Where ideas come from
Suggestions land in our mailbag, turn up while we browse the CrazyGames catalogue, or get shouted across the kitchen by our own kids. Before anybody plays, Remy reads the official listing and copies down the controls, the studio and the devices the platform vouches for. Facts on our cards come from that listing. Opinions come from playing.
Two doors close straight away: a game has to open free of charge in a normal browser, and it must not dress itself up as real-money play. Fail either and it never reaches a tester.
Three play days
Two testers at minimum, working apart and not swapping notes until the end. Each one gives the game three separate days:
- Day one, blind. No reading up, no hints. We time how long it takes before the goal makes sense.
- Day two, the kettle test. Roughly ten minutes, about as long as water takes to boil, to see whether the game fits a gap in the day.
- Day three, the long sit. Forty minutes or longer, to see whether the charm lasts and whether the game starts tugging at your sleeve.
After every sitting the tester fills in one half-page sheet: highs, lows, any freeze or lag, and how they felt the moment they closed the tab.
The gadget drawer
No gaming rigs here. The drawer holds hardware that looks a lot like what is lying around your living room:
- a mid-priced Android phone with Chrome;
- a three-year-old iPhone running Safari;
- a hand-me-down iPad, also on Safari;
- a Windows laptop with both Edge and Firefox installed;
- a scuffed school-issue Chromebook.
When CrazyGames does not mark a game for one of these devices, we try it anyway and report what happened, while stressing that the platform makes no promise there.
Five boxes on the sheet
Testers mark each box from one to ten. We take the average across testers, multiply by the weights and keep one decimal.
Starts making sense in a minute (25%)
Could someone brand new figure out the point and the controls with zero help? Instant, obvious feedback earns high marks.
Works in a coffee break (20%)
Is there a satisfying chunk of play inside ten minutes, with a clean way to stop and resume later?
Plays fair, no nagging (20%)
Marks drop for timers that push you on, guilt pop-ups at the exit and paid extras disguised as ordinary buttons. Optional purchases do not sink a game automatically, yet they always get a mention on its card.
Behaves on lots of gadgets (20%)
Load time, smooth motion, text you can read on a small phone, and how hot the device runs after thirty minutes.
Makes us grin (15%)
Tricky to measure, easy to spot: art, sound, small jokes and the itch to show it to somebody.
Why the cap sits at a quarter: it keeps a single dazzling feature, say gorgeous art, from carrying a game that is a slog to play.
Sent home early
- Anything that copies real-money play or nudges you to risk something of value.
- Anything that wants a download, an extension or a sign-up before the first round.
- Anything that crashed or locked up on two or more of our gadgets.
- Anything whose listing promises features we could not find in play.
Nobody buys a card
Studios and platforms cannot pay their way onto the list or up it. Certain game buttons may bring us a commission, but testers are kept in the dark about which, and the order is locked before any button is added.
Replays and fixes
Browser games get updated without fanfare, so every six weeks or so we replay the whole list and log changes in the desk diary on the front page. Found something stale? Tell us and Remy will check within a week.