An Asexual Preview Of Jackbox Naughty Pack | Gamescom 2024

Over the past decade, Jackbox has become one of the most influential and impactful game series in my life. The silly, inviting presentation of these compilations has helped me come out of my shell and truly express myself and my humour in a multitude of scary social settings. Heck, I even came out as trans through a game of Fibbage. 

Average Gamescom experience.

So, when I was given the opportunity to test out Jackbox’s latest party game at Gamescom, I leapt at the opportunity. But, if you’ve read the title, you’ll realize that there is an interesting problem for fans like me surrounding the team's first R-rated project.

It’s no secret that irreverent humour is a big part of the appeal for Jackbox players. Many of the game’s hosts encourage players to think up the most outrageous answers possible through tongue-in-cheek voice lines that often transform a typical game of Pictionary into dick-tionary. 

Funnily enough, I’ve never really had a problem with this as broad gameplay opportunities allow players to get creative with their conceptions and erect a full spectrum of humor from humble beginnings. However, the explicit direction of the upcoming title could stop it from satisfying some players.

On paper, Naughty Pack has a phallic fallacy on its hands by leaning wholeheartedly into its sexual desires, but do the urges of the game stifle its creativity in practice? In my 45-minute playtest, I experienced a tantalizing tease of each of the three new exhibitionists, Fakin’ It All Night Long, Dirty Drawful and Let Me Finish, and, interestingly, each of the games displayed different levels of confidence in the team’s new concept.

Fakin’ It All Night Long

For those unfamiliar with Fakin’ It, the original social deduction game is all about prompts with yes or no answers. Most players are given the same prompt, but some chosen “fakers” are given different questions while tasked with blending into the crowd through the power of persuasion. 

All Night Long ups the absurdity with outrageous questions that makes it a lot more difficult to find the fakers. This arguably leads to more interesting lines of questioning that reveals dirty secrets and catches fakers off guard. In my opinion, this is a worthy shakeup that can lead to a lot of strangely entertaining exchanges with an intimate group that isn’t afraid to embarrass one another. 

If you’re looking to play this casually, you should be aware that the questions in Fakin’ It All Night Long contained the most sexually explicit content in any of the games I played. 

Sadly, having an openly asexual person in the group would ruin the social deduction element of the game as it’s likely that they would rarely agree with any of the game’s prompts, though, admittedly, I only experienced three of them. Apparently, there is a safe-for-work mode too, which is a nice accessibility option, but personally, I think questions surrounding intimacy and kink would help to bridge the gap in a way that justifies the new gameplay style to alternative players.

Dirty Drawful

Following from Fakin’ It is the simplest game in the pack, Dirty Drawful., I won’t linger on this one too much as the concept alone will either really appeal to your urges or make you flaccid. Dirty Drawful takes the existing guesswork-based drawing game and adds rude requests to artists.

Personally speaking, I’m not the biggest fan of Drawful to begin with as the game feels rather antiquated in comparison to other artsy games in the Jackbox catalog, and the perverted prompts don’t change the overall gameplay in a meaningful manner. 

If you’re a fan of Drawful, you might get a kick out of this new edition, but, to me, it feels like a missed opportunity to adapt a different drawing game. I think the product design game Patently Stupid would have been a much better choice as sex toys and BDSM furniture feel like a natural springboard for unique concepts.

Let Me Finish

The final game in the pack is aptly named Let Me Finish, it's an original discussion-focused game where two players battle it out to convince others why their point is the most valid. This devolves into a surprisingly entertaining dick-measuring contest where friends argue over stupid statements. 

Ironically, the example I played involved a rogues’ gallery of mixed nuts where me and a developer tried to convince other journalists why our chosen nut had the largest package (I can definitely say that this was the most surreal gigs I’ve had as a freelancer). 

For those familiar with Talking Points, Let Me Finish plays like a head-to-head take on the PowerPoint pitching game. One of the main setbacks in Talking Points is the pressure of talking for long periods of time which can make the game inhibitive to people with stage fright. Let Me Finish is, surprisingly, a lot more inclusive due to its short length and rude rapport. 

Many people find debates and on-the-spot comedy difficult, but the sexual topics in Let Me Finish provide an accessible way to interact with an audience without having to overthink, which is a smart utility of the package’s theme.

Out of all the games in this collection, Let Me Finish is undoubtedly the best game for asexuals with a rude sense of humor as it successfully hits the creativity of other Jackbox classics while justifying its sexual theme outside of the niche audience this pack is targeted towards.

In Conclusion

My takeaway is that Jackbox Naughty Pack, for the most part, feels more like a strange one night stand in comparison to its main series counterparts. For the most part, the experiences left me wanting more, which isn’t ideal when there are only 3 games to pick from this time around. 

However, thinking about how this pack could be improved has given me a new outlook on the Naughty Pack concept. Fakin It’ All Night Long and Let Me Finish show the potential of a great concept, but it feels like the Naughty Pack hasn’t reached its climax just yet.