It’s Jackbox Party Pack time once again, and can you believe we’re on Jackbox 11 now? How time flies. It feels like it was only last year that the JPP was barely learning to walk. , this time around brings five brand-new games into the fray, and while they do all feel familiar, it’s one of the strongest Party Packs in recent years, thanks to some really good execution.
Doominate is this time around’s writing game. It has you and your friends trying to ruin different phrases, people, or things by putting a spin on them. This can be very clever, and it was for the most part, but it is also the game most likely to end up with you and your friends sending yourselves to hell as fast as possible by exposing your sins. The execution here is a lot of fun though, and while the Death character in this is a little unfunny, the overall presentation is really good.
Hear Say is my standout, but it’s also the most awkward of the bunch. You and your mates need to make stupid sound effects for this one, with prompts including things like trying to make a sound like gargling mouthwash, to doing a Miss Piggy vocal warm-up. This is about as close to Dropout’s Make Some Noise as we’re going to get in video game form, and it’s a blast online. The mini-games are bad in it though, and the game would be better without them.
I do also think that there’s a divide between playing online and in-person. You can mute your online mics when playing online, which means you can keep all of your sound effects that you’re making a surprise, which feels preferable to everyone being in the same room and already hearing what others are doing, and potentially also ending up in the background of each other’s takes. For as boisterous as it wants you to be, there’s also that awkwardness of public performance.
The obligatory drawing game comes in the form of Cookie Haus, which has you all glazing cookies in different shapes and naming them. The commitment to icing physics adds to the entertaining feeling of the whole affair, and pandering to the weird requests of the customers is a good time all around. Trying to work around the weird shapes you end up with really helps boost your creativity as well.
Suspectives bring a little social deduction to the table, as between four and eight people try to fool each other and catch the criminal among you. You start off having to answer a slew of survey questions, which then provide the basis for back and forth of interrogation, evidence, debate and voting phases, as you try to narrow down the main suspects. It’s a fun time, but it definitely helps to be pretty close friends and family through this, though you could obviously fib during the initial surveys. It’s also potentially the trickiest mode to organise and play. It really benefits from having the higher player count, but game nights are difficult to organise when everyone in your friend group now has kids to argue with over whether it’s bedtime or not.
Finally, we’ve got Legends of Trivia, which is easily the best trivia game we’ve had in ages. This has you all working cooperatively to defeat all manner of beasts in RPG-alike combat, and eventually find the legendary Bookwyrm. The questions are varied in topic, delivery, and style, and there’s an extra strategic layer of being able to split your answers if you’re uncertain, and item management that helps make this an absolute blast to play. I normally dislike the trivia games, but Legends of Trivia sets an entirely new standard for them all.
