How we actually decide on a score

People ask why one game gets a 4.6 and another a 4.1 when both are fun. The honest answer is that our scores are impressions, not measurements. There's no secret formula spitting out numbers.

That said, we do have habits. We each play a game across several sessions on different days, because first impressions lie. A game that's charming for twenty minutes can grate after a week, and vice versa.

We weigh how it feels to control, how fair its pacing is, and whether it respects your time. A brilliant idea buried under menus loses points; a simple idea executed cleanly gains them.

When we disagree — and we often do — we argue it out and land on a number that reflects the room, not one person. If you think we got it wrong, tell us. We read the emails.