Can you not do without your phone? Do you always have it in your hand like an extra appendage? Are you always texting and sending messages? That could be difficult when it comes to game nights with friends and family. But what about putting the phone away and enjoying a fun party game based on text messages, just offline and no phone needed? You can see get a text message fix, of sorts, and have lots of fun! I have been playing the excellent New Phone, Who Dis? from the creators of What Do You Meme? A card game where players compete with each other to create the funniest text message thread.
New Phone, Who Dis? is an adult party game for 3 to 20+ players, aged 17+ (due to mature language and references). Depending on how many people are playing it can have a playing time from 30 minutes to 90 minutes.
In the box:
- 150 Inbox Cards
- 300 Reply Cards
- Instructions
New Phone, Who Dis? is a card based game. The idea of the game is to reply to the INBOX message card with the funniest REPLY card in your hand. The one judged to be the funniest reply wins that round and the point. There are no set rounds to play, you play until you get bored and the player with the most points wins.
There are two different ways to play this game, Classic and DIY.
Classic: Separate the INBOX cards and the REPLY cards. Each player draws 7 REPLY cards. To start the game, the oldest player is the Judge (the Judge will change with each round played). The Judge draws a card from the top of the INBOX deck and reads it out loud to the group. For example, the INBOX card could read “Don’t freak out, but I just got a tattoo of your name on my lower back”.
The other players then look at the REPLY cards in their hand and select one that they think is the funniest response and passes it to the Judge, face down. When the Judge has received a REPLY from all the players, they shuffle those responses and then reads them out loud to the group. You could have responses such as “That is no way to start a conversation with your future mother-in-law, Jefferey.”, “As much as I like having this conversation with you, you literally gave me chlamydia so bye!!!!!” or “Not gonna lie, was expecting a better “Happy Birthday” text, but I guess this works too”.
The Judge then must select their favourite (and hopefully) funniest REPLY card and the player who played it wins the round. The winner gets to keep the winning cards (INBOX and REPLY) as a point.
All players then draw another card from the deck, always keeping 7 REPLY cards in their hand and play continues with the player to the left of the Judge now taking over as Judge.
DIY Mode: Separate the INBOX and REPLY card. Each player is given 4 INBOX cards and 4 REPLY cards. In each round played, players create their funniest pair of cards (1 INBOX and 1 REPLY). They pass their cards to the rotating Judge who picks their favourite for each round.
Overall, this is a different kind of game but is lots of fun. Some of the pairings of INBOX and REPLY cards are hilarious. What response would you give to an INBOX message that said, “I want something more than just casual sex with you”?
There are some absolutely hilarious INBOX messages, as well as some bizarre and weird ones and the REPLY answers can be just as good.
It is definitely a game for adults as the language used on the cards is definitely for a more mature audience with lots of sexual references and swearing. And not a game for the easily offended as pairing of cards can be brutally funny but rude (and some might find offensive).
Not every answer is going to be side-splittingly funny, it depends on what cards are dealt and if they are a good match for the INBOX card, but for the most part you will be laughing in every round.
Whilst there is no set number of rounds for the game and the instructions saying play until you are bored, I found that it is better to set the number of rounds before you start playing as playing until you are bored could ruin the enjoyment. If you don’t want to set rounds, you could always set a time limit.
A great game to get the party started, off your phone screens and into a card based version of fun text messages. With 150 INBOX card and 300 REPLY cards there are plenty of cards to keep the game fresh and interesting. A perfect game for parties or game nights after the kids have gone to bed.
A fun game that players need a good sense of humour to play and not be easily offended by the content and language. I loved it – not sure what that says about me, but I loved it.
Rating: 5/5
RRP: £21.99
Available to buy from Amazon here.
DISCLOSURE: I received this item for free for the purposes of writing an honest and impartial review. All thoughts and opinions are my own. This review uses an affiliate link which I may receive a small commission from if you purchase through the link.
