It was a confluence of 10th anniversaries this year, as not only was PAX Aus celebrating its 10th year in 2023, but so too is Jackbox Party Pack, a mainstay in the Plenary Hall where passers by are able to jump in and join the party games. Mike Bilder, CEO of Jackbox Games, was also on site to help slide in a selection of games from the upcoming Jackbox Party Pack 10 (yes, another 10), launching a little later this year, giving fans a sneak preview of what’s to come.
The pack includes five games – Fixy Text, Tee K.O. 2, DodoReMi, Time Jinx and Hypnotorious. They all have wildly varying premises, although one highlight is Fixy Test, which is according to Mike, “like being in a Google Doc at the same time with other people”, only more “chaos crazy.”
Of course, long-time Jackbox fans will be happy about the return of Tee K.O., which combines both players artistic talents along with their penchant for short, quippy names. The return is “certainly based on fan demand,” says Mike, “we know how many people are playing, what they’re playing, how frequently, and so we try to respond to that, if there’s a very popular game and we haven’t revisited it in some time, there’s certainly demand for that. And then there’s also things that we would have loved to have gotten into the game, or things we would tweak about the game, or new content we could add to the game, or new features, and so it’s a good opportunity for us to revisit that and add those things for fans.”
With regards to the syncing up of PAX Aus’s 10th year and Jackbox’s, “We love it. We can’t thank them enough, too, because I feel like just being able to see our fans and put on our games and let them try them has helped grow our success as well.”
As for the plans post-Jackbox 10, Mike says “there is a desire to maybe break out from just the franchise, and do additional games, so I think you’ll see we’ll be doing that kind of thing in the future.”
