Why Jackbox Party Pack’s first music game was 10 years in the making

Dodo Re Mi is a passion project that's also very technical.

Dodo Re Mi heads to PC and consoles later this month, the first music game from Jackbox Games and part of Jackbox Party Pack 10.

With the franchise full of basically everything — trivia games, drawing games, t-shirt designing and so much more — Stevivor sat down with Jackbox Games’ CEO Mike Bilder and CTO Evan Jacover at PAX AUS to detail why it’s taken ten years of Party Pack to finally delve into the genre.

For those unaware, Dodo Re Mi tasks players to join forces and work together — musically! — to perform a fantastic(ally weird) song and save themselves from being eaten by a hungry musical plant. It’s very silly, and very much what Jackbox Party Pack players expect from a new compilation.

With that premise in mind, gameplay from Dodo Re Mi looks a little more familiar — Guitar Hero style, players will use their phone as a controller and keep time with musical tracks that flow from top to bottom on their screens, working together to perform a masterpiece.

If our explanation isn’t making sense, check out Dodo Re Mi‘s trailer above.

A crazy premise tied with a rather simple set of instructions is what makes a Jackbox game so fun, and Dodo Re Mi looks like it won’t dissapoint on that front. The reason it’s taken this long, though, is because there’s a lot of tech needing to align in the background.

“There is someone [at Jackbox Games] who is very passionate about [Dodo Re Mi and its release],” Evan Jacover asserted. “That was part of it.

“Another part of it was tech catching up,” he continued. “The game plays music out of your phone, and we needed all the browsers available on mobile phones to support that.”

As it’s a team-based game, Jackbox Games also needed players’ inputs to align, which means tackling latency issues.

“One of the challenges is synching up inputs on everyone’s phones,” Jacover continued. “Everyone’s phone is a little bit off, and so there’s this moment where you basically sync your phone and you tap along with what’s on the screen. So, everyone’s phones might be a little off, but you’re getting scored based on what your phone is showing you and not what the screen is saying.

“All that stuff needed to come together to make it work. There are a lot of tools that needed to be built to define what a song is, and get the instruments working, and map timings and all that.”

While players can expect to perform original songs alongside those from Jackbox — and potentially Jellyvision’s — long history, Mike Bilder also said that there are some familiar tunes in there as well. And with that, presumably, comes licensing headaches.

Not so, said Bilder.

“That’s another hurdle of why we can’t necessarily compete with a Rock Band or a Guitar Hero,” he said. “We’re not out there licensing super popular tracks for this.

“There’s a lot of public domain music in there,” Bilder continued. “Recognisable songs, and in some instances, fun takes on that genre. Think a public domain song, but played in a Metallica way. There’s envisaging of that kind of music.”

Expect Jackbox Party Pack 10 on Windows PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X, PS4, PS5 and Switch from 19 October. Other titles in the pack include Tee K.O. 2, FixyText, Hypnotorious and Timejinx.

Jackbox Party Pack 10 19 October 2023 PC PS4 PS5 Switch Xbox One Xbox Series S & X   Buy on Windows PC via Steam Buy on the Microsoft Store