How Jackbox Games Took a Beloved Party Game and Made a New Remote Play Version
Back in The Jackbox Party Pack 3, Jackbox Games unleashed a social deception game called Fakin’ It that had friends and family pointing at each other, throwing their hands up, and ultimately accusing each other of lying. At the beginning of the game, we let players know the best way to sit and enjoy the game so you can have the best view of your fellow players. Now, in Jackbox Naughty Pack, we are bringing it back, but is it possible to have this explosively funny game work remotely? Spoiler alert: Hell yeah it is!
Hi, I’m Tim Sniffen, the director of Fakin’ It All Night Long. When we started making this new version, one of the team’s biggest hopes (and a request we’ve heard from Jackbox players over the years) was to have the game work in a purely remote setting.
Since the game relies on carefully studying your fellow players to see who might be Fakin’ It, we made the player avatars (designed by lead artist Owen Watson) more present in the game so they could raise their hands, point at each other, etc. All of the moments that would traditionally be enacted by players in the room are done by selecting options on your controller, and then those actions are shown on the game screen.
We also paid a lot of attention to the timing and order of operations when things are revealed in the Remote Play version to make sure that it was easy to process all the information on screen. And both Same Room and Remote Play contain the same round categories, including one of our new ones, Emojional Damage (who doesn’t love deception through emojis?), so ultimately the game plays the same, even with the adjusted interactions.
This way, having your camera on isn’t mandatory… even though it’s always satisfying to watch someone’s face as they wiggle out of an accusation.
So even if you’re feeling like staying in, you can Fake It with the best of them! And for all you original Fakin’ It lovers… the original “in the same room” playing style is present in the Jackbox Naughty Pack too. Because sometimes you just need to honk the nose of the person calling you a dirty liar for the third time.
The Jackbox Naughty Pack
Jackbox Games, Inc.