JACK IN THE JACKBOX


Matt Broughton spoke with Allard Laban and Belia Portillo, respectively the Chief Creative


Officer and Senior Global Marketing Manager at Jackbox Games


M


att: Tell us about Jackbox Games. Belia: We’re a studio that develops and publishes games with a focus on comedy. Our games are a lot like digital


board games that don’t require additional controllers to play. We also recently started publishing games from independent developers.


Matt: How did the company come into being? Allard: The company got its start in the 90s as an educational feature film studio with one feature under its belt, “The Mind’s Treasure Chest,” which followed one student’s journey in discovering the true power of knowledge while learning how to use the tools of the library. From there, the team moved into interactive educational applications using Apple’s HyperCard as the platform. That HyperCard stack, “That’s the Fact, Jack,” ended up being reworked in a mock-up to answer a call from friends at Berkeley Systems (the flying toaster screensaver people), who were looking for a product path away from screensavers and toward what CEO Wes Boyd called “Adult Games,” always followed up with “Not porn!”


24 | MCV/DEVELOP May/June 2026 The Jellyvision team, led by founder Harry Gottlieb, infused pop


culture with high culture to answer questions about Scooby Doo and Shakespeare combined in equal measure. Jellyvision went on to create several You Don’t Know Jacks before changing its name to Jackbox Games in 2013, giving Jellyvision’s other business, The Jellyvision Lab, a confusion-free path to expand its medical benefits advisor


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