50 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 pile in after the eighth player, and their votes count as a block alongside the players' picks.

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 players by October 2020 was double the 2019 figure, and the studio answered the surge by expanding its server capacity.

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 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 was the headline upgrade; the standalone reached PC and consoles on June 21, 2016, with a handheld port exactly two years later.

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 cost a player's life, and the endgame only starts once a single player is left alive and at least three questions have been asked.

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

Mad Verse City has 3 to 8 players out-rap one another in freestyle battles, with the room and the audience voting on every head-to-head.

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; only the cut-down bundles — Party Starter, the Naughty Pack and Party Essentials — break the pattern, with three games each.

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

Chicago has hosted the company through every name change, and a 1996 TV pilot of You Don't Know Jack was produced there too but never picked up.

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

Twitch streamers had driven the packs' popularity since Fibbage in 2014, and the extension lets a streamer run the whole room from the channel itself.

Fibbage, the 2014 bluffing game that launched the Party Pack era, debuted first on which unlikely device?

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 put the pack on store shelves on November 3, 2015, the day the Xbox 360 version arrived, making it the only pack ever sold on that console.

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

THQ signed on before full-time development began in February 2010, and the reboot shipped with 73 ten-question episodes plus 40 more as DLC.

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 cloud-gaming service sold the Party Packs from late 2021 until it shut down in January 2023?

Stadia listed the packs from November 16, 2021, and they were pulled on October 20, 2022, three months before Google switched the service off.

Party Pack 3, the one that introduced Trivia Murder Party and Tee K.O., was written in which technology?

Adobe Flash powered the 2016 pack even as browsers were abandoning the plugin, and the games still shipped to consoles, Apple TV and certain Android devices.

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

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire spawned a run of studio-built games using Regis Philbin's likeness and voice, right up until the games arm shut down in 2001.

Of the first eleven Party Packs, all default to an ESRB Teen rating except Party Pack 8, which carries which rating?

Everyone 10+ made the 2021 pack the family-safe outlier, while the Teen packs rely on an optional family-friendly filter that censors questions and player input.

Which You Don't Know Jack host is voiced by the company's founder himself rather than a hired actor?

Nate Shapiro, voiced by the founder, also emceed the Tiger Electronics tabletop version of You Don't Know Jack.

Which British comic actor voiced Jack Cake, host of the UK edition of You Don't Know Jack?

Paul Kaye fronted the British release as Jack Cake, while the German editions had their own Quizmaster Jack and the Japanese version was hosted by Masatoshi Hamada.

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 hides among one question's options each episode, so a baby-crib sponsor points to the answer 'Cat's Cradle'.

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

Binjpipe is the joke corporate owner behind the 2018 version's 'Data Mining' questions and device-jamming screws, and it seats up to eight players instead of four.

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

Thriplash hands each pair of players just one prompt instead of two, then pits their three-part answers head to head for the deciding votes.

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

Safety quip arrived alongside host-written custom prompts and a censor option in the Party Pack 3 sequel, which later got a standalone edition in four more languages.

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 the Party Pack studio call the ten charity live streams for COVID-19 relief that it began on May 1, 2020?

Celebrity Jackbox began on May 1, 2020 to raise money for COVID-19 charities, part of a lockdown surge that doubled the studio's player count in a year.

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

Bracketeering runs three rounds of match-ups, with an 8-slot grid for up to eight players and a 16-slot grid once nine or more join.

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, with 1 to 6 contestants taking down aliens in an arena?

Zeeple Dome is physics-based: players slingshot their own characters across the levels, a rare action game in a series built on typing and sketching.

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 runs three rounds, a definition, then a synonym, then a sentence using that synonym, with the room and the audience voting each time.

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

Megapicker also bundles a search tool and studio news, and it arrived in a year that ended with a standalone survey game instead of a numbered pack.

In which year was the company now called Jackbox Games founded, as the educational outfit Learn Television?

1989 saw the studio start as Learn Television, making educational films, and a reading CD-ROM called That's a Fact, Jack! led a publisher to ask for an adult version.

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

Bidiots has 3 to 6 players bid in-game money for pictures matching secret categories, and the screws force a rival to place a bid whether they want to or not.

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

Guesspionage surveys the audience whenever at least six members are watching; otherwise it falls back on Jackbox's own earlier survey results.

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.

In which year did the You Don't Know Jack studio take the name Jackbox Games and refocus on Roku and Ouya?

2013 brought the rename a year before the first pack, and the studio's first apps under it included a photo toy called Clone Booth and a word game, Word Puttz.

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

Weapons Drawn makes 4 to 8 players both detective and murderer, each bringing an accomplice as a guest and leaving a lettered weapon behind after a kill.

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

The Naughty Pack arrived on September 12, 2024 with a filthy take on the studio's sketching game, a debate game called Let Me Finish, and an all-night sequel to a Party Pack 3 bluffing game.

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

Quixort comes with a solo endurance mode, Quixort Forever, that lets one player or one team keep sorting for as long as they can survive.

Which Party Pack 9 game casts 4 to 9 players as reality-show characters, each writing answers to fit an assigned trait?

Roomerang eliminates a player each round but brings them straight back with a new trait, and the most points after the fifth round wins.

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.