Jackbox Survey Scramble Review – Great for a quick look

Jackbox Survey Scramble is one of the most unique Jackbox packs I’ve ever played. It’s a smaller collection, with just four games – although additional game modes are said to be available in future free updates. Its strength, however, lies not in quantity but in game length and simplicity. Each game plays very quickly and is easy to jump in and out of.

Game nights can often be chaotic and there are often short breaks. Typically, while Jackbox games don’t take several hours, you’ll need around 15 minutes to play. so far.

The four game modes play surprisingly differently, although they’re all based on the same core premise of guessing the answers to survey questions, Family Feud style. In most cases, you only need 30 seconds of explanation and 5 minutes of free time to play. This makes it perfect for a quick warm-up or a break between other games.

Hilo – 5 minutes game, 5 seconds explanation

Choose a theme from three options and the one with the most player votes wins. Then guess the two high-ranked answers to that prompt, and then guess the two low-ranked answers. Rankings are based on how many people chose that particular answer, and the lists are numbered with one being the most popular. Finally, choose the word from the two that you think ranks higher or lower on the list.

That’s all you need to know to play Hilo, and the entire game only takes about five minutes.

For a game that sounds and plays very easily, Hilo is surprisingly difficult to master. It’s fairly easy to find the most common cute words to describe a butt or the stickiest thing. However, when it comes to finding the least popular people, things become difficult.

I’ve played with a few different people, and all of us found it much more difficult to get into the second half of the list. The only advantage is that the answer doesn’t actually have to be in the bottom half of the answer, it just has to be closer to the bottom than the word your opponent chose.

Scoring is based on more than just how the answer ranks compared to other answers in the round. If your answer is at the top of the chart in the high round, you will get the highest score. If it ranks highest in the lower rounds, you will get the lowest score. Those who fail to find the word in the list in time will be deducted zero.

Hilo is easy to play but difficult to master, and the database changes as more players enter their own additions, so memorizing the answers doesn’t necessarily help if you get scammed.

Speed ​​- Shiloh adds panic

Speed ​​follows a similar pattern to Hilo, but adds a timer and the inability to repeat words. In Speed, everyone must race against the clock to guess as many answers as possible, and duplicate answers will not be accepted, so if someone else guesses your answer first, you must try again.

While the timer adds a level of stress and difficulty, it’s the repetition that hurts the most. Sometimes you need to consider less obvious answers. For example, beaches immediately come to mind as a vacation spot, but so do others, which means there are several people competing to be the first to submit a destination.

If you guess several popular answers in a row, you may get stuck in a repetitive guessing cycle, especially with larger groups. The one-liners got me through Titanic, but when I moved on to Jaws, that all went away and started a cycle of me guessing things were slightly behind everyone else.

If you enjoy competition and the ability to leave people with no answers, Speed ​​is your best individual round. If you find it too stressful, stick to Hilo.

Cubes – Tic Tac Survey

Squares is a team game with a twist. The board is set up in a 3×3 square, and each box has a number range. Like other games, you need to guess the answer to the question you voted on at the beginning of the round. Players take turns giving answers during the game, but anyone can make a suggestion at any time, and it will show up in a list on your teammates’ phones, so you can help them even if you’re not the one who submitted it.

This is the most intense and therefore the most fun. If your answer fits a range on the board, you can claim that square. However, if someone on the other team guesses a higher range of answers, they can steal your square. The first team to line up three claimed blocks wins.

The only problem we encountered with this game is one we’ve found in other games as well, where both words mean essentially the same thing and appear separately on the board.

When speculating about superpowers, I added mind control, forgetting that we have telepathy. Yet, to my surprise, it was there. Likewise, both duct tape and Scotch tape appear in the top ten list of sticky items. There’s also a slightly different problem, which is that when coins are listed as things you find in a junk drawer, certain words don’t count at all for the same thing, but several other variations of change do not.

Bounce – the ping pong ball in question

The last game in the series, Bounce Game, also has the steepest learning curve. It’s essentially table tennis, but you guessed it, you summon a racket to find answers to survey questions.

Run a chart along the bottom and entering an answer will place a paddle at the answer’s location on the chart. If you reuse an answer, the paddle it summons shrinks, meaning you’ll need to constantly try to think of new answers.

By far the hardest part is speed and timing. Not only do you have to guess and submit quickly, but you also have to make sure your answer is in the right spot to deflect bouncing blocks.

While some people enjoy the game’s fast pace, it’s more frustrating and harder to master than other games, which troubles most of us.

short and sweet

Jackbox Survey Scramble is a great show that offers a selection of short, simple games that can be incorporated into your rotation as filler. The room’s code is always displayed on the screen, meaning people can move in and out of the game for maximum flexibility.

The survey results could use some tweaking to avoid having to guess six different words for Booger when the questions are tricky, but since the intention is to use player data to tweak the survey results anyway, I expect this to improve over time. I’m excited to come back in a few weeks to see how things go.

Review on computer.

Published

October 24, 2024

Multiplayer

Online multiplayer

ESRB

Teen // Suggestive themes, drug references, language

X|S Optimization

Yes

Number of players

2-10

Steam platform compatibility

unknown

expansion

Score: 4/5. PC code provided by publisher.