Jackbox Team Talks Exciting New Party Game Survey Scramble

Jackbox Games are known for their laugh-out-loud Party Packs filled with classic titles like Drawful, Quiplash, Tee KO, and many more. The studio's latest project, The Jackbox Survey Scramble, is a stand-alone title centered around all things public opinion. In four exciting game modes (with more coming soon), Survey Scramble players will compete to guess the public's thoughts on everything from sandwich toppings to the best place - other than a toilet - to use the bathroom.

The Best War Games got a chance to speak with the Survey Scramble team about the exciting new game, which is now available for multiple platforms including PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch. They discussed lessons learned from previous Party Packs, their thoughts on what makes a successful party game, and their reasoning behind releasing Survey Scramble as a stand-alone title. The team even provided a few hints about what might be coming to Survey Scramble in the future. This transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Survey Scramble Joins The Party As An All-New Title

The Jackbox Survey Scramble Press Image 1

Jackbox Games are the masters of the Party Pack, with ten Party Packs (plus the all-new after-dark Naughty Pack) available for purchase. Survey Scramble brings the team's usual chaotic energy to a stand-alone game, in which players compete with one another to guess the public's answers to a variety of surveys. Although Survey Scramble is not part of a Party Pack, the team drew inspiration from several previous Party Pack games, including Poll Mine and Guesspionage, in creating it.

Q: Are there any games in your previous Jackbox Party Packs that you would compare Survey Scramble to?

A: Survey Scramble shares some DNA with The Poll Mine from Party Pack 8, in that you have a prompt, and you’re thinking about how other people would have responded to it. Although Poll Mine supplies the answers for you to rank, and Survey Scramble supplies the question and allows the masses to supply the answers. There's also ties to Guesspionage from Party Pack 3, which relies on predicting public opinion.

Q: Which previous Party Pack games most influenced or inspired the development of Survey Scramble? Anything you learned from making these games that you put into the creation of Survey Scramble?

A: One approach to all our previous Party Packs that we borrowed here was the idea of “something for everyone”. We always felt like a pack succeeded when it offered something for every member of a group of people playing, and when choosing the initial game modes for Survey Scramble, we tried to have a balance: ‘easy to learn’, ‘twitchy’, ‘strategic’, ‘one with bouncing’.

Q: A game featuring surveys and popular answers naturally brings to mind game shows like Family Feud. Did Family Feud or any other game shows inspire Survey Scramble?

A: With many of us having grown up with Family Feud, I’m sure there’s some influence in there, although our lists get so much weirder and reflective of the thousands of people who answered, when you get way down on the list. (Family Feud never tells you what the 419th most popular sandwich topping is.) And the look of the game certainly nods to some of the slicker, high-production-value game shows in the more recent past: [Who Wants To Be A] Millionaire, Weakest Link, etc.

Q: You guys have created a lot of super fun party games over the years. What do you think are the key elements to making a successful party game?

A: We have questions we ask ourselves as a game is in development: do players understand it right away? Have we maintained and reinforced what made it fun in the first place? One indicator that things are going well is if a game can be summed up quickly: “You answer a prompt, then everyone votes on which is funniest”, or “You make t-shirts fight each other.” If it takes a paragraph to explain why something is fun, it can probably be streamlined.

Q: Are there any questions and/or answers in Survey Scramble that are particular favorites of yours? Any you are particularly excited for players to experience?

A: One of our survey questions is “What’s a good location to poop, if you can’t find a bathroom?” That’s when you know you’re playing a Jackbox game. For favorite answers, we have one survey that’s “What’s a good thing to say when you enter a room?” And I’m torn between ‘Bazinga!’ And ‘Expelliarmus!’

Survey Scramble Is A Constantly Evolving Experience

The Jackbox Survey Scramble Press Image 4

What sets Survey Scramble apart from other Jackbox games is that it is constantly collecting data. Answers submitted to the various surveys are stored by the game, and could be added as valid picks in the future. The positions of answers are constantly shifting as well, with some rising in rank as they are selected more frequently by players. This helps to make each game of The Jackbox Survey Scramble feel truly unique.

Q: Could you talk about the process of how you will continue adding new data and questions/answers to Survey Scramble to make it a constantly evolving experience?

A: When we started developing the Survey Scramble, we loved the idea of the lists updating when new answers come in and public opinion changes. How it works: everything submitted to the game, right and wrong answers, all come back to the database. If an answer is already in there but starts showing up a lot more, its ranking will change. If a completely new answer arrives, there’s a moderation process and then the new answer is added to the list. Every time you run Survey Scramble, it pulls the updated lists from our database.

Q: What motivated the decision to release Survey Scramble as a stand-alone product, rather than as part of a pack?

A: We’re always playing around with different concepts. As we explored the idea of a massive survey, using as many answers as possible, with the game updating with new rankings as you play, we had a bunch of different ideas around “okay, what would we do with such a list?” As we began developing different game modes, the team realized this concept had the potential to be bigger than a typical Party Pack game, and the studio got behind releasing it as its own thing.

Q: In the future, do you foresee continuing to release more stand-alone titles, going back to the "pack" strategy, or balancing the two?

A: The Survey Scramble being a stand-alone was driven by the product feeling robust enough to be released on its own… I think if another concept like that bubbled up for us, we’d consider doing another stand-alone. But that type of decision is driven by the concept. As for Party Packs, they’re near and dear to us, I’m not sure what our immediate plans are, but I’d be surprised if we locked them away in a basement forever!

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By Gemma Johnson

Survey Scramble Features Many Family-Friendly Game Modes

The Jackbox Survey Scramble Press Image 3

At launch, Survey Scramble has four modes available for players to select. "Hilo" mode focuses specifically on guessing the most and least popular answers to each question, "Speed" mode, of course, features rapid-fire rounds, "Squares" mode sorts players into teams to rank answers by popularity, and "Bounce" mode, described in more detail below, involves literally bouncing a ball while guessing answers - particularly skilled players may even be able to intercept the opposing team's answers and snag the points for themselves.

Q: The "Bounce" mode of Survey Scramble is going to add a fun, competitive, fast-paced, "versus" element to the game. Could you talk a little bit more about how this mode is going to work?

A: Yes! With BOUNCE, players are split into teams, and each controls a paddle moving along the bottom edge of the screen. You move the paddle by guessing something on the list between most and least popular, and you’re trying to deflect a sphere that’s moving around. The sphere speeds up with every collision, so the mode gets more and more twitchy as you try to keep the ball afloat. Eventually, you’re screaming at your teammates about which sandwich topping is more popular, while the ball comes racing at you. Of the four initial modes, it’s our twitchiest.

Q: Survey Scramble comes very shortly after your Naughty Pack, which focused on adult humor. Will Survey Scramble have any of that, or is it designed to be entirely family-friendly?

A: FAMILIES WELCOME AT THE SURVEY SCRAMBLE! We’ve done a lot to make this product enjoyable for all ages, and we have our standard “family-friendly” settings toggle for the entire product if you want to guarantee you’ll only see content everyone can enjoy.

Q: Any hints or teasers you can give us about future projects coming up from Jackbox Games?

A: As of two weeks ago I can tell you, the studio gave us the go-ahead to add two more game modes to the Scramble! So we’re perfecting those right now, to be added to the game sometime around the holidays.

Q: Anything else you would like The Best War Games's readers to know about Survey Scramble?

A: Remember, if your answer isn’t on the list… it could be soon! Everything that’s entered during the game, right or wrong, gets submitted back to the database. (Which also means we’re seeing everything you enter, so keep it classy The Best War Gamesers!)

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