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Brooke Breit: We’re just coming off of releasing Party Pack 10 last fall. Just working on new stuff for this year. Now is the time of development after a release, where we all just hit it again and try to figure out what’s next.

GamesBeat: What is that process like?

Breit: Typically, in a traditional year where we’re releasing a Party Pack and setting ourselves up, there’s usually an anchor title that’s being eyed, like a sequel where we’re really interested based on what the fans have been talking about. We really want this thing! We usually explore a sequel title. And then after that, like last year it was TKO 2, there are just different kinds of games we know make a good pack. We try to have some trivia, some drawing, some social deduction games.

We may have some ideas that have been talked about over the years that weren’t quite ready for a previous pack. And sometimes it’s brand-new ideas we’re working on that year and paper testing. Anyone in the company pitches ideas. There’s a greenlight committee. Then we assemble a pack and game teams based on what we’re working on.

GamesBeat: I always love seeing that Jackbox is still doing well. I remember getting the old CD games. You Don’t Know Jack TV Edition, stuff like that. Is that legacy element important at this point?

Breit: Absolutely. We have a lot of conversations about what the Jackbox voice is, what our brand is, and what we bring to all the products that we make, the games that we make. Are we honoring that history of comedy or irreverence or whatever it is that we bring to it? It’s very Chicago. It’s important. We still have people here today who have been with us from the very beginning, from the long history.

GamesBeat: I always imagine that one of the hardest things to do in video games is to be funny. Is there any secret to that? Is that as much of a struggle as I imagine it is?

Breit: We have a big community within our staff of folks that come from Chicago comedy, the Chicago comedy scene. The joy in creating the games that we make is, our goal is to set people up to be funny. You’re the star. You kind of have everything you need within your tools to do the thing that you need to do to make your friends laugh.

Whether you’re taking it off in your own direction, or we give you that setup and you finish it off with the Quiplash or whatever it is, our goal is truly to make people feel like they can do anything in that moment and have fun and just custom the games to be funny for your friend group. What makes your friends laugh, and how can we set you up to do that?

GamesBeat: Quiplash has definitely been the favorite among me and my friends. We’re still quoting things that we’ve said. Is it kind of awesome knowing that you’re this memory-creating machine?

Breit: Honestly, it’s so cheesy, but it really is. Anybody that’s communicated that back to us–we’re all playing the games too. We play them with our own families. We play at work all the time. We do the same things. When we playtest a game, we have the inside jokes or the things that are created. The memory makers, like you said, happen even within the creation of the games. It’s awesome. It’s so cool.

We had a couple of people come up to us today and just say, you’re part of every Thanksgiving. We look forward to this every year. Our family buys the games and plays them together. The fact that we can make something that serves as a way for people to get together, whether you’re in the same room or playing remotely, that’s really cool. It means a lot to us.

GamesBeat: Your business model stands out, especially today, where we see so many companies scaling up and releasing a $300 million game every seven years. It’s nice to see a company that can do a lot of small releases and keep to a pretty good schedule. Do you have a perspective on how healthy that is and how well it might work for other people?

Breit: We’re lucky that we create these smaller games that are all full games, but within a larger game. Our party pack is a larger game with five games within it. Knowing that, we try to pay attention to our scale and our scope knowing that is a part of the five-pack of games. Our ability to hit the ground running and really give our all to the development of these games – it’s kind of impressive. We’re exhausted half the time, and then we roll right into the next year.

But I think it’s because we always have a lot of ideas floating around. It’s fun to know when it’s the right opportunity to move on certain ideas. We’ve been talking about this thing for a while, but it hasn’t made its way into the party pack. Have we figured it out and fleshed it out enough to try it this year? And then this year, we’re taking a break from the party pack model. This year we don’t have anything to announce specifically yet, but we’re excited to share with our fans that we have some surprises and some new things coming out this year that are a little bit of a break from what we usually do.

GamesBeat: You’re bringing back the You Don’t Know Jack TV show. [laughs]

Breit: [laughs] It would be amazing if I could announce that today. But no. We listen to our community a lot. We’re constantly putting out surveys or just receiving feedback. The things that we know our fans want. The base level I can say is that we’re working on some things to release this year that will be a bit of a response to things we know that people have been asking for. A product, in addition to a way of playing games that is going to make it easier for our community and fans.

That’s as much as I’m allowed to say. The thing that I was allowed to share is that we have three surprises coming this year. We’re going to be announcing the first one sometime by late May. It may be a bit earlier, but we’ll do an announcement. Then some stuff coming late in summer. Then something at the end of the year, more like fall. We were looking to mix it up for ourselves and try some new stuff this year. We’ll see what happens. It’s exciting for us too.