The Jackbox Party Pack 11 Review – Doom, Cookies and Suspects, Oh My!

One of the best party games ever made is back with its 11th pack, bringing five new games to enjoy during social gatherings, both in-person and online. Each game in The Jackbox Party Pack 11 covers a different form of party-based gameplay, from trivia to sound effects. I played the pack in a team of four people, and while we had plenty of laughs with some of the games, others we found to be not suitable for their purpose.

The first game is Doominate for three to eight players. Each player writes down something they love and the others write something that ruins that thing, with the game concluding as everyone tries to twist the negative comment into something positive. For example, if the thing you love is Game of Thrones and someone brings up season 8 to ruin it, you can turn that into a positive by saying “at least the story was concluded”. Players then vote for which answers they think are best. Doominate has a lot of potential if there are some creative writers in the group. Unfortunately, for those stuck on ideas, its ‘write one for me’ button only gives the player one randomized answer, which is a shame as it would have been very beneficial for giving the player ideas on what they could write and to also give them an example of what the game is looking for the first time they play it.

Hear Say is a sound effect game for two to eight players and kicks off with prompting players to record a funny sound to go along with their avatar. The main objective of the game is to record a sound in line with the prompt on screen, and players then vote for the best one. The winner then gets played over a short clip relevant to what the prompt is, which created some hilarious videos to enjoy after each round. Hear Say was one of the best games in Pack 11, but did come with some practical issues. There were actually two different issues during our game as our group was playing both together in one room and over voice call with those who couldn’t join us in-person. Because the player’s device will pick up whatever noise the others in the room are making, we had to go into different rooms to play this game. And while on a voice call, whoever’s device was being used for the call had to be on mute while the sound effects were being recorded, which was the majority of the game. On top of this, there were minigames in between each round where players had to do various mobile phone game-style platforming segments using their voice range to control the character. These minigames felt really pointless, as they’re designed to be completed solo which defeats the purpose of Jackbox Party Packs.

Cookie Haus is the drawing game of the pack, where three to eight players work for a cookie design business and must design cookies based on their customers’ requirements. After receiving the prompt, each player gets given one out of four cookie shapes to choose and they’re then under a time limit to design a cookie in line with that prompt. Players then vote for which design they think is best. Cookie Haus had its fun moments, but it’s also a less fun version of some of Jackbox’s other drawing games in previous party packs, such as Tee K.O. There also wasn’t much opportunity to be creative when the cookie was a smaller surface to draw on than a t-shirt, especially on mobile.

In Suspectives, a social deduction game, each of the four to eight players are given a questionnaire to fill out. This consists of some odd questions, such as which celebrity they can do the best impression of or whether they like hats or not. The game then randomly selects one player to be the criminal, and the other players must uncover who the criminal is. Each round, how the criminal responded to each question will be revealed to help the players narrow down who it could be. Suspectives can be played with a group of people you know well or ones you don’t. Each round, the players will be able to nominate someone to question, and they’ll then need to ask that person questions based on their answers to the survey. However, some of the clues are incorrect to throw players off track and they are under a timer when interviewing their suspect, so need to be able to think of the right questions to ask quickly. The one problem I found with Suspectives is that it only works if all players are willing to play the part of detectives and suspects. This is especially the case when on a time limit because if not everyone is playing along, it could mess up the whole game and break the immersion more so than the other games in this pack.

The final game is Legends of Trivia, a trivia turn-based RPG game for one to six players. Each player selects a player character that joins the group’s journey through one of the three available worlds. The aim of the game is to answer trivia questions correctly. Each player can vote on an answer and if they answer correctly, then their character can attack the enemy during that turn. In between enemy encounters, players may come across a store where they can buy supplies such as healing items or hints. While trivia was the least imaginative game idea out of the bunch, Legends of Trivia is the only game that you could spend a whole evening on without touching the rest of the pack. It took us around an hour to make it two thirds the way through the first world, so each one could easily take an hour and a half to complete. There’s also a strategy element to it; if the question is a tricky one that no one knows the answer to, then you may want to split your votes so at least some players can get a hit on the enemy.

While The Jackbox Party Pack 11 is not the best entry in the series, it does still offer an evening of fun for parties. If you’re looking to complete your collection, then Hear Say, Doominate, and Cookie Haus will bring plenty of laughs while Legends of Trivia can offer an evening’s worth of entertainment on its own. If this is your first step into the series, then I recommend one of the earlier packs instead.

Jess reviewed The Jackbox Party Pack 11 on PC with a provided review code. This review is based on the version of the game available at the time of writing and our score will not be changed.