How we actually test a game before reviewing it

People sometimes ask how long we play a game before writing about it. The honest answer is: until we have a real opinion, which varies a lot. A short puzzle might take two evenings; an RPG can take a couple of weeks.

The first thing we do is flip the phone to airplane mode. If a game refuses to open, stalls on a loading screen, or blocks content behind a connection, that's a strike against it and we note exactly what failed.

Then we just play, and we take rough notes as we go. Where did it get boring? Where did the controls fight us? Did progress save when we closed the app mid-level? Those small friction points are what shape the final review more than any feature list.

We also test on more than one phone when we can, because a game that flies on a flagship might stutter on a three-year-old device. Most of our readers aren't on the newest hardware, so that matters.