The Jackbox Party Pack 11 Review

By now, the phrase “new Jackbox Party Pack” comes with the same kind of comforting predictability as a new Marvel show. You know it’s coming, you know it’ll be familiar, and you know you’ll probably enjoy it — even if it occasionally feels like déjà vu with a new colour palette. But Jackbox Party Pack 11 somehow dodges the fatigue that often plagues long-running series. It’s a confident, well-balanced set that understands what makes couch co-op chaos work: accessibility, laughter, and just enough weirdness to make your nan uncomfortable.

The formula is unchanged — five games, a smartphone, and a room full of victims — but this year’s collection leans on creativity, competition, and a surprising amount of introspection. Two entries here are instant classics, one works better online than off, and two feel like clever experiments that might just become staples in a few years’ time. Let’s dive into this year’s instalment and unpack the pack. 

Doominate — A Brilliant Icebreaker of Horrible Ideas

If you’re the kind of player who delights in taking something wholesome and making it sound catastrophically wrong, Doominate will be your happy place. The premise is pure mischief: the game gives you a prompt — say, “a child’s birthday party” — and challenges you to ruin it as creatively and terribly as possible (though, in this case, I feel the prompt is awful enough…).

You then face off head-to-head against another player, with everyone voting on which ruined concept is funniest (or most horrifying). Later rounds crank things up by asking you to “unruin” previously ruined prompts, which is as impossible as it sounds — like trying to clean graffiti with a paintball gun.

What makes Doominate shine is its simplicity. Within minutes, you’re all shouting terrible ideas and crying with laughter, which makes it a perfect opener. It’s quick, easy to understand, and works best with at least four players. Think Quiplash crossed with Cards Against Humanity, but sharper and less reliant on cheap innuendo. For a party game, that’s a strong first impression.
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Hear Say — Great Concept, Weak Execution (Unless You’re Online)

On paper, Hear Say sounds like an instant Jackbox classic. You’re given a prompt — “a screeching pterodactyl,” “a malfunctioning Roomba,” “a confused dolphin” — and everyone must make that sound into their device’s microphone. The results are then overlaid onto short, absurd videos: carollers screeching like dinosaurs, a dog park full of malfunctioning vacuums, and so on. It’s chaotic, noisy, and very funny in theory.

But in practice? It’s a bit of a mess for local play. Because everyone’s making noises in the same room, the game can’t distinguish between devices. Microphones pick up stray sounds, the minigames between rounds fall flat, and the chaos becomes less “controlled comedy” and more “audio-based warfare.”

That said, in an online environment — where everyone’s on separate mics — Hear Say reportedly sings (or screeches) beautifully. It’s creative, it’s weird, and the payoff videos can be hilarious, but the in-person version just doesn’t hit the sweet spot. One suspects it might thrive on Twitch or remote work calls, but for a Friday night sofa session, it’s more miss than hit.
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Cookie Haus — Baking Bad (and Brilliantly So)

No Jackbox pack feels complete without a drawing game, and Cookie Haus serves that role with a delightful twist. Instead of sketching on a blank canvas, you’re decorating cookies in response to prompts like “Seen at a Beach Day” or “Un-adoptable Pets.”

There’s a genuine charm to its design. You pick from a range of cookie shapes, slather on icing and sprinkles, and try to make something both thematic and funny. The catch is that your creative palette is more limited than in Drawful or Tee K.O. — the fixed shapes and topping options can feel restrictive, making true artistry trickier.

But that limitation breeds comedy. The gap between what you intend to create and what you actually produce is the real entertainment. A carefully decorated “beach ball” that looks like a haunted potato? Instant gold. And while yes, you can always resort to drawing a parade of phallic masterpieces (as is tradition), there’s a surprising amount of fun to be found if you play it straight. It’s fast, funny, and family-safe enough that you can probably get away with it at Christmas. 

One caveat - it’s the only game we’ve seen in any of the series which needs hardware acceleration on your phone. It isn’t clear why, as it doesn’t feel that much more advanced than other drawing games in the series, but you may want to check your device specs beforehand to make sure you can play.
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Suspectives — The Social Deduction Slow Burn

Every Jackbox pack has its cerebral entry, and Suspectives is the one this year. It’s a social deduction game with a personality test twist: players answer questions about themselves — their preferences, tendencies, or flaws — and others must deduce who answered what. You might find yourself debating which of your friends would most enjoy a triathlon, or ranking your group’s charisma scores like a D&D campaign gone rogue.

The first game or two can be confusing; the tutorial doesn’t fully explain the nuance, and the pacing feels slower than the rest. But once everyone grasps the mechanics, Suspectives becomes fascinating. It’s not as instantly hilarious as Doominate, but it generates quieter laughs — the knowing kind that reveal just how well (or poorly) you all know each other.

By the third round, you’ll be arguing over who secretly thinks they’d be a great kisser or which of you would most likely survive a zombie apocalypse. It’s part icebreaker, part therapy session, and it’s easily the smartest design in the pack.
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Legends of Trivia — The MVP of the Pack

Finally, we come to Legends of Trivia, which feels like Jackbox Games’ long-overdue epiphany. A hybrid of RPG and quiz, it lets players form a party of adventurers — each with stats like attack, gold, and health — and journey across a fantasy land to defeat the mighty Bookwyrm.

Each encounter is a trivia battle: answer questions correctly to damage enemies, get them wrong and take a beating. The beauty lies in how collaborative it feels. You can discuss answers, split votes if unsure, and even strategise around different question types — from multiple choice to lists, to hidden questions where only one player knows what’s been asked.

The variation is superb, and the structure makes this one of the best quiz games Jackbox has ever made. It captures the thrill of teamwork without sacrificing the competitive element, and it’s replayable in a way most Jackbox modes aren’t. In our session, it was the one game everyone immediately wanted to play again — three times, in fact.

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Overall

Across its five games, The Jackbox Party Pack 11 strikes a fine balance between chaos and creativity. It may not reinvent the party formula, but it refines it beautifully. Doominate and Legends of Trivia are instant keepers, Cookie Haus adds a charming creative flourish, Suspectives brings depth, and Hear Say—while conceptually strong—stumbles in the living room but might soar online.

With the right mix of players, this pack delivers exactly what you want from a Jackbox night: laughter, light competition, and moments of collective absurdity that linger long after the phones are down. It also has a decent selection of accessibility options and settings to tweak so you can limit the number of US-centric prompts, filter profanity on and off, or hide the room code to stop unwanted party crashers from joining and wrecking the fun.  

The Jackbox Party Pack 11 is proof that after eleven iterations (and a couple of spin-offs), the formula isn’t broken — it’s just baking, screaming, and trivia-battling its way to a great night in.