The Jackbox Scramble Survey Becomes Your Personal Version of Family Feud.

I’m enjoying a game of Hilo, a new game that’s part of The Jackbox Survey Scramble, and I need to rack up points to win. I’m competing against three members of the Jackbox team, where we’ve been taking turns guessing the best sandwich ingredients, earning points based on the popularity of our answers among other players. Now, we need to determine the worst answer from a list of over 270 options. My instinct tells me to write “mayonnaise,” but discouragingly, that’s the second most popular answer. To succeed, I have to think like a Jackbox player. So, I write “poop,” and to my surprise, it appears near the center of the list. This dynamic represents a comedic inversion in The Jackbox Survey Scramble compared to the previous Party Packs from the developer. Instead of focusing on writing clever phrases and making jokes, this secondary collection allows other players’ jokes to guide the comedic part of the game. This has resulted in an entertaining experiment that reveals the Jackbox team is in a very stimulating creative phase, which benefits players.

The Jackbox Survey Scramble deviates from what one might consider a typical Jackbox Party Pack. Here, there are no drawings, no long rules to follow, nor variants of familiar games. Instead, the four available games (with two more on the way) revolve around a central idea: surveys. Each game poses a question to the players. Questions like “What is the best name for a cat?” or “What words do you see in a comic?” Every one-word answer is stored in a database, reviewed by a moderation team, and returned to the game. This means the answers are not static; they change over time as more people play, making this one of the most dynamic Jackbox games to date. Tim Sniffin, the game director, mentions that when you play again, you’ll find differences. This is due to both your previous play and because many others have played, turning the game into a reflection of the current world.

The notion of guessing answers might seem less extravagant compared to games like Drawful, but the Jackbox team finds clever ways to turn that idea on its head. Hilo is a variation of Family Feud, where players try to guess the most and least popular responses to a question. The mechanics are more relaxed, allowing players to take their time to think about their answers over several rounds. In contrast, Speed is a more frantic version, where each player must submit as many answers as possible while a timer counts down. Time is added to the clock as players submit correct answers, creating intense competition where you cannot submit an answer that has already been presented by another player.

What’s surprising is how Survey Scramble allows comedy to arise more from the players than from the developers themselves. This differs from this year's Jackbox Naughty Pack, which is filled with absurd suggestions. Here, the laughter comes from trying to guess how others would react to a question. For example, I’m surprised to find that “mud” is a popular answer. I find it amusing to imagine thousands of people being inspired to write that.

Jackbox proves to be ingenious with its ideas. A standout game is Bounce, which is inspired by Breakout, where a ball bounces on the screen while two teams answer survey questions. Accepted answers appear as a paddle at the bottom of the screen, and the most popular ones push the paddle to one side. The goal is to return the ball to the opponent by moving the paddle with the survey answers. In this title, answers can be reused, but this shrinks the paddle's size.

The most ingenious of all is Squares, a sort of tic-tac-toe game where two teams must connect three squares on a grid. Each space represents a variety of answers, and players must correctly guess some of the three most popular answers to occupy the positions. In one of my rounds, teams struggle to identify the most awkward things you can do in an elevator. While my team easily secures the first position, we struggle to connect a line to the left of the grid. Everyone will mention “fart,” but who will think of “lick” or “die”? The strategy required is surprising and ranks among the most creative games Jackbox has put out in years.

Survey Scramble arrives at an intriguing moment for Jackbox. After years of iterating on its Party Packs formula, the company is now experimenting with new ideas like the Jackbox Megapicker and the Naughty Pack. This approach has allowed team members to explore more creative opportunities and lead projects. Sniffin comments that this year has been especially exciting due to this mindset of “let’s try different things.” I feel that energy in The Jackbox Survey Scramble, which feels more like an improvisation exercise than a return to old routines. For long-time players, there’s no reason to worry; classics like “poop” and “fart” will still be well-received. The Jackbox Survey Scramble is already available on PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and PC.