I’m a long time Jackbox game player. The new Party Pack 11 might be my favorite

Jackbox Party Pack 11, launching on Thursday, October 23, offers a variety of the series’ trademark casual party games, from trivia to drawing and writing jokes. I own a bunch of these packs, and I give them away when I have a group of friends over and want something with less risk and less time commitment than playing a full D&D session or even exiting a game Camel up.

The great thing about the Jackbox title is that it mixes five different mini-games into one package, meaning that almost anyone can find at least one game they enjoy among the variety. The problem is that the group may not always enjoy the entire package, or even most of it. There may only be one or two of the five that fit in with your group, and they may neglect the more experimental or complex challenges.

“There are a lot of different people,” Rich Gallup, product manager at Jackbox Games, told me. “There are a lot of different types of parties (different ways) that you play our games, and not every game will suit every group.” Gallup referred to the “power of the group” – the idea that every group group should have a game for everyone, and in some cases, more than one game.

Party Pack 11 manages the impressive feat of being pretty all the time. I played the pre-launch mini-games with a group of friends who I can only describe as “very familiar” with previous entries in the Jackbox series. After playing through the entire new Party Pack, we all agreed that almost every game was equally interesting to us both… even if we did walk away with some early favorites that we’ll likely come back to again and again.

All games in Jackbox Party Pack 11

Listen, say

The standout feature of the new Party Pack is Hear Say, a game in which your group is asked to record sound effects in response to prompts such as (example) and (example). Then you vote on the best recording.

“It’s a whole new form of creativity for our players,” Gallup said. “Writing jokes is hard. Drawing is hard. And making noises, you know… that’s maybe a little more universal. The game showed that you can make fart noises on a lot of things, and it makes a lot of people laugh.”

Simplicity is a big part of the charm. Unlike basic Jackbox tools like Quiplash, which require you to carefully craft cerebral (or rude) jokes, Hear Say is all about making silly little noises into your phone. Pretend to almost sneeze. Forget your coworker’s name. You only have about 5 seconds per sound effect, so brevity is key.

Hear Say also gives you plenty of opportunities to make other players laugh. My group listened to each other record their sound effects, and sometimes they had to repeat ours because we burst out laughing mid-recording. If there’s a particularly popular sound effect, you can also replay it on demand after hearing everyone’s responses before voting ends.

The result is a mix of delightful Jackbox mayhem, aided by some cool details like the animation of your chosen avatar when you play the recording. I’ll be playing Party Pack 11 just for Hear Say, and I can probably play it several times in a row without getting bored of the gimmick.

dominate

Look, I’m sure you’re not a bad person, but I’m also sure you’ll find it fun, sometimes in small doses, to act like a bad person. Doominate prompts you for cute and useful items, then asks other players to damage those items by twisting them out from under you. Then it ups the ante by asking you to list extra things you enjoy so others can spoil it. It’s a more personal brand of destruction.

Things eventually come back when you can cancel someone’s claim. So you probably destroyed “Pups” with the answer “Pups…running away from you.” You can redeem yourself by returning it to something resembling its original form: “The puppies…run away from you…to your house together!”

It’s a fun variation on the joke writing format seen in previous Jackbox minigames like Quiplash or Fibbage. And while it may crimp some relationships in the early rounds, not ruining the final round gives you a chance to work things out again.

The last nice development came through play testing, Gallup said. “There was a lot of testing, like, do we like the way the game ends if you just destroy things, or do we like that, like, a note at the end of, like, we made it better — we’re still friends, right? And through our playtesting, that stuck.”

My group liked this game as a warm-up game to make jokes in our brains. It’s a very agile game too, which makes it easy to get back into.

Cookie House

One of my favorite modes of Jackbox games are games like Tee KO, where you draw something on your phone and match the drawing to funny and delicious titles. The Cookie Haus website asks you to do this by decorating cookies.

Customers will walk into the Cookie Haus with prompts for the specific and shortbread cookies they want. For example: “Mermaids, wrong way.” Then it’s up to you to choose the shape of the cookie and reach for (and name) their wildest dreams.

The music and art design also make it a fun game.

“The Cookie Haus location is charming. It’s cozy,” Gallup said. “The icing process feels so fun. It feels really good. It looks delicious.”

The cookies look surprisingly realistic, with a smooth texture on the icing and a variety of sprinkles you can put on top. I enjoyed the flexibility of working with different colors or sprays, but beware of the limitation of only being able to undo the most recent icing or spray hit. My whole group struggled with that.

Be prepared to make revisions to your cookies later in the game, giving you a chance to improve (or, depending on your mood, destroy) someone else’s creativity. Overall, it’s a great game when you just want to doodle and maybe get a few chuckles out of it. I’ve been mentally mapping out Cookie Horrors since the last time I played.

Suspects

The suspects fill out questionnaires about themselves and then secretly label one person as a criminal while the rest of the group is tasked with interrogating everyone as questionnaire information about the criminal slowly emerges.

To be honest, social devotion games aren’t my thing, I’m the type of person who finds them more stressful than fun. So Suspectives is the one game in Party Pack 11 that I don’t expect to replay often, though I found it a little less stressful than other games in the genre.

Gallup recognized this challenge. “We knew it had to be a game where someone like you and me, who doesn’t like to lie, could have fun and, at least, hide a little. And the surveys and the speed of the movement allow for that. Generally, you only have to stand one round of interrogation, more or less, maybe two. And if I can get through that round, I’ve found, personally, that I can do a good job.”

What I appreciate most about Suspectives is its fun, Noir-ish atmosphere. The game has a strong flavour, and if there’s anything that brings me back, it’s probably this. But I also enjoyed filling out questionnaires and playing a more structured game rather than having to argue non-stop for 20 minutes about who the criminal was.

If you like social deduction games, there are some great additions in Suspects, particularly the ability to reveal one person’s answer to see if they’re telling the truth. These extra twists can mix up the formula and keep things interesting.

Myths Trivia

While Hear Say is my favorite game in the group, Legends of Trivia is the game I expect to play the most. That’s partly because it supports two players, which means my wife and I can use it anytime, but also because it mixes two things I love: trivia games and role-playing games.

It’s also the first time Jackbox has done trivia collaboratively.

“The goal was: We want people to work together on trivial matters,” Gallup said. “We learned pretty quickly that making a cooperative trivia game is a little bit harder than a competitive trivia game. Because if it’s cooperative, there’s always going to be someone who knows the answer. And so it’s also probably the hardest trivia game at Jackbox, because you don’t want that person who’s going to answer every question. (And that’s me. I’m that person.)”

Legends of Trivia starts out unlike any other trivia game, asking you to choose your character, complete with stats that affect the game. Health gives you a bigger safety net, attack rewards you more for getting the right answers, and gold gives you the resources to pick up items.

Then you go on your adventure, where you will be stopped by monsters obsessed with trivial matters. Answer their questions correctly and you will damage them and earn gold. Answering incorrectly means missing a chance to take damage, and losing some health and gold. You can shop for items along the way, exchanging gold for trinkets that may heal your character or give you hints on difficult questions.

Survive your journey and the game will measure the gold you have earned to determine if you have reached “Legendary” status.

My group loved the combination of cooperation and individual choice in a simple trivia game. It’s up to you to purchase your items (or save your gold). Disagree with the agreed upon answer? Everyone answers individually, so you either enjoy being the smartest person in the room… or have your team yell at you for being the reason the monster didn’t die this turn.

Legends of Trivia also has the advantage of being an unusually long Jackbox game. While trivia tends to run a little longer than joke-based entries, Legends of Trivia has three different levels for you to explore, each taking about 20 to 30 minutes to complete, so a full run can be up to an hour and a half. If you don’t want to do trivia for a long time, you can take a smaller slice, but I like the opportunity to continue, similar to starting a “sequel” at the end of a Trivia Murder Party round.

Turn it up to 11

I’ve spent a lot of time on Jackbox games, and I expect Party Pack 11 to quickly rise near the top of my most-played list. Hear Say and Legends of Trivia tickle different parts of my brain and will keep me coming back, and even though the game is open, there’s little reason not to throw in a few rounds of Doominate and Cookie Haus.

“When you create something, you never believe it’s good until it’s released. So we’re really excited to release the game and hope people tell us it’s good,” Gallup said, before adding a Jackbox-esque comment: “But if they don’t, we’ll be up for it because we’re creative.”

Jackbox Party Pack 11 will launch on October 23rd for all major platforms.