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As long as people can get online via a phone or laptop, they can play. People that don’t wish to play can still participate in some games such as voting on better designs and jokes. The Jackbox Party Pack 8 may have some of the weaker new entries the series has seen in a while, but they are still worth testing out via physical or digital parties. Let’s rank all five of them as well as break down how each works.
5 Drawful Animate
Drawful Animate supports three to ten players. It is similar to other Drawful games in the series with the object of the game in the name: drawing. The catch is this time players can crudely animate an image with two frames. On the first sheet, players can draw something, and then on another sheet is folded over that. The goal is to trace the original drawing while creating a new image to create an animated effect.
This is quite tricky to get right and is perhaps too complex for a multiplayer game like this. As usual, players will get prompts from the computer on topics to draw. The rest of the players then have to guess what that image is along with creating subjects to fool everyone else. Even though it is hard to animate drawings naturally, that’s the whole point of Drawful. The worse things look, the funnier the game can become.
4 Weapons Drawn
Weapons Drawn must be played with at least four players with a maximum reaching eight. This is a faux murder party. The object is to guess “who done it” but also get away with murder. Everyone is actually a murderer in this game, unlike Clue or other typical mystery board games where there is usually one killer. Players have to kill guests as discretely as possible as well as mislead everyone else on who committed what murder.
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Players have to craft their murder weapons into their calling cards which can be as tricky as animating drawings. That’s how everyone else can try to guess who did what. It’s a bit complex to get right over online multiplayer. It works begetter in a room full of people where faces can be read. It’s also not advised to play with strangers. Playing with random people online can create a more challenging and frustrating experience. Some players may prefer this method which is good as well.
3 Poll Mine
Poll Mine is almost like a choose your own adventure game with a mathematical twist to the formula. This game requires the least amount of people, two, with ten being the max. It’s one in two games in the compilation that can be played cooperatively in a versus manner which is a plus. It should be added that players play on teams. At the start of each round players are asked a series of questions they then have to pick their top answers from a board of choices. Depending on how players pick, that will determine the popularity of that subject.
For example, if the question wanted to know what the most popular type of candy is and six out of ten people said Twix, Twix would be ranked number one. That’s not at all. Then players are asked to guess what the popularity is in a random order so it could be what candy ranked the fourth, fifth, and sixth-highest instead. It’s a decent twist to a statistics-based game and can seem convoluted at first. However, it gets better after a few rounds of figuring it out.
2 Job Job
Job Job might be the silliest named title in the bunch which fits perfectly well with the vibe of this weird game. Three to ten players are applying for a new corporate job. The catch is the boss is too lazy to pick a new employee themselves so they ask contestants to rank each other through a series of ice breakers.
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Players answer the prompts as truthfully or as funny as possible and then the fun round begins. Players have to answer a new set of questions using words scrambled out of the first round. For example, let’s say one player answers “a red goose” and another player writes “a yellow duck” in that first round. If someone uses any of those words in their new answer, each player gets a point. It’s a mad libs style of comedy game that can again be hard to master at first. It might quickly become a favorite among a group of friends after some practice though.
1 The Wheel Of Enormous Proportions
The Wheel of Enormous Proportions is the other game in the compilation that can be played cooperatively with only two players. It supports a maximum of eight and is a quiz game at its very core. A giant sun-like god will ask players questions. Correct answers will reward players pieces of pie that look like the triangles from Trivial Pursuit. Being right isn’t the only way to win as players must also be quick on the draw.
The pie-like pieces are then used in the in-between round wherein players spin a giant wheel around. Depending on where players land, they might get bonus points or reward opponents instead. The more pieces of pie that are on the wheel, the better chances players will have of getting points. It’s a pretty straightforward concept despite the elaborate godly setup. It may not be the funniest game in The Jackbox Party Pack 8, but it is certainly the easiest to pick up. This series has always excelled at quiz games starting all the way back in 1995 with You Don’t Know Jack.
The Jackbox Party Pack 8 was released on October 14, 2021 and is available on PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.
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