First Jackbox party pack was released over a decade ago, which is a slightly terrifying fact that reminds me of my own mortality. Since then, the series has become a social staple for many people, including me. Recently, other companies have started to follow the party game trend, such as: Netflix’s recent multiplayer venture and the fresh GameNight feature in Amazon Luna. But Mike Bilder, CEO of Jackbox Games, isn’t worried about the competition.
I recently spent an hour playing the fresh one Jackbox 11 Party Pack with Bilder and developers Brooke Breit, Rich Gallup and Tim Sniffen, and I’m inclined to agree – Amazon’s AI-powered Snoop Dogg can’t compare to the truly original gameplay with a signature style that only Jackbox has.
This untouchable uniqueness is especially evident in the latest version, which was released on October 23 on all major platforms and is the first pack in the series that does not include any sequels. “We really wanted to try to do something unique this year,” Bilder says in a video interview with Polygon, “and there were a lot of great offers. I mean, every year we have a lot of offers, but last year we had a lot of really good and interesting concepts.”
“Rather than focus on making a sequel,” Bilder continues, “we wanted to kind of get to the point, so we hope people will really like it. We’re very proud of it. I think it’s a very unique package and I hope it touches people and they like it.”
He’s not exaggerating when he says there were a lot of suggestions – by Gallup’s calculations, there were over 40 potential minigames that were iterated on before the five included in the package were chosen. The five selected players still retain the core aspects that fans have come to expect from the series, such as drawing and trivia play, but the way the team manages to constantly put fresh takes on familiar mechanics is simply amazing.
Keeping up with the competition
As for other brands vying for the party gaming crown, Bilder isn’t concerned, pointing to the talent of Jackbox’s staff – which only numbers around 70 people in total – as the company’s greatest strength. “We have an incredibly talented group of creative people in the studio and we’ve been at this for a while,” says Bilder. “We’ve learned what doesn’t work, what works, and we’re bringing new talent into the studio.”
“We’re certainly excited about the competition. It’s going to happen and it’s good for us – it keeps us on our toes,” he continues, “But I think we have some secret nature and uniqueness to what Jackbox is, what our comedy is, our tone and our presentation, and we’re just going to refine it.”
Breit echoes these statements and emphasizes how a high level of personal involvement in games helps give them something special. “I think we’ve always excelled at what we do, mainly because of the authenticity of our games and the voices of the people who created them together,” says Breit. “I always talk about how we’re constantly playing these games together, so there’s a very social atmosphere when we’re developing, and I really think that shows in our games – that we’re creating, producing, and creating things that we enjoy playing with each other.”
The joy and social connections that the team cultivates and draws from when designing games are clearly perceptible in each of them. During our playthrough, it was obvious that even now, after so much time spent on the project, everyone still enjoys playing every game they had a hand in creating. This isn’t just because games are fun – which they are – but because they encourage interpersonal connections.
Games from Jackbox Party Pack 11
Minigames Dominate, Suspects, Cookie House, Hear, tellAND Trivia legends complete the line-up this time. Brooke Breit served as the game’s director Dominatewhich involves turning something you love into something terrible. Players introduce their favorite things, and then others add a disclaimer that makes it terrible. My personal favorite from our playthrough was the ruined “crunchy lemonade on a hot day”, which Breit modified with “starchy crispy lemonade… starchy starchy lemonade”.
“How quickly can we get Deven into our inside Jackbox jokes?” Rich Gallup, director of production at Jackbox, joked at the beginning of our session. It turns out, almost immediately – not even when it comes to inside jokes, but about the feeling of belonging to a group.
This became clear during Suspectswhich remains one of my favorites in the package, even though the entire development team found me guilty when I was completely innocent. A social deduction game begins with players answering plain questions such as “Do you lift?” and “What is a carburetor for?” which then serve as evidence, and the game provides information like “The suspect doesn’t know what the carburetor is doing.”
The game was designed with gumshoe chaos in mind. At one point I tried to reverse the flow of the interrogation session in the Rich Gallup case. “Can I ask you something too? What was the last photo you took?” – I asked.
“No, you’re not,” he replied, but Brooke Breit quickly backed me up.
“Yes, you are, Deven!” – she shouted, followed by Tim Sniffen, director of Suspectswho declared, “Don’t let him bully you!”
Perhaps it’s just because I’m a bad artist, but Jackbox drawing games are always prone to this. Cookie Housewhich focuses on dessert decoration, maintains this by challenging players to present unusual concepts in the form of cookies. The prompt “Early Attempts to Invent the Saxophone” yielded results that were both terrifying and, in many cases, somewhat phallic. “It’s a compliment when I say that,” Breit commented on the two results. “They are both the worst.”
Hear, tella vocal improvisation game that first uses your phone’s microphone, it’s a game that really needs to be heard to be appreciated. Hearing the CEO of Jackbox Games imitate “the sounds you make when you get a good massage” and “sing after inhaling a lot of helium” permanently changed my brain chemistry.
Trivia legends is the most cooperative game in the suite, and probably the most extensive Jackbox minigame ever created. Gallup revealed the game that had a working title RPG triviawas held back from the last pack specifically to give it the depth it deserved. The Dungeons & Dragons-style trivia adventure consists of three worlds that take about half an hour to complete. Fortunately, players can save their progress and return to their adventure later.
Players can choose from several classes, such as wizard and hunter, to create a group of adventurers embarking on a journey full of captivating facts. During combat, players who correctly answer multiple choice questions will receive gold and deal damage to monsters; those who ask questions wrong will suffer the blow. The groups are very motivated to work together, and you really get to learn a lot about each person’s particular sections of knowledge.
The longevity of the Jackbox Party package
After an hour with such an original group of games, it is strenuous to imagine a world in which Jackbox is dethroned by gigantic corporations offering Snoop Dogg’s AI and the ability to play Avoid on your TV. Even sizzling from the premiere Party package 11which is currently enjoying very positive reviews Couplethe band is not slowing down.
“One of Jackbox’s superpowers is speed,” says Gallup, “and a thorough greenlighting process allows us to really leverage that speed. This is a studio that makes five custom games a year. Every year! That’s crazy.”
Gallup was clearly excited as he delved into how Jackbox developers are constantly creating. “When we come up with new games, we want ideas to come from everyone and everywhere,” he says. “If you have a cool idea, we have Slack channels that you just fire up and say, ‘Hey, can an engineer help me with this?’ Because we don’t know what part is coming next until we play it a few times and go over it again.
While their creativity is constantly changing, the band also has an arsenal of ideas from the past that they can draw on when the time comes. “Ideas that are not adopted,” Gallup continues, “are safely stored in various folders that can be pulled out in the future and tried again.”
Jackbox 11 Party Pack proves that despite 11 entries, the franchise has no shortage of forceful ideas. Thanks to the latest innovations like Jackbox Megapicker, a game launcher that allows players to access all their bundles in one place, and continuous integration with Smart TVs, it’s becoming easier and easier to enjoy minigames from the entire series. Thanks to its accessibility and originality, Jackbox remains the pinnacle of party gaming.
