Welcome to the not too distant future! If you are the kind of person who can’t help but take the piss when watching an awful movie or have always wanted to be blasted off into space to live with your robot chums, Wide Right Interactive’s What the Dub? is the party game for you.
The easiest way to describe What the Dub? is a bite-sized episode of Mystery Science Theatre 3,000 via Jack Box. Players are shown a scene from a hokey, old, public service announcement video with a line or two removed. It is then up to them to fill in the blanks with something other than ‘Women, know your place.’
When I say via Jack Box, I mean it. The tone and presentation are nigh on identical, to the point you wonder whether it was a game destined for a party pack left on the cutting room floor.
What the Dub? is just as snarky, silly and, most importantly, fun as your average Party Pack, but unfortunately, nowhere near as fully-featured.
If you have ever played a Jack Box game, you will feel right at home with What the Dub? The setup is identical. The game opens by inviting players to use a mobile device or computer to visit the What the Dub? website, then enter their name and the room code to join in.
Up to 12 players can take part in each game, with six participating and another six voting. A scene then plays with a line of dialogue removed. It is then up to the six participating to come up with a witty replacement before the time runs out. The scene then plays back with the new lines added in, everyone votes on their favourite, the votes are turned into points, and a new round starts. Rinse, repeat until the player with the most points at the end of the game wins.
It’s pretty basic, and much like your average Jackbox game, how much enjoyment you get out of the game is down to how quick-witted the people you are playing with are.
If you’re having trouble figuring out what to say the time you are given to figure it out can be extended, but this does have a habit of killing a round’s momentum, and, like the best rounds of Pictionary, the panic is half the fun.
You can also add pre-recorded sound effects but there’s only so many times you can use a combination of animal noises and farts in place of dialogue.
With more than 300 scenes included, you are certainly not going to run out of content quickly. However, not all of the scenes in What the Dub? are created equally. Some just lend themselves to comedy easier than others, and in the unfortunate event you get a run of dud scenes, it can completely deflate the game’s sense of fun.
It’s also worth noting that What the Dubs? text to speech features don’t recognise the inflexion of what you are trying to say, so some lines which would work well if delivered in a certain way will fall flat.
Likewise, it seems odd that there is no way to replay a scene before everyone makes up their new responses.
If you enjoy taking the mick out of the cheesiest movies you can find or are looking for an alternative to Jackbox, What the Dub? is worthy of your consideration. Just don’t go in expecting an Oscar winning performance.