You Don’t Know Jack!

Some ten or so years ago, I was playing You Don’t Know Jack on my Mac. It was great. Snarky, funny, just a bit naughty, it was a party game that made trivia fun and sitting around a computer a wee bit less geeky.

A few months ago, the folks who make YDKJ (Jellyvision) started releasing daily Dis or Dats, one of YDKJ’s best stand-alone games. Seven fast-paced, generally topical questions asking you to decide, for example, if Goldenrod and Beaver are Crayola colors or Porno movies. (I won’t spoil it: go play that game yourself.) I’ve been playing almost daily.

A couple weeks ago, the fine folks at Jellyvision did the coolest thing: they started producing full episodes of You Don’t Know Jack, filled with random trivia and innuendo. While not as thrilling as playing with friends around a crowded keyboard, it’s been fantastic to revisit the snark in its fullness. And best of all, each episode ends with the Jack Attack, one of the greatest which-two-things-go-together games.

I admit: I’d been jonesing a bit for YDKJ. I don’t remember why I thought about it all those months ago when I went looking for the game, but I was ecstatic that the website and games existed. Not so much that they don’t have Mac games anymore though.

After I found them and played a few of their games, I wrote them a brief email asking them to bring their games back to the Mac (they’re available for Windows XP only):

Please please please make Mac games

Please.
Please.

Please.

I’ll pay you.

Lots.

At least $40 a game.

Really.

And, uh, I’ll be your friend for life.

Jason.

They quickly wrote back.

Hey, thanks for the suggestion. We actually already have a version of YDKJ made for [insert name of system]! All we need now is for [insert name of company that makes (insert name of system)] to pay us a bunch of money, and we will give it to them. But only after a [insert amount of time it would take for us to make a game for {insert name of company}’s (insert name of system)] grace period. So, as soon as all that happens, we’ll let you know. Register for news updates on our site, or, even better, go to (insert name of company that makes the [insert name of system]).com and tell them what a great idea you just had. Just don’t tell them this automated message sent you.

How do you not love that?

Shortly after, I got another response:

Hi there Jason,

Make it $40,000 a game, and then maybe we’ll talk!

As I’m sure you’ve noticed, all of the games we sell in our store are compatible with Windows XP only. At the time that we re-made the old games, there wasn’t enough demand for the on Macs to warrant making them.

But, as I’m sure you noticed, the things on www.ydkj.com are Flash-based, so they do run on Macs. And a most of the web content that we put up in the future will be Flash-based as well. So the future of YDKJ is looking a little brighter for you Mac users.

In the meantime, if you really want to purchase something from our store, I promise that our t-shirts do not discriminate between operating systems. Go buy some!

You friend for life,
Jellyvision

Awesome. I mean, just absolutely awesome. No, I don’t get what I wanted, but they let me down in such a great way, I don’t even care.

The minute Jellyvision releases a new game for Mac, PS2 or Wii, I’m there.

In the mean time, I’m off to play Dis or Dat and buy a t-shirt.

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