Jackbox games are really fun. 

After gaining a lot of popularity due to how easy it is to set up both in physical and in online settings, the Jackbox Party Packs became a mainstay both amongst friend groups and in icebreaker situations. 

Anyone who has had a decent number of Jackbox sessions with friends knows that certain games definitely tend to attract more attention than others, for one reason or another. So instead of doing a top X or bottom X list, I instead want to give my opinion on which games I thought were disproportionately good or bad compared to how often they seemed to be played by the general population. Some games are rightfully popular or unpopular, but not all of them! I won’t really be explaining the game mechanics in their entirety, so if you are interested, just look them up (or play them yourself!). Anyways, let’s jump in:

Overrated:

Tee K.O. (and to a lesser extent, Champ’d Up)

Tee K.O. is the most generic drawing game in the entire series. In Tee K.O. 1, the matchup system is extremely unbalanced and really doesn’t give everyone a fair shot. Not only that, but the game repeats showing the players the same creations over and over again, which ends up being extremely boring when there aren’t any new drawings left. The “final round” is therefore pointless. Champ’d Up is slightly better, having the gimmick of switching and preparing for changes to prompts, but I find that friend groups often ignore the prompts and just vote for which creation just looks funnier in general. But for some reason my friend groups just gravitate towards these games. Perhaps I’m just salty that my drawing skills are garbage, lmao.

Trivia Murder Party

In the days when Party Packs numbered few, Trivia Murder Party was by far the most popular trivia game. I just think that once you see past the shocking horror gimmick, Trivia Murder Party is extremely dry and formulaic compared to other trivia games, especially You Don’t Know Jack (oops, I spoiled an underrated pick). The base questions have virtually no nuance to them and are pure knowledge checks, as is the “escape sequence” near the end. There is a scoring/money system, but it is essentially useless if you’re aiming to win, as there is always only a single winner at the end, who isn’t even necessarily the one who gets the most questions right. And out of the punishment games, only about half of them are ones that I would genuinely call fun (such as the “poisoned chalice”). Even then, the punishment of death is pretty minor and inconsequential. Pretty much a useless trivia game. I actually haven’t played Trivia Murder Party 2, but from what I’ve read, there are some improvements made but the core of the game is still as dry as before, unfortunately.

Survive the Internet

Probably my hottest take of all of these. I just think that the prompts and the structure of the game didn’t age that well… until I realize that Party Pack 4 came out in 2017. The humor just simply isn’t emblematic of the Internet – we don’t often structure “burns” based on taking someone else’s phrase and sticking a new context in front of it. It feels like it’s genuinely marketed as what old Gen X and Boomers think the Internet is, which, to be fair, is a valid marketing strategy for Jackbox. There is an audience for that. However, my audience definitely hypes up this game more than it deserves.

Quiplash Series

Before you come at me with your pitchforks, I don’t think that Quiplash is a weak game. I just don’t think it’s good enough to be considered basically the defining game of the Jackbox franchise. While it is extremely simple in principle, Quiplash has some serious pitfalls that just frankly don’t exist as much in a lot of other prompt-based games. The 1v1 system of the first two rounds pretty much means that scoring is all but useless, considering how often it is that the rest of the group has to choose between two awful answers, two good answers, or worst of all, two similar answers. Also, almost anyone who plays Quiplash with a group they’re not familiar with might have some serious conflicts in what they find humourous. It’s very hard to get a read on what might be going too far, or whether the group just doesn’t get you. They might even think your jokes are lame, or vice versa. I honestly like it more when prompt games are set within a certain framework or context that allows more focused creativity, such as in Mad Verse City or Split The Room, compared to in Quiplash.

Underrated:

You Don’t Know Jack series:

Before Jackbox Games came up with having online multiplayer using mobile devices, they really started as a company making a series of You Don’t Know Jack trivia games for consoles and PC. Perhaps by modern standards they don’t seem nearly as creative as when they originally came out, but the way that questions were phrased struck an amazingly good balance between absurdist humor and application of real knowledge. Question stems actually require comprehension and connections, reading between the lines, and it is through that kind of brain activation that the jokes land even better than they otherwise would. The Jack Attack minigames are also pretty fun, albeit a bit more dependent on pure knowledge than the rest of the questions. I just think that the YDKJ games are overlooked because they aren’t necessarily as relaxing, and some people may feel a bit lost or confused with the nonsensical wording, which admittedly also require some good English comprehension, and I really can’t blame people if that’s just not what they want to deal with on a chill night with their friends.

Blather ‘Round:

Blather ‘Round is a favourite among some of my close friends, and it might be the single best game to play when you only have 3 or 4 people. With its concept, the game could very easily have crashed and burned, to be honest, and it arguably doesn’t work as well with kids or those with different cultural backgrounds who may not have as much knowledge of Western media culture. However, what is so charming about the game is that it can work both as a typical competitive party game and as a collaborative team effort. Scoring is pretty easily disregarded, and guessing the correct answer doesn’t necessarily have to be seen as winning over the other guessers but as a collective success that the prompter and guessers collaborated to find the answer. It becomes all the more relaxing and fun knowing that’s how it works.

Push The Button

Push The Button is often kind of seen as a less popular substitute to Among Us, being a social deduction game set on a spaceship. It is a tough game to learn and organize to its full potential, and also requires more people on average to be fun, but I feel like when everyone has a grasp on what they are doing, the mindgames become incredibly intricate and enjoyable. It also is one of the more replayable games, provided your group is dedicated enough to keep trying out new strategies to outsmart the opposing team. It’s team-based and requires communication and collaboration, making it a much better icebreaker than many of the other highly individualistic, winner-takes-all games.

Fibbage Series

I like Fibbage a lot more than Quiplash. I honestly don’t actually have a good grasp on how popular it really is – it feels like none of my friends want to play it, but would Jackbox really make four versions of something that wasn’t that popular? Maybe it is extremely popular with older audiences or other groups outside my demographic. I understand that a lot of people like to have more creative agency to write or draw whatever they want, instead of having to think of answers that sound believable, which is why I think my friends tend to gravitate away from this game. I just like it because it’s one of the few games that fuses trivia and prompt creativity together extremely well. And it does feel good when there comes a fact that you did know the answer to previously.

Bomb Corp

This is mostly just a little side point for the end, but Bomb Corp is an almost completely overlooked co-op game found in Party Pack 2. It’s only up to 4 players, but it’s unique in that it is a purely co-operative game, and that it has a campaign of levels to get through. While the prompts and logic get old after a while, and the game is essentially outdone by Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, I think Bomb Corp is a pretty feel-good way to work with some close friends and strengthen communication by working together instead of against each other. You can also play by yourself for a nice logic challenge. It’s not really that impressive (and definitely not a party game), but when its popularity is essentially zero, I have to say that it deserves at least a little bit of attention.

Conclusion:

Most of the other games that I haven’t mentioned have a popularity level that is roughly commensurate with how good the game design actually is, at least from my viewpoint. If you have the means to, I would recommend that you try out as many games as you can in whatever setting you find yourself in, and see for yourself what seems the most fun to you and your group. Remember, the games are just facilitators to enjoying the presence and the humour of others.