So when I was told I’d be meeting withJackboxgame director Brooke Breit at the JackboxStageinstead of at a booth, I was intrigued. I made my way upstairs to an area overlooking the show floor below, where the Jackbox team had set up a stage on which they were playing their games with PAX attendees. Anyone was welcome to join in on the fun, and all weekend long, I found the area packed with people. With food stalls nearby and a quiet space to sit down, relax, and have a laugh with your friends as you took a load off between booths, it felt like the Jackbox team had it made at PAX East.
If you’re uninitiated, theJackbox Party Packsare games played with yourphone as a controller. You go to Jackbox’s central website on your phone’s web browser, put in the customized code for the game you’re trying to join, and then use your phone to do things like answertrivia questions, draw (usually badly), crack jokes, fool your friends with clever lies, and much more. Each Pack contains a number of individual titles, and all ten are conducive to a hilarious social night with your friends. Grab the funniest people you know either in real life or online, and spend an evening giggling amongst yourselves.
Jackbox spent the weekend at PAX broadcasting a variety of their games on a projector, with members of the development team on-site to chat and encourage participation as folks gathered around the stage by the dozens. But when I spoke to Breit in a quiet corner nearby, she was cautious about what she was allowed to share in terms of the studio’s upcoming releases.
I’ve been playing the Party Packs since the first one came out in 2014, but in my research before the convention, I came upon a mysterious link on the Jackbox website. Mixed casually into the middle of stylized adverts for their Party Packs is a nondescript line of text that reads, “Uh oh. What isthis?”
What’s Coming In 2024 For Jackbox?
Breit wasn’t able to share many specifics about this means when I asked, but with 2024 being the ten-year anniversary of the Party Packs, the studio’s focus this year, she said, is on new ventures and updates. Though known primarily for game bundles, between now and the end of the year, she said we can expect to see three big surprises coming our way - including a “new kind of party game.”
Breit wasn’t able to share exactly what these plans would encompass, but she did note that the three surprises would be different from one another in order to offer the variety of game types for which the studio is known. I didn’t get any firm dates, but she said these would be launching throughout the remainder of 2024.
The Jackbox team is aiming to have an announcement about this new party game before the end of April, with more news coming over the summer.
If you’re looking for something to scratch the Jackbox itch before these games launch, the studio has definitely got you covered in the meantime. For newcomers, Breit highlighted that Jackbox recently launchedThe Jackbox Party Starter, and when asked if she could design her perfect Pack, she said it’d probably just be that one. It’s smaller than the regular Party Packs, but the three games are Jackbox’s stronger titles.
Trivia Murder Party 2sees you take over the bodies of colorful sack dolls to answer trivia questions and escape a murder mansion, receiving creative penalties for wrong answers along the way.Quiplash 3asks for more of your own flavor, taskingyou and your friendswith filling in the blanks in prompts from the game, and then voting on whose answer made you laugh the hardest. Finally, you’re able to test your art skills inTee K.O., a game that allows you to design your own t-shirts based on slogans and doodles your group makes during the game. If you’re feeling inspired after a particularly funny round, you can even buy your creation as an actual t-shirt, too.
Just double-check your address, Breit warns, because there’s a bin at the Jackbox office for all the shirts from Tee K.O. that weren’t able to be delivered. If you ever bought a Tee K.O. shirt and never received it, someone from the Jackbox team has probably laughed at your oddball joke and taken it for themselves.
With 2024 being the ten-year anniversary of the first Party Pack, the studio has also just launchedThe Jackbox Decade Bundle. This mega-pack of Party Packs costs $199.99 USD on Steam, Xbox, and, in Europe, Nintendo Switch. It features each of the ten bundles of games released to date, offering a staggering 50 unique games for the price. If you’ve ever wanted the complete Jackbox Party Pack collection, this is the best time to bring the Party to all of your parties.
Regardless of what the remainder of the year holds for Jackbox with its solo titles, I’m looking forward to finding out what these three mystery games could be. If they’re half as fun as some of my favorite Party Pack offerings, I know we’re all in for a hilarious time.
