'You Don’t Know Jack'’s head writer on mixing trivia with satire and the story behind that ill-fated TV version

Games: The Gameological Society: You Don’t Know Jack’s head writer on mixing trivia with satire and the story behind that ill-fated TV version



Special Topics In Gameology is an in-depth look at a specific corner of the gaming world, in miniseries form. For this edition of the feature—Funny People—Anthony John Agnello interviews a few icons of video game comedy. The series debuted last week with Leisure Suit Larry creator Al Lowe. This week: You Don’t Know Jack head writer Steve Heinrich.
You Don’t Know Jack was weirdly prophetic. The series of trivia video games styled as interactive live TV shows was a phenomenon before the rebirth of the primetime game show or the Wii boom. It was a popular multiplayer game years before online PC gaming became ubiquitous. For all its prescience, though, Jack didn’t kick off a trend of hilarious game design. Few games have matched or even aspired to the brand of antagonistic humor that developer Jellyvision executed so deftly in the 1990s Jack CD-ROM games ...

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