'Quiplash,' a streaming party game for 10,000 people
Most people haven't hosted a party for 10,000 guests (the bathroom situation alone is daunting), but thanks to the internet and Jackbox Games, that's now a super-easy, low-mess situation. Quiplash is the newest game from Jackbox -- makers of You Don't Know Jack and Fibbage -- and it boasts a pretty cool feature: Just one person needs to own the game for up to 10,000 people to play in a single round. This is a game built for streaming.
Here's how it works: One person fires up the game and a unique code appears on his or her screen. Anyone who wants to play heads to jackbox.tv on any internet-connected device, types in the code and viola. You don't need extra controllers or anything, and Quiplash is available now on Xbox One, PC, Mac, PlayStation 3 and PS4 for $10. This means that streamers can go live with the code and invite basically all of their Twitch viewers to join in on the fun. It's rather unlikely that anyone will actually play a Quiplash game with 10,000 people, but it's nice knowing the option is there. Previous Jackbox games allowed players to share codes in the same way, though only for up to 100 people at a time. Maybe this ridiculous, 10,000-player humor game will help lead to a more globalized, connected and compassionate world or something.
As for gameplay, Quiplash requires three to eight "core" players, while everyone else is the voting "audience." The core players go head-to-head, two people at a time, with a prompt and a blank slate. The game offers something like, "An inventive way to get rid of head lice," and two players type in whatever they think will score them the most votes from the audience (probably something funny). The more votes you get, the better your score. Securing all of the available votes results in a "quiplash," which basically means that you're the raddest quipper in town.
"Our goal is to keep making party games that everyone -- and maybe someday, literally everyone -- can play simply by pulling out their phones," Jackbox Editorial Director Steve Heinrich writes on the PlayStation Blog. "We're planning more and more of this in our future games, but for now, we hope our first stab at this feature in Quiplash is a successful first stab, without anyone getting hurt. It's not that kind of stab."
Back in January, ye olde Joystiq crew played Fibbage live on a stream with Heinrich himself. Check out how this no-controller, online-party-game thing works in the archive below.
