49 Fun Facts About Jackbox

Under which earlier company name did the Jackbox Games studio make the original 1995 You Don't Know Jack?

Jellyvision shut its games arm in 2001 as players left CD-ROM PCs for consoles, and it sat dormant for seven years before a 2008 revival.

Instead of downloading an app, Party Pack players type a room code from the host's screen into which website?

jackbox.tv is the studio's own server, so only the host needs to own the pack; the rest join from a phone, tablet or laptop browser.

Beyond its eight active players, how large an audience can Quiplash 3 admit to vote through the room code?

10,000 audience members can join once the eight player seats are full, and a quip only earns the 'Quiplash' bonus if every player and most of that crowd vote for it.

Which game in the first Jackbox Party Pack admits up to 100 players, all judging whether odd statements are true?

Lie Swatter began as a single-player mobile app before the pack reworked it into a 100-player true-or-false free-for-all.

Jackbox said its player base doubled during the 2020 lockdowns; what total did the studio claim by that October?

200 million was about double the 100 million of 2019, as families and friends stuck at home made the games a fixture of Zoom parties and remote game nights.

Which voice actor, brother of the company's founder, plays Cookie Masterson in You Don't Know Jack?

Tom Gottlieb also helped write the 2011 reboot, and the studio credits much of the Cookie persona to his own performance of the character.

Which US network aired a prime-time You Don't Know Jack game show in summer 2001, hosted by Paul Reubens?

ABC ran it for only a few summer weeks, with Paul Reubens, better known as Pee-wee Herman, playing over-the-top host Troy Stevens while Cookie Masterson announced.

In the 2011 You Don't Know Jack, what does a player's single 'screw' per game do to an opponent?

Forces an instant response, within five seconds in the 2011 version, and if the victim gets it right they steal money from the screwer instead.

In Cookie Masterson's trivia show, which word-association final round hides every running total behind ominous music?

Jack Attack pairs a subject with a stream of candidates and pays for buzzing on the right match, so it often decides the whole game by itself.

On which crowdfunding site did Jackbox raise over $30,000 in March 2015 to build Quiplash?

Kickstarter backers, more than 1,600 of them, doubled the $15,000 goal, and Quiplash became the first Jackbox game to let an audience join in.

What did the 2016 standalone Drawful 2 add that the first Party Pack's Drawful never offered?

Two colours per drawing replaced the original's single one, and Drawful 2 also let players write their own prompts, so a host can build a whole episode around a group's inside jokes.

In Trivia Murder Party, missing a question sends a player to a mini-game on what grimly named level?

The Killing Floor mini-games can kill a player, but the dead play on as ghosts and can still win by overtaking the last survivor in the final dash for the exit.

Which Party Pack 5 game has players fill in rap-battle lyrics that are then performed by giant robots?

Mad Verse City reads every rhyme aloud in a text-to-speech robot voice, and a stuck player can press 'Write for Me' to have the game finish the line.

Which Party Pack 6 game puts 4 to 10 players on a spaceship hunting the aliens hiding among the crew?

Push the Button gives the aliens a different prompt from the humans, so their answers look subtly off, and the crew must eject them before a timer runs out.

How many games come in every numbered Jackbox Party Pack, from the 2014 original through Party Pack 11?

Five games per pack has held since 2014; the only exceptions are spin-off bundles such as 2022's Party Starter, which repackaged three of the studio's best-loved earlier games.

Which US city is home to Jackbox Games, a studio that began life as the educational outfit Learn Television?

Chicago's improv scene feeds the studio, which has regularly hired veterans of the city's Second City comedy theatre since its You Don't Know Jack days in the 1990s.

Jackbox's December 2020 extension lets viewers on which streaming service join a game without leaving the stream?

Twitch streamers had helped make the packs a hit since Fibbage in 2014, and the Audience Kit extension lets viewers join and play along inside the stream instead of in a separate browser tab.

Fibbage, the 2014 bluffing game behind the Party Packs, debuted as a free launch title on which new streaming box?

Amazon Fire TV got the bluffing game free at the box's April 2014 launch, months before the console versions, and its popularity with streamers convinced Jackbox to bundle games into packs.

Which adventure-game studio published the boxed retail editions of the first Jackbox Party Pack in November 2015?

Telltale Games had just opened a publishing arm for other studios' titles, and its deal also put the pack on Xbox 360, the only Jackbox pack ever released for that console.

Which publisher backed the 2011 console revival of You Don't Know Jack on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii?

THQ released the revival in February 2011 but filed for bankruptcy in December 2012, and the studio went on to publish its own games under the Jackbox name.

Starting with Party Pack 3 in April 2017, which console joined the list of Jackbox platforms?

Nintendo Switch owners got Party Pack 3 first, on April 13, 2017, and the two earlier packs followed that August.

Which now-defunct cloud-gaming service began carrying the Jackbox Party Packs in November 2021?

Stadia got its first Party Pack in November 2021, but Google shut the service down in January 2023 and refunded every game players had bought there.

Which Party Pack 2 game has a judge choose the funniest pair of sound effects played in answer to a prompt?

Earwax deals each player six random sound effects to pick two from, and its makers joke that owning a huge library of fart noises obliged them to build a game around it.

From 1999 to 2001 the You Don't Know Jack studio built PC games based on which US quiz show?

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire came to PC with Regis Philbin's voice and likeness, and its publisher Disney said the first game had virtually sold out nationwide by Thanksgiving, days after its November 1999 launch.

Most Jackbox Party Packs carry an ESRB Teen rating; which rating did Party Pack 8 receive instead?

Everyone 10+ went to the 2021 pack, whose content descriptors run to Comic Mischief and Suggestive Themes where earlier packs were flagged for Sexual Themes and Drug Reference.

Which Party Pack 7 guessing game has players describe a person, place or thing using only preset words?

Blather 'Round offers so few words that Scooby-Doo might come out as a 'ravenous mystery beast', and presenters can work other players' wrong guesses into their next clue.

Which Party Pack 3 drawing game lets players order real printed versions of the designs they create?

Tee K.O. shuffles everyone's drawings and slogans among the group to combine, pits the results in head-to-head votes, and sells the finished designs as actual T-shirts.

In the 2011 You Don't Know Jack, which question type is played only by the lowest-scoring player in offline multiplayer?

DisOrDat survived from the CD-ROM era into the 2011 reboot, which dropped typed rounds like the Gibberish Question because consoles lack keyboards.

In the 2011 You Don't Know Jack, which hidden bonus is hinted at by each episode's fictional sponsor?

The Wrong Answer of the Game is one deliberately wrong option themed on the episode's sponsor, and picking it pays a big cash bonus instead of costing the player money.

In You Don't Know Jack: Full Stream from Party Pack 5, which fictional streaming service now owns Cookie Masterson?

Binjpipe is the joke streaming giant said to have bought the show, and the 2018 game seats up to eight players while the audience's answers set a cash bonus on each question.

Quiplash 3 in Party Pack 7 swapped the Last Lash for which final round, where each pair of players shares one prompt?

Thriplash demands three separate answers from each player to the single prompt a pair shares, then sends the two triple-barrelled replies to a deciding vote.

Quiplash 2 added which option that composes a reply for a player who cannot think of one in time?

Safety quip hands a stuck player a ready-made answer, and in April 2020, weeks into lockdown, the game was reissued as Quiplash 2 InterLASHional with French, German, Italian and Spanish prompts.

Fibbage 3 in Party Pack 4 added which mode that swaps trivia for questions on the players themselves?

Enough About You has players write their own answers beforehand, so the lies are about the people in the room, and the same pack let the audience add fibs of its own.

What did Jackbox call its ten 2020 charity live streams, in which famous guests played for COVID-19 relief?

Celebrity Jackbox: Games & Giving saw the studio donate $100,000 per episode, $1 million in all, as guests such as Finn Wolfhard and Ben Schwartz played along with viewers.

Which Party Pack 4 game admits up to sixteen players, double the usual cap of eight?

Bracketeering pits typed answers against each other in a knockout bracket, and its blind round reveals the real category only after everyone has submitted, so a sensible answer can turn absurd.

Which Party Pack 4 game has players text one another, and is the only game in that pack capped at seven players?

Monster Seeking Monster gives every player a secret monster power, and a robot stands in as an extra suitor when the audience is switched off in small games.

Which Party Pack 5 game swaps writing for combat, sending 1 to 6 contestants to take down aliens?

Zeeple Dome is a physics game in which players slingshot their own characters at the enemy, fighting as one team and sharing every power-up instead of competing.

Which Party Pack 5 game has players sketch and pitch a fix for a problem another player wrote down?

Patently Stupid lets inventors present in their own voice or let the game read the pitch, before the room funds the ideas it likes best.

Which Party Pack 6 game hands players either a fake word or a fake slang saying to write about over three rounds?

Dictionarium has the group vote on a definition, then a synonym, then a sentence, and each winning entry is saved in an in-game dictionary that players can browse later.

What free Steam tool from July 2024 lets Jackbox owners launch any single game without opening its pack?

Megapicker gathers the fifty-plus games scattered across the Party Packs into one searchable Steam library, sparing hosts from remembering which pack holds which game.

Which Party Pack 2 game lets players who run out of in-game money take a predatory loan, repaid at the end?

Bidiots auctions off the players' own doodles, and each bidder gets private tips on what certain pieces are worth, so the winner is whoever ends with the highest net worth.

Which Party Pack 3 game ends with a nine-option question where players pick the three most popular answers?

Guesspionage polls a live audience in real time when one is watching, so the crowd's own answers become the correct percentage, and otherwise uses survey data Jackbox gathered itself.

Which Party Pack 3 game must be played in one room, and always ends with a round called 'Text You Up'?

Fakin' It gives the impostor no instruction while all the others follow a prompt, so points go to players who spot the bluff or to an impostor who escapes.

Which crowdfunded Android console got its own You Don't Know Jack in June 2013, as the studio renamed itself Jackbox Games?

Ouya's edition arrived on June 11, 2013, days after the rename, as the studio said it would seize on 'new-generation platforms' to bring more games to market itself.

Which Party Pack 8 game casts 4 to 8 players as both detectives and murderers at a party?

Weapons Drawn has each player hide a letter from their own name in the weapons they sketch, the calling card others use to work out who committed each murder.

Skipping a numbered release in 2024, Jackbox instead shipped which three-game bundle of mature-rated content?

The Naughty Pack was the studio's answer to what it called overwhelming demand in fan surveys for adults-only games, and its three titles include a filthy spin on its sketching game.

Which Party Pack 9 game, the only one in that pack playable solo, presents its answers as falling blocks?

Quixort has teams steer each falling answer into its place in an ordered list, and in the solo Quixort Forever mode wrong placements pile up until the stack tops out.

Which Party Pack 9 game casts 4 to 9 players as reality-show housemates answering prompts in character?

Roomerang votes someone out of the house every round, but the evicted player is brought straight back to keep competing, and nobody sees the others' scores until the finale.

Which Party Pack 10 game can be played for as many rounds as you like, a first for a Jackbox game?

Dodo Re Mi mixes public-domain tunes, songs from earlier packs and originals, and each player picks an instrument with its own melody line and difficulty.