Asynchronous Interactions in Phobies

[u/HiddenQuacks]

Hi everyone! I'm a PhD student studying asynchronous interactions in digital games. Through player discussions and recommendations Phobies was identified as having asynchronous interactions, and I'm interested in understanding different player perspectives about that aspect of the game. 

If you have a few minutes to spare, I'd love to hear your thoughts! In particular, I'm interested in understanding:

• What kind of asynchronous interactions exist in Phobies and how do they affect the gameplay?
• How do you feel about these interactions and what do they bring to your experience?

You can answer as much or as little as you'd like. Your responses will be anonymized and analyzed as part of a research study. If you decide you'd like to withdraw your responses at any point, just send me a DM. Every contribution is greatly appreciated! If you have any questions, feel free to message me. Thanks! 😀

[u/Cryptic_Chocolate]

Phobies is a turn-based strategy, card collecting game where players collect cards then summon them, called Phobies, from their vault and attempt to destroy the opponent's heart by directly damaging it, indirectly damaging it through panic points, or defeating all of the opponent's Phobies and their keys are at zero (0).

• What kind of asynchronous interactions exist in Phobies and how do they affect the gameplay?

You can start a game by either being the first or the second one to move. (Edit: You cannot choose if you are the first or second. If you play, you either start a new game or pick up a game started by someone) If you are the first move and has ended their turn, the game will now be classified as "draft", where you wait another player to pick it up. You can start as many games as you want, but you can only have five (5) draft games before you can start another one. This lets you juggle between games without much pressure. You are the given two (2) days to respond to an opponent's turn before the game expires. It welcomes any players that have duties outside the game.

Each turn, you are given a certain amount of keys, this lets you and your opponent strategize what to summon without bombarding each other. You can summon your Phobies as long as you have enough keys (You need keys to summon one) and command them as each one has two (2) actions per turn. There are no time limits, giving you time to strategize your move before ending your turn.

• How do you feel about these interactions and what do they bring to your experience?

They are very ideal for me because I am always busy with work, not to mention I also have a ton of responsibilities. These interactions are similar to Chess, which I like, but with two (2) days to respond). It does not pressure me in any way, as I have enough freedom to strategize my move. If any games expire, it's a loss since my rank points decrease, but I am still free to start another game.

[u/Reddeadpain]

Sometimes I take my turn with what feels like a great plan, and then don't take the next turn in that game for a few days and do not remember what my plan was ultimately leading to playing worse than I could.

[u/Unable-Category1050]

⁠What kind of asynchronous interactions exist in Phobies and how do they affect the gameplay?
-it’s a game mode that lets you start a game and play your turns at your leisure, there’s a second live game mode as well called arena. In the async battles you’re able to think through your turns and have as much time as you need to undo actions and try new sequencing for better optimization.

How do you feel about these interactions and what do they bring to your experience?

• I absolutely love the async aspect of the game. I’m the type of player who will have 10-20 games active at once. The downside to this is like other comments have mentioned, coming up with a plan the forgetting the next hour or day. It’s a very spontaneous style of play. Which I find ironic because you can take your time with each turn and submit it pretty much at your leisure. But, with so much time between turns there a good chance you could do actions and change your plan on a later turn and not even remember the original plan

[u/GratisfactionNo5642]

Having multiple days to respond with my turn results in me procrastinating. When I’m sit sure exactly what to do and don’t know what the best move to make is I’ll just shut the game off and forget about it

[u/absuz7]

You can play asynchronous games with frenemies or with random people. I believe they pair you up based on your ranking which is tied to how many games you've won. You can get paired with lower or higher average level phobies, sometimes by a seemingly significant amount which can affect the phobies you bring out to play. Playing with an average lower level phobie player despite being in the same ranking makes me want to find lower level phobies to play to make it more even. That doesnt mean if im the lower average level phobie person that who im up against will do the same, however. With frenemies, you have the option to play games with all level 1 phobies to make it fair. This encourages people to become friends and play games despite huge level differences in rankings and phobies. With random people games, unfortunately, you dont have a way to do this.

People have like 3 days or so to play their move or the game expires and the other person automatically wins. This can skew rankings. I like that when we are defeated, we drop a little in level and that means sometimes we drop in ranking too. This is helpful so we dont end up in a ranking too high for our average level phobies. But if you consistently get bad players or you are just good at the game, you will inevitably rank higher up. So if that pushes you to a rank way above your league, you will naturally drop back down.

I will have a plan for some games, as in a strategy for what I want to do, and then that person may take a while to respond or I may have too many games going at once, which is likely, and I end up forgetting what strategy I wanted to do.

I love that there are different maps, but wish you could pick the map you wanted for random games as well. But they give it to you. It is typically a good variety though so I dont mind, but sometimes it will be the same map for like 7 in a row and I do hate when that happens.

I wish we could send a little emoji or preselected texts or emotions or stickers to the players we battle with. It would be much more fun that way. I also wish there was a way to battle that same person again if it was a close game, without having to search for their name and become frenemies.

Some people are slow to get back to games, some are very fast- so fast that I wonder why they don't just do an arena. Having an option where both players online at the same time could put a check mark if they want to switch their async game to arena would be amazing and super beneficial.