Jackbox Games

Jackbox Games

Company type	Private
Industry	Interactive Entertainment
Founded	2008
Headquarters	Chicago, Illinois
Key people	Harry Gottlieb Mike Bilder Steve Heinrich Allard Laban Evan Jacover Tom Gottlieb Andy Poland
Products	You Don't Know Jack
Number of employees	20+
Website	Jackboxgames.com

Jackbox Games (formerly Jellyvision Games) is a Chicago-based video game developer, known for the You Don't Know Jack series (YDKJ) of trivia quiz-based video games. The company was previously incorporated as Jellyvision Inc. until the formal separation of the games development unit from interactive video advertising division, Jellyvision Labs. The company was reincorporated as Jellyvision Games, Inc. in December 2011, and rebranded as Jackbox Games in June 2013.

History

From 1995 to 1998, Jellyvision published numerous versions of YDKJ for personal computers, and attempted to enter the marketplace with console-based versions of the game, but found these to be unsuccessful. Jellyvision became Jellyvision Labs, working on communication software for business clients.

In 2008, as the popularity of networked consoles and mobile devices became popular, Jellyvision Labs opted to spin out a games division, naming it Jellyvision Games, LLC, headed by Mike Bilder. The new division looked to revitalize YDKJ for these new systems, subsequently releasing an iOS application and, in partnership with THQ, a console version in 2011. Near the end of 2011, the company was incorporated as Jellyvision Games, Inc. Since then, the company has developed a Facebook version of the game, allowing them to continuously provide new trivia; later the product expanded to include a standalone mobile application that allows data sharing and competition with the Facebook version. The game was awarded the "Social Game of the Year" at the 2012 Spike Video Game Awards.

The studio was rebranded as Jackbox Games in June 2013, and announced that it would continue to focus on developing social games for current platforms including mobile devices and home entertainment devices like Roku and Ouya. Versions of YDKJ were subsequently released on both Roku and Ouya, then later on the Amazon Fire TV. During this time, the company introduced a unique feature that allowed the game to be played using smartphones and tablets as controllers, rather than actual game controllers.

Jackbox released more apps including Clone Booth (a humorous photo-manipulation app) and the games Lie Swatter (a find-the-lies game of wacky facts) and Word Puttz (a mini-golf themed word game), before turning its attention back to consoles with its 2014 release of Fibbage: The Hilarious Bluffing Party Game. Fibbage first appeared on the Amazon Fire TV but soon after was released as a digital-only title on Xbox One, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 in September 2014. Fibbage also uses the phones-as-controllers technology, allowing players to type in bluffs to fool other players, and allowing up to 8 players to play in one room (no actual physical controllers are used to play the game). Fibbage is hosted by YOU DON'T KNOW JACK's familiar host, Cookie Masterson.

Products

You Don't Know Jack

While the original Jellyvision company created most of the games in the YDKJ series, Jackbox Games are the developers for these entries in the series:

• YDKJ – February 8, 2011
• YDKJ (iPhone/iPad) – 2011
• YDKJ (Facebook) – May 29, 2012 - Later to include tie-in iOS/Android versions.
• YOU DON'T KNOW JACK (Roku)
• YOU DON'T KNOW JACK for Ouya (Ouya)
• YOU DON'T KNOW JACK Party (Amazon Fire TV)

Lie Swatter (2013)

Lie Swatter presents the player with a number of statements which may be true or false, and the player is required to determine which ones are lies and "swat" them. The player earns points for correctly-guessed answers (eg not swatting true statements and swatting false ones).

Clone Booth (2013)

Clone Booth is a photo app for mobile devices that allows one to take a photo and then have that digitally manipulated into a number of stock historical images which then can be shared via mobile devices.

Word Puttz (2013)

Word Puttz is a single player game for mobile devices. On each level, the player is presented with a miniature golf hole, including a tee and a cup; other obstacles may also be present. The objective is to create words using a given set of letter tiles to create a path from the tee to the hole, in the manner of Scrabble. The player is scored based on how few words they use, as well as point values of those letters in the words.

Fibbage (2014)

Fibbage is a party game played by up to eight players and up to one hundred audience members via a streaming channel. It is broken into three rounds. In the first two rounds, each player has an opportunity to pick one of five randomly selected categories, and then all players are presented with an obscure fact with a missing word or phrase. Each player secretly provides the answer to the missing phrase, trying to craft an answer that appears legitimate. If players enter the correct answer, they are told of this and encouraged to enter a false answer. The game then presents all players' answers and the correct answer randomly. Players must then select the correct answer. If the player selected the correct answer, they score points, while if other players have selected that player's fake answer, they also score points for each player that selected their answer. In the final round, the game provides one last question for all players to answer. The player with the most points at the end wins. Following each question, players including the audience members have the opportunity to mark one or more answers as favorites, and the player with the most favorites is shown at the end of the game.

Quiplash (2015)

Quiplash is a party game that is played by up to eight active players and any number of audience members such as over a streaming channel; the game uses a special website that allows all players to participate from a web browser window, requiring only the streamer to own the game to play. The game includes three rounds. In the first two rounds, the active players are given two humorous questions they secretly supply a funny answer to, arranged so that each question gets two answers. In the resolution of that round, the questions are presented with both answers (though not the players that supplied that answer), and all remaining players can vote on which answer they think is better; those in the audience can also vote. The player receives points for each vote their answer gets from active players as well as if they win the audience vote. If they get all these votes, they score a "Quiplash" bonus score. In the third round, there is one question that all active players provide an answer for. Then, the active players get to place three votes for the other answers when presented; audience players get one vote for this. Players earn additional points for every vote their answer gets, and the winner is the one with the most points at the end.

Quiplash was developed by Jackbox Games with the intent as a game designed for streaming and enabling the audience to be an active participant, working from their previous success with a similar model of play from Fibbage and Drawful. Jackbox used a Kickstarter approach to fund development of the game, with the March 2015 campaign seeking $15,000 and finishing with over $30,000 from over 1,600 backers.

Jackbox Party Pack (2014)

The Jackbox Party Pack contains You Don't Know Jack 2015, Fibbage XL (introducing more questions than the original release), Drawful, Lie Swatter and Word Spud.

Drawful is a party game played by up to eight players and up to one hundred audience members via a streaming channel, similar to Fibbage. The game has two rounds. Each round, each player is initially presented with a unique phrase, and they must use a simple drawing interface to draw out that phrase without using words. Once the drawings are all completed, the game presents a player's pictures to the other players, and they must enter what phrase the drawing is showing. If they get this correct, they are told this and encouraged to enter another phrase. All the possible phrases, including the correct one, are presented to the players, and they then must select which one they think is correct. If a player selects the correct one, both they and the drawer get points, while the creator of a fake answer gets points if their answer is selected. The winner is the player with the most points at the end. Like Fibbage, the players' guesses can be voted on as favorites by players and audience members.

Word Spud is a party game for eight players. An initial word is selected by the game, and then a player is randomly selected to enter a second word that logically follows the first; the remaining players award points, if any, for the response, and the next player then must follow onto the entered word with their own entry.

Jackbox Party Pack 2 (2015)

The Jackbox Party Pack 2 contains Fibbage 2, Quiplash XL, Bidiots, Ear Wax and Bomb Corp.

Ear Wax is played by up to seven players. One player is selected as the judge and are given a choice of two categories. The category is presented to the other players, and these players are each given six random sound effects. Each player then selects two of the sound effects, in order, as a reply to the category. The judge player selects which combined sounds make the most humorous or fitting answer, and that selected player wins a point. The first player to three points wins the game.

Bidiots is described as a spiritual successor to Drawful, playable by up to 6 people. At the start of the game, each player draws two pieces of simple pieces of art to randomly selected categories, though these categories may be thematically similar that may result in similar visuals (for example, "going to the beach", "getting a tan", and "sunburn"). During the game, each player has a starting pool of in-game money which are used in an auction-style format to purchase the art. During the auction, each work is randomly assigned a secret monetary value based on the category, with those works drawn for that category having the highest value; the game will randomly send hints to player on the nature of this information. Players attempt to bid and purchase the art that matches the given category name while trying to use the auction format to goad other bidders to purchase the art they made in the wrong category. Players have "screws" as in YDKJ to force another player to bid, and if a player runs low on money, they can take out a predatory loan that will cost points at the end of the game. At the end of the game, the player whose purchases have the largest value over the randomly assigned values for the art wins.

Bomb Corp has one player as an employee of a bomb factory that must deactivate inadvertently-started bombs as they come off the assembly lines, while other players are given different sets of instructions to help deactivate it. The instructions are specifically obtuse and potentially conflicting, requiring careful communication between players.

External links

• Official website