Jackbox Party Pack 10 Review: It's Been While Hasn't It

By Jonathan Bilski

 

Ten long years. Nine other packs. A fond memory of finding out the shirts you create can be ordered online. We've got Jackbox Party Pack 10 just in time for the holiday season. From Halloween to Thanksgiving to Hanukkah and Christmas to the New Year you've got some new games to play.

This pack is packed with nostalgia, yet they still made some new games to get into. As always we're breaking down each and telling you how they play them. You'll screw up on your first attempts, but have fun trying. 

 

And if you've never played Jackbox before, guess what? All you need is your phone or tablet to join the game. The game is out on every major console and computer and can be played locally or online. So, you have to be really, really bad if you can't get it to work.

 

Tee K.O. 2

 

We begged, we pleaded. We got a new Tee K.O.! The game changes up from it's predecessor quite a bit. You still battle it out shirt to shirt. You create different images, three at first, then you get to write some witty slogans or whatever you want. Then it gets randomized among the other players. You put an image and slogan/words together and you got a shirt.

Or in this new version a hoodie or tank top. You can switch on the fly until you have to submit. That's only the start of the changes to the game. More shirt colors, more colors to draw with and even four different fonts give you even more options in the game.

That's a lot of ways to character assassinate friends and family all in good fun. "Wink"

They've overhauled the U.I., so it takes a little while to get use to. For someone who still plays the original it was a little hard to get used to. Shirt color choices at the top. Width of your brush at the bottom. You have an eraser and a back button. It's a lot to play with in a very short time. Leading to some real funny art.

Other changes include having the ability to edit another image on your fourth shirt. Now you can
possibly finish one of your drawings if you didn't have enough time. Or, even more fun (snickers, dark smiles grows on his face), change one of your friends drawings. You can make that cat wear a top hat. Put that Star Wars character at JC Penny. Or, just as my friends did, add penises. The first thing they did was of course add penises.

 

You add more slogans again, but the change up at the end is a little disturbing. The last two shirts that battle tap to win. You gotta tap for your winning
shirt to win. I'm unsure if someone whose just really good at tapping on their phone could change the game, but hopefully it's based more on the votes per usual.

If a newcomer or wondering if it changed, you still vote on your phone which shirts should win by just clicking on it, in head-to-head battles. If everyone votes for the same shirt the game has kept the Shirtatility!, burning the other shirt away and making you feel bad if it was yours.

The UI is a little hard to get use to for veterans of the original game like myself. After a few plays it flows pretty easy.

As like the previous title you can get any of the shirts for real, but now as a tank top or hoodie. And, you can change the color too if your purchasing it. You can always have a memory of your friends drawing penises over your cartoon bird.

New look, new style, not the same.

 

Maybe, it'll grow on me, but just not enjoying the new host and new avatars of the game. I really loved the yokai and animals from the original K.O. and they're dead. Their spirits inhabit the island still making shirts throughout the game as cute visuals. The new avatars are paying homage to the other games in the Jack Packs and though a fan of many of those games I just don't like that much meta in it.

I get it's the tenth pack, but not sure why this was the game that needed to be that connection to all the other titles. All the new characters are drawn in a similar style to have some consistency, but I miss my two-tailed cat. The only returning character is the bunny and they got old. I'd rather the all the previous characters be old or their kids take their place. Cat-Walrus hybrid, Oni-Kappa hybrid, Monkey-Snake hybrid, those would have been much better avatars.

Right now, I'm happy to try out a new Tee K.O. and make incredibly dumb shirts/ hoodies and tank tops with friends again.

Hypnotorious 

Every pack seems to have one. The new too long and high concept game. Hypnotorious is just that. When playing with friends we thought the game was over too soon, but it turned out we were in Round 1. Even going over it twice, didn't make it nice.

The host, he's a creepy hypnotist, whose kind of cocky and it works for the game. And, the visual as you and fellow players brains are taken out of your heads really makes you think.

You're given a prompt on your phone of who or what you are, so is everyone else playing. It can be anything or anyone, generic too, like dolphin or cheeseburger. Then you have to answer questions as your character to the group. You can't just reveal what you are, you're just answering questions like you were a bottle of shampoo or a barber.

 

It's the only game in the pack that requires at least four players. Why, that amount of people? Because you and your cohorts have to guess what group you're a part of. See, you'll notice you might both be animals or both into dealing with hair. You have to find your similarities and try and group together to earn points. This is done visually by going into the same jar. So pick where to go and pickle yourself.

 

However, you will find out that of the four or more, one is an outlier and doesn't fit into any category and eventually will have to guess who they are.

 

So, you see a little high concept. This is all done under the guise of that hypnotist messing with you and making you think you're something like a chicken or a garage door salesman.

 

My friends and I found it hard to play and we'll try again, but it's the least favorite in the pack and the hardest to get a hold of, especially if it's your first game playing Jackbox.

 

Dodo Re Mi

Did you ever want to play Guitar Hero on your phone? Well keep waiting, because if you want to make a cacophony of noise with friends there's Dodo Re Mi. There's been sound based games before, but this is the first rhythm one I think Jackbox has done. And, it's a hoot, and a meow and an accordion and grandma piano. And oboe, don't forget oboe.

Let me explain. You and friends work together to make music on your phones or smart devices by playing the same song together. Adding to make it even sillier is the long list of "instruments" you can play. They have real ones and then they have nonsense like someone's pet cat named Taz or someone who makes mouth sounds or just plain gargling. This part of the game, not song selection, might eat up the most time as you and your cohorts delight in hearing every strange instrument and see what level of difficulty it is to play. Some "instruments" are harder to play than others with speed and how many points you gotta tap.

 

In going over game play more, like any rhythm game you have to tap the the notes as the come down on your phone. There's a few different instruments that are more like tracing with your figure like a flute or kazoo, but for the most part you'll be tap, tap, tapping in rhythm to score the most points.

 

The tutorial itself is setup for you to fail and you might not make it past many song alive.

What do I mean? The story behind the game is simple, you're a cute little bird making music for a
carnivorous flower. If you and your friends aren't up to snuff you're dead. As in eaten by the flower. That's some motivation not to lose.

At first, friends and I we're an untrained assemble and after a few songs...we weren't much better. We were getting closer to not dying.

 

Be prepared to see yourself getting close and then cursing a bit for being one petal off from being safe.

This is a silly delight, you'll be hearing the screams or sounds from your phone as you play them and when you're good, you'll make out the songs tune When you're not...it's still funny to hear you play. Like an animal is dying.

Gotta mention again such an amazing option is the different instruments you randomly get to choose for each song, you have maybe at least 9 different instruments or more to choose from before you start playing.

Now, after the group plays, with objects or people's voices, you can listen to the finished song and hear how bad a keytar and someone's pet dog (Agnes) sound together playing classic license-free music.

If you do live through a song...or enough songs, you can unlock more.

Perfect party starter with plenty of band-mates. With 9 spots, that's a pretty big band. This might be the break-out of the pack, but way better locally in someone's living room.

 

FixyText

 

Oh no! Don't write that! Don't write that! 

 

Getting help on writing text messages has never been worse. And, that's a good thing for 
FixyText. In this party game you and up to 8 friends can "fix" text messages by adding nonsense or something heartfelt, best to know your audience though, because they'll vote on whatever you add to random text message your assigned.

Oh and by the way, there's no back or delete button and everything you write stays the same, so no
autocorrect. 

The voting for your favorite words might be the most messy part of how this game awards points. You can't just vote on a sentence, you vote and award points on the favorite words you see in the texts. Yes, their read out loud to hear the nonsense instead of silently reading it to yourself.

Silly, silly game that is very easy to get into.

Friends and I really enjoyed the look that reminds me of late 90's textbooks or early online artsy websites. Oddly, your avatars are font-faced screws.

 

Fast-paced and in a frenzy to get words out to amuse you'll loosen up and write something weird. 

 

 

Timejinks

Trivia be a time traveler in this one. Or basically, as the story goes, you're having a time travel trivia party and you and up to 8 friends must travel through time answering by what year things took place in. Here's the twist, the more you're off from the correct year, the more points you get. Least points win.

So, you're trying to get as close to the correct year as possible or your score will go up.

The game helps with giving you a range so you can't be that far off. And, if you're not doing too well in the final rounds it will give you hints in what they call messages from you future-self.

There's side missions like guessing the correct year a historical figure did something compared to his
evil clone. Or answering the same question twice in a time loop to get a percentage of your points cut.

It's a fun concept with cute future avatars, butcould have played a little more with the time travel angle. I would have liked more backgrounds for time traveling, just cartoon renditions of different eras.

The host maybe could have been a parody too. It's supposed to be time travel so make fun of Doc Brown or Doctor Who.

 

There's cute visual of getting a real time jink in the game where multiple players choose the same year. It's fun it shows you, but it be nice if you got a bonus or something else for having more than one person choosing the same year. Same goes for perfect answers where someone picks the correct year.

You'll want to play few times this Fall/Winter season.

 

Conclusions

 

I like there's a new pack and let us give Jackbox Games some applause for 10 years of these packs.

 

I'll only add that with this tenth addition it would have been nice to add a library of their games. It looks like they have the info on their site and could have added some fun visuals or commentary or trivia. The title screen seems to be crying for attention on all the other titles Jaxkbox has made. But, for a noob, they wouldn't even know.

When on the couch with friends or playing online these games do shine. You can really get lost in Dodo Re Mii or always ask for another round of Tee K.O. 2.

Sometimes it takes a while for one to grow on you. And, with the right group you'll make music together or have a history lesson or just add penises to shirts.

 

The Jackbox Party Pack 10 will be available on all major platforms on October 19th 2023.
Going for $34.99