Jackbox Games has announced The Jackbox Survey Scramble, a second smaller collection of games that will put survey-based games to the fore when it launches in late October.
The game will arrive for all major platforms including PC, Mac, Linux, Playstation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, Amazon Fire TV and Apple TV, and will be priced at the rather appealing point of $9.99. A free demo will be available during Steam Next Fest from 14th-21st October.
The immediate comparison that many have already drawn is to Guesspionage, one of the minigames from Jackbox Party Pack 3, which used survey data to populate the answers to its many questions. However, Jackbox Survey Scramble is, at the very least, that idea on steroids. The good steroids.
Jackbox Survey Scramble will feature four game modes, and with more game modes added in a free up date before the end of the year. Initially these will include Hilo, where you guess the most and least popular answers, Speed mode, where you’re guessing against the clock, Squares, where you organise choices in popularity order, and a mode where you can intercept your opponents answers in Bounce.
In each case, the survey data that the game is drawing from is dynamically shifting based on the answers that you and all of the game’s players are feeding into it. Come back to the game a week, a month, a year later and the same prompts will potentially give rather different answers.
Off the back of the recently released Jackbox Naughty Pack, Jackbox is making this a game with broader settings. One of the question examples is “what’s the cutest word for a butt?” but that won’t be in there if you apply content filters for a lower age range. There’s also streamer settings and accessibility options aplenty.
Speaking Naughty Pack, this is the first year in a decade without a 5-game Party Pack release, and Naughty Pack didn’t manage to fill that void for us in anywhere near the same way. An experimental fumble in the dark which sought to put more adult-rated prompts and games together, it did not land. In our Naughty Pack review, Jason said, “Ultimately, Jackbox Naughty Pack is the worst Party Pack to date, […] Maybe making our own fun and our own filth is the way forwards to a truly naughty experience.”
Here’s hoping that Survey Scramble can right the good ship Jackbox.
Source: press release