Recently, Jackbox Games released Jackbox Survey Battle. It’s a new collection of survey-based games that you can buy now for $9.99 on Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation, and Xbox.
The Jackbox team was kind enough to provide me with a digital PC copy for this review, but all thoughts below are my own. If you want to play, you can buy it from your favorite store, including Humble (affiliate link).
Find out what people across the country are thinking! Jackbox Survey Scramble is a series of fun survey games using real one-word answers from real people. Really!
At first glance, Investigate the scramble sounds like family feudtype of game, but there’s more to it. First of all, this is not just a game. There are currently four unique games, with two more “coming soon.” Also, the game does say it collects information from answers provided to influence future answers, which might be good, but might also be problematic? Discuss in the comments.
The first game to talk about is Hilo. In this game mode (and all other modes), all players vote for the theme from a list of three. Then, over several rounds, everyone guesses (answers in one word) the top-ranked survey answer.
Eventually it will change and you’ll try to guess the least popular answer. After a few rounds, it may return to find the more popular answer, or it may call it and name the winner. very similar family feudsome of the answers will shock and scare you.
However, unlike Family Feud, there are sometimes hundreds of replies on the list, giving you a large window of potential. You also have to be careful, because if multiple players guess the same answer, the score will be split equally between you. Hilo Probably my favorite of the four games so far, but close.
Next we have speed. exist speedeveryone just tries to guess as many answers as fast as they can to accumulate points. Over time, you will earn multipliers to earn more points.
It does feel crazy, but in that fun sense. During a brief break when the game introduces multipliers, you can even see the percentage of answers everyone guessed. Also, at the end, it shows you all the correct answers in the list and who guessed each answer. This is also very fun.
The third one we have block This is probably my second favorite. This is a team game where your team guesses the answer while playing Tic-Tac-Toe. There are nine squares that require a different range of answers to score the square.
For example, the first two answers to the survey are the first square, answers 3 to 6 are the second square, and so on. not overheard by the other team) for that player to use on their turn. If you guess the top answer for a square, you lock it and it can’t be stolen.
If your guess is higher than what you’ve already guessed, you steal the cube. If your guess is not within the square or is lower than the current value of the square, you can try again. It’s a lot of fun once you get the hang of it.
Finally, we have bounce. My team and I don’t like this game. It’s like a competitive version of Brick Break, where control transfers to the other team after the ball bounces off the racket, which moves based on how popular your guess is in the survey.
The top answer is on the left and the bottom answer is on the right. It’s a weird thing because you have to be fast, but it’s also slow and, in our opinion, doesn’t feel great to play. I don’t think any of us liked it very much.
Survey Scramble has two great features right from the start. I highly recommend selecting “Tour” when you first launch the game. This will take you through each of the four included games. It’s a quick way to play through all the games and learn what you like and don’t like.
The other one is “Pick For Me” which just randomly selects one of the games. My only complaint is that I wish I could exclude certain games to better suit the group’s preferences (for example, my group would remove “Bounce” as an option).
Looking ahead, new game modes are coming sprint and dare It sounds like they both have potential. I’d definitely be interested in updating them for free soon.
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sprint
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The game begins! You’re competing against other players: find the most popular answer from a set of options chosen from one of our huge lists to move on. Double your choices for more progress (or more punishment), send extra choices to your opponent’s list to slow them down, and adjust public opinion to outpace everyone on your way to the finish line.
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dare
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Decide the bets for other players! You control whether the other players have to guess something higher or lower in the list than what was just revealed. Challenge them to near-impossible challenges… but don’t be surprised when they succeed and earn points. After completing the challenge, turn around, share the love, and challenge other players.
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To be honest, I really like it Investigate the scramble. It feels small since all the games are survey based, but I think they found some good ways to make each game unique. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who likes Jackbox family feud.
