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Nick Jonas wants to help fans “fall in love” with Linkee, the same way that he did. The singer-songwriter collaborated with Big Potato Games to release his very own version of the popular U.K. trivia game in which players attempt to find the link between different words.
Jonas first played Linkee during a game night at the home of a rock legend. “I was on a trip with my wife [Priyanka Chopra] and went to a friend’s house,” Jonas shared in a phone interview with Billboard last week. “That friend happened to be Mick Jagger, of all people. He was playing Linkee with all his friends so we played. We had a great time. I fell in love with the game.”
Soon after, Jonas mentioned the game in an interview, and Linkee contacted him for a collaboration. “I said, ‘I’d like to do my own version of the game and launch it in the U.S.,’” Jonas recalled. “They were down, and we started to get to work and basically helped craft the packaging, some of the questions, the quiz aspect, and I said ‘I’ll blast it out and help people fall in love with this game the same way that I have.’”
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Designed for at least two players, ages 12+, Linkee: Nick Jonas Edition includes 260 question cards, four scorepads, one sticker and instructions on how to play. The object of the game is to guess the link between a series of words. For example: a potential question would be to find the link between “cheese,” “waffle,” “French” and “curly” (spoiler alert: they’re all fries!).
Jonas’ version of Linkee features questions that are “all over the map,” which makes the game more fun, he explained. “I think that for the game to really be engaging and exciting for people from all walks of life and even knowledgeable on different subjects, it’s important that it touched a bunch of different topics.”
To start, players break into teams and attempt to answer questions on the card. If the answer is correct, the player will get a card with a letter on the back. The first team to collect six cards that spell out “L-i-n-k-e-e” wins the game.
“The hardest part is to do your best to not overthink, ” he advised. “It’s not always that complicated. Sometimes you get a question that’s potentially simple and a lot of people overthink it and second-guess themselves. When you’re playing in a team setting, what I’ve noticed is you have to have someone who’s focused on what the simplest answer could be and then someone to dissect it a bit more and see if it’s more of a challenging card.”
Linkee can be played one-on-one or in a team setting — like the Jonas Brothers do when they’re on the road. “We play a lot on tour. I have a pretty good track record, but Kevin does pretty good and then Joe — as I mentioned before with the player that tries to find the simplest thing — he’s sneaky in that he’ll call out something random that ends up being the perfect answer that none of us are really thinking about. We all have our strengths, I’d say.”
A trivia game might be outside of what fans would expect from the 29-year-old recording artist, but he wants to branch out more when it comes to new projects. “I am a real fan of trying to create experiences for my fans,” said Jonas. “This last couple of years I’ve been really focused on shows, writing, recording and all of that, but also branching out and finding things that I’m really passionate about, that feel authentic to my life, that I can either introduce to my fans or give them my own spin on. And that’s everything from CPG [consumer packaged goods] brands to something like this, which is obviously a bit outside the usual realm of projects that I do, but something I’m incredibly passionate about and love, so it just made perfect sense.”
Besides Linkee, Jonas has his own tequila brand (Villa One Tequila) and in March, he teamed up with his brothers to release Rob’s Backstage Popcorn.
Linkee: Nick Jonas Edition retails for $19.99 and is available at Amazon, Target and Walmart. Click the link below to purchase the trivia card game.
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Linkee: Nick Jonas Edition
$19.99
