Phobies:Turn-Based Tactics

I've been playing this for the past few weeks, & am so glad my friend referred it. Even the challenges are fun to attempt. I recommend them to newcomers because it’s incredibly helpful in teaching the more complex strategies & win conditions. The monetization is fair with frequent enticing sales. My main criticism is the roster selection. After a certain amount of Phobies, the game allows you to create a favorites list. However, rather than have your roster preset to those favorites during matches, the game forces you to scroll through your entire collection. It’s annoying to keep pressing the star every turn. I ask the devs to let us start in the favorites view, then decide whether we want to dip into our less desirables. I understand us being forced into the miscellaneous Phobies if we run out of or can’t afford to play any favorites, but it’s quite frustrating as a default. Maybe defaulting to favorites during gameplay can be setup through the album feature. My only other complaint would be the inability to rejoin an arena match after getting disconnected. Otherwise, great game. You always surprise me with how many fears you’ve brought to life. And the puns!😂 I hope this game lasts a long time.

Been playing for a week so far. The art and animation is really great. I have nothing but praise for that part of the game. The gameplay is good, the “Phobies” while quite difficult to collect are interesting and rewarding to play with and find the best combos. I wish I could rate this game higher but there’s one big thing that irks me… The resource gathering cap. Why would you penalize your players for playing the game? Once I reach my cap it’s irritating to know I could keep playing but not receive any reward. I have turns to take but if I’m capped I don’t play, I just wait until the cap resets and then go back in and take my turns and start new games. I very much hate the cap, it definitely makes me want to play the game less often and I may not stay with it for that reason. If I want to grind let me grind. Another thing I’m not a fan of, thought much less of an issue than the one I just mentioned, is the infinite redos you can make on your live turns. I’m a fan of being able to redo all your moves on the async games, but in the live ones watching my opponent redo every move multiple times over and over until their time clock runs out is a major drag. I wish I could rate it higher because it is a cool game, but I don’t think it’s a game that I’ll stick with in the long run.

Where do I begin… like many have said, it reminds me of Outwitters (which I loved but the devs stopped supporting). Some have said there is a small team behind this one and you would never know. Game is polished, art is lovable and unique, strategy is there, casual mode, ranked ladder, bonus puzzles, seasonal rewards, friendly battles… you get the idea. It even seems like they have interest in building a community behind it with discord and forums. And it’s all FREE. People are complaining about having to grind too much and I think they’re forgetting it’s free to play… we play to grind, sure. But also for the fun of the game itself. And obviously, you can pay for progression if you want (which I will be doing because I already have the itch). I wouldn’t say there’s too much advantage to “pay to win” as it boils down to strategy and rank by the end of it, you can still outplay others by playing smart. All in all, I’m very excited to see where this game goes and what additions they can make as I work towards collecting the already expansive list of Phobies. I’m hooked lol. If you’re on the fence, just give it a shot, it’s a free game that if you enjoy a little strategy, I think this could quickly become a favorite.