How we review a mobile game

People sometimes assume a mobile review takes an afternoon. Sometimes it does. More often it takes a week of stolen sessions, because the way you actually play on a phone — in bursts, on the move — is exactly how a game reveals its cracks.

We start with a rough checklist that isn't really a checklist: does it respect my time, does it explain itself, does it run well on a cheap phone. From there it's just playing until we have an opinion we'd defend out loud.

The hardest part is knowing when to stop. Plenty of games are charming for an hour and hollow by hour five. Others are a slog to start and quietly brilliant later. That's why we hold off on scores early.

None of this is scientific, and we don't pretend it is. It's a group of people playing carefully and writing honestly. That's the whole method.