Lurker > CherryCokes

Honorable Mention - Rock Band 4 (Xbox One, et al, 2014-present)

Rhythm games have largely returned to the niche from which Harmonix elevated them in the mid-2000s, which is understandable. That level of popularity was unsustainable.

All the same, Rock Band 4, and its Rivals add-on, are the most technically sound and robust version of the the full band genre. Playing it which I do from time to time, even now is still satisfying, and their efforts to keep the platform going with periodic free songs and so on is an impressive commitment, six years on.

The problem is that these days especially in the pandemic it's usually a one- or two-player affair. The magic is diminished. The instruments are decaying. Will there be another Rock Band, now that we are entering a new console generation? Who can tell. I hope so, but if this is the last one, it's a damn fine entry to go out on.

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"Mighty boobs." - Vlado

Honorable Mention - Full Tilt! Pinball (PC, 1995)

I absolutely could have rejiggered my list to get this in, but when I thought about it, I figured including it as an HM would get a little more nostalgia flowing, because this is a game damn near everyone has played, but no one ever talks about.

Most people played one of the 3 tables, Space Cadet, as it was bundled with Windows 95 as a freebie, I think. And it was an excellent freebie (so was the particular weirdness of Hover!, but Hover! doesn't hold up very well). It was a solid pinball table, visually appealing and intuitive to play, but not easy. Everything you want from a good table.

The lesser known tables, Skulduggery and Dragon's Keep, are solid too, though they feel a little squishier on the physics than Space Cadet. You could easily play any of the three today and enjoy them, still, even if you don't have any particular affinity or experience with them from the 90s. That's the mark of a good game. That it turned me and presumably many other kids into lifelong fans of pinball is just a bonus.

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"Mighty boobs." - Vlado

Whiskey_Nick posted...

Can I leave this project after that last game?

Based on what I know about MSG's list at least 10% of it will have equally weird write-ups


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"Mighty boobs." - Vlado

I anticipate getting a xoboxx when harmonix announces rock band 5 eventually

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"Mighty boobs." - Vlado

MrSmartGuy posted...

1. Drawful - The absolute king of party games, 100%.
2. Mad Verse City - I have never had a game of this fall flat whatsoever. Always fantastic.
3. Fibbage: Enough About You
4. Fibbage - I enjoy EAY more nowadays because it's more replayable, but the original is what made me fall in love with Jackbox in the first place. Both are definitely top tier.
5. Tee K.O. - I think I've had 2 of my 3 hardest laughing attacks in all of Jackbox in this game. Kinda hit and miss, but the ceiling is so fucking high.
6. Patently Stupid - If this game didn't take so much mental energy, it'd be even higher. My other hardest laughing fit came during this game.
7. Quiplash - Not the highest ceiling, but probably the highest floor of any game in the list.
8. You Don't Know Jack - I wish I had more people to play this with in person. It's hilarious.
9. Survive The Internet - I'm kinda sad I put this so low because I've always considered this game to be criminally underrated. You just gotta be willing to set up the spikes, as Para put it earlier.
10. Bidiots - I really didn't enjoy this much until we played at Nick's house, and now that Discord streaming gets within a second or two, I'm very glad we get to play this more effectively.
11. You Don't Know Jack: Full Stream - I feel like they did a fine job translating this into a more streamable format.
12. Guesspionage - It never makes me laugh, but it's always interesting, and never boring.
13. Bracketeering - The opposite of Guesspionage. It's always boring, but at least the ending payoff is usually worth it.
14. Role Models - A fine game. You just need to know the other players. And the topic, which I sometimes do not.
15. Joke Boat - Easily one of the most disappointing Jackbox games. Quiplash is strictly better in every way.
16. Monster Seeking Monster - This was in my top 5 for a few games, but man does this game have some real diminishing returns.
17. Civic Doodle - Whoa, a drawing game that kinda sucks. Didn't know that was possible.
18. Trivia Murder Party - I know absolutely nothing about pop culture. Not the game's fault it's so low, I just personally do not enjoy this game at all.
19. Earwax - haha funny sounds the game
20. Split The Room - I kinda enjoyed this the first time I played it. Then I didn't anymore.
21. Fakin' It - I don't really enjoy games where I have to lie. Lying is not something I do well or easily.
22. Push The Button - See above.
23. Zeeple Dome - I might legitimately be alone on this, but I'm not putting this game last, because at least it's fun to make fun of. And playing it with a few people who never witnessed it before, solely to laugh at how badly it fits in a Jackbox pack was a memory I will cherish.
24. Dictionarium - A complete waste of a game. I have never even smiled playing this. It is at complete odds with itself.
Have not played: Word Spud, Lie Swatter, Bomb Corp

Didn't we play Bomb Corp at Nick's?


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"Mighty boobs." - Vlado

I waffled on which to make 5 and which to make 6

Longevity was the tiebreaker. I know YDKJ will always hold up. A theoretical TMP3 miiiight dip in quality

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"Mighty boobs." - Vlado

I'm jumping in with my own list before I try to sleep. I welcome all arguments and discussions. Tomorrow.

---Mount Jackmore---
1. Drawful
2. Quiplash
3. Fibbage: Enough About You
4. Patently Stupid

Drawful and Quiplash are untouchable, honestly. They're simple, they're reliably hilarious, and even when someone plays poorly they're still entertaining. That's the platonic ideal of a Jackbox game, and it's why they have made the most appearances in the series, and why they're the games we're all content to play two or three or four times in a session.

Fibbage is in the same family in some ways, but the vanilla version, while great, has this element of chance to it that can tilt the table: you might have heard about the stories, or read the tweets, or whatever, that they ask the questions about. I also generally feel like the question pool is a little too shallow on Fibbage games. There's often a question that we know we've had come up before. With Enough About You, though, none of those things is ever an issue, because the players themselves are the sources of all the outlandishness - which I think is another fundamental tenet of a platonic Jackbox game. And I know the argument against Enough About You is that there's an emphasis on the interpersonal that can make it hard for some to fully get into it, but I would argue that EAY doesn't require you to know the people you're playing with well, because it encourages everyone playing to present the most ridiculous, unbelievable aspects of themselves.

Patently Stupid, on the other hand, is an entirely different kind of animal that takes all of the above qualities and mashes them together - the artistry of Drawful (black and one color to draw a ridiculous idea) and the quick wit of Quiplash (taglines and product ideas) and makes you use them to solve the outlandish problems created by your friends and competitors, then sell them on, Shark Tank style. It's a perfect premise executed almost as perfectly as it can be, so long as everyone actually tries to shill their product. It's never a game you'll play twice in a night, but you'll also never skip it because it's infinitely replayable and always uproariously funny. No game has reduced an entire room of people to gasping for air with laughter as frequently as Patently Stupid.

---Top Notch Tier---
5. You Don't Know Jack
6. Trivia Murder Party
7. Mad Verse City
8. Bidiots
9. Guesspionage
10. Push the Button

The latest YDKJ is close to perfect, but the question pool is a little too shallow. Trivia Murder Party 2 is approaching the ideal form of that game. Splitting the two games up felt wrong. They're peas in a twisted trivia pod.

Mad Verse City is great. The bracket format is satisfying, the length of game is just right, and it's reliably funny. My only complaint is that the final round is a little too valuable.

Bidiots was, until around Nick's wedding, perhaps the most underplayed and underrated Jackbox game in the Board 8 community. It's not perfect - the last 2-3 pieces of "art" are usually disproportionately worthless in terms of winning - but the premise is unique and presented so well that it always entertains. And it's the rare drawing game where the playing field is absolutely level for bad and good artists alike. There's no undervaluing that. The only thing keeping it this low is the lack of an audience role.

Guesspionage and Push the Button (along with Bracketeering) are quintessential Board 8 games. Because of our fondness for numbers, brackets, and mafia, those games all will routinely draw double digit players, which is great because they all allow them. But unlike Bracketeering, the flaws of Guesspionage and Push the Button are easier to forgive. Both play to the idea of outsmarting your friends, albeit in very different ways, and usually both inspire some hearty debate. You won't cackle with laughter playing either, but they are definitely the most thought provoking games. One is a great palate cleanser, and the other is an intense challenge. Two great tastes that go great together.

---Underrated or Overrated By Almost Everyone Else Tier---
11. Survive the Internet
12. Fibbage
13. Tee K.O.
14. Monster Seeking Monster

Survive the Internet, like Bidiots, is a game that really didn't get enough love on Board 8 for a long time. I think in the pandemic times, we've really come around on it for what it is: a comedic engine to troll your friends and make them look ridiculous. Before that, people weren't really getting into that insult comic/internet troll headspace, for whatever reason, but Survive the Internet encourages you to let loose. With STI, you've gotta feel the burn.

Classic Fibbage still rules, but it's a bit overrated. See above

Tee K.O. it's long by necessity, and the results are almost always worth it, but I do think it's held in a little too high esteem, especially since it sort of requires all players in the game to have some competence drawing. While I almost always laugh heartily at it, I do think those flaws knock it down a bit in my estimation.

Monster Seeking Monster has a high ceiling, if everyone playing fully buys in. It has the best music of any Jackbox game to date. I think it's relatively well balanced, even, given the wide variety of rolesets that the game can throw at you, and it gives the audience perhaps its most meaningful participatory role, which is great. But it's also the glitchiest (how many times has it just straight up frozen?), and people collude a little too much to spite whoever's in the lead, and the game doesn't always account for this (because, ironically, the Invisible Person is usually very obvious)

---Flawed But Fun Tier---
15. Bracketeering
16. Civic Doodle
17. Joke Boat
18. Dictionarium
19. Split the Room

We all know what's wrong with Bracketeering. Triple Blinds are the only reliably good rounds. First two are good maybe 1/5 times. Fortunately, the third round usually makes up for it in spades.

Civic Doodle is underappreciated and underplayed, honestly. I think it is the game most in need of some reappraisal, because the premise is pretty great, and again, egalitarian for artists of all talent levels. It is a little arbitrary, true, but I think with a full slate of players and a few audience members - something I don't think we've ever managed - it could gain some favor, because when it really hits, it's funnier than most games. But everyone drawing has to buy in, and that's not always the case; sometimes players 7 and 8 play it begrudgingly.

Joke Boat is good, the catchphrases are funny, but the actual jokes have a pretty middling hit rate. The theming of the game is great, though. This one should be better than I feel like it usually is.

Dictionarium is good, and short, and funny, but too often people get lost in the directions of writing a synonym and definition and using the synonym in a sentence based on that made up definition, which really hurts the comedy value for me.

---In Person Tier---
20. Fakin' It
21. Bomb Corp
22. Role Models

All of these are good if you can be in the room with people you know well. They are largely unplayable with strangers or streaming. It's not their fault they're in this tier, it's just where they are, especially in 2020.

---I Don't Think I've Ever Really Played These---
23. Word Spud
24. Lie Swatter

???????

---Why Bother?---
25. You Don't Know Jack: Full Stream

You've got a perfectly great YDKJ twenty slots up there, why would you ever come back to this?

---The Earwax Tier---
26. Earwax

It could have been good, but it is not.

---The Zeeple Dome Tier---
27. Zeeple Dome

Nah.

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"Mighty boobs." - Vlado

I'm calibrating my own list as we go here and we're pretty similar on a number of points but there are a few where it's like

wildly divergent

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"Mighty boobs." - Vlado

We got Bomb Corps to work over stream.

You gotta communicate clearly and effectively but it's doable. Harder, though.

Earwax at 13 is mind-boggling to me

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"Mighty boobs." - Vlado

Joke Boat is frustrating for me because it should be better than it almost always ends up being. It's a perennial disappointment with a few bright spots.

There's probably an athlete comparison here but I can't --

it's Jeff Green

it's the Jeff Green of Jackbox games

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"Mighty boobs." - Vlado

Fakin' It is really good but needing to be an in-person game probably puts it 5 slots lower for me, I think.

Especially now. I wish Jackbox would tell us how many instances of each game have been played during the pandemic

Fakin' It has gotta be getting basically 0 plays per day this year

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"Mighty boobs." - Vlado

the Predatory Loans jingle alone should put it higher than 18th

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"Mighty boobs." - Vlado

Paratroopa1 posted...

20. Split The Room

Split the Room is a weird one and I'm not really sure what to make of it. I think it's probably the most difficult game to actually come up with prompts for, since instead of making the funniest answer you're trying to make the answer that finds the closest sweet spot between yes and no votes, and for me that makes for a really interesting thought exercise. Unfortunately, interesting thought exercises don't really make for the best Jackbox games, and Split the Room sort of has a tough time winning a crowd - most of the times the prompts and the answers people give wind up not being too great, and I don't blame people because it's a really tough one. I think conceptually this one interests me more than anything lower than it, so I'm always willing to step into this one to see if I can try to figure out how to play it better, but it's a hard sell. The cool Twilight Zone aesthetics do win it some points here.

CherryCokes posted...

the problem with Dictionarium is how poorly people do following the rules

if people did that better it might be top 15

same energy

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"Mighty boobs." - Vlado

the problem with Dictionarium is how poorly people do following the rules

if people did that better it might be top 15

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"Mighty boobs." - Vlado

I would probably put Word Spud below Civic Doodle, too, but I think I've only played it once or twice

Still can't believe Earwax is alive

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"Mighty boobs." - Vlado

Civic Doodle behind Earwax is wrong

Civic Doodle has been, on occasion, one of the funniest Jackbox games. At its worst, it's just fine.

The second round is much better than the first, though.

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"Mighty boobs." - Vlado

Role Models' floor is basement, but I think it's ceiling is pretty high. But that huge variance is way too much for how we normally do Jackbox

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"Mighty boobs." - Vlado

that's a lie i also have not played Lie Swatter

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"Mighty boobs." - Vlado

Zeeple Dome remains the only Jackbox game I have never played

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"Mighty boobs." - Vlado

reticulating splines

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"Mighty boobs." - Vlado

I had the hiccups for 36+ hours straight on two different occasions

You'll be okay

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"Mighty boobs." - Vlado

Get thee to a goddamn hospital

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"Mighty boobs." - Vlado