The Jackbox Naughty Pack review

I’ll begin with a word of warning. Please take time to consider the crowd that you would be playing The Jackbox Naughty Pack with for a little longer than I did.

The Jackbox series of games are all party based, each played with a group of four or more for best results. Everyone can grab their mobile device, enter a code, and then jump into each activity on their touchscreen of choice. Simple. As the title suggests, this pack is themed with a more sexual nature than your average party game and as such, your 15 year old son may or may not draw explicit images that will stay with you for the rest of your life, etched into your brain for eternity. Do not repeat my mistake. Please. Heed my words.

That said, the three minigames on offer in this pack will certainly provide entertainment, given the right circumstances. Be it a more “adult” get together, or maybe a stag or hen party.

First up in The Jackbox Naughty Pack, then: Fakin’ It All Night Long is a social deduction game based around the original Fakin It. Each player, bar one, is provided with an on-screen racy prompt and then must act accordingly. This might be by a thumbs up/down or by pointing around the room at a given object. The faker, the person not provided with any detail of the task, must think and act fast to blend in with the other participants. At the end of each round, everyone votes for whom they think is faking whilst they faker does their darned best to blend in.

This is my favourite game in the pack. Stumbling over explanations as to why you think it would be harder to have a sexual encounter on the sofa as opposed to on the nearby coffee table, or as to why the emoji of the sphinx best represents your preferred place for a one night stand. It relies on quick wits and even quicker reactions to adapt and outwit your opponents and in my experience, provides the most laughs.

Dirty Drawful is another iteration on a previous game entry, this time taking a more dirty minded approach. Competitors are each provided with a suitably naughty drawing prompt (oh god, the memories!) which everyone will then have to guess what the given subject was, providing their own linguistic interpretation in secret. It’s from here that you have to then find the original inspiration from the insane list of interpretations of what usually looks like the scribblings of a three year old.

I find that I have the same problem here as per previous iterations of this in other Jackbox packs. The drawing is awkward at best on a phone and can soon become mildly frustrating. I know that this is meant to be a part of the fun and few will produce something worthy of The Louvre but I struggle with this creative hurdle and would prefer something with a little more nuanced control.

Finally comes Let Me Finish, which is a bit of an odd one. You are tasked with surreal question such as “where would the pubic hair be on this building?” or “which of of these seven radios would be most likely to have a leather kink?”. You then have to verbally face off against your opponent for twenty seconds to defend what is usually a very weird and disturbing point of view. It reminds me a little of the board game Balderdash as you commit to convincing others of your ramblings. It can be quite fun but is very reliant on the verbal skills of the contestants. It’s certainly not a game for those who feel anxious about public speaking.

All in all, The Jackbox Naughty Pack is a fun pack but does feel a little lacking for only having three games included compared to the usual five. It looks and sounds good, as is expected from the quality of previous titles, but the adult theming feels a little forced at times, in both the presentation and the general vibe. There’s only so many ass slaps and aubergine emojis I can tolerate before the joke wears a little thin.

I’m not too clear on the exact audience this is aimed toward, as the “explicit” fun that you are steered toward is probably something that some players would be inclined to do on their own. I certainly need no coercion into including expletives into my own answers and I’m sure many would feel the same. If anything, it feels more limiting than previous titles as many of the jokes are laid out for you rather than being a product of your own particular brand of humour.

The Jackbox Naughty Pack isn’t an essential addition to the overall Jackbox collection but by no means a disaster. Your mileage will vary with this one, depending on your love of each game type and quite possibly on how much thought you tend to put into the sexuality of inanimate objects