Developed by Jackbox Games, the same developer behind the popular pop-culture quiz series You Don’t Know Jack, Jackbox Party Pack 8 features five new quirky minigames to enjoy with friends. It was first announced for all major platforms in March, with each minigame being shown off individually in the months leading up to its release on October 14.
The minigames comprising Jackbox Party Pack 8 are pretty varied. Drawful Animate tasks players with creating short, two-frame animations as the others try to guess what they are, while The Wheel Of Enormous Proportions is a trivia game where players answer questions before taking turns spinning a giant, wisecracking wheel. Job Job sees players submit their job applications by mixing words to answer questions. In Poll Mine, players have to escape a creepy cave by taking polls and trying to guess how others ranked the answers. Finally, Weapons Drawn is a game of whodunit where players draw weapons and try to guess which partygoers are using said weapons to dispatch party guests - while keeping opponents from discovering their own crimes.
To play each game, contestants are given a unique four-letter Room Code, which they enter on their mobile phone, computer, or other screen-based device to log in on the JackBox.TV website. From there, all gameplay is handled on said device, such as using the touchscreen to draw animations in Drawful Animate, spin the Wheel Of Enormous Proportions, draw murder weapons in Weapons Drawn or answer poll questions in Pool Mine. Interaction between Jackbox Party Pack 8’s servers and the players’ devices is instantaneous, with not much lag between a player’s input and the game’s reaction.
When certain settings are enabled, players from outside the main game, dubbed "the Audience," can join in and affect the game, lending an air of unpredictability to the proceedings. This includes voting for which player will give better answers in The Wheel Of Enormous Proportions, guessing along in Drawful Animate, tipping the poll results in Poll Mine, trying to help solve the cases during Weapons Drawn, and even designing the funny motivational posters that appear in the office during rounds of Job Job. There is a maximum limit of up to 10,000 Audience members, so even the largest of party crowds won’t have to worry about there not being enough server space for everyone to participate.
Aside from standard multiplayer games, players can use Jackbox.TV to select featured content, create their own games, or access special themed games for Drawful Animate and stream Poll Mine games online. There are also special options for parents to filter out potentially inappropriate content from the main menu screen, ensuring that everyone can enjoy the minigame fun.
Jackbox Party Pack 8’s graphics are bright and colorful, and the different narrators for each mini-game lend a unique personality to each one. Each minigame has its own art style, from Job Job’s thick-lined toon office setting (complete with a talking water cooler as the boss who sends her potential employees’ icebreaker submissions straight to the shredder) to Weapons Drawn’s old-fashioned portraits for each player. Each minigame also has its own memorable and catchy theme song that plays during the end credits, with the energetic Wheel Of Enormous Proportions music being the notable standout.
In keeping with the tradition of past Jackbox Party Pack editions, Jackbox Party Pack 8 contains a lot of variety for its price tag, as well as plenty of cartoonish charm and some intuitive touchscreen gameplay. From the trivia of The Wheel of Enormous Proportions and the Pictionary-style fun of Drawful Animate to the chilling murder mystery of Weapons Drawn, this quirky minigame collection could make for a nice source of entertainment at the next family gathering or holiday party.
Jackbox Party Pack 8 releases on October 14 for PC/Steam, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5. A digital Steam code was provided to Screen Rant for the purpose of this review.