Invisible Typewriter’s Jon Gracey on designing You Know It! – a trivia game for people who are rubbish at trivia

Jon, it’s great to connect. To kick us off, who are Invisible Typewriter and how would you sum up the types of games you guys create?
Thanks for having me! Invisible Typewriter is me, Viv Egan and Matthew Hancock, three lovers – well, two lovers and our friend Matt, who doesn’t like me doing this bit – who make games that are simple, accessible and focus on either learning about or teasing your friends.

Ha! Terrific! Now, let’s dive into You Know It! For anyone new to the game, how would you pitch it?
You Know It! is a trivia game for people like me who are rubbish at trivia. You earn points for correct answers, but more importantly you get points for betting on who around the table you think will know – and not know – the answers. Correct bets get you points, incorrect bets give the points to the person you were wrong about. You can do well by knowing trivia – but to truly excel at You Know It!, you need to know your friends.

Where did the idea for this come from?
We were on holiday with some friends and we were having fun teasing our friend Claire – who has seen very few films – by guessing how many people in the group would get a film reference, and then always subtracting one because she wouldn’t know it.

We realised there was lots of fun in the discussion of who everyone thought would know the answers and why, but we felt like film references were too restrictive. Viv then had the idea to replace references with trivia, and You Know It! was born.

What led you to launch this yourselves, as opposed to pitching it to an existing games publisher?
Matthew and I had previously collaborated on History Mysteries, an escape puzzle series for families, so we had some experience on the manufacturing and direct selling side. In addition, I have a presence on board game YouTube, so we knew we had an in-built audience for a Kickstarter.

How steep a learning curve has publishing You Know It! Been?
In a way, You Know It! has been an easier job in terms of the manufacturing as History Mysteries has many components, but shipping thousands of units to waiting backers was definitely a challenge – previously, we were working to our own timeline!

Looking ahead, what’s next for Invisible Typewriter?
Our next game, The Dealer – created by award-winning designers Scott Huntington and Shaun Graham – is being printed as we speak! Our plan is to release multiple games this year, over a variety of genres, but using our special weapons which are: Viv’s marketing nous, Matthew’s incredible visual acuity, and the fact that I can smile and look pretty for the cameras.

Your classic triple threat! Sounds like a dream team.
We’re all very into game design and putting together cool things, and sparking off each other really helps elevate ideas to where they need to be.

Last question! What fuels your creativity?
I’m really interested at the moment in domestic or mundane scenarios to build games from, I’ve played so many high fantasy games that I’m much more likely to come up with a title that involves optimising supermarket queuing or fitting dishes into a dishwasher. I’ve recently become a dad, can you tell? We do have a game about changing nappies in the pipeline, but the main impetus is making something that people can relate to.

There are so many amazing game mechanics out there, but it’s weaving them into an interesting or unique location or scenario that really makes games stand out, for me. So, I would say leaning into the every day, and finding surprise and beauty in that. We’re also working with other designers, it’s really fun taking ideas and fitting them into the Invisible Typewriter format – also Matt makes them all look really pretty!

He does indeed. Thanks again Jon. And worth mentioning that You Know It! is available in the UK through Zatu Distribution, and is available for retailers to order now.

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