You Don't Know Jack (franchise)


You Don't Know Jack is a series of video games developed by Jackbox Games and Berkeley Systems, as well as the title of the first You Don't Know Jack game in the series. You Don't Know Jack, framed as a game show "where high culture and pop culture collide", combines trivia with comedy. While it is primarily a PC and Mac-based franchise with over two dozen releases and compilations for those platforms, there have been a few entries released for consoles: two for the original PlayStation, and the 2011 release which had versions for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo DS and Wii. In 2012, Jackbox Games developed and published a social version of the game on Facebook with cross-platform versions subsequently released for iOS, Android and Kindle. On November 5, 2013, the majority of the franchise's many volumes and spinoffs were reissued onto Steam by Jackbox Games. On November 18, 2014, You Don’t Know Jack 2015 was released as part of The Jackbox Party Pack on Windows, macOS, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and later Nintendo Switch, iPad, Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, Nvidia Shield, Apple TV, and Xfinity X1. On October 17, 2018, You Don't Know Jack: Full Stream was released as part of The Jackbox Party Pack 5 for the same platforms as You Don't Know Jack 2015.

History

In 1991, Jellyvision's former identity, Learn Television, released the award-winning film The Mind's Treasure Chest, which featured lead character Jack Patterson. When Learn Television sought to use new multimedia technologies to create a more active learning experience, the company teamed up with Follett Software Company and developed "That's a Fact, Jack!", a reading motivation CD-ROM game show series covering young adult fiction, targeted to 3rd through 10th graders. The game would give a title for a child to read, and then ask questions related to that title.
The idea for You Don't Know Jack began while That's a Fact, Jack! was still in development. The game's title comes from the more vulgar version of the phrase "You don't know."

Gameplay

Most versions of the game can be played by one, two, or three players.. All versions of the game feature the voice of an off-screen host, who reads questions aloud, provides instructions regarding special question types, and pokes fun at the players.
The game usually opens with a green room segment, in which the players are prompted to enter their names and given instructions for play. The audio during this segment includes rehearsing singers, a busy producer, and a harassed studio manager/host. The only graphics are a large "On Air/Stand By" sign in the middle of the screen, visual representations of the players' button assignments, and a box for name entry. On games after Volume 2, on certain days, such as Christmas Eve, or certain times such as a Saturday night, or even during Twilight, the announcer will mention the time of day or the special holiday, and sometimes grumble about the game being played at that time or on that day.
Most versions of You Don't Know Jack offer the choice of playing a 7- or 21-question game; some versions offer only 15 questions, and others offer only 13 questions, 11 questions, or 7 questions. In a 21-question game, there is a brief intermission after the tenth question. Most questions are multiple choice, with some occasional free-entry questions, or mini-games. The Facebook version offers only 5 questions.
In its original format, before each question, one player is given a choice of three categories. Each has a humorous title that has some connection to the topic of the corresponding question. After a short animated introduction, which is often accompanied with a sung jingle about the question number, the host asks the question. Typically, the question is multiple choice, and the first player to "buzz in" and give the correct answer wins the money for that question and gets to choose the next category. If a player answers incorrectly, they lose money, but not before the host wisecracks about it. There are occasionally other question types offered.
In earlier versions' multi-player games, each player is allowed one chance to "screw" an opponent in each half of a full game, or once in an entire short game. Using the "screw" forces the opponent to give an answer to a question within ten seconds. If the player who is "screwed" answers correctly, they win the money while the player who "screwed" them loses money. This basic design has changed slightly in some versions of the game. For example, in the teen spinoff HeadRush, the screws are replaced by pairs of false teeth, so players "bite" their opponent instead. In The Ride, instead of just forcing an opponent to answer, players engage in "FlakJack", where they launch multiple screws into the screen, partially or totally obscuring the question. The player being "screwed" must then answer, even though the question may no longer be readable. In German-language versions of the series, the "screw" is replaced by a "nail" which serves the same purpose.
In You Don't Know Jack: Full Stream, either one or two screws could be awarded in one of two ways: they could be given to the player who gave the fewest correct answers in the "Dis or Dat" round; and to the lowest-scoring player at the break starting Round Two. Unlike previous versions of the game, screws can affect all other players instead of just one, and they make the question more difficult to answer for the players instead of forcing the them to answer within a short amount of time. Examples include removing all vowels from the answers, flipping the text upside-down on their devices, making the text of the question and the answers on the player's devices extremely small or large, or bouncing the answers around the screen in the style of a screensaver program. Others include forcing the players to enter a password, scroll through an excessively long "Terms of Service" form, or choosing a new screen name before being able to select an answer.
In the previous games, different category options were worth differing amounts of money, which was revealed after a category was chosen. This amount indicated how difficult the question would be. Amounts initially varied between $1,000, $2,000, & $3,000, and were doubled during the second round of questions. However, early volumes of the series occasionally featured questions hosted by guests spawned from Fiber Optic Field Trips and Celebrity Collect Calls; these were worth $5,000 and appeared as the first question of the second round. Later games in the series opted not to give players three randomly generated categories, instead giving a set number of questions in a set order. Instead of random questions, players 'buzz in' to set the amount of money the question is worth. Values could range from only a few hundred dollars to $10,000 or more.
Some of the volumes have a feature called "Don't Be a Wimp", which is activated if one player has a very large lead. If no one answers a question, the host may deride the leading player, calling on the audience to shout "Don't be a wimp!", and forcing the leader to answer the question.
In some volumes, the host also punishes a player who buzzes in too early; the question disappears, leaving the player with ten seconds to type the answer. For both The Ride and Fifth Dementia, this is replaced by different punishments: the player is forced to pick from a list of four nonsensical answers, all of which are wrong, or both the question and answers are scrambled. This punishment is only triggered if a player buzzes in at the very instant that the question appears on the screen. In those three instances, the player that buzzed in is not permitted to "screw" the other players.

Question Types

The majority of You Don't Know Jack questions are multiple choice, with four possible choices. Some questions are fill-in-the-blank, requiring a typed response.
Special questions are also played during the game. Each version of You Don't Know Jack has its own different types of special questions, but some of the most common are:
The final round of the game, called the Jack Attack in most versions and also known as the HeadRush in HeadRush, is a word association question. The category for this final round—which generally describes the desired correct answers—was determined differently, depending on which version of the game is being played. In earlier versions of the game, this was based on the final selected category; in later versions, the category is selected by the game or pre-assigned to the episode.
In most versions of the game, a word, phrase, or name appears in the middle of the screen, to which the contestant must find an associated word or phrase that fits the overall category. For example, Star Wars might be the associated word, and the correct answer fitting "movie stars" could be Harrison Ford. Other possibilities offered might include actors not in that film, or other objects or concepts related to the film but which are not stars of the movie. For each associated subject, several potential matches appear on screen one-at-a-time for only a few seconds each before disappearing, and only one is correct. The topics and/or potential answers are sometimes humorous.
Players win money if they buzz in when the correct match is displayed on the screen. An incorrect guess deducts money from the player's score—not just once, but every time the player buzzes in incorrectly. Multiple players play simultaneously, playing to the same words. The words that are not matched will be cycled back in once all seven words have been attempted.
Jack Attack ends after either all seven subjects are either matched with the right answer, or attempted twice. The exceptions are the 2012 Facebook edition and 2015, where all seven phrases are only shown once.
In You Don't Know Jack: Full Stream, only six subjects are given per "Attack". In each case, the same clue and phrase in the center of the screen is presented to the players, with six associated choices—added two at a time—can all be available at once, and more than one answer can be correct. Players earn money for correct choices and lose money for incorrect choices. The later the players choose their answers, the less money is earned or lost per choice. And since each player answers separately on their device, all players can score—either positively or negatively—on all the answers, but only once per selected answer.
In all version of the game, the running total of each player's score is not shown anywhere on the screen during Jack Attack, and this part of the game is usually accompanied by ominous music or ambient sounds. This creates tension between players because of the uncertainty of ranking, and the unsettling atmosphere.

Game show theme

Throughout the You Don't Know Jack franchise, there has been a running theme of You Don't Know Jack taking place on a self-titled televised game show where the players are the contestants. This idea is shown by satirical fake commercials that can be heard while starting the game, and in most games, after the game has finished.
In You Don't Know Jack: Full Stream, instead of the game taking place on a game show, the game becomes a show hosted on a fictional streaming service called Binjpipe. Between questions, the game navigates through the Binjpipe interface. During the game, a new female host speaks before the game, and hosts some question types like Binjpipe Recommends and Data Mining.

Commercials

One of the unique features of the game takes place after it has ended. Before you start a new game, you can choose to listen to You Don't Know Jack staff performing parodies of various radio commercials. The commercials vary in absurdity, selling products such as scented suppositories or foreign language cassettes to help you learn how to speak American.
They also featured phony news stories about everyday things. Examples: "Oxygen: Gas of Life? or Secret Military Death-Vapor?" or "People are falling unconscious for 8 hours every night. What is the 'sleeping disease'? Do you have it? Find out tonight."
Most You Don't Know Jack games feature recurring characters like "Chocky the Chipmunk", a breakfast cereal mascot with the catchphrase "Pink and tartie!" or "Xenora: Queen of Battle", a parody of Xena, Warrior Princess that gets involved in overtly erotic situations. Others are "The Movie Ending Phone", "1-800-me4-sale", "Cancer Stick tobacco lip balm", "Momma's Pride Human Breast Milk", "Buster's Bait Shop" and parodies of public service announcements from the fictional "United States Department of Condescending Paternalism".
The first CD-ROM for The Ride features a CD of a selection of these commercials from the previous games in the series. The disc was titled You Don't Hear Jack and has since been released as a separate product on CD. A second disc titled You Don't Hear Jack 2 was released too featuring commercials from newer versions of You Don't Know Jack. Both are available for digital download.

Hosts

There have been many different hosts of You Don't Know Jack over the years. The following is a list of hosts and the games they appear in.
This is a list of the You Don't Know Jack games released:
There is also UK version, a French version, a Japanese version, and these German versions:
There are also several You Don't Know Jack collections, which bundled different games into one box or offered as a single download for online use. These include:
The You Don't Know Jack series shipped 500,000 units by December 1996. Shipments in the United States alone rose to nearly 1 million by February 1998. By 2001, the You Don't Know Jack series had totaled sales of 3.5 million copies. YDKJ sold above 4.5 million copies and drew revenues above $100 million by 2008.
Inside Mac Games named You Don't Know Jack 2 the best puzzle game of 1996. The editors wrote that it "continues the high standards established by Berkeley's breakaway classic". It received a score of 4 out of 5 from MacUser.
You Don't Know Jack Movies was a runner-up for Computer Gaming Worlds 1997 "Puzzle Game of the Year" award, which ultimately went to Smart Games Challenge 2. The editors called Movies a "hilarious party game", and noted that it "came a close second".
You Don't Know Jack XL won two 1996 Spotlight Awards, for "Best Script, Story or Interactive Writing" and "Best Trivia or Puzzle Game".
You Don't Know Jack Vol. 3 was the finalist for GameSpot's 1997 "Best Puzzles and Classics Game" award, which ultimately went to Chessmaster 5500. The editors wrote, "f it weren't for the addition of the Threeway question format, You Don't Know Jack III would have reached instant-classic status."
You Don't Know Jack: The Ride won Computer Gaming Worlds award for the best classic game of 1998. The editors wrote, "You Don't Know Jack: The Ride ranks easily as the best since the first of the series found its way into the CGW Hall of Fame. And for that we salute the folks at Berkeley Systems and Jellyvision, game designers who really do know Jack, at least where our funny bones are concerned." It also won the 1998 Spotlight Award for "Best Trivia, Puzzle or Classic Game" from the Game Developers Conference.
You Don't Know Jack: Huge received a score of 4.5 out of 5 from Michael Gowan of Macworld, who wrote that the game "will strain your brain while amusing you with its witty banter and rapid-fire action." In 1998, The Huge collection was named the 48th-best computer game of all time by PC Gamer US, whose editors called it "essential stuff."

Other media

During the 2000 presidential election, Sierra On-Line president David Grenewetzki challenged the presidential candidates to play a political version of You Don't Know Jack. The game had been distributed to a few radio stations, and was described as a "litmus test" of the candidates' political knowledge.
You Don't Know Jack also appeared as two books: You Don't Know Jack: The Book and You Don't Know Jack: The TV Book. Both were published in 1998 by Running Press.
There was also a Tiger Electronic Table-top game of You Don't Know Jack, voiced by Nate Shapiro. It featured question cards with a number code on it and a grey button to open a sliding door to show the answers. It was the first game to feature 4 players instead of 3 players. There were also "Sports", "Movies", and "TV" question packs that were sold separately. A standalone handheld version was also released.
An actual television show version of You Don't Know Jack had a brief run on ABC in prime time during the summer of 2001. It starred Paul Reubens as over-the-top game show host Troy Stevens, with Tom Gottlieb's 'Cookie' as the announcer. The show lasted only six episodes, as it received very little buzz and most You Don't Know Jack fans weren't even aware of its existence until long after its cancellation. A previous attempt had been made by Telepictures Productions and Warner Bros. Television in 1996, produced by Ron Greenberg in Chicago; this version, intended as a weekday syndicated show, was not picked up.
After the You Don't Know Jack TV show ended, another show from the makers of You Don't Know Jack called Smush aired on USA Network in late 2001. It was a game of taking two or more words and combining them into one long word. The show started late at night, but was later pushed to later and later times, even up to 3:00 A.M.; until it was eventually canceled.
In 2001, AMC released You Don't Know Jack about MonsterFest, an online game on their website hosted by Schmitty, and the MonsterFest movie marathon was hosted by Clive Barker and Carmen Electra, who gave clues for the game.