Double Jump Gaming News

Jackbox Party Pack 1

Do you ever wish you had more games to play with your friends when they come over? Well look no further! Grab a friend, grab an Xbox One, A PS4, a PC, an Amazon Fire TV, an Android TV, or the MAC app store, and get ready to play the first Jackbox Party Pack!

The reason this is such a great party game is because you only need one controller! Now, don’t worry, I get war flashbacks of having to pass the controller around too. Luckily, this game focuses on your phones. With the rise of our sentient overlord that has come to be known as technology, you can use your phones to respond to the prompts on your system of choice. All that’s required is a stable internet connection.

You Don’t Know Jack (1-4)
This is where Jackbox Games got its name. It is essentially a basic trivia game. Go a few rounds of Trivia with your friends and see who is the most knowledgeable about useless topics! To put a Jackbox Spin on this time-old game, there are a few different things that have been added. For one, the narrator for the game, is… boisterous. He can be a little much at times, but is there to constantly remind you to keep the vibe light hearted and fun. When he isn’t reading things off for you, you have the opportunity to do a little thinking and answer the question. Here is where the second interesting thing comes in: ‘screwing’ your friends over, where you literally activate a screw icon and it used on your friends. This action makes a friend (or foe) of your choice answer a question they hopefully won’t know the answer to. Be careful, however, for if they answer it right, you end up getting screwed over!

Drawful (3-8 players)
You Don’t Know Jack trivia may sound fun, but we have barely ripped the bow off the top of this box of fun. Rip it wide open to see some of the goofiest board game-style games imaginable. In Drawful, you are given a prompt which you then must draw. This may not sound too bad, but playing the game will soon show you why this game may come as a challenge. Once you make your masterpiece and everyone else has submitted their own piece, one of them is randomly selected and showcased for you and your friends. Then everyone, besides the artist, have to take a guess at what they think the drawing is depicting. Once everyone is done writing in a response, they are all presented on screen, and then everyone, again besides the artist, guesses what they think is the correct response. If you fool someone into guessing your response, you get points. Guess the right response, you get points. This is repeated with all of the drawings. Once all that is said and done, the person with the highest score wins.

Word Spud (2-8 players)
Do you remember hot potato? So does Jackbox Games, and this is their attempt at recreating it in a game. There is a starting word, and then from there the sentence continues, or ends, according to whoever’s turn it is. It can be one word, or even one letter; alternately, it can be an entire sentence by itself. Once you submit your answer, your friends become the judge of your submission, and by vote, decide whether it is added to the running paragraph. Once this is done, you get to read the entire thing over with your friends, then start over again.

Lie Swatter (1-100 players)
This game has a pretty simple premise to it. All you have to do is try to figure out which statement out of the two is a lie before your friends do. Whoever gets the most points at the end wins.

Fibbage XL (3-8 players)
What I have determined to be the meat of the Jackbox experience, Fibbage XL is what really makes this pack worth coming back to. It mixes a lot of the fun and different styles of each game into this one package. Like You Don’t Know Jack, you are prompted with questions and must answer them. Like Drawful, everyone has the opportunity to submit their own answer, and then try to figure out which one is correct. Since there is no language restriction on what you enter, the answers can be anywhere on a parental rating scale (kid friendly to adults only). This makes the game unexpected and different every time you play it. Try to fool your friends or try to guess the right answer, this game fit anyone and is a perfect game for anyone regardless of any skills they may or may not possess.

Overall, this pack is perfect for anyone who has friends over often. These are wonderfully beautiful games put into one nice package. The Jackbox Party Pack 1 is available for $25 on all of these platforms, and out of any of the games in this column, I would suggest this one the most for anyone who has non-gaming friends over often.