Jackbox Games has found a winning formula with the Jackbox Party Pack — the developer has put out 10 successful collections over the past 10 years. These game packs have a bunch of pick up and play minigames. One player hosts, and everyone else joins in using their mobile devices. Most of these games are family friendly and center around crafting jokes, improv comedy, trivia, or simple tests of skill.
The eleventh pack, The Jackbox Naughty Pack, breaks the mold; it’s smaller (and cheaper), with only three minigames, and those games are designed to be a little more risqué. The smaller pack and defined focus make it one of the most intriguing packs yet, and the collection dances between being salacious and silly.
The Jackbox Naughty Pack is headlined by Fakin’ It All Night Long, a social deduction game. Fakin’ It, the original iteration from Party Pack 3, often skewed dirty, and All Night Long capitalizes on that. It’s a full sequel that adds a Remote Play feature, widening the appeal.
There’s also Dirty Drawful, a delightfully crass version of the beloved drawing game that encourages players to draw dicks aplenty. Finally, there’s the new game Let Me Finish, where players argue over quandaries like “where is the butt on a mailbox?” and “how do you give this particular mechanical contraption a blowjob?”
“Something that is really cool about Jackbox Games is we let players kind of take things where they want to take them,” said creative director Brooke Breit in a call with Polygon. “We give you the diving board to jump off and make the game your own for you and your friend group.”
Games like Quiplash (filling out punchlines to pre-written prompts) and Survive the Internet (writing terrible internet comments to attribute to your trusting friends) already inspire some pretty adult answers, and a NSFW pack was a common request from players. Jackbox chose to hone in on the theme, going with three games instead of five. “It feels like a very kind of manageable pack of games,” said Breit. “This is something new for us, in the sense of our first mature rated game. So it felt good to have a more contained product where we could try that out.”
Image: Jackbox Games
The Naughty Pack can be a game night in and of itself; while the recent umbrella client Multipicker allows players to navigate through all 10 packs, it’s not a perfect system and players still need to open and close packs when they switch games. Being able to settle down and enjoy one pack is a much cozier experience, and the Naughty Pack games all share a certain humor.
While these games all encourage spicy answers or saucy drawings, Jackbox did playtesting to ensure that things don’t collapse into a race for the easiest and crudest punchline. In Fakin’ It All Night Long, the social deception part of the game is crucial to win. “The way we approached it is that people aren’t necessarily saying surprising or crude things,” said Breit. “You’re admitting to something, or hiding something, and then it’s like, ‘Well, no, no, hear me out on this!’ It’s a fun conversation that gets things going between players.”
In Dirty Drawful and Let Me Finish, the sexual jokes are balanced with absurd prompts. In addition, the team worked to try to make the jokes welcoming, if not necessarily wholesome; prompts don’t punch down on specific peoples’ bodies or interests. “We really try to approach the tone of the prompts to be inclusive — fun, comfortable, you may be pushed outside of your comfort zone a little, but it’s an equal opportunity fun time,” said Breit.
This smaller, more focused Naughty Pack offers an intriguing twist on a very successful formula. Seeing a themed Party Pack piqued my interest; the fact that it includes so many goofy blowjob jokes is just icing on the cake. The Jackbox Naughty Pack is scheduled to release on Sept. 11, 2024 on PC and consoles.
