Yesterday a new Jackbox game premiered ahead of the “fall” release of Jackbox Party Pack 8, and this is the one likely to be most interesting to Bother’s Bar readers, The Wheel of Enormous Proportions, as it’s the most quiz formatty.
In each round you’re asked three questions, usually Wipeout-esque but there’s normally one in each set that switches things up. Answering correctly earns you points, but doing best on each question earns you extra slices on the Wheel. After each set of three, in secret you put your slices on the twenty-segmented wheel and it’s spun a few times. Each time the Wheel spins your name, you win the increasing pot (although if you share your slice with someone else the points are split). Continue with rounds of questioning and spins until someone reaches a point threshold – at that point any time they earn more points on the Wheel (and only then) they get to spin the Winner’s Wheel, a twelve segmented wheel, some of which have their name on, the others are skulls. Spin your name and you win the game, spin a skull and you go back to the main game and await getting spun in again. Each go on the Winner’s Wheel there are more win spaces and fewer skulls.
There are some extra fillips, but that’s basically the format.
So based on a single playing of the game, what do I think? I absolutely dig the presentation and music. The game has lots of interesting and fun ideas but… I think it might have a pacing issue. Basically, each question takes about 90 seconds to resolve and there are three in a batch, then there a few minutes of wheel spinning and then back to questions. Because you can only win on the Wheel, it’s very possible that people will get near/past the threshold towards the end of round two and then… it’s about another five minutes before anyone gets the chance to resolve the game, and indeed crossing the threshold earning points in the quiz is irrelevant really. Not sure what the solution is really, perhaps turning the third round into alternating question/spin/question/spin which brings up its own set of issues.
TL;DR – good ideas but probably an iteration away from greatness, although luckily Jackbox tend to make sequels of games with potential, so look out for a better version of this in the Jackbox Party Pack 11.
I think one of the things to pick up on re: the pacing issue is that each set of three is effectively around 25 true/false questions anyway so it’s not really like you’d be getting short changed with just two rounds.
Compare to Triv Murder Party where nine times out of ten there’s a fun payoff after each question, and on the off chance everyone gets it right they move on quickly, there’s slog potential here at the moment.