If you’ve ever played Jackbox Party Pack with your friends, you’ve probably experienced its tendency to get a little risque. A game of TeeKO always seems to include at least one phallic drawing, and you can count on getting some wildly outrageous answers in Quiplash. This organic energy often arises from adults with potty mouths just looking to unwind (possibly with a few drinks). But can you deliberately steer players into that mindset? And would it be as hilarious if you did?
These are the questions that Jackbox Games aims to explore with The Jackbox Naughty Pack. This year’s annual release deviates from the usual family-friendly party game formula; it’s an M-rated collection featuring three games that are decidedly not suitable for children. The prompts are spicier, the innuendos less subtle, and even the Drawful owl sports a thong. It’s a party pack that encourages players to unleash their inner cheekiness.
Whether this approach will be successful may come down to personal taste. During a hands-on session, I had the opportunity to witness all three games in action and even engage in a spirited debate about library computer porn in the new presentation game Let Me Finish. Unlike other Jackbox games, the Naughty Pack relies more on its own humor than on the outrageous answers of players — a shift that could potentially dilute the joke.
Get naughty
The Jackbox Naughty Pack offers a more focused experience compared to the mainline series. It features three minigames instead of the usual five, with two being revamped versions of fan favorites. Fakin’ It! All Night Long and Dirty Drawful will feel familiar to long-time players, while Let Me Finish serves as the pack’s only wholly original addition. This implies that the Naughty Pack is more of an experiment than a full-fledged dive into debauchery.
My expectations were somewhat challenged when we dove into a round of Fakin’ It. While I anticipated explicit prompts due to the M-rating, the questions were surprisingly tame, such as “Could you kill a raccoon in a fight?” and “Is ‘trouser trout’ appropriate to say in polite conversation?” These elicited fun responses from the group but didn’t quite hit the ‘dirty’ mark. They felt more like juvenile attempts at mature humor.
You will be drawing lots of penises in Drawful.
A similar theme persisted in Dirty Drawful. While some prompts were suggestive, others like “beached whale sale” seemed tame enough to fit in a T-rated Jackbox game. This disparity perhaps highlights the rigidity of the ESRB’s standards; my vision of the Naughty Pack could potentially warrant an Adults Only rating.
During a Q&A session, it was acknowledged that the prompts in the Naughty Pack range from suggestive to explicit to avoid overwhelming players. However, our session mostly featured milder prompts. Creative director Brooke Breit even confirmed, “You will be drawing lots of penises in Drawful,” emphasizing the risque nature of some prompts.
Where the Naughty Pack truly embraced its name was in Let Me Finish. This game presents players with a picture and asks a related question, challenging players to mark the image to answer the question and then defend their choice. The absurd premise of circling where one would perform oral sex on an engine generated hilarious debates among players, a far cry from the earlier, tamer prompts.
While the Naughty Pack risks relying too heavily on hacky innuendos, rather than on open-ended prompts that players can transform into punchlines, it did succeed in delivering some genuinely funny moments. It remains to be seen whether the pack will seamlessly blend mature themes with humor, a natural characteristic of conventional Jackbox games. While the Naughty Pack may seem a bit forced in its approach, a definitive judgment may require experiencing more prompts — after all, I haven’t had to draw a penis yet, so I’ll reserve my final judgment.
The Jackbox Naughty Pack is set for release on September 12 for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and PC, priced at $21.69 — quite ‘nice’ indeed.
