For the last few releases, it seems like Jackbox has had an uphill battle to find a fresh set of games that stick. For me, I thought Jackbox Party Pack 7 was the last great pack released. It felt like it had everything I wanted and a bit more, as I still play that party pack occasionally with the fam and at work. You gotta have fun during work, right? Totally right.
Anyway, my point with this ramble is that the releases have been less than spectacular in recent years, so when Jackbox Party Pack 11 hit my PlayStation 5, I was hoping for something different and exciting to break that trend. For the most part, I think that Jackbox Games delivered some good freshness with this release. Not all of the games are winners, but this is a party pack I would revisit for multiple reasons. And let’s get into those reasons right now.
Those reasons
Jackbox Party Pack 11 features the following games:
- Doominate
- Hear Say
- Cookie Haus
- Suspectives
- Legends of Trivia
Combined, these are a solid outing for those looking for a fun time. But not all of them hit the right note. Let’s break them down individually.
Doominate
Doominate revolves around initially getting prompts from all players, like the word ‘Christmas’, and the goal for every player is to write something that ruins that prompt. At some point in the game, players must un-ruin said prompts with additional writing, which is basically like going in reverse on a rollercoaster. Same fun, different feel.
It’s a simple game on the surface that has tons of potential for laughter, which makes it a strong choice in this pack. I thoroughly enjoyed experiencing this right out of the gate and felt like there was solid wiggle room to return to it repeatedly. At the very worst, it’s a good ice breaker for the pack. It does work better with a full eight-player group, but it does okay with four or more. People are probably going to get very raunchy with this game, as it wants you to do so.
Hear Say
I know the audio recording game concept isn’t new, but this one was such a good reminder of why it is fun. Hear Say has players record individual sounds to questions. Some of those questions require actual verbal responses. Each round goes through comparing answers/noises between two players and has everyone vote on whose was the best. The highest score from the voting will win the game.
The writers I tried this out with had a fun time making noises and being goofy. In other words, the group loved it. I felt maybe this is a runner-up for the strongest game in Jackbox Party Pack 11, with the only caveat being you would want some major elbow room between players, because sometimes devices will pick up everyone else’s chatter. Still, this game is a riot, and I haven’t heard the group laugh so hard before at a Jackbox game.
Cookie Haus
So, Cookie Haus was good, but not great. It took the typical drawing concept from past games like Tee-K.O. and applied it to cookies. The game works like this — players are given prompts, and they must draw the best picture on a blank cookie to match that prompt. The player is also provided with various tools for drawing (skinny and fat writing utensils, googly eyes, etc.) and can rotate the cookie as they see fit for presentation value. Towards the end of the match, players revisit drawn cookies and try to match them up with new prompts. Much like Doominate, it feels like it’s just going in reverse of the original concept, and that works just fine.
Cookie Haus was a good experience, but not one I would revisit immediately. It felt a bit empty on the actual drawing and certainly wasn’t anything super special. I think that it needed just an additional player-controlled component for it to surpass my expectations. They could have gone with the actual Tee-K.O. concept, but that would just be a revision of an aging game. Regardless, you’ll want to play it at least once. I’m sure more creative artists can squeeze some more fun out of that game.
Suspectives
This gave me Talking Points vibes. How the game works is that a player is selected as a criminal (secretly), everyone answers prompts given by the game, and then each player must individually question another and ultimately deduce who the criminal is. The prompts given in the game are simple questions like ‘Have you ever had body glitter?’ or ‘Do you think exes can be friends?’. Nothing wildly complicated, but nothing off-the-wall humorous.
While I love getting people together in groups to chat while being driven by a more innocent version of Among Us, Suspectives felt like it was just slow. In addition to the pacing, the prompts were incredibly easy to navigate, and the humor just didn’t bubble up like it did with the other games. Overall, it respectfully fell flat in comparison to the other titles in this pack.
Legends of Trivia
This is my favorite of the bunch. Hands-down, best one of the entire party pack. Legends of Trivia is like a goofy DnD gaming experience, where everyone bands together as a group to go against monsters, big bosses, and vending machines. Each encounter is turn-based, with a counter that alerts players when their opponent is about to land a major blow.
What’s the trivia part of this, you may ask? Well, trivia drives the action. One question is asked, everyone answers after chatting with each other about what is correct, and those who get it right get to lay some damage on the enemy. Those who don’t answer correctly simply let the team down and make the fight harder to complete.
The trivia is random, so it’s like mixing old-school Jackbox with a DnD, turn-based scenario. It’s fun as hell. To add more depth to this mode, it gives players gold after each fight that can be used to purchase health or better stats. Occasionally, players will run into treasure chests that have multiple answers attached to them, meaning you have to list things in a fill-in-the-blank-type of mode, which gives players additional goodies.
Legends of Trivia brings the right amount of everything to the table. It features good trivia, an interesting vehicle that drives it, and fun group work where players can actually discuss what might be the right answer. It’s the best of the bunch, hands down.
Verdict
Overall, Jackbox Party Pack 11 is actually a solid release that brings more fun than not. Is it better than 3, 4, 5, or 7? No, but it’s certainly a new release that Jackbox fans should give a hard look at when trying to find a game that feels fresh and fun.
On that sweet note, let’s wrap up this review.
Conclusion
Jackbox Party Pack 11 is a good release that features some fresh games and plenty of good times. It returns the series to a better form, although it’s not perfect by any means, nor will it rival the best of the best in the Jackbox series. But it’s far better than what has been recently released over the last three years and gives hope that more fun is to be had with future Jackbox releases.
