I first discovered You Don’t Know Jack as a demo on a PC Gamer or PC Powerplay disc
in the mid to late 90s.
I loved it immediately.
It was a quiz game with smooth production value, and a hilarious narrator.
Even if you were losing to friends, you were having a good time.
It makes me happy to see the Jack games still going strong to this day, changing what they’re
doing, but keeping the same smooth presentation and enjoyable narration amongst all the party
gameplay.
What Jackbox Party Pack 2 does (and I assume it’s the same with the first game), is engage
the player through a variety of different types of games.
I had some friends over on a Saturday night, and we played through each of the five games
one after another, replaying two of our favourites before we ended the evening.
Like our gaming session, this impressions video will be discussing each game in turn.
I will do my best to make the footage interesting, and to show the results of the gameplay, but
be warned that the majority of the games are played on smartphones.
It’s an ingenious control method where everyone accesses the Jackbox website on their phones
or tablets, inputs a unique game code, names themselves, and thus everyone in a room is
able to play the game from their palm in front
of the television.
The first game is Fibbage 2, a sequel from the first Jackbox Party Pack.
A question is asked, and everyone has to make up a lie that they think the other players
will pick as the truth.
The game supports up to 8 players, but 3 was sort of perfect as the 4 answers formed a
lovely square.
There’s always an incredible moment of giddiness when another player picks your lie, but you
don’t want to key them into their mistake until the game reports it.
A quick tip I’ve found is that don’t second guess yourself when making up lies.
Go for the first thing that pops into your head.
I’ve had great success with this strategy.
As for picking the truth, well I can’t help you there.
I picked guano as an answer when another player had written bat droppings, so apparently I’m
spending all my brain energy on the lying portion of
the game.
Earwax gave the most laughs of the night.
One player picks a topic and acts as the judge for that round.
The other players get a selection of 6 sound effects and have to choose 2 of them to create
an answer to the topic.
The players only have audio descriptions.
When the game plays the sound effects, it’s the first time anyone has heard them, and
the results are glorious.
This is a game that benefits from a lot more people as the winner is the first to reach
a score of three, and with the 3 of us, it was very easy for the score to tie, resulting
in the person judging not having an opportunity to win the game.
Oh, and I have to mention how hilariously adorable the little animated characters you’re
randomly assigned are.
Bidiots is an odd game.
You start by drawing bad art.
Then the game begins.
Each piece is auctioned off, and it’s your goal to amass the most cash by bidding cheaply
on pieces of art that turn a profit.
This is achieved through conversation with the art dealers.
They give you tips on which art is worth a lot of money at the start of the game, and
then text you messages at the start of each round.
Our game was mostly spent understanding how everything worked, and like Earwax, we think
it would be interesting to try Bidiots with more people.
Quiplash XL is another game from the first pack, and it includes all the content from
that game and the DLC.
This is the most Cards Against Humanity-esque game out of the lot.
You’re asked to give silly answers to questions at the start of the round, the questions randomly
assigned to the players.
Then the answers are displayed and everyone votes on which answer they found the most
amusing.
Lots of fun was had with this game, but in particular, Quiplash highlights how short
the rounds of these Jackbox games are.
Perhaps this is to allow players to switch games around, or perhaps it’s to prolong
the content.
Maybe the games feel a lot longer the more players there are.
Perhaps it’s just that fleeting sense of enjoyment.
“I was having such a good time.
What do you mean it's over already?”
Finally, we have Bomb Corp.
It’s pretty humourous, taking place in the world’s scariest office building, full of
water cooler talk and nonchalant management.
Everything is a bomb, and as a group, you must defuse it using the instructions sent
to everybody’s phone.
Even the filing cabinet explodes.
While it is enjoyable, it fell a bit flat for me as I’ve already played Keep Talking
and Nobody Explodes.
Nothing against Bomb Corp, but it definitely felt like the weakest of the lot.
Going through all the games, we went through one more round of Earwax and Fibbage.
We would have played Quiplash again too, but felt that more than any game, that one really
needed a full party atmosphere.
These 3 games are the highlights of the box, and I easily recommend the pack to anyone
who wants to have an enjoyable interactive time with friends around their television.