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The Jackbox Party Pack
The Jackbox Party Pack is a series of party video games developed by Jackbox Games for many different platforms on a near-annual release schedule since 2014. Each installment contains five games that are designed to be played in groups of varying sizes, including in conjunction with streaming services like Twitch which provide means for audiences to participate.
Jellyvision had been well-established for its You Don't Know Jack series of "irreverent trivia" games. Though the series had been successful in the late 1990s, Jellyvision had not been able to make the transition easily from computer to home console games, and by 2001, all but six employees of Jellyvision had been laid off. The company focused on developing business solution software, specifically offering software to its clients to help assist their customers for complex forms or other types of support.
By 2008, Jellyvision, now named The Jellyvision Lab, saw that mobile gaming was booming, so it created a small subsidiary, Jellyvision Games, to rework You Don't Know Jack, first for consoles in its 2011 version, then for mobile and Facebook users with the now-defunct 2012 iteration. This last version was a critical success, and led the studio to focus on developing similar games, rebranding the studio by 2013 as Jackbox Games.
Among its one-off games include Lie Swatter, Clone Booth, and Word Puttz, generally designed as single player games or played asynchronously with other players. One key game that followed this was its 2014 game Fibbage, which allows up to eight simultaneous players, one of whom can use live streaming or play with people in the same room. Other players would participate by using a web browser or mobile device to connect to the streaming player's game through Jackbox's servers and which to provide their answers.
With the success of Fibbage, Jackbox Games decided that they could offer these games in packs, reworking older games to use the streaming capabilities and adding in new games. This formed the basis of the Jackbox Party Pack, with the first pack released in 2014 including updated versions of You Don't Know Jack, Fibbage, a reworked version of Lie Swatter for its multiplayer approach, and two new games. The company saw this as a new development model that allowed them to provide new packs on an annual basis, play around with different game formats, and provide higher value to consumers over one-off games.
Subsequent Jackbox Party Packs have included improvements of existing games, support for more players including the addition of audience participation through the same connectivity approach, better support for content management for streams (as to remove offensive terms in responses, for example), and the ability to create custom games. A key part of Party Pack games is to streamline the ability for players to get into games, and according to Jackbox Games' CEO Mike Bilder, they spent about a year working on building their servers and software to provide a flexible architecture for the player-side mobile and web interface to expand for any of the games, and to avoid having players download any type of app to get started.
According to Allard Laban, creative chief for both Jellyvision Labs and Jackbox Games, they select games to include in the packs through a combination of allowing the team to submit fleshed-out ideas, and through testing various ideas through pen-and-paper trials; Laban stated that for Party Pack 4, they had over fifty play-tested concepts which they narrowed down to four new games, rounding out the package with an improved version of Fibbage. Some games, such as Fakin' It, took multiple years to get the right gameplay and mechanics down to make it an appropriate game for inclusion.
The first six Jackbox Party Packs gained renewed attention during the COVID-19 pandemic as a way for many people to keep up social interactions while maintaining social distancing. Starting on May 1, 2020, Jackbox ran ten special Celebrity Jackbox live streams to support COVID-19 charities, with the celebrities playing various Jackbox Party Pack games alongside audience viewers. Jackbox said that its playerbase doubled from 100 million players in 2019 to 200 million by October 2020 due to society's shutdown. Jackbox Games improved server capacity and streaming service usability, and internationalized a standalone version of Quiplash 2 InterLASHional for French, German, Italian, and Spanish languages.
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The Jackbox Party Pack AI simulator
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The Jackbox Party Pack
The Jackbox Party Pack is a series of party video games developed by Jackbox Games for many different platforms on a near-annual release schedule since 2014. Each installment contains five games that are designed to be played in groups of varying sizes, including in conjunction with streaming services like Twitch which provide means for audiences to participate.
Jellyvision had been well-established for its You Don't Know Jack series of "irreverent trivia" games. Though the series had been successful in the late 1990s, Jellyvision had not been able to make the transition easily from computer to home console games, and by 2001, all but six employees of Jellyvision had been laid off. The company focused on developing business solution software, specifically offering software to its clients to help assist their customers for complex forms or other types of support.
By 2008, Jellyvision, now named The Jellyvision Lab, saw that mobile gaming was booming, so it created a small subsidiary, Jellyvision Games, to rework You Don't Know Jack, first for consoles in its 2011 version, then for mobile and Facebook users with the now-defunct 2012 iteration. This last version was a critical success, and led the studio to focus on developing similar games, rebranding the studio by 2013 as Jackbox Games.
Among its one-off games include Lie Swatter, Clone Booth, and Word Puttz, generally designed as single player games or played asynchronously with other players. One key game that followed this was its 2014 game Fibbage, which allows up to eight simultaneous players, one of whom can use live streaming or play with people in the same room. Other players would participate by using a web browser or mobile device to connect to the streaming player's game through Jackbox's servers and which to provide their answers.
With the success of Fibbage, Jackbox Games decided that they could offer these games in packs, reworking older games to use the streaming capabilities and adding in new games. This formed the basis of the Jackbox Party Pack, with the first pack released in 2014 including updated versions of You Don't Know Jack, Fibbage, a reworked version of Lie Swatter for its multiplayer approach, and two new games. The company saw this as a new development model that allowed them to provide new packs on an annual basis, play around with different game formats, and provide higher value to consumers over one-off games.
Subsequent Jackbox Party Packs have included improvements of existing games, support for more players including the addition of audience participation through the same connectivity approach, better support for content management for streams (as to remove offensive terms in responses, for example), and the ability to create custom games. A key part of Party Pack games is to streamline the ability for players to get into games, and according to Jackbox Games' CEO Mike Bilder, they spent about a year working on building their servers and software to provide a flexible architecture for the player-side mobile and web interface to expand for any of the games, and to avoid having players download any type of app to get started.
According to Allard Laban, creative chief for both Jellyvision Labs and Jackbox Games, they select games to include in the packs through a combination of allowing the team to submit fleshed-out ideas, and through testing various ideas through pen-and-paper trials; Laban stated that for Party Pack 4, they had over fifty play-tested concepts which they narrowed down to four new games, rounding out the package with an improved version of Fibbage. Some games, such as Fakin' It, took multiple years to get the right gameplay and mechanics down to make it an appropriate game for inclusion.
The first six Jackbox Party Packs gained renewed attention during the COVID-19 pandemic as a way for many people to keep up social interactions while maintaining social distancing. Starting on May 1, 2020, Jackbox ran ten special Celebrity Jackbox live streams to support COVID-19 charities, with the celebrities playing various Jackbox Party Pack games alongside audience viewers. Jackbox said that its playerbase doubled from 100 million players in 2019 to 200 million by October 2020 due to society's shutdown. Jackbox Games improved server capacity and streaming service usability, and internationalized a standalone version of Quiplash 2 InterLASHional for French, German, Italian, and Spanish languages.