you were the Host or not the Host. Also there was quite a bit of mental manipulation to the game. Twice in a row I was deceived by a fellow player into not getting any points by clever answer play.
Overall I like Truth Be Told. It may only hit the table during the holidays and certain occasions, but I keep very few party games at all so that it more of me than the games themselves.
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