Words: Mio Farrenden

As lockdown restrictions end, gaming nights are being planned! Start out right with the Jackbox games collection available on PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and more.

As soon as 18 days from now we could be allowed to meet up to six people indoors in the UK. As long as everything in the lockdown roadmap goes to plan, all restrictions could be abandoned by June! Considering the fact that steps 1 and 2 of the roadmap have seemingly been going well so far, we think it’s time to start planning for your first games night with your friends in person. 

No other set of games could be as highly recommended than the Jackbox Party Packs. These packs regularly frequent the sale section, the last time being just this weekend! These packs are brilliant for groups since they are so easy to use and own, as well as grabbing a handful of games by buying just one pack.

If you’ve never heard of Jackbox before, it’s a downloadable game for many consoles including the PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch. Each pack comes with a selection of games such as Quiplash (basically Cards Against Humanity) and Tee K.O. where you design hilarious t-shirts which you can even buy after playing! The best part is that only one member of a group of people need to own the game for you all to play. Once you have selected a game to play, a code will appear on the screen which you enter at jackbox.tv on another device, it’s here that you play the game while watching the main screen. It’s a similar system to Kahoot if you’ve been in education fairly recently. That means that if you wanted to, you could always buy all the packs and split the cost between the group (which is just over £13 for six people or just under £10 for eight people, which is the maximum amount for most games). You could even all get different packs depending on your budget or in case the person with the packs isn’t available. 

Imagine this: you and a group of up to five other friends, drinks, snacks, and online card games and dating site games. And don’t worry! If you’re unfortunately still having to shield at this time, or you have a group of more than six that want to get involved, you could also stream the game over Discord. If the person with the pack streams their screen, anyone from anywhere can join the game using the code on another device and get in on the fun. 

Packs one through four have been tried and tested by yours truly, and I can attest that they go down a treat on games night! They’re definitely worth grabbing while on sale.