The Jackbox Party Pack 10 arrives with its signature medley of quirky mobile device-based multiplayer games, offering a diverse selection of entertainment for friends and family gatherings – even of the online variety if you know how to stream your games. Building on over a decade of party game design, Jackbox Games maintains its knack for fostering creativity and spawning inside jokes. Released on various platforms, including PC, Playstation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch, this installment maintains the series’ reputation for inclusive, accessible fun. Here are our thoughts.
Over the past few months we’ve had quite a lot of access to Jackbox Games’ new party pack, playing a few rounds with the developer during Gamescom and again during an online session, as well as attending a game-by-game presentation of the entire pack. Some games felt quite familiar, while a few felt like we needed more time with them – which is what we’ve been doing this past week. Here’s a breakdown of the five games that are included.
Tee K.O. 2 is the only sequel in the pack, bringing back a fan-favorite drawing/writing game that challenges players to come up with hilarious designs and catchy slogans for t-shirts. While it doesn’t deviate much from the original (we had to boot that one up to be reminded of them), it introduces minor improvements like customizable fonts and the option to apply designs on hoodies or tank tops. The addition of more drawing tools and colors also enhances the creative potential, and it’s great to finally have an eraser! However, the final rapid-tapping showdown that a game of Tee K.O. 2 ends with feels somewhat superfluous and out-of-place in what’s mostly a voting game.
Our favorite of the bunch is Timejinx, a trivia game with a time-travel twist that engages players in guessing specific years for various historical events. It’s a delight for trivia enthusiasts, offering a satisfying challenge as players strive for pinpoint accuracy in order to not accumulate points for being off. The inclusion of different types of rounds to test your general knowledge keeps the pace brisk and adds an element of suspense to the proceedings as well, because there’s always an opportunity to make up for lost ground. Timejinx emerges as a standout in this pack, exercising mental faculties in a rewarding manner in a bit of a throwback to Jackbox’s games trivia roots.
FixyText is a chaotic typing game that encourages players to respond to text messages simultaneously, resulting in a cacophony of on-screen chaos with multiple people editing the same text messages all at once. While the premise sounds promising, the execution can fall a little short because for some (less text-savvy) players the chaos will feel overwhelming. FixyText also tends to veer towards randomness in how to do well in the game, with winning often feeling arbitrary and lacking in strategic depth – often resulting in more chaos with people just typing random words hoping their words will receive points, rather than coming up with meaningful and funny responses. As a result, the game’s novelty and instant appeal unfortunately wears thin quickly, and this one feels like it would benefit from a few tweaks (to what seems like an interesting idea).
Introducing Jackbox’s first foray into rhythm games, Dodo Re Mi stands out as an eccentric addition and certainly the most surprising one of this year’s pack. Players choose instruments and attempt to synchronize their taps with the accompanying backing track. The variety of genres and difficulty levels cater to a wide range of players, offering a fast-paced, hilarious experience that injects an overdue surprise element into a familiar genre with its oddball instruments. However, the necessity to listen to entire performances after each round can be a little tiring, as not everything you produce will be a musical masterpiece. To have fun it doesn’t have to be either, and we’re happy to skip the playback of Singstar performances as well.
On paper and after seeing the presentation for it, Hypnotorious always seemed like the most interesting concept of Party Pack 10 – leaning into the popular genre of games like Werewolves Within and Among Us. In this game of hidden identities and secret roles, players answer prompts as their assigned characters, aiming to identify who are the outliers in their group by checking out the answers. And despite sounding familiar, Hypnotorious offers a unique challenge, requiring players to balance informativeness with concealment in their answers. It’s not a game for everyone and best enjoyed with a nicely balanced group to play with, we thought this one could be a great main course for a game night whereas other games like FixyText will struggle to hold your attention for as long as Hypnotorious can.
In summary, The Jackbox Party Pack 10 retains the series’ core appeal, providing a good and diverse range of minigames to suit various tastes. Hypnotorious and Timejinx shine as highlights, offering engaging gameplay experiences. FixyText, while initially intriguing, lacks depth and may lose its charm rapidly. Dodo Re Mi introduces a musical twist, albeit with room for improvement in terms of lasting appeal – while Tee K.O. 2 mostly feels like a marginal improvement over what was already a great party game. Overall, this pack offers a well-rounded selection of games for social gatherings, and we’re guessing it will be used at many parties in the coming months.
Score: 7.8/10
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