Our Tips for Playing Jackbox Games Virtually Over the Holidays

Whether you’re together as a family, or creating a memory virtually, we’re here to help. If you are having a remote holiday gathering this year, searching for ideas for a virtual company holiday party, or just looking for ways to get family, friends, and coworkers together for the holidays, stick around! We’ll guide you through how to get this virtual holiday game night off the ground.

The first thing you’ll need is a Jackbox Games title. All of our Party Packs come with five different games. This season, we recommend checking out our latest titles, The Jackbox Party Pack 7 and The Jackbox Party Pack 8. Quiplash 3 includes a custom episode under our Featured Content in the game menu called Thanksquipping which includes all new Thanksgiving prompts! Keep an eye out for December holiday-themed episodes coming soon as well. Learn more about the number of players needed for a specific game here.

Our games are available on a whole host of platforms including Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, Xbox, and many more! For playing remotely, we recommend playing our games on PC/Mac. Many of our titles will be on sale for these platforms during the holiday season! Learn more about upcoming Black Friday sales here. 

Once you have your games picked out, consider tinkering around with the settings menu. The settings menu can be accessed in the lobby of each individual game before you start a round. If this is for a family or work event, we recommend turning on the Family-Friendly filter. This will remove the more leading questions that might make some feel a little uncomfortable. Or, you can keep that filter turned off for some extra excitement. We won’t tell you how to play! Additionally, turning on extended timers can be helpful for new players or if you’re playing remotely and want to account for any lag you may be experiencing on your video call. 

Find more information on all of the settings available to you in your Party Pack here. You can learn more about some of our new accessibility features found in the settings here.

If you’re sharing turkey with family over a video call, involving our games requires a few easy additional steps: 

• Set up with a video conferencing service

First decide on which video conferencing you and your guests will want to use such as Zoom, Google Hangouts, Discord, Skype, etc. Make sure that your video conferencing service has the ability to share your screen. Make sure you’re launching this video conferencing service on the same device that is being used to launch your game. We recommend using your PC/Mac computer. For this example, we're looking at Google Hangouts.

• Gather around and launch your favorite Jackbox game

Next, have your guests join your call. With your guests there, go ahead and launch your game! If you’re having trouble getting started, reach out to our support team over at help.jackboxgames.com.

• Share your game screen

Share your game screen with your guests, and have them join your game by heading to jackbox.tv and entering the room code they see on the screen. If your guests are unfamiliar with how to play Jackbox games, this video will provide you with all you need to know to get started. If you’re new to gaming yourself, this article will run you through the fundamentals of installing Jackbox to your PC or Mac. 

• This is the best part

Once your game is up and running and everyone is gathered around and ready to play, the only step remaining is to have fun and create some weird memories this holiday season. If you run into any hiccups along the way, reach out to our support team over at help.jackboxgames.com.

Here are some additional resources to help get you started with remote play:

• This article will run you through how to get started with remote streaming.
• Here’s a video on how to play Jackbox Games remotely via Zoom. 
• Here’s a video on how to play Jackbox Games remotely via Google Hangouts.
• Learn more about playing Jackbox remotely using Microsoft Teams.
   

Reach out to us over on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram if you run into any issues along the way. You can also find more resources at help.jackboxgames.com. 

We’d love to see funny moments from your game night! Follow us on social media and tag us in your posts with screenshots and pics from your games. We’re on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.

From all of us here at Jackbox, thank you for letting us be part of your holiday fun! Have a safe and happy holiday season!