Overview: A collection of party games.
20170704:
Today I was hanging out with some of my fiancee's relatives and everybody was just sitting around and after getting a little bit of interest in playing a game I purchased this party pack. I already knew the party pack was fun because I had previously played the game courtesy of my friend Avi (May 2016).
Setup: Everyone connected using their phones, and I connected my laptop to the television with an HDMI cable. For whatever reason the display went to sleep every so often, but this was generally just a hiccup in the game experience. When we later had to move to a room without a television, we simply used the laptop display.
Game Log:
Fibbage XL
: We first played several rounds of Fibbage. I wasn't sure if we'd end up playing the other games, and among the different games, I thought Fibbage was a combination of fun and simple.
Drawful
: We ended up choosing a different game after several rounds of Fibbage and we chose Drawful. Drawful is fun but the inability to erase is a little annoying and it feels a bit more slower paces than Fibbage. Of course, Drawful certainly has a Fibbage quality to it. However, it feels less balanced than Fibbage.
Word Spud
: This game was a lot of fun with my friend Avi and our fellow coworkers, mainly because of a shared type of humor. In contrast, playing with my fiancee's relatives required more thought to gain points (or not lose as much points as the next player). It was still fun, and showed how this specific game requires knowing the other players; Word Spud depends on knowing the other players in a way that the other games do not. In general, this game is best played with a group of friends or with a group of strangers, but mixing the two will probably bring about imbalanced gameplay.
Lie Swatter
: This game reminded me of Super Trivia at Dave & Busters. Of course, just like Super Trivia, I knew very little, but I think the other players were in the same boat as me. As such, this was the one game which we only played once.
Drawful
: After Lie Swatter, we returned to Drawful and played one more game before retiring at about four in the morning.
Personally, my favorite is Fibbage XL.
Note: We didn't play YOU DON'T KNOW JACK 2015 because we had more than four players.
Steam Game Time: 2.6 hours (session game time)
[20170718 Edit]
20170916:
Today I played a couple of games with Ada.
Steam Game Time: 3.2 hours (total game time) / 0.6 hours (session game time)
Thoughts:
Pros:
+ Easy to setup
+ Wide variety of games that can accommodate the number of people provided there exists a sufficient number of electronic devices (though drawing will be easier with a touch-screen device such as a smart phone or tablet).
Con:
- Most games require a moderate-to-strong grasp of the English language.
[20170718]
Summary:
The key to The Jackbox Party Pack is the minimal setup. Just give every player the room code and have them connect with a device that has an internet browser. Of course, the collection of games themselves are fun.
In general, if you and your friends are a fan of party games such as Taboo, Apples to Apples, Telestrations, etc., then I would highly recommend The Jackbox Party Pack.
Note, however, there are currently three party packs by Jackbox Games and a fourth will be released soon.
The Jackbox Party Pack (PC) (2014)
Relevant Links:
The Jackbox Party Pack Webpage
Jackbox Games > The Jackbox Party Pack (Wikipedia.org)
The Jackbox Party Pack (PC) (MetaCritic.com)
The Jackbox Party Pack (Steam Store Page)
*By deduction (using a picture not shown here), someone chose "Virginity" because those who wrote "Virginity" as a lie got 1000 points. Similarly, someone chose "Memory" because Hemanth got 1000 points. For sure Jamison didn't pick either of the two, because he picked "Tastebuds." I also didn't pick "Virginity" because that was my lie, so I must have chosen "Memory." And finally, that leaves Hemanth having picked "Virginity," and I've accounted for all the points.
20211210:
Played with my coworkers. The online connection was unstable and the game disconnected in the middle of two different games. However, in hindsight, I was connected to Zoom from two different computers and I was probably connected to the wi-fi network on my phone which I was using to play the game. Severing the Zoom connection from my work laptop and using data from my phone could have potentially avoided the issue.
In any case, Fibbage XL was probably the best, Word Spud was too intense, Lie Swatter sometimes felt random (especially the final round with Kentucky Derby winners) and not enough sense of who's ahead, and Drawful was interesting (but was got cut short on account of the second server disconnect).
Steam Game Time: 4.8 hours (total game time) / 1.5 hours (session game time)
20220729 Snapshot:
Was thinking about playing today but didn't. In any case, the game time is sitting at 8.6 hours and yet the last entry above for 20211210 shows the total game time at 4.8 hours. Where did the additional 3.8 hours come from?
Steam Game Time: 8.7 hours (total game time)
20231220:
For the holidays some of my coworkers and I got together and played similar to two years ago.
Gameplay Log:
Fibbage XL: Mark won with 13750 points, followed by Tony ("Masterchief") with 9000 points.
Fibbage XL: To end the second round was a question where everyone guessed the correct answer. This meant Tony stayed in the lead for the win, followed by Bryson.
Drawful: Highlights here are "this magic carpet is filthy" and "daft punk getting ice cream". The win ended up being a tie between Mark and myself ("Not Mark")... The points go so fast throughout the game though... I'm not sure where I got all the points.
Steam Game Time: 9.7 hours (cumulative game time) / 1.0 hours (session game time) / 58 minutes (last two weeks)
20240106:
Today I played with my relatives (Ate Jenny, R.K., J.J., Amber, Arriane, and Audrey).
Gameplay Log:
Drawful
Fibbage XL
Lie Swatter
Lie Swatter
Word Spud
Word Spud
We started another round of Drawful but we ended up stopping as some people had to go and others had to focus on packing up for travel.
Drawful was fun, but in hindsight it is better to play it after Fibbage XL, because Fibbage XL imparts the concept of trying to fool others and guessing the correct answer without the drawing mechanic. In any case, both those games are more fun and carry more transparency in who is winning than either Lie Swatter or Word Spud. Word Spud can be fun with a certain group of players, but generally I find it feels like a hit or miss - especially given how subjective the game is. I think for Word Spud it is better to have anonymous submissions in order to avoid playing favorites, and don't show the total votes thus far in order to avoid sabotage. In addition, this group of players had a tendency to vote negative instead of voting positive or abstaining. Perhaps the assumption is that one needs to vote. If instead the game developers had given an explicit choice to remain neutral, I'm sure that would generally change the dynamics of the game.
Steam Game Time: 1.2 hours (session game time)*
*I forgot I was logged into a secondary account and played the game on that account instead of my main account.
20170704:
Today I was hanging out with some of my fiancee's relatives and everybody was just sitting around and after getting a little bit of interest in playing a game I purchased this party pack. I already knew the party pack was fun because I had previously played the game courtesy of my friend Avi (May 2016).
 |
| Drawful |
Setup: Everyone connected using their phones, and I connected my laptop to the television with an HDMI cable. For whatever reason the display went to sleep every so often, but this was generally just a hiccup in the game experience. When we later had to move to a room without a television, we simply used the laptop display.
Game Log:
Fibbage XL
: We first played several rounds of Fibbage. I wasn't sure if we'd end up playing the other games, and among the different games, I thought Fibbage was a combination of fun and simple.
Drawful
: We ended up choosing a different game after several rounds of Fibbage and we chose Drawful. Drawful is fun but the inability to erase is a little annoying and it feels a bit more slower paces than Fibbage. Of course, Drawful certainly has a Fibbage quality to it. However, it feels less balanced than Fibbage.
 |
| Which phrase matches the picture? (Drawful) |
Word Spud
: This game was a lot of fun with my friend Avi and our fellow coworkers, mainly because of a shared type of humor. In contrast, playing with my fiancee's relatives required more thought to gain points (or not lose as much points as the next player). It was still fun, and showed how this specific game requires knowing the other players; Word Spud depends on knowing the other players in a way that the other games do not. In general, this game is best played with a group of friends or with a group of strangers, but mixing the two will probably bring about imbalanced gameplay.
Lie Swatter
: This game reminded me of Super Trivia at Dave & Busters. Of course, just like Super Trivia, I knew very little, but I think the other players were in the same boat as me. As such, this was the one game which we only played once.
Drawful
: After Lie Swatter, we returned to Drawful and played one more game before retiring at about four in the morning.
 |
| Drawful Scores |
Personally, my favorite is Fibbage XL.
Note: We didn't play YOU DON'T KNOW JACK 2015 because we had more than four players.
Steam Game Time: 2.6 hours (session game time)
[20170718 Edit]
20170916:
Today I played a couple of games with Ada.
Steam Game Time: 3.2 hours (total game time) / 0.6 hours (session game time)
Thoughts:
Pros:
+ Easy to setup
+ Wide variety of games that can accommodate the number of people provided there exists a sufficient number of electronic devices (though drawing will be easier with a touch-screen device such as a smart phone or tablet).
 |
| Word Spud (I played this round as Ada, my fiancee's name) |
Con:
- Most games require a moderate-to-strong grasp of the English language.
[20170718]
Summary:
The key to The Jackbox Party Pack is the minimal setup. Just give every player the room code and have them connect with a device that has an internet browser. Of course, the collection of games themselves are fun.
In general, if you and your friends are a fan of party games such as Taboo, Apples to Apples, Telestrations, etc., then I would highly recommend The Jackbox Party Pack.
Note, however, there are currently three party packs by Jackbox Games and a fourth will be released soon.
The Jackbox Party Pack (PC) (2014)
Relevant Links:
The Jackbox Party Pack Webpage
Jackbox Games > The Jackbox Party Pack (Wikipedia.org)
The Jackbox Party Pack (PC) (MetaCritic.com)
The Jackbox Party Pack (Steam Store Page)
 |
| Five out of eight players got this one right.* (Fibbage) (20160521) |
 |
| Even better, five out of eight players coincidentally chose the same lie! (Fibbage) (20160521) |
*By deduction (using a picture not shown here), someone chose "Virginity" because those who wrote "Virginity" as a lie got 1000 points. Similarly, someone chose "Memory" because Hemanth got 1000 points. For sure Jamison didn't pick either of the two, because he picked "Tastebuds." I also didn't pick "Virginity" because that was my lie, so I must have chosen "Memory." And finally, that leaves Hemanth having picked "Virginity," and I've accounted for all the points.
20211210:
Played with my coworkers. The online connection was unstable and the game disconnected in the middle of two different games. However, in hindsight, I was connected to Zoom from two different computers and I was probably connected to the wi-fi network on my phone which I was using to play the game. Severing the Zoom connection from my work laptop and using data from my phone could have potentially avoided the issue.
In any case, Fibbage XL was probably the best, Word Spud was too intense, Lie Swatter sometimes felt random (especially the final round with Kentucky Derby winners) and not enough sense of who's ahead, and Drawful was interesting (but was got cut short on account of the second server disconnect).
Steam Game Time: 4.8 hours (total game time) / 1.5 hours (session game time)
20220729 Snapshot:
Was thinking about playing today but didn't. In any case, the game time is sitting at 8.6 hours and yet the last entry above for 20211210 shows the total game time at 4.8 hours. Where did the additional 3.8 hours come from?
Steam Game Time: 8.7 hours (total game time)
20231220:
For the holidays some of my coworkers and I got together and played similar to two years ago.
Gameplay Log:
Fibbage XL: Mark won with 13750 points, followed by Tony ("Masterchief") with 9000 points.
Fibbage XL: To end the second round was a question where everyone guessed the correct answer. This meant Tony stayed in the lead for the win, followed by Bryson.
Drawful: Highlights here are "this magic carpet is filthy" and "daft punk getting ice cream". The win ended up being a tie between Mark and myself ("Not Mark")... The points go so fast throughout the game though... I'm not sure where I got all the points.
Steam Game Time: 9.7 hours (cumulative game time) / 1.0 hours (session game time) / 58 minutes (last two weeks)
20240106:
Today I played with my relatives (Ate Jenny, R.K., J.J., Amber, Arriane, and Audrey).
Gameplay Log:
Drawful
Fibbage XL
Lie Swatter
Lie Swatter
Word Spud
Word Spud
We started another round of Drawful but we ended up stopping as some people had to go and others had to focus on packing up for travel.
Drawful was fun, but in hindsight it is better to play it after Fibbage XL, because Fibbage XL imparts the concept of trying to fool others and guessing the correct answer without the drawing mechanic. In any case, both those games are more fun and carry more transparency in who is winning than either Lie Swatter or Word Spud. Word Spud can be fun with a certain group of players, but generally I find it feels like a hit or miss - especially given how subjective the game is. I think for Word Spud it is better to have anonymous submissions in order to avoid playing favorites, and don't show the total votes thus far in order to avoid sabotage. In addition, this group of players had a tendency to vote negative instead of voting positive or abstaining. Perhaps the assumption is that one needs to vote. If instead the game developers had given an explicit choice to remain neutral, I'm sure that would generally change the dynamics of the game.
Steam Game Time: 1.2 hours (session game time)*
*I forgot I was logged into a secondary account and played the game on that account instead of my main account.
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