An Interview with Jackbox Games

<p>When I was younger&comma; I used to play a game called <em>You Don&&num;8217&semi;t Know Jack<&sol;em> on the original PlayStation&period; <em>You Don&&num;8217&semi;t Know Jack<&sol;em>&comma; Jackbox Games&&num;8217&semi; flagship project&comma; had seen many iterations over the years&comma; but this was my first experience with the developer&&num;8217&semi;s work&period; The trivia game was an absolute riot&period; For those who may not know&comma; <em>You Don&&num;8217&semi;t Know Jack<&sol;em> is structured as though you&&num;8217&semi;re a contestant on a &lpar;very weird&rpar; television trivia gameshow&period; The team leaned into the structure to hilarious results&comma; including transitional songs&comma; comedic fake commercials&comma; and a &&num;8216&semi;snarky&&num;8217&semi; host named Cookie Masterson&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>As the years passed&comma; the team grew and branched out into developing other games under the Jackbox Games name&period; Though each game had its own features and gameplay mechanics&comma; they were all united through their unique humor and party-focused gameplay&period; Games like <em>Quiplash&comma; Drawful&comma;<&sol;em> and <em>Fibbage<&sol;em> became fan-favorites&comma; and soon they and many more were packaged into sets called the <em>Jackbox Party Packs&period;<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;109088" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-109088" style&equals;"width&colon; 1024px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"wp-image-109088 size-full" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;06&sol;03135008&sol;JPP2&lowbar;BrandBits&period;jpg" alt&equals;"jackbox games 1" width&equals;"1024" height&equals;"576" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-109088" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">See&quest; Party Packs&period; &lpar;<em>Jackbox Party Pack 2&comma;<&sol;em> Jackbox Games&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>Now&comma; Jackbox Games is hitting 2016 hard with a new standalone release &lpar;<em>Drawful 2<&sol;em>&rpar; and a third <em>Jackbox Party Pack<&sol;em>&period; I had the great fortune to sit down for an impromptu interview with one of the team&&num;8217&semi;s game writers&sol;directors&comma; Arnie Niekamp&comma; to discuss their big plans for 2016&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>&lpar;<strong>NOTE<&sol;strong>&colon; This interview is a transcript of a recorded spoken interview&period;&rpar;<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<hr &sol;>&NewLine;<p><strong>Logan Schultz&colon; Arnie&excl; Nice to meet you&period; Thanks for chatting with me&excl;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Arnie Niekamp&colon; Nice to meet you&excl;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>LS&colon; So&comma; we&&num;8217&semi;re here at Jackbox Games in Chicago&comma; and you guys are currently working on your new <em>Party Pack&period; Party Pack 3<&sol;em>&comma; correct&quest;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>AN&colon; Yes&comma; well&comma; we&&num;8217&semi;re just finishing up <em>Drawful 2<&sol;em>&comma; which will be a stand-alone release&period; Late&comma; late spring&period; We&&num;8217&semi;re still edging up to that period&period; And&comma; yeah&comma; working on <em>Party Pack 3<&sol;em> for this fall&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>LS&colon; Cool&excl; You did announce a new game that&&num;8217&semi;s going to be a part of that&comma; right&quest;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>AN&colon; Yes&excl; Yes&comma; I&&num;8217&semi;m trying to remember what all we&&num;8217&semi;ve announced and what we haven&&num;8217&semi;t&comma; but we announced&comma; I believe&comma; <em>Guesspionage<&sol;em>&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;109089" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-109089" style&equals;"width&colon; 1024px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"wp-image-109089 size-full" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;06&sol;03134950&sol;guesspionage&lowbar;blog-1&period;jpg" alt&equals;"jackbox games 2" width&equals;"1024" height&equals;"576" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-109089" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>Guesspionage<&sol;em>&comma; Jackbox Games&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p><strong>LS&colon; <em>Guesspionage<&sol;em>&comma; that&&num;8217&semi;s right&excl; And you can&&num;8217&semi;t announce too much&comma; can&&num;8217&semi;t tell us anything just yet&comma; but is there anything you have announced that you can talk about&quest;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>AN&colon; Uh&comma; I can pretty much talk about anything involving <em>Drawful 2&period;<&sol;em> I don&&num;8217&semi;t know what I can say about <em>Guesspionage<&sol;em>&comma; but I can say that <em>Drawful 2<&sol;em> won&&num;8217&semi;t be in the Party Pack&period; I believe we&&num;8217&semi;re going to be announcing another game on Wednesday&&num;8230&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>&lbrack;Note&colon; They did&excl; It was Quiplash 2&comma; and everyone at BagoGames lost their minds over it&period;&rsqb;<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>LS&colon; Alright&comma; yeah&comma; I think I saw a tweet about that&period; A little vague&period; Playing some <em>Drawful 2<&sol;em> and maybe talking a bit&period;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>AN&colon; Yeah&excl; I wish I could tell you more&&num;8230&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>LS&colon; No&comma; part of what&&num;8217&semi;s interesting is that you guys are at such a place in the process where you&&num;8217&semi;re doing a couple different things&comma; don&&num;8217&semi;t want to announce too much just yet&period; But there are a lot of people who love your games because they integrate mobile and you can get a lot of people involved&period;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>&lpar;Note&colon; for those who may not know&comma; most modern Jackbox games can be played with large numbers of people using phones and mobile devices as controllers&period;&rpar; <&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>LS &lpar;con&period;&rpar;&colon; It seems like you guys had a big hit with Twitch and streaming&period; Are you guys taking that into account as you&&num;8217&semi;re working on the next one&quest;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>AN&colon; Oh&comma; absolutely&excl; Yeah&comma; I mean&comma; not every game we do is perfect to be played over Twitch&comma; but we really&comma; with each game&comma; try to sit down and think &&num;8220&semi;can you play this&comma; you know&comma; remotely through Twitch and what can we do to make it work better&quest;&&num;8221&semi; And so&comma; with <em>Drawful 2<&sol;em>&comma; we have done a lot of new features for playing over Twitch&period; Sort of this biggest is censoring&comma; which you rarely need to do in your own home but&comma; you know&comma; it does happen periodically if you&&num;8217&semi;re playing online and with strangers or whatever and someone will put in something you don&&num;8217&semi;t want to see or you don&&num;8217&semi;t want your viewers to see&period; And so&comma; we have made it so that you can censor out people&&num;8217&semi;s answers&comma; you can skip over drawings&comma; and things like that to just kind of protect your game&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>LS&colon; Yeah&comma; absolutely&period; In that same mindset&comma; you guys added a family mode in the last <em>Party Pack<&sol;em>&comma; is that correct&quest;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>AN&colon; Yeah&excl; I think it&&num;8217&semi;s called Family Friendly Mode&comma; and yeah&comma; we&&num;8217&semi;ve added that to <em>Drawful 2<&sol;em> and sort of any game in the pack that that makes sense for going forward&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>LS&colon; That&&num;8217&semi;s a nice little thing to make it family friendly or you can kind of have the answers that you want&&num;8230&semi;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>AN&colon; Yeah&comma; absolutely&excl; I mean&comma; our games are&&num;8230&semi;the truth is&comma; the content for our games is&comma; usually&comma; 80&percnt; of it&comma; if not higher&comma; is family friendly so&comma; it&&num;8217&semi;s just a bummer when people are like &&num;8220&semi;I love to play with my kids but&comma; like&comma; every once in a rare while something kind of embarrassing comes up that I don&&num;8217&semi;t want to talk to them about&comma;&&num;8221&semi; and so yeah&comma; we made it so you can sort of filter that stuff out&comma; basically&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;109090" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-109090" style&equals;"width&colon; 1080px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"wp-image-109090 size-full" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;06&sol;03134931&sol;drawful2-1080x675&period;png" alt&equals;"jackbox games 3" width&equals;"1080" height&equals;"675" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-109090" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>Drawful 2<&sol;em>&comma; Jackbox Games&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p><strong>LS&colon; That&&num;8217&semi;s awesome&period; So&comma; <em>Drawful 2<&sol;em>&period; Looking at end of spring&&num;8230&semi;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>AN&colon; Yeah&comma; so we&&num;8217&semi;re hoping&&num;8230&semi;the games that we make are &&num;8220&semi;weird&&num;8221&semi; for a console&comma; right&quest; They get it&comma; but it&&num;8217&semi;s also like&comma; the submission process for us is just more complicated&period; We&&num;8217&semi;re doing things that other companies aren&&num;8217&semi;t necessarily doing with the technology and that&comma; you know&comma; when we go into submission&comma; they review and they&&num;8217&semi;re like &&num;8220&semi;woah&comma; we don&&num;8217&semi;t know how to deal with this stuff&comma;&&num;8221&semi; so there&&num;8217&semi;s usually a lot more back and forth&period; Like&comma; they want it to work&comma; we want it to work&comma; but it usually takes them longer to understand exactly what&&num;8217&semi;s going on&period; So sometimes it&&num;8217&semi;s harder for us to really lock down when our release dates are&period; But it&&num;8217&semi;s coming&excl;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>&lpar;Note&colon; Jackbox Games HAS announced the release date since this interview occurred&colon; June 21st for PS4&comma; Xbox One&comma; PC&comma; and more&period;&rpar;<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>LS&colon; Cool&period; Very cool&period; <em>Drawful 2<&sol;em> is a stand-alone release&comma; much like <em>Fibbage XL<&sol;em>&comma; is that right&quest;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>AN&colon; Yeah&excl; <em>Fibbage<&sol;em> had its own release and <em>Quiplash<&sol;em> had its own release&comma; and those both did eventually end up being in the <em>Party Packs<&sol;em> as well&period; And some people love that&comma; and some people hate that&comma; so we decided this time to announce that <em>Drawful 2<&sol;em> would be stand-alone and would not be in the <em>Party Pack<&sol;em>&comma; so that people wouldn&&num;8217&semi;t feel&comma; later on&comma; that they had to buy it twice or anything&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>LS&colon; Right&period; That makes sense&period; So&comma; since it&&num;8217&semi;s stand-alone&comma; do you have a price in mind&quest;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>AN&colon; I think it&&num;8217&semi;ll be comparable to whatever <em>Quiplash<&sol;em> was&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>&lpar;Note&colon; &dollar;9&period;99&comma; for your reference&period;&rpar;<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>LS&colon; Sure&comma; in that same vein&&num;8230&semi;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>AN&colon; Yeah&comma; we like to keep it pretty affordable&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>LS&colon; Alright&period; So&comma; looking from <em>Party Pack 2<&sol;em> to <em>Party Pack 3<&sol;em>&comma; what would you say you guys have learned&sol;taken away from that process and&comma; moving into the new one&comma; what are the things you all are growing from the most&quest;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>AN&colon; Um&comma; that&&num;8217&semi;s a good question &lpar;laughs&rpar;&period; What are the things we&&num;8217&semi;ve learned the most&quest; I think we&&num;8217&semi;re just really continuing to try to utilize on a good amount of variety&period; So&comma; we&&num;8217&semi;re trying to do two things with each pack&comma; right&quest; So we try to&comma; like&comma; really improve the things that we feel like are 100&percnt; in our wheelhouse&&num;8211&semi;so these sort of <em>Fibbage-Drawful-Quiplash<&sol;em>-y type of games that are all a little more similar to each other&&num;8211&semi;and try to make those better and more robust and try to come up with new features to make those kind of experiences better&period; I feel like that becomes our base of the pack&&num;8211&semi;what we&&num;8217&semi;ve become known for&period; But&comma; at the same time&comma; we really take advantage of the fact that a pack full of games can have a couple&&num;8230&semi;really&&num;8230&semi;weirder things in there as well&comma; and to try and experiment with either taking those same mechanics and REALLY weirding them up&comma; or just trying to do more weird social dynamic-type things that really encourage people just yelling at each other in the room&period; Stuff like that&period; &lbrack;It&rsqb; was something we were really experimenting with in <em>Bomb-Corp<&sol;em>&comma; from the last <em>Party Pack<&sol;em>&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;109091" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-109091" style&equals;"width&colon; 1080px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"wp-image-109091 size-full" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;06&sol;03134902&sol;Screenshot-2015-08-25-15&period;04&period;45-1080x675&period;png" alt&equals;"jackbox games 4" width&equals;"1080" height&equals;"675" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-109091" class&equals;"wp-caption-text"><em>&lpar;Bomb-Corp&comma;<&sol;em> Jackbox Games&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p><strong>LS&colon; Yeah&comma; <em>Bomb-Corp<&sol;em>&excl; That was the one I was picturing as you were saying that&period;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>AN&colon; Yeah&excl; And that was like&comma; if you take everything away&comma; what we really wanted was people in the room to really&&num;8211&semi;and this sounds negative&&num;8211&semi;but to really be yelling at each other&comma; and to really be talking to each other a lot&period; One of the games that I&&num;8217&semi;m directing in the new pack is trying to do even more with that&period; More of&comma; like&comma; even though these people have their phones in their hands&comma; are there weird and funny social interactions that people can have in the room with that&quest; And that&&num;8217&semi;s one of the more &&num;8220&semi;outlier-y&&num;8221&semi; type games in the pack&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>LS&colon; Cool&period; Alright&comma; let&&num;8217&semi;s rewind a little bit&period; You said that you&&num;8217&semi;re directing a game&period; What&&num;8217&semi;s your position here at Jackbox Games&quest; What do you do&comma; Arnie&quest;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>AN&colon; I direct and I write&period; I write a lot of content and questions and stuff&period; I&&num;8217&semi;ve been here for about ten years&comma; so I wrote a lot of <em>You Don&&num;8217&semi;t Know Jack<&sol;em> in the past&comma; a lot of <em>Fibbage<&sol;em> and <em>Quiplash<&sol;em>&period; I directed <em>Drawful<&sol;em> and <em>Drawful 2<&sol;em>&period; I directed <em>Bidiots<&sol;em>&period; Um&&num;8230&semi;I&&num;8217&semi;m sure I&&num;8217&semi;m forgetting some in there&period; <em>Lieswatter<&sol;em>&comma; maybe&period; So yeah&comma; I mostly write a lot&comma; corral a lot&comma; do a lot of editorial on the questions and stuff like that&period; I do a good amount of game design&period; We do A LOT of prototyping here&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>LS&colon; Sure&period;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>AN&colon; So&comma; for every five or six games we release a year&comma; we probably paper test or &&num;8220&semi;really simple digital test&&num;8221&semi;&comma; like&comma; a dozen&quest; Two dozen&quest; You know&comma; just trying weird mechanics and seeing what stuff sticks&period; So I do a lot of that&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>LS&colon; I imagine you enjoy it&comma; since you&&num;8217&semi;ve stuck around for ten years&period;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>AN&colon;<&sol;strong> Oh&comma; I do&excl; I love that it&&num;8217&semi;s very&&num;8230&semi;I mean&comma; first of all&comma; I come to it as a huge fan&period; Like&comma; growing up I was a very big fan of <em>You Don&&num;8217&semi;t Know Jack<&sol;em>&period; I played it a lot when I was in High School&comma; and it was one of the first jobs that I ever thought of as&comma; like&comma; &&num;8220&semi;It&&num;8217&semi;s weird that that&&num;8217&semi;s someone&&num;8217&semi;s job&comma; to make these jokes&period;&&num;8221&semi; And yeah&comma; so I still feel sort of honored that I get to do that&period; And now that we&&num;8217&semi;re doing such a variety of games&comma; it&&num;8217&semi;s very creatively satisfying to do a lot of different&comma; weird projects&comma; and kind of just try to make a lot of different&comma; fun games every year&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>LS&colon; Yeah&excl; Very cool&excl; I know I loved <em>You Don&&num;8217&semi;t Know Jack<&sol;em> on the PlayStation 1&period;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>AN&colon; Ah&comma; yeah&excl;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>LS&colon; I still have it lying around somewhere&period; I just loved it&period; One of my favorite things about it was the commercials&period;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>AN&colon; Oh yeah&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>LS&colon; I remember buying the audio CD of all of the commercials&period; It was one of the first things I ever ordered online&period;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;109092" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-109092" style&equals;"width&colon; 1024px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"wp-image-109092 size-full" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;06&sol;03134836&sol;ydhj2&period;jpg" alt&equals;"jackbox games 5" width&equals;"1024" height&equals;"577" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-109092" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">Seriously&period; Check out <em>You Don&&num;8217&semi;t Hear Jack&period;<&sol;em> It&&num;8217&semi;s absolutely amazing&period; &lpar;<em>You Don&&num;8217&semi;t Hear Jack<&sol;em>&comma; Jackbox Games&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>AN&colon; Yeah&comma; I remember getting it free with&comma; probably&comma; <em>You Don&&num;8217&semi;t Know Jack&colon; The Ride<&sol;em> or something like that&comma; and I would&comma; you know&comma; back in the day of mixtapes&comma; I would sometimes&comma; in between songs&comma; put a couple of the little fake commercials in there&period; And that&&num;8217&semi;s one of the joys of working here&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s been a couple of years since we did a <em>You Don&&num;8217&semi;t Know Jack<&sol;em>&comma; but I always love doing the fake commercials&comma; and it&&num;8217&semi;s fun&period; I&&num;8217&semi;m sort of a&&num;8230&semi;I perform a bit in the Chicago scene&comma; so I know a lot of improvisers and stand-ups in Chicago&comma; so we like to bring them in and do those funny commercials and stuff&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>LS&colon; I was going to ask&colon; Do you hire voice actors for that&quest; Do you bring in people&quest;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>AN&colon; It&&num;8217&semi;s a mix&comma; really&period; I mean&comma; it&&num;8217&semi;s funny&period; We do a lot of it internally&period; So&comma; the vast majority of it is just ourselves and people in the office and&comma; as a writer and director&comma; I take it as a personal challenge to try and get everyone in the office in the game&period; You know&comma; just try and find places for people to say something&comma; because it&&num;8217&semi;s fun for everybody to get to be in the game&period; And to try and find everyone&&num;8217&semi;s unique skill and find a place for them to be in the game&period; One of our developers is French and so&comma; a few years back&comma; I wrote one and I was like &&num;8220&semi;Well&comma; I&&num;8217&semi;m going to do something where he speaks French&&num;8221&semi; and wrote a French character just to get him in&period; But then&comma; also&comma; I&&num;8217&semi;ll bring in some of my friends from the improv community and stuff like that&&num;8230&semi;but it&&num;8217&semi;s friends and family&period; Friends and workers and family&comma; for the most part&period; We don&&num;8217&semi;t do a ton of big talent searches or anything&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>LS&colon; It seems like you guys have a cool dynamic here&comma; as a team&comma; and I imagine a lot of you have been working together for a while now&period; Do you guys develop your own sense of humor&quest; What&&num;8217&semi;s the day-to-day like here&quest; Is that where a lot of the jokes come from&quest;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>AN&colon; Yeah&comma; I think it&&num;8217&semi;s a combination&period; Some people have been here since&comma; pretty much&comma; the beginning&period; Andy&comma; the guy who does the bulk of our music and sound effects&comma; has been here since the very beginning&period; Like&comma; the first <em>You Don&&num;8217&semi;t Know Jack&period;<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>LS&colon; Wow&period;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>AN&colon; And our director has been here since the beginning&comma; more or less&period; He designed that first <em>Jack<&sol;em> head&comma; the bald head&period; He&&num;8217&semi;s still with us&period; I think our sense of humor comes from&&num;8230&semi;we all enjoy each other&&num;8217&semi;s company and enjoy making each other laugh&comma; and we still sit down and play test our games together and it can get really competitive&comma; just trying to be the funniest person in the room&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>LS&colon; Cool&period; Very cool&period; Are you guys going to E3&quest;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>&lpar;Note&colon; This interview took place just before E3&comma; even though this interview is being published just <span style&equals;"text-decoration&colon; underline&semi;">after<&sol;span> E3&period;&rpar;<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>AN&colon; I don&&num;8217&semi;t think so&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s possible our CEO will&comma; but I think we&&num;8217&semi;re really in a &&num;8220&semi;heads down&&num;8221&semi; place right now&comma; just trying to get as much stuff done as we possibly can&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>LS&colon; You guys were at a conference recently&period; Pax&&num;8230&semi;&quest;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>AN&colon; Yeah&comma; Pax East&comma; which was great&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>LS&colon; You had a big group and everyone was playing together&period;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>AN&colon; Yeah&comma; we had a stage there and we played A LOT of the <em>Party Pack<&sol;em> games with everybody&period; It was awesome&excl; We were by the food court&comma; so we had a lot of people sitting down and just playing our games for a long time&period; It was funny&comma; I saw a handful of kids that sat there for hours&period; Like&comma; there were a couple kids who sat there all day&comma; and I was like &&num;8220&semi;You should&&num;8230&semi;you paid a lot of money to be at this convention&period; Go experience other stuff as well&period;&&num;8221&semi; But&comma; it&&num;8217&semi;s fun&period; People seem to really like it&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>LS&colon; That&&num;8217&semi;s awesome&comma; congratulations&period;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>AN&colon; Thank you&excl;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>LS&colon; Okay&&num;8230&semi;is Cookie Masterson a real person&quest;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>AN&colon; Uh&comma; is Cookie Masterson a real person&quest; That&&num;8217&semi;s a good question&period; &lpar;Laughs&rpar; The real answer is he&&num;8217&semi;s a very talented performer&period; He&&num;8217&semi;s actually the brother of the creator of <em>You Don&&num;8217&semi;t Know Jack&period;<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>LS&colon; Oh&excl;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;109095" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-109095" style&equals;"width&colon; 1080px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"wp-image-109095 size-full" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;06&sol;03134750&sol;telltale-1080x626&period;jpg" alt&equals;"jackbox games 6" width&equals;"1080" height&equals;"626" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-109095" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">Fun fact&colon; Through a partnership with Telltale games&comma; Jackbox Games released a retail version of the first <em>Jackbox Party Pack<&sol;em>&excl; &lpar;<em>Jackbox Party Pack<&sol;em>&comma; Jackbox Games&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>AN&colon; Yeah&period; The first host of <em>You Don&&num;8217&semi;t Know Jack<&sol;em> was Nate Shapiro&comma; which was played by Harry Gottlieb&comma; who founded the company&period; And Cookie was a character who sort of introduced Nate Shapiro&period; Then&comma; I think Harry&comma; after the first or second game&comma; was like &&num;8220&semi;I can&&num;8217&semi;t run this company AND do all of this recording&comma;&&num;8221&semi; because it&&num;8217&semi;s a lot of recording&period; So he didn&&num;8217&semi;t want to be the host anymore&comma; and so it segued into there being different hosts&period; And&comma; over time&comma; the best one was clearly Tom&comma; who still&&num;8211&semi;he&&num;8217&semi;s in New York and he records from there&comma; and he also sometimes writes for us&&num;8211&semi;and he&&num;8217&semi;s still very much a part of the company&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s so second nature for him to just BE Cookie Masterson&comma; but also&comma; if you met him&comma; he is so&&num;8230&semi;NOT Cookie at all&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>LS&colon; Really&quest; &lpar;laughs&rpar;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>AN&colon; He&&num;8217&semi;s like the most&comma; almost&comma; zen&comma; soft-spoken but also very kind person&period; He&&num;8217&semi;s not like an &&num;8220&semi;always on&&num;8221&semi; type of character&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>LS&colon; Cool&period; Is there anything you want to say&comma; or put out there for audiences&quest;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>AN&colon; Wow&comma; that&&num;8217&semi;s a good question&period; Is there anything I would want people to know&&num;8230&semi;I&&num;8217&semi;m very excited about user-generated content in <em>Drawful 2&period;<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>LS&colon; Okay&excl;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>AN&colon; Which we&&num;8217&semi;ve announced&excl; It works especially well with <em>Drawful<&sol;em>&period; Our games&comma; more and more&comma; have let people in the room be funny&period; <em>You Don&&num;8217&semi;t Know Jack<&sol;em> is all about us being funny at the players&comma; and so we&&num;8217&semi;ve transitioned a bit more with <em>Fibbage<&sol;em> and <em>Drawful<&sol;em> and <em>Quiplash<&sol;em>&comma; creating a space for the people playing&period; And so the next level of that is not just putting in fake answers&comma; but putting in the right answers and creating their own game&period; And it&&num;8217&semi;s SO fun&period; We&&num;8217&semi;ve played so much <em>Drawful<&sol;em> over the years&period; You know&comma; you kind of get tired with playing your own game sometimes&comma; but introducing the user-generated content&comma; where we come up with our own prompts in the room&comma; where all of the correct answers are dumb jokes about each other&comma; basically&comma; it sort of reinvigorates it&period; It makes it get even closer to the basic idea behind <em>Drawful<&sol;em>&period; The basic idea of <em>Drawful<&sol;em> is to try and make it so any weird thing could be right&period; So&comma; a lot of the prompts in <em>Drawful<&sol;em> are written intentionally strangely&comma; or sometimes misspelled as in <em>Drawful 1&comma;<&sol;em> which some people didn&&num;8217&semi;t like &lpar;laughs&rpar;&comma; or try to mix it up in this weird way so you&&num;8217&semi;re always thinking &&num;8220&semi;Could this be the right answer&quest; Could this NOT be the right answer&quest;&&num;8221&semi; So literally giving players control over the right answer makes it all the funnier and weirder&period; But yeah&comma; I&&num;8217&semi;m just super excited about that&period; People want to put themselves in the game&comma; and this lets them do it even more&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>LS&colon; And you directed it&period;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>AN&colon; I directed it&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>LS&colon; That&&num;8217&semi;s great&excl; Well&comma; I&&num;8217&semi;m super excited for it&comma; and I&&num;8217&semi;m super exicted for the <em>Party Pack<&sol;em>&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s a great way for us &lpar;at BagoGames&rpar;&&num;8211&semi;since our staff is everywhere&&num;8211&semi;to connect&period; Sometimes we just play that game online&period; Someone will stream it on Twitch and we&&num;8217&semi;ll all play together&period; And it&&num;8217&semi;s awesome&excl; We love it&comma; so we&&num;8217&semi;re all very excited for it&period;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>AN&colon; That&&num;8217&semi;s awesome&period; That&&num;8217&semi;s fantastic&period; I&&num;8217&semi;m directing two games in the <em>Party Pack<&sol;em>&period; We have finally just decided what all of them are&comma; and some of them are getting close to being done&comma; some of them are still very early&comma; and they&&num;8217&semi;re all very cool and weird&comma; and one of them is called <em>Guesspionage<&sol;em>&period; &lpar;laughs&rpar;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>LS&colon; That&&num;8217&semi;s what we know&excl; &lpar;laughs&rpar;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>AN&colon; That&&num;8217&semi;s what we know&period; &lpar;laughs&rpar;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>LS&colon; Alright&comma; well&comma; we&&num;8217&semi;ll keep our eyes peeled for Wednesday then&period;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>AN&colon; Awesome&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>LS&colon; I think we covered a lot&comma; so thank you so much for talking to me&excl; I appreciate it&excl;<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>AN&colon; Of course&excl;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<hr &sol;>&NewLine;<p>After our formal interview ended&comma; Arnie showed me around their office space a bit&period; I didn&&num;8217&semi;t take any pictures &lpar;there were computer screens everywhere&comma; and I wouldn&&num;8217&semi;t want to accidentally spoil something&excl;&rpar;&comma; but it&&num;8217&semi;s a great space for the growing team&period; There&&num;8217&semi;s a support beam near the entryway which is adorned with the Jackbox Games logo and the iconic bald head&period; To the left is a meeting room &lpar;where a large meeting was occurring as I was there&period; I kept trying to peek in and see if I could catch a glimpse of something special&period; No luck&period;&rpar; and to the right are rows of computers where the magic happens&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;109093" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-109093" style&equals;"width&colon; 787px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"wp-image-109093 size-full" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;06&sol;03134819&sol;post6&period;jpg" alt&equals;"jackbox games 7" width&equals;"787" height&equals;"443" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-109093" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">The Beam&period; &lpar;Jackbox Games&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>My interview with Arnie took place in the back of the office space&comma; which was set up as an employee lounge&period; There&comma; they had multiple arcade machines&comma; a kitchen&comma; couches with a TV and&comma; of course&comma; a copy of <em>You Don&&num;8217&semi;t Know Jack<&sol;em>&period; He even mentioned that they used to have an old basketball-shooting arcade game&comma; but it was a bit too loud in the office&period; All-in-all&comma; it was exactly what you imagine a game development office to be&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>During some casual discussion&comma; Arnie mentioned that they currently have under 20 people on staff&comma; so they&&num;8217&semi;re still a pretty small company even though they kick out multiple games each year&period; He also mentioned that they&&num;8217&semi;d only been in their current space for about 3 years&comma; and used to be in a different space not too far away&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;109096" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-109096" style&equals;"width&colon; 602px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"wp-image-109096 size-full" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;06&sol;03134734&sol;hoop&period;jpg" alt&equals;"jackbox games 8" width&equals;"602" height&equals;"347" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-109096" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">I found the old basketball arcade game&excl; Apparently someone was throwing it out&&num;8230&semi; &lpar;Jackbox Games&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>As I mentioned&comma; Jackbox Games has announced a few noteworthy things since this interview took place&period; The second game of <em>Jackbox Party Pack 3<&sol;em> was announced to be <em>Quiplash 2<&sol;em>&comma; and was announced to be the only sequel in the pack&period; So everything else should be brand-spankin&&num;8217&semi;-new&excl; Also announced was the release date of Arnie&&num;8217&semi;s own <em>Drawful 2<&sol;em>&colon; June 21st&period; We&&num;8217&semi;ll definitely have some coverage of the game here at BagoGames&comma; so be sure to keep your eyes peeled for that&excl;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>For more developer interviews&comma; coverage of Jackbox Games&comma; and general zaniness&comma; stick with BagoGames&excl;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<hr &sol;>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; center&semi;"><em><strong>Special thanks to Arnie Niekamp and Jackbox Games for the interview<&sol;strong><&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;

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