Articles

Writing about the games on this site and how they are built — what actually works when two people share one phone, how the computer opponents make their decisions, and why a whole game fits in a file smaller than a photograph.

These are written by the person who built the games, from the source. Where a piece says the chess opponent looks exactly one move ahead, or that a difficulty setting changes the opposition and not your own side, that is what the code does — not a guess.

• Game AI How the AI in these games actually works, and how to beat it Four genuinely different approaches to computer opponents, the numbers behind each one, and the specific weakness every approach hands you.
• Board games Chess, Ludo, Carrom and the rules people argue about The six classic boards here all had rule decisions to make, and most of those decisions are the ones your family has been arguing about for years.
• Short games Twelve games you can finish in the time it takes to boil a kettle Twelve games that start instantly, end cleanly and do not ask for a second session — plus four that look short and are not.
• Interface design Why touch controls fail, and what to do instead Most touch controls fail for the same handful of reasons. Here is each failure, the fix, and the games on this site that use it.
• Local multiplayer The best two-player games when you only have one phone Three genuinely different answers to the problem of fitting two players onto one handset, what each one costs, and the games on this site that get it right.
• Party games Games for a group standing around one screen Six games that put one phone in the middle of a room, what each needs from the group, and an honest note about which are really one-player games with an audience.
• How it works How a whole game fits in a single web page A tour of what a browser hands you for free, why canvas and requestAnimationFrame are enough to build on, and the four places this approach genuinely runs out.

Or just play something

The full list of 105 games is the other half of this site. Everything runs in the browser, nothing needs an account, and the two-player games all work with two people round one screen.