Jackbox Games is getting ready to release their new game Jackbox Party Pack 10 on the 19th of October.
Jackbox Games CEO Mark Bilder and CTO, Evan Jacover flew into PAX Aus in Melbourne last week to present the game to the public for the first time at the Jackbox Stage. With five hilarious new party games including Tee K.O. 2, FixyText, TimeJinx, Dodo Re Mi and Hypnotorious, the game will no doubt have something for everyone when it comes to Playstation, Xbox, Switch and PC next week.
We were fortunate enough to get some time with Mark and Evan to talk about the 10 year history of Jackbox Games, the history of the company and what gamers can expect from the new Party Pack.
Alaisdair : Tell us about the history of the company, where did all of this start from?
Mark : It started in 1989, we were first called Learn Television. Made “That’s a Fact Jack” turned into the You Don’t Know Jack franchise on CD-ROM. The Founder of the company made another company called Jellyvision Lab in 2008 started up again and made You Don’t Know Jack on consoles, Facebook, mobile games then moved it into the Jackbox Party Pack in 2014. The first game for the pack was Fibbage and 4 other games into a package. That went well so we renamed around 2013 to Jackbox games.
Alaisdair : How do you go from learning company to making games like YDKJ and Jackbox.
Evan : First game I worked on was “That’s a fact Jack” If you see it, you can see the DNA in it. There was a host, questions, responses, trying to make it feel like a real conversation. The host will respond like you were talking to them, that’s what made it special. At the time on CD-ROM there wasn’t a lot of games doing that. A lot of the tech issues and designs were solved in the educational game and the feedback was “This game is fun for trivia”
Alaisdair : You can definitely feel the similarities from You Don’t Know Jack in Jackbox Party Pack. Same sarcastic sense of humour.
Evan : It’s the same folks, part of the You Don’t Know Jack franchise, we have the same writers, comedy writers from Chicago. Humour is always the basis of it. The social aspect of the You Don’t Know Jack game. The core DNA is about bringing people together physically. During the pandemic, it worked over Zoom, but it still is the core of how do we bring people together, comedy is a great way to do that and keep everyone together. Audience mode was a nice evolution of that feature, it’s great to have 100’s and 1000’s of people playing together at PAX and through streamers. The Voice talent is the same from the original games too, fans like that continuity.
Alaisdair – In Australia – You Don’t Know Jack didn’t take off as much as it should have, the last few years with Jackbox, there is a massive following of people. How do you go from something that’s not too well known in Australia and is now a global sensation?
Mark : I can’t speak as to why it didn’t in different countries. Most games have been English only for a while till recent years when we have multiple languages which has changed things. We have been coming to PAX since 2015 in Australia and no one knew who we were and what our games were. We played a game with the panellists, it went well. People recognise us now and the logo on a hat or a shirt and say “Hey I love that game” We tried to really engage in social media, twitch, YT streaming all of that exposure has helped quite a bit.
Evan : Content wise – making sure it’s fun to play. All of the writing staff has been in Chicago for a long time and they might have a question about American baseball teams and people are groaning. This morning there was a U.S. presidents question, we added in features that you can filter out U.S. centric content out. The writers are more aware now it’s for a global audience now which is taken into account. The content is more written universally. The first time we were here we had a question about Cheetos that wasn’t here and people were like what is a cheeto? And we were confused like how do they not have this?
Alaisdair : Now with the Jackbox Party 10 coming out, what can you tell us is the new stuff in this pack?
TKO sequel. It’s been a fan favourite and highly requested in this one. We will have a lot of happy fans with that one. 4 new games in the pack. Kind of the most ambitious one is a music-based rhythm game called Dodo Re Mi. Different mechanics for the phone. You can pick from a variety of instruments and made-up ones. Constant screaming is one of them. As you play the notes on your phone, your phone emits that sound. It’s all ridiculous and all happening in the same room at the same time. After you do the whole performance together, the score then comes back. It’s a neat and unique one for us.
FixyText – An dditing game where you are editing a text in real-time. It’s a bit like a shared Google Doc and all being in there at the same time. Adding words, and deleting words, is kind of the basis of this game. It’s fun and funny.
Notorious – hidden identity game. Each player is given an identity that’s divided into groups. So I might be a cartoon cat like Garfield so I know I’m a cat but I don’t know what the categories are. I have to ask questions and be vague to not give away who I am and figure out that we are both cats or both from movies in the 90’s etc. There is 3 groups and there are only 1 person in 1 of the groups so they don’t belong in any. Trying to identify who the outsider is. It’s fun when everyone is in the same room.
TimeJinks – time travelling trivia game. Time travellers have to fit in with the period by knowing facts about that time. Knowing dates and time periods is a fun twist on trivia we haven’t had before.
We are pleased with the pack, as we start to play now, we are playing that at PAX and other events so we think people will like it. Different people like different games, there really is something for everyone.
Jackbox Party 10 will be released on Playstation, Xbox, Switch and PC on the 19th of October.
