Jackbox Party Pack 9 could feature accessibility features from previous games and will also have a drawing game with a no drawing option available.
Speaking to Fanbyte, Mike Bilder, CEO of Jackbox Games, and Evan Jacover, CTO of Jackbox Games talked about accessibility across the Jackbox Party Pack game collection and about the upcoming Jackbox Party Pack 9. While not much was disclosed about what the new collection will contain, it was revealed that one game that involves written and drawing questions will have a no drawing option.
“We’re still in the midst of production so it’s difficult to speak to features in Party Pack 9,” Jacover explained, “we recently heard from a team that a game that has both written and drawing questions will have a no-drawing option to make the game more accessible.”
“Over time, and as you’ve probably seen, features expand in our games.” Bilder explained, “We have certainly shifted our mentality on that.” He described that they’d set games to the default way of playing in what they believe to be the best way to experience them, but then “give those options to the user and let them set up the game how they want to play it and have fun with it.”
The interview talks about how user feedback was behind a lot of changes such as how the mobile phone controller works for blind and low vision players or the color blind features in Trivia Murder Party. “A lot of this has been driven by the community, and just understanding what the needs of the community are,” Bilder said.
Additionally, the studio usually brings in a variety of players to playtest new games and accessible features, but the pandemic appears to have changed this. Despite that, while games for Jackbox Party Pack collections can vary, it seems features from previous collections can carry over. “Simple things like subtitles, for instance, that is now basically a mainstay for all the products going forward, and I expect that will be the case going forward for any of the games we make.” Bilder detailed.
