In our household we routinely have a “games night” at least once a week or two. We invite some friends over, pull out some board games, and make an evening of it. I admit, we rarely turn on any of our consoles during these nights, but we might now have a good reason to do so. New from Jackbox Games – the developer of the You Don’t Know Jack series – is Fibbage, where lying is the key to winning. Does lying to your friends make for a good time?
Once you launch the game, all players are told to open the Fibbage.com website on their own device – be it a smartphone, tablet, or perhaps even a desktop PC. It doesn’t really matter so long as it has a relatively competent web-browser. Once there, each player simply enters a 4-character code that’s displayed on the game-screen, and a name they want to appear as. When everyone is ready, just pressing a button on any of the devices will trigger the start of the game itself.
The game opens with a short intro, with the familiar host from the YDKJ games (Cookie Masterson) explaining the objective. The way the game works is one player (chosen by the game) is given a choice of subjects to select from, and then the players are presented with a bit of (typically obscure!) trivia with a word missing. Your goal is make up a plausible-sounding lie of what that word is. The genius of having each player using their own device allows them to type in an answer privately. After all players have provided an answer, they are then presented a list of answers, made up of all the players’ answers, sometimes some lies from the game itself, and one answer which is the actual truth. You want to have your opponents choose your answer (as you get points for each time they do), while trying to pick out the true answer yourself (which also awards you points). You can lose points too if you choose one of the game’s lies. As with entering an answer, choosing an answer is done by tapping on the option on your own personal screen.
If you enter the right answer when trying to come up with a lie you will be prompted on your personal screen that you have guessed the right answer and to enter another lie. This happened to me a few times and had me scrambling to put something in, because you are on a timer to get an answer in. The game provides a “Lie for me” button that can help, but if someone chooses your answer as a result, you only get half the points you normally would have.
There are three rounds – the first two rounds have three questions each, and the last round (“The Final Fibbage”) has one question. Point values will increase each round, so there is always a chance to make a big comeback, which I did a few times.
An interesting component of the game is that after choosing an answer, you can give answers a “thumbs up” if you find it amusing. Although players receiving these kudos do not get points from them, at the end of the game the player with the most “thumbs up” gets noted for bragging rights.
One thing I wish the game offered was spelling correction, because when you are rapidly trying to enter an answer mistakes can happen, which will give away that it is obviously not the right answer. Another minor nuisance is that you may want to disable the screen-saver mode on your XBox One, because many times we had the screen go dark suddenly because no joystick inputs were being made (since all actions were on our devices).
You can have as little as two, and as many as eight, players at a time. We tried it with two and with a group of five, and the larger group was a better experience overall, because we were chatting and laughing about what was happening. It was still fun with just two people, but the diversity of answers obviously wasn’t as large.
The game is light on the graphics, but what it does deliver is bold and fits the style well, and crucially, the text is very clear to read. Animations on the game screen are fun and flashy, but nothing new for a Jackbox game. The web interface on the personal devices is just giving you spots to enter your answer and simple buttons to choose from – nothing complex, just clear and straightforward.
As I mentioned earlier, the same announcer from the You Don’t Know Jack games hosts. I’m glad, because his tone and demeanor really works for this type of game. He is not as chatty which is good, and makes the game go a lot faster, but he’s still quite amusing!
I have to admit I enjoyed Fibbage much more than I thought I would. Games were fast, roughly lasting 10 minutes or so. The writing and the subjects to choose from are amusing and clever, and I enjoyed them all. I am curious to know just how many questions there are stored in the game, because we did see repeating subjects but no repeating questions so far, which is good. I can easily imagine DLC packs will be released in the future with more questions and commentary from Cookie, which should add to the game’s longevity.
In the end, Fibbage is an enjoyable party game for those wanting something quick and light hearted. When we played it with friends and the question was asked if we wanted to play again someone had already pressed the option to start another round. And again after that game. And again. Needless to say, Fibbage just makes lying fun!
