One of the greatest reasons to play a game on Facebook, the irreverent video game quiz show You Don't Know Jack expands to iOS and Android on Thursday, and once you've gone mobile Jack there's no going back.
I first played You Don't Know Jack in 1995, back when games came on CD-ROM discs. Twelve years later developer Jellyvision is older, slower, and probably less capable in the kitchen than ever before. This doesn't seem to affect You Don't Know Jack, which is still brilliant, especially since it moved to Facebook.
So brilliant, in fact, that we've written about it several times. Oh, and it won an award the other day.
Now imagine that Facebook game, only without all the Facebook. You're holding it in your hand. You're playing the same people you used to play on Facebook, only they are just squares on the side of the screen, instead of people trying to chat with you about ponies.
Here, I'll help:
Just imagine a frame around that. Pretend you're sitting on the toilet. Okay, you're pretending too hard now.
It's hard to explain just how perfect this version of You Don't Know Jack is, especially running on an iPad. Kicking back on the couch, the dulcet tones of Tom Gottlieb belittling you for getting that pot question wrong. A Gibberish Question pops up on the screen, hello there, old friend.
Update: Since I was apparently too vague, let me clarify: this is the Facebook game running on mobile. There is an option to play with random people without logging into Facebook, but it's the same five-question game. Like the Facebook game, it'll be free to play.
It doesn't feel like a game made for a tablet. It feels like tablets were made for this game.
So I've over-hyped it a bit. The game is out in three days. That's 72 hours, with a hype decay rate of 2.54. By the time Thursday comes around it'll be just right.
Until then, you can play the game on Facebook. It's just like playing on the iPad, only not as good.