How We Actually Test the Games We Review

People sometimes ask how long we play a game before writing about it. The honest answer is: until we have something real to say, which varies a lot.

For a short casual game like Legends of Slots, a few sessions across a couple of days is enough to understand the loop and whether it holds up. For something like a story RPG, we'll put in many more hours before forming an opinion.

We test on a couple of phones, including one older model, because performance matters and plenty of games chug on anything that isn't brand new. If something runs badly, that goes in the review.

We also take notes while we play rather than writing from memory later. It sounds obvious, but it's the difference between a specific review and a vague one. Our goal is always to tell you what it's actually like to hold the thing and play it.