Gee, I'm sorry my enjoying something harmless offended you so. You have made me see the error in my ways. It's been known for a long time this is his most hated game. Get over it. I'm going to enjoy what I want to enjoy. If you have a problem with it, fine, but don't whine to me about it.
I horribly injured by your comment. I'm not the one complaining to the people who liked this video. Calling names a such. I'm sarcastic, but I wouldn't say I'm a dick. But think what your feeble mind wants to.
Wow. I'm sorry your feelings got hurt over a negative review over a game which I'm assuming you enjoy. Although, not a popular game, like you stated. In fact, it's pretty widely regarded as a bad game. Enjoy it if you do, but at this point, you need to stop. You're really making yourself look bad. Maybe use your time to learn about better games if you want to play them. There are literally thousands that have a higher ranking.
As dentist, I don't appreciate comparing Phase 10 to a tooth extraction. Phase 10 is much more painful and less enjoyable than anything I do in my office.
+Jacob Mohr I had a root canal and crown done once and it was a great experience, highly recommended, and my new tooth is the best tooth in my mouth. Far better than the original. I wish I could do it again 31 times.
+Lachlan Blackmore Better than the alternative of not having it done, and I'm told better than having your wisdom teeth removed, which I've had all four out at once. While not a week I'd like to relive, it was mostly pain free because of groovy meds.
If you're going to play _Phase 10_, always insist on Fast Mode, where score is kept normally, but *everyone* advances to the next phase, regardless of completion. The player with the lowest overall score wins. The entire game becomes ten hands long, and it's much more fun to play. I suspect it's how the game was *meant* to be played to begin with.
Just played this for the first time this past weekend and I disliked it so much I remembered that it was one of Tom's least favorite games and had to watch him tear it apart (figuratively and literally). I was not disappointed. The worst thing for me is the illusion of agency. As Tom explains there is a tiny modicum of strategy in taking certain cards and discarding certain cards, but that almost makes it worse. 99% of the game comes down to luck (especially in the later phases), and the absolutely infuriating thing about playing this game is experiencing people acting incredibly smug as though they're playing the game "well" and "beating" you, when really they're just getting 5 wild cards in their opening hands. I got stuck on a phase for 4 rounds, and there was nothing I could do. If you don't have the cards you need for your phase, and other people do, that's the game. It's awful.
Phase 10 Twist is what my family has. The phase you're trying to make is determined by where you are on the gameboard and you advance at least 1 space after every hand. Twist phases give the possibility of being able to skip several phases if you complete one, but will set you back big time if you don't complete it. Goes by a lot faster, caps out at about 5 or 6 people and is actually pretty fun. Check it out sometime.
I know you are not a fan of the Phase 10 card game... but have you heard of Phase 10: Upsets (or Upsets: Phase 10) from 1996. This mixes Connect Four and Phase 10 in a great way. I found it at Goodwill today and it seems like an amazing combination. Fast play, short phases to build, high score wins, dropping tiles, pulling tiles from bag.
I am glad the Dice Tower and Tom are taking the time to review games like this; putting them in context of the better games that are out there. I feel reviews, like this one, should have a suggestion of a better game.
Tom, there is a variant in the rules where everyone moves on to the next phase at the same time, regardless of whether they complete the phase. This guarantees that the game is only ten rounds and score actually means something. I still hate the game, but if I'm forced to play it, we WILL use this variant.
I like Phase 10 for 1 reason. My family is not into playing games, but I enjoy games and want to play them with my family. Phase 10 is 1 out of maybe 5 games that my family will actually play with me.
Played this recently at a game group. There were 6 of us, which I think contributed to the length. Exactly like Tom said, I got stuck at phase 2 while others breezed through. Agree 100% with Tom on this one. It has all the lustre of a game bought at a dollar store. Inelegant design in both print and rules. 10 phases is absurdly long for a simple card game (especially a kids/family game) and the game is really down to luck. In my group, we had someone make it to phase 7 or 8 before we had to call it a night after playing for 2 and a half hours °~°
I loved this review. I love how you just calmy keep on discussing the game as you crush the cards. I was taught Phase 10 by an ex-girlfriend's family, they used to play frequently. In honesty I had fun with them, but I think that was due to the people, not the game. I don't hate it to the extent you do Tom, but they gave me a copy of it years ago, and it will likely never get played again.
I keep wandering the isles and ending up in card game sections... glancing at that box going "yeah... that was a thing." I don't think we ever made it to phase 6 without someone giving up in frustration. I think with some serious house rules it could be fun... but then... why not play rummy? Wich with the right people is fun... and about 20 min...
+Wojciech Król I don't think I've played Tooth Extraction. Is it part of the Marathon Man collection? :) Great review Tom (esp. knowing how much he "loves" the original game)
Thankfully, I've never seen this 'game' on shelves anywhere. But once several years ago, when I knew nothing about games, I did buy a product called Level 8 - the idea is the same, but there are only 8 phases instead of 10, there are no wilds or skips, but instead six colors and numbers up to 18 (I think the hand size was also bigger and it was actually possible to complete two phases in one game round, but I may be wrong). And then one major change - instead of a communal discard pile, each player had their own, and when you draw from the discard, you can draw from anyone's pile. It didn't make the process particularly enjoyable, but I think it's leaps and bounds better than Phase 10.
I play this with my inlaws alot. I call it skip Rita. Guess what my mother-in-law's name is. I've introduced them to Wyatt Earp to great success. Hopefully it will become the new thing they want to play.
I have never played Phase 10, but when I was in Brussels I bought a little French game called Level Up! that I thought was the same thing - turns out it seems way better (not great still). It got rid of the scoring system, has less phases to finish, and each player has his own discard pile so you have more choices. And it also has GORGEOUS art and a pasted theme that is quite nice - everyone is trying to reach the moon, so each player has a set of cards to keep track of their phases, each one depicting the player a little closer to the moon, and each deck with its own quirky characters. I might not play it again, but I will not get rid of my copy because of its beauty.
+Chris Mullins Which is one reason I absolutely loathe Phase 10's design. Choosing who to pick on rarely makes for as good an experience in this type of game.
I loved his review. It was hilarious. But what's funniest of all is I actually love this game. My family and I play it all the time. I always have to buy more cards because we wear the deck out. Take the family out of the game and at college it made a great drinking game. Take a shot after each person completed a phase. That's a lot of shots.
I'm in this very small gaming group with some non-gamers. And so far I've been the only person bringing the games. Well for this week, someone asked me if he could bring in Phase 10. I had no idea what that was (I didn't even know it was a card game). In any case, your review made me chuckle. Now I am going to have to play it very soon, though ... Oh well...
Yeah, saw this one coming. :P Definitely a casual game for talking and not really playing games and highly recommend only playing 10 rounds/everyone advances or pick your phase if you're intent for the long haul.
The reason people buy this is because they only shop for games at Walgreens, and they've already bought all the other crap on the shelf. A challenging and exciting twist.
Yeaah. Had the (mis)fortune of installing _an Android port_ of Phase 10. Not even varying the phases to be played salvaged the situation with Phase 10 (too luck-based, not enough decision making, scales in an awful way with higher player count, score keeping is rarely relevant since more often than not exactly one person is in position to win when the final phase shows up [and by 'final', I meant _the last_ rather than the tenth; one stage doesn't usually last ten phases]), it's just _that_ flawed imao. On another note, it's pretty... funny that I bought two packs of regular playing cards during the previous Raya gathering season for the _express_ intent to be MacGyver'd into Phase 10 (I remember I MacGyver'd them into UNO-complete with the action cards!-when I was about half my current age), but most of the relatives (cousins, mostly) I hoped to arrive couldn't come. Those playing card packs are now still sealed about three weeks later. On a second thought about a week later, it's pretty... twisted that ordinary playing cards are better than Phase 10 cards to play Phase 10 because the former is much more friendly to colour-impaired players (Phase VII can then be rephrased into '7 cards of the same suit').
If you take away the Round Mechanic/points system, and just drawing back up to ten as soon as you score a phase, it's actually quite fun and exciting, it's just a race to get all the phases done
+Steven Loomis In Europe there is actually a bundle deal: when you by Linko it costs 12€, when you buy the Phase 10-Linko-bundle, it only costs 10€... ^^
if i finshied phase 1 and i have 4 cards left what shall i do ? do we re shuffle the cards again and get another 10 cards or what ? and for example i finshed phase 1 but the other player did not ? why do i count the score of the cards that i have when the other player didn't finished the phase yet? please explain
I played this game one time. It took close to 5 hours, and my wife and one other person tied, tied the tiebreaker, and tied again. No redeeming qualities to this game. Even more frustrating is that it could be fixed after about 2 hours of design brainstorming and making it into a new game.
+Eamon Burke It wouldn't even take that long to fix it - Every other Rummy Style game - including the ones aimed at 8 year olds (I'd play Croak again as an adult... Not often, in all likelyhood, but... I doubt it would feel like a chore. And even if it did it wouldn't take five hours, I've played games of Twilight Struggle that lasted all ten turns that were over in less than five hours. How do you make a rummy style game that lasts that long?!) - seems to work better than this. Including Rummy. Here's a quick fix - Take out the Phase nonsense, and just play Rummy with these cards. 2 seconds of development, no change of actual assets, and bam! the game's better. ...You've still got an inferior game to Rummy due to the presence of skip cards and the presence of information purely coded by colour, but...
+Eamon Burke i suggest that IF you are not BS-ing and you played the game for 5...yes 5 hours it must have had soemthing to hold you for that long...either that or you are insane for playign a game you say has NO redeeming qualities..I am calling BS on this comment
+Keith Parker it was brought to my wife and I by a couple we love a ton. they said at the end that they had never played all 10 phases, only up to 5. with four people all creeping through their phases one by one, bathroom breaks, and the interminable tie breaker, we played from 8 until after midnight. call bs if you want, but I wouldn't be so rude to tell a guest their game sucks, especially when they said they really liked it, even though they'd never played the entire game. when we got to the end, two people were on phase 10, the other two were close, around 8-9. if they were both on phase 8, that means we played each round in less than 10 minutes including breaks, shuffling and dealing.
+Keith Parker you've clearly never played with a relative, or friend. I once played Munchkin for 2 hours not by my choice but because it was the choice of my nephew.
I was chuckling throughout this review, since I knew what to expect. If you enjoyed this video, you might also like his review of Vasco da Gama at ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-hFLYxGIPu0Y.html and the apology at ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-WBD_bpq70Pg.html
I hate the original game also. And Phase 10 Dice is the same thing but way more mathy. But some of the variations are actually pretty good. Phase 10 Twist ALMOST takes care of every one of the problems in the original game. You move your piece along a board, so you never do 10 actual Phases. There are many spaces where you can choose between two different Phases. If you don't go out but you've laid down the requirements, you still get to move your piece. There are several discard piles to choose from, which not only helps rounds go faster, but there's some tactical consideration on which pile to discard onto for blocking purposes. And there's no adding! The entire thing plays so much faster than the original. I actually enjoy playing this version. I wouldn't call it my favorite game in the world, but it's definitely one I like to pull out for people who play cards but don't play board games. Phase 10 Masters is another option. It's a lot more like the original, but seeing your hand first and then choosing which Phase you want to go for makes it more tolerable. Still no adding. This is a travel-only game for us, and we've house-ruled the crap out of it. The number of discard piles match the number of players, to make it a little more like Twist, so you won't go round after round after round fishing for that one card you need. And we get rid of Phases 1-3, since they are so easy. These both shorten the game considerably, though it still takes longer than Twist. But it's at least tolerable now.
Hahaha, got a good laugh out of this one. Ironically though, I enjoy Phase Ten with my family all the time and I've never had issues with the game. I've even come back from phase 2 when someone was on phase 7 and I won. I can definitely relate to Tom's confusion about "what do people see in this game?", because that's how I feel about literally every co-op board game. Why would I want to play a game where we both win? Where's the fun in that?
I actually love this game. It's one I grew up playing. Many hours in high school were spent playing it. Is it perfect? No. Is it gods awful? No. I honestly don't understand all the vitriol that is spewed toward this game. I understand why people don't like it, but I don't understand why people absolutely abhor it. *Shrugs*
Here's a game - take a drink every time Tom crushes a card in his hand while watching this video. Last person conscious wins! (veteran player rules, replay the video as necessary)
We were getting board and card games for our lobby at my day job and one of my co-workers recommended that we buy Phase 10. My boss bought it. I am not sure how it is popular.
Funny review! I don't think it's that bad, though. I find it more enjoyable than Uno actually. But I would never play it with more than 2 players because it is, indeed, too long.
+jonjon2222 See, a lot of people will say things like this....the game isn't that bad...actually it is. What you, and many other people are really saying is...I have a good time with my family and friends...it doesn't matter what we play, we'll have fun. So yeah, that's awesome that you have a good game group/family, but this "game", is indeed, bad! : )
I don't own that game. And I don't play that game right now. But I've played that game in the past a few times. I'm not saying it's a good game. I gave it a 5 on BGG. It's below average, but it's slightly better than Uno if you don't play with more than 2 players. So no, I'm not saying what you think I'm saying. It matters what I play with my friends. I only play good or great games with them. I choose the games we try very carefully. So I would never buy that game because it's not good enough to be part of my collection. I'm just saying it's not worth the "1" Tom gave it on BGG. :)
Thank you! I tried it with my kids today cause my mom said "Look, I got this game here". First it was complicated, then boring. And after ten minutes we played better games again. But I thought "Either the game is stupid or me understanding the instructions." Now I know. Thank you. Maybe we will destroy that copy. 😈
If you're going to play a game like this buy a deck of playing cards and play a proper game such as rummy, this is a joke! Otherwise get a decent board game. Great review by the way! haha
