How we actually decide on a score

People ask what a 4.5 means versus a 4.2, so here's the honest answer. Our scores aren't a formula. They're a shorthand for how strongly we'd recommend a game after living with it for a while.

We play on more than one phone, including at least one older device, because a game that only runs well on flagships isn't really finished. Performance, controls, and how it holds up over days all feed into the number. A game can look gorgeous and still lose points for laggy inputs.

We also weigh what a game is trying to be. A cozy adventure and a twitch racer get judged against their own goals, not against each other. Scoring Lantern Hollow low for being 'too easy' would miss the entire point of it.

No score is final either. If a game gets a big update that fixes what held it back, we go back and adjust. The whole thing is subjective, and we'd rather be honest about that than pretend we've got a magic scale.