Like many of us, I’ve been a player of Jackbox Games for many years. During the pandemic, these games kept my friends and I as sane as we could be. Trivia Murder Party always had a special place in my heart as I absolutely love trivia in general. What a great way to learn things or pretend to be smarter than my opponents? Of course, a Jackbox Game isn’t just your standard bar style trivia put onto a screen for you.
Trivia Murder Party gives you an opportunity to win not just based on your smarts, but also how well you can succeed in mini games. The mini games also help with some of the joy and make the game feel like its open to everyone to try their best. Our host has always been [REDACTED] and he’s had quite a journey with us. He once again joins us on this latest entry, for better or worse, for us as his next victims that is.
Familiar Features With a New Look
Like other Jackbox Games, only one player needs to own the game and others can join from a different device. Many will join from a smart phone or if you’re streaming this with others you can use your web browser. However, one new addition is that Trivia Murder Party III comes with online matchmaking so you can play with additional players if you feel your party is a bit small. Playing trivia feels impossible on your own so it’s great to see Jackbox add this feature, especially to this game. This doesn’t mean you have to play with others. You can play just with your own small group of friends if you choose to as well.
As far as the game itself, Trivia Murder Party III follows the same pattern as its predecessors. Answer a question, those who get it wrong play a mini game to see if they die. When only one person is left alive, a final chase occurs to see who ends up as the final survivor. The game at its most basic level is one of the strongest bits of Trivia Murder Party 3. People who love trivia, really love trivia. The host will provide you with a question and you have four options to choose from. If you are all too good at answering questions, you’ll be thrown into mini games before long to get the game really going.
This is great because it means that any games won’t overstay their welcome. This comes with pros and cons in early access, but we’ll get into some of those later.
A New Chapter in [REDACTED]’s Story
If you’ve been following the Trivia Murder Party series you can learn a bit of lore about our wonderful host and serial killer [REDACTED]. As the developers shared in our interview with them, they began diving into the lore of [REDACTED]’s family in the previous entry but now we get to see more. It adds to the continuity of the series in a fun way. It also pulls from quite a few of people’s favorite horror films. A strange relationship between a mother and son, hmm sounds familiar. It also helps the host have a personality despite it not being a true live show. Jackbox games always allow a bit of their own flavor and personalizing a recurring character really has this shine.
The good news is that even if you haven’t been following along the whole time, the story doesn’t feel unapproachable. You can draw whatever parallels you want between our host and even Norman Bates if you’d like. Either way, the touch of sass and just wanting to make mother proud gives this host personality and what good is a host without personality?
Mini-Games Return
It’s great to see some simple mini games return alongside what can become new favorites. The host likes to put players in difficult situations but for some, with a bit of brain power, you can survive. Those who are good at math will be glad to see the math mini game. Others who perhaps have a high level of spatial intelligence may enough the pouring mini game. This was one I was absolutely awful at. You receive a cup and you need to fill it as close to the top without going over. Simple enough, quick, and always with a bit of random variety as your cup is never truly the same.
Chainsaw was another game that took me a bit to grasp but was fun overall. At-risk players are in a box with a tv monitor above it. Every few seconds players will see where the chainsaw is going to come in from and they must use the perspective to move to a safe space. Of course if this goes on too long it will become more difficult as bigger or even multiple chainsaws come into play.
Classics from previous installments like Chalices and Password return as well for those who want a straight forward mini game. Of course, the odds are you won’t play all of these in one session which means having to play multiple rounds in hopes of giving them all a shot. I don’t expect any of these mini games to be removed as early access continues but perhaps new ones will join the line up in time.
M. Night Shyamalan Plot Twists (Sometimes Great Sometimes…)
There’s some cool bits about the plot twists in Trivia Murder Party III. For the most part, I actually don’t mind them. However, there is one plot twist that feels less exciting than others. At the time of this writing, there are four plot twists for players to enjoy.
Finger Vote is one that feels a bit familiar. In Finger Vote, after each mini game, the ghosts will vote for someone to lose a finger. The alive player with the most votes must cut off a finger. This means they will have one less choice out of the four trivia answers until the final round.
The second is Flashlight Trivia. During this plot twist, until the final round the question is hidden. Then each player get a flashlight to light an area of the question. Once everyone has placed their light, the lights are turned on but can’t be moved. This means everyone must answer the question most likely only knowing part of the question. If all players get the question correct, [REDACTED] will cause the lights to have smaller beams making this more difficult. This fits the theme but can definitely make the trivia aspect harder.
Next we have Jumpscares. Players will be able to trigger a jump scare on other players devices. This can be used to try and get players to choose an incorrect answer or not answer at all. Everyone will get a set number of jump scares and a button to trigger the scares. This is simple enough and comes with a nice scream to try and throw your opponents off.
Now comes my least favorite. While each of the previous plot twists still has trivia at its core, the final plot twist is Subjective Questions. This means that players will now be answering opinion based questions with two options to be chosen. This removes the trivia aspect until the final round and can become a popular vote situation. This is also a strange one when you’re playing with a bunch of random people online. I can see where this would work with friends. You can guess some of your friends opinions for an educated guess, or you can try to stack the vote against certain people and play chaotically. With friends it might bring laughter and silly conversation. Online with random people, this feels less entertaining. Of course you could try to guess what’s popular with random people online but again, we lose the trivia aspect.
Plot twists aren’t my only gripe with the game. Although the nice bit is that this next concern is already receiving a work around.
Instructions Always Included?
When I first booted up Trivia Murder Party, I noticed that the instructions to each mini game would play every time. No matter how many time you’ve played or how many hours you put in, you’d have to hear the explanation each time. When you’re playing many sessions back to back with friends, hearing the instructions time and time again can get repetitive. Thankfully, Jackbox has already addressed this by allowing players to vote to skip.
What this does also showcase is that when Jackbox said they were listening to the feedback from players, they truly meant it. This was one aspect that everyone I know was venting about so to see this feedback implemented so quickly feels wonderful. Of course it also means that players will have to be in agreement about skipping the tutorial and that each player would need to vote on it and be paying attention. Not a huge deal but glad to see this work around implemented.
Customize Your Camper
Something very new that comes along with Trivia Murder Party 3 is the ability to customize your character. You can choose the the doll, materials, head, and outfit. There’s a lot of variety that you can use with your character. This is also a way that players are incentivized to continue playing. The more you play, the more XP you earn, and the more you can unlock for your character.
It isn’t just the way your character looks that you can unlock. There is also a variety of emotes available and more to come. Want to make your character gassy from fear? They can fart out a cloud for all to see. Laugh when you’re in trouble? You can do that too. While your character can only have five emotes prepared at a time, you can change this in between games for different variety. It’s also a fun little thing to do while waiting for your host to begin the game.
The Final Girl… I mean Final Thoughts
Overall, this iteration of Jackbox’s Trivia Murder Party is a fun one. They’ve taken something really fun at its core and added some quality of life features to bring in new and old players alike. It will still be in early access for quite some time, so it will be great to see how they continue to improve on something that is already so beloved. Something I do wish I could do? Select the plot twists that are available to me. I’d probably turn off the subjective questions when playing with certain groups of people. It would also be interesting to be able to select which mini games I’d like to see more often. Granted, these aren’t necessary, but after a few hours of seeing the same mini games and only seeing Canoe once, it would be nice to somewhat ensure the variety actually occurs.
Overall, for those who have spent a lot of time in the previous murder parties, you’ll have a fantastic time with this new entry. It’ll be great to continue see it grow and change over the course of the next year as well. It’s great to have in the rotation while it develops and chases the high of the previously close to perfect Jackbox entries. I’ll definitely be revisiting this one over time as new patches are unveiled to enjoy.
Trivia Murder Party III is now available in Early Access on Steam. Gamer Social Club would like to thank Jackbox Games for the review code.
