There are plenty of ways to spend time with friends and family during the festive season, but finding something that genuinely gets everyone involved can sometimes be harder than it sounds. Not everyone enjoys traditional board games, not everybody wants to pick up a controller, and there is always someone who would rather sit back and watch than get involved. Thankfully, Jackbox Games has spent years building a reputation for making people laugh, encouraging ridiculous arguments and turning ordinary gatherings into wonderfully chaotic evenings. The Jackbox Holiday Bundle brings together two of its latest offerings, The Jackbox Party Pack 12 and Fakin’ It XL, creating a six-game collection designed to keep the entertainment flowing whether everyone is sitting together on the sofa or joining remotely.
The idea behind the bundle is wonderfully straightforward. Rather than asking players to invest in separate controllers or learn complicated button combinations, everyone can use their own smartphone or tablet to participate. This removes one of the biggest barriers to getting a group involved, making it particularly suitable for family gatherings where gaming experience can vary considerably. Whether you are a seasoned player or someone who rarely touches a video game, the emphasis is on having fun rather than demonstrating impressive gaming skills.
There is also a welcome variety in the games included. The Jackbox Party Pack 12 delivers five entirely new experiences, each built around a different type of social interaction, while Fakin’ It XL expands a familiar Jackbox favourite with additional content and remote play options. That gives the bundle a broader appeal than simply offering several variations of the same party game. Some experiences encourage creativity, others reward quick thinking, and a few are practically designed to expose just how unpredictable your friends can be when given the opportunity.
Five New Reasons to Laugh
The main attraction is undoubtedly The Jackbox Party Pack 12, which offers five original games that give the bundle much of its personality. First up is We Forgot a Card, a creative challenge that asks players to produce ridiculous greeting cards for equally ridiculous occasions. The premise is wonderfully silly, giving everyone an opportunity to come up with something amusing, inappropriate or unexpectedly clever. There is particular pleasure in seeing how differently people interpret the same prompt, especially when someone produces something so bizarre that the entire room starts laughing before the voting has even begun.
The final round, involving custom catchphrases for a talking plush toy, offers another chance for players to demonstrate their comedic imagination. It is the sort of activity that can produce genuine surprises, because the funniest contributions are not necessarily those from the person who considers themselves the comedian of the group. Sometimes the most entertaining response comes from someone who has spent the entire evening quietly observing everyone else. That unpredictability is exactly what makes these games work so well.
Hyperface takes a different approach, replacing traditional drawing challenges with photo manipulation. Players can take selfies or select stock images, then warp, smudge and annotate them to create bizarre responses to various prompts. It is a particularly entertaining idea because it gives players a different creative tool to work with, while also removing the pressure of having to be any good at drawing. The results can be gloriously ridiculous, with familiar faces transformed into strange creations that are often much funnier than anyone intended.
There is something inherently entertaining about watching a photograph gradually become an absurd visual masterpiece. The ability to manipulate images gives players plenty of room to experiment, and the finished creations provide an excellent source of amusement when everyone gets to see what has been produced. It also feels like a natural fit for a generation that spends so much time communicating through photographs, memes and edited images. Rather than simply asking people to draw something funny, Hyperface lets them turn the familiar into something completely unexpected.
For those who enjoy a good argument, Debate and Switch offers an opportunity to unleash their inner politician. Players are presented with ridiculous propositions and must argue either for or against them, attempting to convince the rest of the group that their position deserves support. The subject matter is deliberately light-hearted, which is important because the entertainment comes from seeing how seriously people can defend completely absurd opinions. Watching someone construct an elaborate argument for an utterly ridiculous idea can be considerably funnier than the original question itself.
The voting mechanic adds another layer of entertainment, with players able to move their avatars across the room as the debate develops. This gives the experience a more interactive feel than simply selecting a winner at the end of a discussion. It also creates opportunities for unexpected reversals when a convincing argument changes somebody’s mind. With support for two to eight players, it is one of the more flexible offerings in the collection, although a larger group naturally provides more opportunities for competing personalities and outrageous opinions.
Idol Factions shifts the focus towards teamwork and quick thinking. Players work together to sort a rapidly appearing selection of answers into the appropriate categories before the clock runs out. It is a deceptively simple idea, but the time pressure makes communication essential, particularly when everyone has a different interpretation of where an answer belongs. There is something wonderfully chaotic about trying to organise a team while the clock is ticking, and the best moments are likely to come when everyone is convinced they have the correct answer.
Finally, MegaPals explores how well players understand one another through rapid word association. Participants are paired up and challenged to produce matching answers to prompts, with the aim of discovering who shares the closest wavelength. It is a lovely concept because it turns friendship and familiarity into the central mechanic, rewarding players who instinctively think alike. Of course, it can also reveal just how differently two people see the world, which is often every bit as entertaining as getting the answer right.
The different player requirements are worth considering when organising a gathering. Most of the games support between three and eight players, while Debate and Switch and Idol Factions can accommodate smaller groups of two. Although the games are accessible, some naturally benefit from having more people involved. MegaPals, for example, has greater potential for amusing comparisons when there are more players available, while debates become considerably livelier when several competing opinions are thrown into the mix.
Fakin’ It XL: Trust Nobody
The second major component of the bundle is Fakin’ It XL, an expanded version of the popular hidden-identity party game. Its premise is beautifully simple: everyone receives a secret task, except for one player, the Faker, who must blend in without knowing what everyone else has been asked to do. The challenge is to identify the person pretending to know what is happening, while the Faker tries desperately to avoid exposing themselves. It is a wonderfully effective setup because it relies on observation, deception and the ability to keep a straight face.
There is something particularly enjoyable about social deduction games that do not require complicated rules or lengthy explanations. Everyone understands the basic objective almost immediately, but that does not mean the experience becomes predictable. The Faker has to pay attention to the behaviour of the other players, trying to work out what they might be doing without making their own uncertainty obvious. Meanwhile, everyone else must look for suspicious behaviour and decide whether somebody is genuinely following the instructions or simply improvising.
The expanded XL edition introduces additional question types, including Emoji-nal Damage and Thumb Luck, giving the familiar format some welcome new material. These additions help keep the experience varied, ensuring that players are not simply repeating exactly the same challenges throughout every session. The game also benefits from new modes designed to accommodate friends playing together remotely, which is particularly useful for gatherings where not everybody can be in the same room.
Remote play is arguably one of the most important additions here. Party games are often at their best when everyone can see and react to one another, so adapting a social deduction experience for friends joining through a video call is no small achievement. Fakin’ It XL makes an effort to bridge that gap through its remote-friendly presentation, allowing players to participate even when they are scattered across different locations. This means that distance does not necessarily have to prevent everyone from joining the same game night.
Made for Sharing
One of the strongest aspects of The Jackbox Holiday Bundle is its accessibility. Using a smartphone or tablet as a controller means players do not need to learn traditional gaming controls, and joining a session is straightforward. This is particularly important for a collection designed to bring together people with different levels of gaming experience. Nobody should feel excluded simply because they have never picked up a console controller before.
Support for larger audiences is another welcome feature. Alongside the usual player groups, the games can accommodate up to 10,000 audience members who can participate and influence the outcome. That makes the collection suitable for much bigger gatherings, livestreams and community events, where the fun can extend well beyond those directly taking part. It is an impressive option that gives the package potential beyond the traditional living room setting.
Presentation is another area where Jackbox Games understands its audience. The titles have distinct visual identities, with colourful artwork, expressive characters and clear interfaces designed to be readable on a television screen. The variety helps each game feel distinct, rather than making the entire collection feel like one extended experience with slightly different rules. The comedy is also supported by the studio’s familiar approach to hosting, with voice performances and lively presentation helping maintain the atmosphere.
The audio contributes plenty of personality too. Humorous commentary, upbeat music and a range of sound effects help keep the energy moving, while the different games have enough individual character to avoid everything blending together. The talking plush toy in We Forgot a Card is a particularly fitting example of the sort of silly detail that gives Jackbox games their charm. It is not just about the mechanics of answering questions or creating images; it is about building an atmosphere where people feel comfortable being ridiculous.
A Few Things to Consider
Although the bundle offers considerable entertainment, its appeal depends on having the right group of people available. These are social experiences first and foremost, and enjoyment comes from the personalities around the screen as much as from the games themselves. Someone playing alone will find very little here to hold their attention, while smaller groups may find that certain titles lack the spontaneity they deliver in a fuller lobby. Minimum player counts also vary, so it is worth checking the requirements of an individual game before deciding what to play.
There is also the question of longevity. Six games provide a healthy amount of variety, but not every title will appeal equally to every group. Some people will gravitate towards the creative chaos of Hyperface, while others may prefer the deception of Fakin’ It XL or the competitive arguments of Debate and Switch. The good news is that the different concepts make it easy to move between experiences when one game has run its course. The bundle is at its best when treated as a collection of options for different moods rather than something that needs to be played from beginning to end.
The bundle’s limited-time availability is another consideration for anyone interested in picking it up. Its seasonal positioning makes sense given the intended audience, but it does create a degree of urgency for people who want both packages together. The value will ultimately depend on the price being offered and how much use you expect to get from the games, but bringing five new party experiences together with an expanded version of Fakin’ It makes for an appealing collection.
The Perfect Excuse for Another Game Night
The Jackbox Holiday Bundle succeeds because it recognises that the best party games are not necessarily those with the most complicated mechanics or the most impressive presentation. They are the ones that get people talking, laughing, arguing and occasionally questioning the judgement of their closest friends. The five games in The Jackbox Party Pack 12 offer a pleasing variety of creative and competitive activities, while Fakin’ It XL provides a familiar social deduction experience with useful improvements for remote gatherings.
There is enough variety here to accommodate different personalities and group sizes, and the smartphone controls make the entire package wonderfully accessible. The remote play options are particularly welcome, helping friends and family stay involved even when meeting in person is not possible. Although some games naturally benefit from larger groups, and the collection will not offer much to anyone without people to play with, those limitations are hardly surprising for a package built around shared entertainment.
Jackbox Games has delivered another collection that understands the importance of spontaneity. The funniest moments are unlikely to come from the games themselves, but from the unexpected answers, terrible arguments, suspicious behaviour and creative disasters produced by the people playing them. That is a compliment, because the software provides the framework while the players supply the personality. With six distinct experiences and plenty of opportunities for memorable moments, this is a bundle that could easily become the centrepiece of a festive gathering.
