That's a Fact, Jack! (lost edutainment game predecessor to "You Don't Know Jack"; 1996-1999)

The game's logo.

Status: Lost

That's a Fact, Jack!, also known as That's a Fact, Jack! Read and TFJ, is a 1990s interactive edutainment CD-ROM game made for grades 3-10. The game takes 5-10^[1] school books and turns them into game-show styled questions to test the students' reading and thinking skills. TFJ also has a question type called "Use It or Lose It" which is basically a true-or-false question.^[2]

This game is accompanied by a host called Jack Patterson (acted and voiced by Patrick Heupel)^[3] who talks in a way that makes him seem like he's really there. The game was a fan favourite among students and teachers^[4] and won awards in its time. There are currently 45-60 different CD-ROM titles released from 1996 to 1999^[5], none of which were released retail and were only released in schools and libraries.

History

In 1989, Harry Gottlieb founded Learn Television, an educational learning company. They first released the 1991 movie "The Mind's Treasure Chest". In 1994, Gottlieb also founded the company Jellyvision, a video game development company.

Learn Television partnered with Follett Software Company to create "That's a Fact, Jack!". At the same time, Jellyvision partnered with Berkeley Systems to make "You Don't Know Jack", a more adult version of TFJ. Both games were in development simultaneously, but YDKJ released in September 1995, and TFJ released in April 1996.^[6]

TFJ first released with around 25 books under its belt.^[7] In 1999, there were around 300 books covered. Then, Follett Software Company gave the distribution rights to Tom Snyder Productions at January 29th 1999.^[8] After the change of distribution rights, the title got changed to "That's a Fact, Jack! Read", and the game got a release on Windows systems, as it used to be only available for Macintosh systems.^[9] Tom Snyder Productions covered 150-300 more books afterwards.

Information

Currently, all 45-60 titles are lost. The amount varies between sources and it's unknown if there is more or if there was going to be more.

The only things that remain of the game itself are these screenshots and this demo video which was taken from this flash file. There are also 2 discs out of 60 that have images online.

Some title names are different depending on the source (refer to CurrentWorkSinc (archived) and WorldCat) as well as the amount of books and which books were used. As such, there isn't a fully reliable list out there. Use the links provided to make your own list. Some links in WorldCat can have possible libraries listed that could have the discs. For example, this disc and this disc.