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- Mad Men's Biggest Dork Guest Stars On You Don't Know Jack - 7 February 2013
Part of the fun of the very fun Facebook-anchored version of You Don't Know Jack is that because Jellyvision is constantly adding new questions and content, they can stay current. It also means, apparently, that they can have guest stars. Today, the company announced that they'll be adding a new "Monthly Special Guest" episode featuring a fabulous! Hollywood! Star! Or… Rich Sommer, the guy who plays the feckless loser Harry Crane on AMC's Mad Men . Actually, that's pretty great—Sommer has done a good job making Crane one of the saddest jerks on TV, and he's probably a pretty funny guy. The Sommer episode is available now on Facebook . The next guest star will be noted geek-themed fragrance creator and America's Next Top Model winner Adrianne Curry. After that? Who knows. If they keep up this string of random TV actors and celebrities, I'm hoping we get the guy who plays Wynn Duffy…
- You Don't Know Jack Hops from Facebook to Mobile, and It's So Much Better For It - 10 December 2012
One of the greatest reasons to play a game on Facebook, the irreverent video game quiz show You Don't Know Jack expands to iOS and Android on Thursday, and once you've gone mobile Jack there's no going back. I first played You Don't Know Jack in 1995, back when games came on CD-ROM discs. Twelve years later developer Jellyvision is older, slower, and probably less capable in the kitchen than ever before. This doesn't seem to affect You Don't Know Jack , which is still brilliant, especially since it moved to Facebook. So brilliant, in fact, that we've written about it several times . Oh, and it won an award the other day. Now imagine that Facebook game, only without all the Facebook. You're holding it in your hand. You're playing the same people you used to play on Facebook, only they are just squares on the side of the screen, instead of people trying to chat with you about ponies. Here…
- The Biggest Winners Helped This Year's VGAs Tell a Different Tale - 8 December 2012
If the Video Game Awards are actually an awards show, and not just a keynote for promoting upcoming games, then the big news from last night was The Walking Dead: The Game . Eminently quotable analyst Michael Pachter said before the show that if this title, a downloadable self-published game, took home Game of the Year, he'd eat his hat. To his credit, Pachter later tweeted out a request for one , presumably to consume. But the surprises don't just stop there. The Walking Dead won Game of the Year coming out of the Best Adapted Game category. Except for 2003, the first year of the VGAs, when things were very different from today, only two adapted games have even been nominated for GOTY: Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City , and neither won. This is a different time in games development, with publishers looking for games whose characters and stories they fully own. Some might l…
- When You Don't Know Jack Asks You To Marry Your Boyfriend, You Say 'Yes' - 27 July 2012
Now here's an adorable story. The folks at Jellyvision, the company behind wonderful Facebook game You Don't Know Jack , sent us the above video along with the following: * John Zekind reached out to us via @youdontknowjack on Twitter for help with a "secret mission"; * Jellyvision DMd him and his request was that he and his girlfriend Kara Richter were both HUGE YDKJ fans and he was wondering if we might be able to help him customize a proposal: some audio from Cookie, a post, etc. We got super excited and created a game for them that only they could play where the fourth question was the proposal. * We had John fill out a questionnaire (see below) to help the writers create the actual proposal. * John then secured his ring and we sent him private test link to run through; * John proposed this week and, as you can see, she said yes. We are just really excited for both of them and it wa…
- You Don't Know Jack Lead Writer Says Being Funny Is Serious Hard Work - 2 July 2012
I've got a perhaps irrational fondness for trivia games. It's easy to like the genre when your brain is filled up with seemingly disconnected facts; trivia games give them a place to go. A tiny little factlet purpose in life. One of my favorites is You Don't Know Jack , the intentionally irreverent trivia game. Once seemingly doomed to be a relic of the 1990s, YDKJ recently had a comeback on consoles and as a really great example of how to do a Facebook game right. It's somewhat amazing that the franchise works at all: timely humor is hard, and what was funny fifteen years ago may feel forced and dated today. In fact, writing comedy at all is just plain hard, You Don't Know Jack head writer Steve Heinrich told the Gameological Society in an interview . Very few games aim for straight comedy, and it seems even fewer succeed. With YDKJ even access to a never-ending supply of successful co…
- You Should Try You Don't Know Jack on Facebook Right Now [Update] - 29 May 2012
I have many fond memories of playing the original You Don't Know Jack and its various expansions back in the late 90's on PC. Starting today, the series' recent revitalization has hit a new high point: You Don't Know Jack has come to Facebook , and it is wonderful. I actually played YDKJ on the Xbox 360 for the first time just this past weekend. It was an instant trip down memory lane; the game felt like it hadn't aged a day. Well… there were some mechanical changes, and the game didn't quite "feel" the same, particularly in that we never screwed the other player, but still. For the most part, last year's game was a fine revival. But even as we played, my friend remarked at how the game felt like a slowly ticking clock—every game brought you closer to the end of the content you'd bought, and closer to not being able to play anymore. "You know what," we both said in perfect unison,…
- The Kid Who Just Went to College - 8 December 2011
College is a special time in the life of any young man or woman. You're finally free from your parents, ready to meet new people, attend interesting classes, and probably drink with those people and during those classes. While the first year of college can be a very busy time, there's always space for some gaming. A great video game can be a big attraction in a dorm room, and can function as a great way to meet new people. Sexy new people, if you know what I'm saying. But what gift to get for the college freshman in your life? It can be tricky. Now that he or she has headed off to college, everything has changed. A person's social life becomes an entirely new, much more complicated thing. Some games aren't that compatible with an intense college lifestyle, while others are perfectly suited to it. Here are a few gifts that would be great for any young matriculator. The Sword & Sworcery a…
- New Release - YOU DON’T KNOW JACK® - 8 February 2011
YOU DON’T KNOW JACK® is now available on Steam in North America! Loaded with outrageous questions and blistering humor, YOU DON’T KNOW JACK® has over 70 Episodes & 15 hours of cranium-contorting questions.
