How we actually test the games we cover

People sometimes ask how long we spend with a game before writing about it. The honest answer is: until we have something real to say. Sometimes that's a few hours, sometimes it's weeks.

We start by playing on more than one device when we can, because a game that runs beautifully on a new phone can stutter on a three-year-old one. Performance notes come straight from those runs.

Then we push past the tutorial and into whatever the game is really about. A first impression is easy; the interesting stuff shows up around the point where most players either commit or quit. That's where we take our notes.

Only after that does anyone write the guide. Lukas edits every piece, checks the claims against what we actually experienced, and cuts anything that reads like marketing. If we say a game is fun, it's because we had fun.