PHASE.IO
Your orb sweeps side to side on its own while the world rushes at it. Hold anywhere to turn into a ghost and let red threats pass straight through. Purple threats only hurt ghosts, ghost time runs on a meter, and skimming past danger while solid is how you score.
How to Play
You can't steer. The orb sweeps from side to side at a steady speed, and threats scroll down toward it. A faint dotted line runs up from the orb showing exactly where it will be when the world reaches it: anything sitting on that line will meet you.
Hold anywhere on the screen (or hold the mouse button or the Space bar) to turn into a ghost. Let go to turn solid again. The rule takes seconds to learn: filled red means ghost through it, dashed purple means stay solid. Red threats pass through a ghost but end the run if they touch you while solid. Purple threats pass through you while solid but catch a ghost.
You can't turn solid inside a red threat. If you let go halfway through one, you stay a ghost until you're clear.
The phase meter
The ring around the orb is your ghost time: 1.5 seconds when full. It drains while you're a ghost and refills soon after you turn solid. It turns white when it's nearly empty. If it runs out while you're holding, that's a burnout: you turn solid and can't ghost again until the meter has refilled a little and you've let go and pressed again. Burning out inside a red threat ends the run.
What It Looks Like
Recorded from the browser game.
Scoring
- Staying solid: 10 points a second, times your multiplier. Ghost time earns nothing.
- Grazes: 25 points times your multiplier. You graze a threat by letting a red one pass close beside you while you're solid, slipping through a Gate's gap while solid, or letting a purple one pass through you while solid.
- Multiplier (×1 to ×5): every 5 grazes raise it one step. Six seconds without a graze lowers it one step.
- Shell: every 10 grazes earn a Shell, the white ring around the orb. It saves you from one hit, makes you untouchable for a second, and resets your multiplier to ×1.
The game over screen shows your time, grazes, top multiplier, how much of the run you spent solid, and what got you.
Threat Guide
PHASE.IO adds a new threat every 20 seconds until all six are in play at 1:40. From one minute on, short set patterns mix in too.
| Threat | Appears | What it does | How to handle it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blocks | From 0:00 · red | Red bars that scroll straight down. | Ghost through the ones on your line. Let the ones just beside it pass while solid for a graze. |
| Wisps | From 0:20 · purple | Dashed purple circles. They pass harmlessly through a solid orb but catch a ghost. | Stay solid. Every Wisp that passes through you is a free graze. |
| Gates | From 0:40 · red | A bar across the whole screen with one gap. | If the gap lines up with your dotted line, stay solid and slip through for a graze. If not, ghost through the bar. |
| Sliders | From 1:00 · red | Bars with arrows on their ends that slide sideways while they fall. | Where a Slider sits on your line now isn't where it will cross. Watch which way it's heading. |
| Flickers | From 1:20 · red or purple | Switch between filled red and dashed purple. A small shrinking circle shows the next switch. | Match the color when it reaches you: ghost if red, solid if purple. They never switch in the last moment before they arrive. |
| Slabs | From 1:40 · red | Tall striped blocks that need one long ghost. | Make sure your meter is well filled before a Slab arrives, and don't waste ghost time just before it. |
Tips for Longer Runs
- Read the dotted line, not the threat. Anything on the line will meet you; anything clearly off it won't.
- Ghost late and let go early. Every bit of ghost time you don't need is meter you'll want for the next threat.
- Never hold just in case. Purple threats catch ghosts, and a burnout leaves you solid when it matters.
- Stay solid for points. Grazes and solid time are the only ways to score, and grazes build the multiplier and the Shell.
- Treat the Shell as a spare life, not a reason to get careless: losing it drops your multiplier back to ×1.
- Before a Slab, top up. Let the meter refill so one long ghost carries you through.
FAQ
Does PHASE.IO work on a computer?
Yes. Hold the mouse button or the Space bar to ghost. Esc or P pauses.
Is it always possible to survive?
Yes. Every threat is placed so that a perfect player could get past everything on screen with the meter they have. When you get hit, it was a misread, not a trap.
Where are my scores saved?
In your browser on your own device. Nothing is sent to a server.