How a game
makes the cut.

Before a game goes on the list, at least one of us has put real hours into it, usually a couple of weeks of normal play. Not a demo, not a trailer, not a press kit. If we write that the round 63 wall in Bloons is where runs die, it is because Devon has died there.

That is also why the list is short. We can only keep an honest opinion on so many games at once, and five feels like the number where every card is still written by someone who actually plays it.

We test on mid-range Android, on purpose. Devon is on a Pixel 7a, Priya on a Galaxy A54, Cole on an aging Moto G that refuses to die. None of these are flagships, which is the point: if a game runs badly on a two-year-old phone, you deserve to know before you install it.

• We note when a game needs a connection and when it runs offline, because that matters on the TTC.
• We watch battery and heat on longer sessions, and say so when a game cooks the phone.
• We read the current Google Play listing for install counts, ratings and the age rating, and take the facts from there rather than memory.

Every button on this site goes to the official Google Play listing and nowhere else. We do not host game files. We will never point you at an APK, a modded build, a mirror, or a third-party launcher. Those are how phones get quietly wrecked, and the games we recommend are all one tap away on the store anyway.

There is no App Store button because the three of us are on Android and only write about the builds we play. Some of these games are on iPhone too, and they are easy to find yourself if that is where you are.

A game comes off the list, or never makes it on, for a short list of hard reasons. We check the Google Play age rating and the Apple advisories before anything goes up, because the two stores flag different things, and a game that looks clean on one can carry a warning on the other.

• Simulated or real-money gambling. Slot mechanics, casino mini-games, betting. Instant no.
• Loot boxes. Paid random-reward crates are a red flag we do not ignore, even on games we otherwise like.
• Adult ratings. Anything rated for 18+ or carrying mature-content advisories is out of scope for us.
• Timer traps. Energy or "lives" systems that turn play into waiting for a bar to refill. We will tolerate a soft lives timer and say so, but a hard one that gates the whole game is a cut.

We keep the money model in plain sight on every card: free, ads, in-app purchases, or paid. If something changes for the worse in an update, the card changes with it.