Top 9 Games Like Jackbox to Play with Friends

I've tested a lot of Jackbox alternatives with a lot of different groups, and the pattern is always the same: one game turns a quiet room into a shouting match within 2 minutes, and the next game has people checking their phones by round 3. 

Once Quiplash and Fibbage stop feeling new, these 9 games like Jackbox are the ones worth reaching for.

Games like Jackbox: TL;DR

1. Jeopardy!

What it does: Brings the official Jeopardy! game show to your TV, with authentic categories, Daily Doubles, and the full game-show format. 

Best for: Friends who have been quietly preparing for game-show stardom for years and will absolutely dispute a wrong ruling.

The moment the board appears on screen, something shifts. Someone claims a category as their territory, then gets it wrong. Players shout their answers out loud. Nobody's looking at a phone when there's $1,000 on the line. 

Key features

• Three difficulty levels available, so everyone can join in and have fun.
• Everyone plays from the same screen and shouts answers out in real time using the TV remote or paired smartphone as the mic; no passing controllers.
• Supports individual or team play with no rule changes needed to switch modes.

Pros

• Rewards genuine knowledge in a way that feels satisfying rather than lucky.

• Works just as well in teams, lowering the pressure for anyone who opens with "I'm bad at trivia" right before winning.

Cons

• Can be intimidating for guests who dislike trivia; I save it for later once competitive energy is already in the air.

Pricing: 7-day free trial on the Weekend app, then $12.99/month for the full game library (on Fire TV, Roku, Samsung, LG).

Bottom line: Jeopardy! turns a regular hangout into something that actually feels like an event. When I want the room focused, laughing, and mildly arguing about a wrong answer, this is where I start.

2. Song Quiz

What it does: Plays short clips of songs and challenges everyone to shout the title and artist before anyone else does, with multiple decade and genre options through the Weekend app.

Best for: Music lovers, nostalgia fans, and anyone who’s ever said "I know this song, I swear" 5 seconds after the clip ended.

Song Quiz is the fastest way to turn a group of people on a couch into competitors. I pick a decade, the TV fires off tracks, and the race starts immediately. Someone drops their conversation mid-sentence to shout the song and artist's name. 

Key features

• Massive library of decades and genres, so the music always fits the crowd in the room.
• Song Quiz Party Mode (on Fire TV, Samsung, and LG) adds multiplayer scoring for bigger groups.
• Runs on the same Weekend setup as Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune, so switching takes seconds.

Pros

• Sparks stories tied to specific songs; people share memories nobody planned to bring up.

• Gets the whole room competing at once; everyone's in it from the first clip, no rotation needed.

Cons

• Groups with very different tastes may need era mixing; a single-decade setting can leave some guests behind.

• It gets loud quickly, which is great unless your neighbors have a 10 p.m. threshold.

Pricing: 7-day free trial on the Weekend app, then $12.99/month for the full game library (on Fire TV, Roku, Samsung, LG).

Bottom line: Song Quiz is my go-to when I want everyone competing from the first round. It feels less like a quiz and more like a party that happened to turn on the TV.

3. Wheel of Fortune

What it does: Brings the classic spin-and-solve word puzzle format to your TV, where everyone calls out letters and races to crack the phrase before it's fully revealed.

Best for: Guests who love word games and the low-stakes thrill of shouting a consonant from the couch, especially those who claim they "don't like trivia."

With no obscure facts to recall, players just focus on letters, instincts, and the deeply satisfying moment when someone solves the puzzle with only 3 letters showing. The room always splits into 2 camps: methodical letter-callers and bold guessers swinging for the full solve on pure instinct.

Key features

• Classic puzzle board format with everyone calling out letters together; the whole group feels every reveal.
• Works as a team against the puzzle or head-to-head, with no rule changes needed to switch modes.

Pros

• Accessible to guests who dislike trivia; language instinct beats specialized knowledge every time.

• Builds inside jokes fast; a wild guess that somehow lands becomes the story of the night.

Cons

• If one person is significantly stronger at word puzzles, cooperative mode keeps it fun for everyone else.

• Very large groups may need to split into teams to keep everyone engaged between turns.

Pricing: 7-day free trial on the Weekend app (on Roku), then $12.99/month for the full game library.

Bottom line: Wheel of Fortune maintains momentum between heavier games. It's the rare option that feels instantly familiar even to guests who walked in claiming they don't like games.

4. Karaoke

What it does: Turns your TV into a full karaoke stage with on-screen lyrics and real-time pitch and lyrical accuracy tracking that scores every performance.

Best for: Party starters, reluctant performers, and anyone curious just how bad their "Bohemian Rhapsody" actually is when there's data involved.

I love how fast a room transforms into an audition stage once someone picks a song. There's no hesitating after the first person commits. Suddenly, everyone has an opinion about song selection, who's doing backup vocals, and why they definitely could have hit that note.

Key features

• On-screen lyrics with real-time pitch tracking that removes all subjectivity from the debate.
• Song library spanning every genre across multiple decades.
• One remote or paired smartphone subs in for the mic; no extra equipment needed.

Pros

• Pitch scores end every argument; there's no disputing the number, which somehow makes it funnier.

• Pulls in even the guests who said they weren't going to sing; once one person goes, everyone follows.

Cons

• Can get very loud in small spaces.

Pricing: 7-day free trial on the Weekend app (on Roku), then $12.99/month for the full game library.

Bottom line: Karaoke earns its spot not because everyone sounds good, but because everyone always has a good time.

5. Kahoot!

What it does: Lets any host build custom trivia quizzes that display on a shared screen, with players answering on their phones in a speed-scored format.

Best for: Groups who want trivia about their own lives. Inside jokes, shared history, or that one trip everyone still talks about 2 years later.

The real appeal is customization, not the platform. I've played rounds built entirely around a friend group's worst decisions, and it hits differently than any pre-written question set. When the answer options describe something that actually happened to someone in the room, their reaction is better than the game itself. 

Key features

• Fully customizable quiz creation, questions can be about anything, including everyone in the room.
• Speed scoring keeps rounds competitive even when players know the subject well.

Pros

• Custom quizzes built around your group create moments no pre-packaged trivia game can touch.

Cons

• Requires a host to build the quiz in advance; someone has to do the work before the party starts.

• Phone-based answering means players look down between questions, breaking the shared-screen energy that Weekend titles maintain.

Pricing: Free tier available with unlimited public quizzes; paid plans unlock additional features. Available via browser, iOS, and Android.

Bottom line: Kahoot earns its place because the best version of it is one your group built themselves. That version will always outperform anything pre-packaged.

6. Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes

What it does: One person sees a ticking bomb on screen and must defuse it while everyone else reads from the defusal manual and talks them through it before time runs out.

Best for: Co-op groups who enjoy real communication under pressure, and don't mind if "real communication" turns into shouting.

The first game is pure chaos. Someone's reading wire instructions and gets the colors wrong. Someone else is yelling the right answer but describing the wrong module. The timer hits 30 seconds, and everyone is talking over each other. 

Key features

• Asymmetric design means the person at the screen and the people with the manual have completely different experiences, and both are stressful.
• Scales naturally from two to larger groups, with more people on the manual side adding more voices to the chaos.

Pros

• Reveals how a group actually communicates, in both the best and most revealing ways.

• Multiple rounds show real improvement, which adds a satisfying arc to the evening.

Cons

• Requires one person at the screen while everyone else works from the manual; slightly more setup than browser games.

• Not ideal for guests who dislike time pressure; the countdown is constant and inescapable.

Pricing: ~$15 on Steam; the defusal manual is a free download for supporting players. Available on Steam, PS4, Xbox One, Switch, iOS, and Android. 

Bottom line: Keep Talking makes every successful defusal feel earned, and every failure is someone's fault specifically.

7. Gartic Phone

What it does: Combines the Telephone game with Pictionary. Players alternate between drawing prompts and describing drawings, watching the original phrase become something completely unrecognizable by the final reveal.

Best for: Anyone who loves Drawful's chaos and wants zero artistic skill to be not only acceptable but actively encouraged.

Someone types "a duck riding a motorcycle." The next person draws it. The person after describes the drawing in words. By round six, the table is staring at "dinosaur eating a tire," and nobody can reconstruct how you got there.

Key features

• Free browser-based play with no downloads or accounts required.
• Supports 4 to 30 players with multiple game modes, including Knock-out, Icebreaker, and Story variations.

Pros

• Produces genuinely unique outcomes every time; no two chains ever end up in the same place.

• Free and browser-based means zero barrier to entry; if someone has a phone, they can play.

Cons

• The reveal phase runs long with larger groups; energy can dip before everyone has seen their chain.

Pricing: Free, browser-based with no purchase required.

Bottom line: Gartic Phone is free, instant, and guaranteed to produce at least one screenshot-worthy moment per session.

8. Use Your Words

What it does: Gives players strange prompts, e.g., fake subtitles for bizarre stock photos, fill-in-the-blank sentences, and comic book captions. It awards points for answers that fool the group into voting for them.

Best for: Groups who found Quiplash too tame and want prompts that get genuinely weird as the night goes on.

The prompts are stranger than Quiplash's, and the format rewards commitment over cleverness. A terrible answer delivered with complete confidence will always beat a clever one that arrives hesitantly. 

Key features

• Multiple round formats, including fake subtitles, fill-in-the-blank, and comic caption modes.
• Players use their phones as controllers through a browser.

Pros

• Prompts pull unexpected answers out of people; the format brings out a side of the group that standard trivia never reaches.

Cons

• Content can drift edgier as the game progresses; worth knowing your crowd before committing.

• Requires a host machine running Steam, adding a small setup step versus browser-only options.

Pricing: ~$10 on Steam; regularly discounted in sales. Also available on PS4, Xbox One, and Switch. 

Bottom line: Use Your Words is the game to reach for when your group has already exhausted Quiplash and needs prompts with the safety rails removed.

9. What the Dub?!

What it does: Shows clips from old B-movies and instructional videos with one line of dialogue silenced; players submit voiceover lines for the gap, and the group votes on the winner each round.

Best for: Improv fans, people who love bad movies, and anyone who has an opinion about 1950s handshake etiquette training videos.

The source material does most of the work. The clips are deliberately absurd, which means even mediocre submissions land. Watching someone's submitted line dubbed over a 1950s workplace safety film is a specific kind of comedy that this format delivers consistently. 

Key features

• Large library of absurd clip footage spanning decades of B-movies and instructional content.
• Phone-based submission means everyone plays simultaneously with no waiting for turns.

Pros

• The source material is funny on its own, so even average submissions produce good moments.

• Simple enough to explain in one sentence, the first round teaches the game by itself.

Cons

• Less replayable once a group has seen the full clip library; repeat clips reduce the surprise.

• Works best with 4+ players; smaller groups lose the competitive tension in the voting phase.

Pricing: ~$8–$10 on Steam; available on Xbox, Switch, and PlayStation at similar price points. 

Bottom line: What the Dub?! is consistently stupid-funny in the best possible way.

Which game should you choose?

Competitive groups should start with Jeopardy! on the Weekend app, then pull in Song Quiz when they want the same stakes without specialized knowledge deciding it. Wheel of Fortune is the right call when nobody wants to feel tested. 

For laughs, Gartic Phone is free and instant; Karaoke, Use Your Words, and What the Dub?! work best when the group is willing to fully commit.

A good flow: Song Quiz or Wheel of Fortune to warm up, Jeopardy! or Kahoot at peak energy, and Karaoke to wind down.

Bring game night home with Weekend

Weekend turns your smart TV into a shared stage: the same board, the same clues, the same moment of suspense for everyone in the room at once. You shout your answers, the TV keeps score, and the whole room feels every correct answer and every spectacular miss together.

Weekend's lineup for groups who want everyone in the action:

• Play Jeopardy! for classic quiz‑night categories.
• Try Song Quiz and race to name each track.
• Spin through Wheel of Fortune and solve word puzzles together.
• Jump into Karaoke (on Roku) and sing while lyrics show on screen.​
• Play 20 Questions (on Roku) for the classic yes-or-no question guessing challenge.

Weekend runs on Roku, Fire TV, Samsung, and LG smart TVs. Start your 7-day free trial and find out who in your group is better at trivia than they've been pretending.

FAQs

How does Weekend feel compared to Jackbox's phone-tap format?

Jackbox has everyone typing on phones with their heads down. Weekend puts the whole room on the same screen; shouting answers out loud, reacting together from round one. 

Which games on this list work best for groups that aren't very competitive?

Gartic Phone and Karaoke reward participation over performance; nobody's keeping serious score. Wheel of Fortune on Weekend feels collaborative even when you're technically competing. Hold off on Jeopardy! until the room has warmed up.

Do I need strong trivia knowledge to enjoy any of these?

Not for most of them. Wheel of Fortune is a game of pattern recognition; Karaoke measures pitch; Song Quiz rewards music knowledge. Only Jeopardy! genuinely rewards a broad knowledge base.

What's it actually like when the whole group plays Weekend together?

Everyone faces the TV and competes at the same time. In Jeopardy!, the board goes up, and the room starts arguing about categories; in Song Quiz, someone shouts an answer before the clip finishes. The shouting and reactions handle everything else.

Which of these games works best for very large groups?

Kahoot supports 50+ players and is the most scalable option. For Weekend, Song Quiz, Wheel of Fortune, and Jeopardy! handle larger groups well. Everyone competes simultaneously, no rotation. Gartic Phone works up to 30 players with no setup beyond a shared link.