Jackbox 12's Wildest Game Turns Your Selfie to Taffy

Smudging someone's nose like it's made of taffy. That's how Game Director Tim Sniffen describes Hyperface, one of five new games revealed yesterday for The Jackbox Party Pack 12, and it might be the most creative use of a phone controller the series has ever attempted.

Hyperface uses your phone's camera to let players take a selfie (or grab a stock photo) and then warp, squash, stretch, and draw on it in response to prompts like "your face when you've just seen a bear." According to a post on the PlayStation Blog, Sniffen says the reveal moment is usually the highlight of any playthrough, whether someone goes all-out or does something as subtle as a tiny eyebrow raise. It follows Party Pack 11's Hear Say, which experimented with the phone's microphone. Leaning into phone hardware features feels like exactly the right direction for a series that could easily coast on word games and drawing prompts forever, and I'm curious how wild the results get with a room full of people.

The other four games round out a pack that Jackbox says is focused on "deeper human connection." We Forgot a Card has players designing absurd greeting cards under time pressure, pairing stock imagery with player-written taglines. MegaPals is a speed-based word association game where you score points by matching answers with other players. Idol Factions splits the room into two teams racing to sort words into the correct categories before time runs out. Debate and Switch drops players into a chaotic town hall where they argue for or against bizarre hypotheticals, with the option to craft custom debate topics.

Debate and Switch has an interesting origin story. Senior Audio Lead Nate Sandberg, who pitched the game, said the original inspiration was the movie Rat Race before he realized a board game called Pricetitution already covered similar ground, so the team pivoted into debate mechanics instead.

The Jackbox Party Pack 12 is coming this fall to PC via Steam and Epic Games Store, PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch, Switch 2, and Apple TV/iPad/Mac.