How we actually test the games we review

People sometimes assume a review means someone played for ten minutes and wrote vibes. Not here. Every game on Pocket Fjord gets real hours, usually across several days, because games change as you learn them.

We test on more than one device on purpose. A game that flies on a new phone can crawl on a three-year-old one, and plenty of our readers aren't buying flagships. If something runs badly on older hardware, we say so.

We also pay attention to the boring stuff: how fast it loads, how big the download is, whether it drains battery, how pushy the notifications are. These things shape the real experience more than a flashy trailer ever hints.

Scores come last, after discussion. If two of us disagree strongly, we play more until we understand why. The number is a summary of the write-up, never the other way around.

It's not a glamorous process — mostly it's sitting on a couch replaying the same tutorial on two phones. But it's honest, and that's the point.