How we actually test a game before reviewing it

Every review here starts the same way: someone plays the game for real, on more than one phone if we can. The tutorial doesn't count — we play far enough to see how the game holds up once the training wheels come off.

We track a few things every time: control responsiveness, load times, how the settings menu is organised, and battery behaviour over a set session length. Those notes become the review, not marketing copy.

We also try each game the way a normal person would: one-handed, on the move, with interruptions. A game that only feels good in a quiet room with two thumbs free isn't much use on a commute.

Scores are subjective, and we own that. But they come from hours of play, and that's the whole point of the site.