After successfully releasing 10 full packs in 10 years, Jackbox decided to spend 2024 appeasing a few long-term fan dreams. First, they finally gave players a tool that allowed them to mix and match the games from across all Jackbox Party Packs in the Jackbox Megapicker. And second, they gave gamers who already make penis jokes in every Party Pack a place to feel normal and accepted with their newest experiment: The Jackbox Naughty Pack.
Someone in the room asked, "what if instead of Jackbox Party Pack it was the Jackbox Freaky Pack and all the prompts were kinky and weird?" And no one said no all the way to launch.
We thank them for that.
Just the Facts |
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Developer: Jackbox Games |
Publisher: Jackbox Games |
Platform(s): PC*, PS4/5, Xbox Series S and X, Nintendo Switch *platform reviewed on |
Price: $21.69 |
Release Date: September 12, 2024 |
Key provided by fortyseven communications. |
Ahead of the launch, VGG was able to sit in on a preview event for the Jackbox Naughty Pack where we learned a lot of the thinking that went into a game like this. There's a fine line to straddle with an 18+ game to keep things from teetering over into the embarrassing "crude for crude's sake" territory. But between the team's incredible writing staff — who are operating on another level here — and the commitment to keeping their naughty writing inclusive and, in their words, never "punching down," Jackbox walks the line perfectly with this first foray into adult-only party games.
To ring in this new era, Jackbox leaned on the return of a few fan favorites to anchor what is a much smaller pack of games — three instead of their typical five. It feels like an appetizer plate instead of the usual meal we get once a year. But let's get this out of the way before we really dive in: there's not a single stinker among these three, and that goes a long way in making this a worthy addition to the Jackbox lineup for years to come.
It starts with the grand return of a classic: Jackbox's original deception game, Fakin' It, makes a titillating and deeply personal return to form with Fakin' It All Night Long. Jackbox's one-time drawing king, Drawful, finally leans into what many of us have been doing all along, asking you to draw your weird and spicy little memes in Naughty Pack's Dirty Drawful. And to wrap it up, you've got the only brand-new addition in Let Me Finish, a game all about debating strange prompts and deeply analyzing odd stock photos with your friends.
Just like our process for reviewing all the Jackbox Games thus far, what you'll find below are mini-reviews for each of the pack's games, complete with feedback from our personal group's impressions of each game — because, at the end of the day, Jackbox is all about your group's enjoyment. After that, we'll wrap up with our overall thoughts on the pack and send you on your way to get naughty with your friends immediately. (But not like that. I mean... unless you're all into that.)
Let's start with something I'm sure none of us have ever done before — and get to Fakin' It All Night Long.
Fakin' It All Night Long (3 - 8 players)
Fakin' It was one of the very first Jackbox games created, with the original released in Jackbox Party Pack 3. But it was born in an era where people engaged with Jackbox in a very different way — in the room versus online in group calls. And Fakin' It was a game that really leaned into that "in the room" experience. It's a deception game that asks you to answer prompts that everyone gets (except the Faker, who either doesn't receive it or gets a twisted version) by physically raising your hand if it applied to you, pointing at other players, and generally reading the faces of your fellow players in the moment.
When it was announced it'd be coming back in Naughty Pack, we wondered how they'd revive the concept in the new online-gaming age.
Fakin' It All Night Long offers two play styles right out the gate: Same Room and Remote. Same Room allows for that traditional Fakin' It experience, while Remote allows for a version that has your in-game avatars doing all the necessary actions for play. It's a simple solution that just works. We found that this shift made it infinitely more playable and, for those with poor poker faces, infinitely more enjoyable than the first game.
What was most surprising was how personal this particular brand of deception game got. We joked often about the fact that our sessions featured questions about how our anuses felt and who among us would give the best lap dance. Our friend group is pretty close and moderately raunchy in the first place, so it never felt too awkward. But — and this will be a continuing trend throughout the pack — it left us feeling like Fakin' It All Night Long is, uhh, not quite the game to play with new friends or family members you aren't weirdly close with.
All that aside, Fakin' It All Night Long is a fun time. Watching people squirm to explain away their strange takes on how many joints they can roll or if they'd pass up sex to go to a Taylor Swift concert makes for a true bonding experience. We also enjoyed the newest addition to Fakin' It, the perfectly named Emojional Damage round, where players answer prompts with emojis. A few sneaky Faker dodges happened in these rounds that has our group ready to be better detectives the next time out.
Our group found it a little inconsistent with how easy or hard it is to find the Faker across these different rounds, and lamented how readable some of the more complicated rounds would end up being in remote play, but all in all had a great time with Fakin' It All Night Long.
Shoutout to the swinger party vibes that sees accused Fakers stripped nude (with generous censor bars) when they're proven to be innocent. And of course to Cookie Masterson's hosting return. We love ya, Cookie.
My score: 4/5 Group score: 4/5
Dirty Drawful (3 - 8 players)
Drawful used to be the game that I'd break out to showcase the brilliance of Jackbox Party Packs. It used to be the mainstay of any Jackbox night in my friend group. But after the series' latest offering, Drawful Animate, failed to inspire us, and new drawing games like Tee K.O. and Champ'd Up took our preferred drawing game slots instead, Drawful kind of lost its luster.
Well, by golly, all it took to get Drawful back on our good side was a few sex jokes, I guess. Because Dirty Drawful was by far our group's favorite game of the pack.
Dirty Drawful is all about taking extremely obtuse prompts, bringing them to life with a limited toolset through some quick and wonky drawing, and then trying to trick your friends by writing prompts that feel closer to reality than what actually inspired these artistic monstrosities. This naughty-oriented take did more than just implement silly M-rated prompts though, as the team snuck in a few quality of life changes to make Drawful more enjoyable for artists of all skill levels.
Yes. They finally did it. Dirty Drawful has an undo button. I have a personal vendetta against this, because Drawful is MEANT to be bad drawings, but even I found it useful when I happened to scribble a line across my art piece I didn't intend. You've got your multicolor painting set and emoji reactions you can toss at drawings when they're revealed (our group of course loved spamming the fire emoji that came with a variety of moaning sound effects) but other than that, it's usual Drawful.
What's changed the most over the years for this half drawing half deception game is how damn good the writing has become. With a decade of data about how we, as players, write our silly responses to prompts, the Jackbox team has made it even harder to discern between our meme answers and Jackbox provided prompts. Whether it's by adding in tiny spelling errors or strange formatting quirks — double exclamation marks, anyone? — Jackbox has really stepped up their game. Or my friend group is basically as funny as the team at Jackbox, which is obviously a very real possibility. Call me, Jackbox Games.
It's just pure fun, and when you're asked to draw out "witch hexed my tits" or "custom casket for dat ass" with as limited a toolset as Drawful provides, the pure befuddlement of each drawing revealed reaches new levels of delirious hilarity. Drawful's so back, baybee.
My score: 5/5 Group score: 4.5/5
Let Me Finish (3 - 8 players)
And last but not least, the Naughty Pack provides a debate game that really gets the blood pumping: Let Me Finish. In Let Me Finish, players are provided with an odd stock photo and a simple question, then have to debate their point in one-on-one matchups. For example, a photo of a mailbox is presented to you and you're asked how it 69s. It's absurd in just the right way, and we had a blast with how it asked us to expand our thinking.
You're also offered a drawing tool to help illustrate your point, kind of like a sportscaster's tool to doodle on the field to emphasize their analysis. You can both pre-load a drawing ahead of your debate and doodle on the fly while arguing your point, giving you all the tools you need to get your point across.
Each matchup comes with a fun extra twist that allows for those sitting out to be involved, in the form of "jump-in arguments." After a winner has been voted for a matchup, all sidelined players who feel like they've got a better opinion can hop in and plead their case for a handful of extra points. The more people that hop in, the larger the pool of points that will be distributed amongst them. (And these points are, at best, a fraction of what the winner of any one-on-one debate can receive.)
Our group loved this in concept but ended up not as in love with it in execution. Debate timers are pretty short so your arguments are usually quick hits. The doodle tool is handy but rarely able to be used as effectively as you'd like thanks to that short timer. (Yes, we know we can extend timers, but we're assessing the game as-is here.) And on the whole we found this particular game to be the sauciest of the pack. Which is fine in concept, but starts to feel like too much of a good thing in a longer Jackbox session. There's only so much discussion of sucking and fucking that a group of pals can entertain before getting a little exhausted.
Even with those concerns, Let Me Finish is probably the best debate game Jackbox has released yet. If you aren't much of a verbal processor, the drawing tool allows you to make a visual argument just as strong as any. And vice versa for those who can yap. And for all our worries about those timers, having less pressure to have some eloquent speech prepared when the timers are so short is also a nice addition.
It cannot be emphasized enough that the Naughty Pack is the only place where you'll be vehemently defending your take on where a building should have pubes, and that deserves some credit all its own.
My score: 3.5/5 Group score: 4/5
The Jackbox Naughty Pack is a fascinating experiment that, while we had a lot of fun with it, we couldn't help but feel was missing something. The lightness of the pack certainly had a lot to do with it. Three games in a Jackbox pack is way more noticeable than you'd expect. And the single note theming lost its appeal for us quicker than we expected.
But considering all that Jackbox has done this year already, we understand taking it easy with a smaller pack. And thanks to the Megapicker, we can easily cycle these games into a Jackbox night. But when you're talking about needing to add more to make a night with these games more enjoyable, that's an issue. That alongside the naughtier aspect limiting who you can comfortably play with makes it a harder one to recommend overall.
That said, Jackbox Naughty Pack is a pack best suited for very specific scenarios. When the vibes are just right and the company you keep is just as unhinged as you, break out the Naughty Pack and debate the preferred sexual positions of various type of nuts (THE FOOD) with your friends and have a good time. Just don't invite Uncle Ed over to play this version of "the game with the phones." You'll be much happier, I promise.
Video Games are Good and The Jackbox Naughty Pack is . . . GOOD. (7/10)
+ some of the strangest most unhinged conversations are birthed out of this game, the returning games have some incredible additions, jackbox artists and musicians stay winning
- the naughty theming can at times feel like too much of a good thing, smaller pack shows its lack of variety at times, not a party pack for all groups
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