While my family and I have gotten pretty jaded over the years when it comes to local multiplayer games, one series that we’ve tended to enjoy on a pretty consistent basis have been the Jackbox Party Packs. While not every iteration has been a clear hit, and the two releases last year had some challenges, on average there have been more games inside the packs that we’ve loved than those we haven’t. This year’s installment may not have anything that’s clearly set to be an instant classic, but its diverse offerings are well-made, thoughtful, and in general allowed us to have a great time for a few hours.

Starting with Doominate, the goal will generally be to take something and see who is better at ruining it. At first, we actually thought this was going in the direction of being like Quiplash, but more constrained, but once we got further the fact that people had to provide their own prompts for others to ruin helped make it more fun. Topping things off by then trying to figure out how to turn something ruined around to then unruin it, was a nice touch as well. Once people really get into the groove with this one, and get a feel for the audience, it seems ripe with potential, especially when crapping on things someone else likes for maximum laughs.

Suspectives is one of those where we immediately knew that without people participating closer to the max number of 8, it was going to be a bit too simple. Their social deduction games have always worked that way, and it’s fine if you understand the limitations of the format, but I will say that the method this game uses is better than some. Having each person fill out a pretty detailed list of unusual questions, to then use as the basis for getting people talking and working to figure out whodunnit worked nicely, especially since some of the multiple choice questions felt pretty left field. By making who the suspect is tied to personal details that should mostly be outside the scope of things everyone would know, it’s both a great way to get it playing out differently every time, and to work as a means of getting to know each other as well.

Hear Say may have been our favorite game of the bunch, but that also comes with a caveat. Here each player is prompted to make some specific sounds into the mic on their phones. The sounds people generally made were often fun enough to start, but then the game layering those over video of some kind to compliment it usually made them even goofier. The one big challenge here is that ideally people would all leave the room or separate pretty significantly for everything but voting. In particular, the initial challenge mini games using sound were prone to getting confused by sounds elsewhere, and while we took turns to put in the sounds for the prompts to avoid problems, for the mini games everyone had to do them at the same time. As long as you can work around that issue though this can be side-splittingly funny.

Cookie Haus is another new take on the drawing games they’ve been toying with since Drawful. Very similar in structure to Tee K.O., everyone will need to use their artistic skills with their phone touchscreens to create a cookie masterpiece. Working with different potential shapes, icing colors and thickness, and a variety of sprinkles, you can absolutely make some wonderfully horrible designs, and the prompts for what you’re making did a great job of teasing out some variety. The fact that you’ll then go back to cookies from previous rounds with the challenge of somehow fixing them, just then adds to the fun, and while nobody in the family is much of an artist we still had a good time with it.

Bringing up the rear, Legends of Trivia is actually a great and pretty unique idea, taking their trivia game format and making it a team effort. With everyone playing as an old-school RPG party, complete with different classes, you’ll need to try to brainstorm the proper answers to trivia questions to keep pressing on, slaying monsters, and to try to complete your quest. With a few different skill levels and branching paths making you choose where to go after each question you survive, this has a feel unlike anything I recall playing in the Jackbox packs over the years, so I appreciate the big swing. That this could be played a few different times with people working together to make progress is also just a novel concept I do appreciate.

All in all, where most of the time these packs tend to have one or two clunkers, everything here legitimately felt like a good effort and worthy of some fun at a party. Of course, part of what works is that the majority of games are adhering to other successes the team has had in the past, so it isn’t quite as original, but at least in all cases they did manage to give the games a tweak beyond mere theming. It’s a nice turn-around from the streak of less successful titles they’ve had in the last year.